Glossary · Crypto
Ethereum
Ethereum is a blockchain that runs programs, called smart contracts, as well as payments; its own coin, ether (ETH), pays for using it.
Also called: ether, ETH, Ethereum network, Ξ
Closing price, November 11, 2026. Record close: $4,831 on August 22, 2025.
November 11, 2026. At the Merge in September 2022: 120.5 million.
Destroyed under the London upgrade; worth about $9.54B now.
In plain words
Bitcoin’s ledger records who owns which coins. Ethereum asked: what if the ledger could also run programs? Launched in July 2015, it lets anyone put code on the blockchain, and that code runs exactly as written for everyone who uses it. These programs are called smart contracts.
Its coin is ether (ETH). You need it to do anything on the network: every payment and every program step costs a small fee, called gas, paid in ether. One ether closed at $2,050 on November 11, 2026.
Most of what people call crypto beyond bitcoin runs on Ethereum or on networks that copy it: stablecoins, lending and trading apps (DeFi) and NFTs.
Example
What gas costs
Every action on Ethereum uses a fixed amount of gas, and you pay for each unit at that moment’s gas price, quoted in gwei: a billionth of an ether.
- A plain ether transfer always uses 21,000 gas. A token swap on a trading app uses about 150,000.
- Say the network’s base fee is 10 gwei and you add a 1 gwei tip: 11 gwei a unit.
- Transfer: 21,000 × 11 gwei = 0.000231 ETH, about $0.47 at the latest price. Swap: 150,000 × 11 gwei = 0.00165 ETH, about $3.38.
- The 10 gwei base fee is burned, destroyed for good; only the 1 gwei tip goes to the validator who adds your transaction to a block.
Gas prices rise when the network is busy, like surge pricing for taxis: at busy moments in 2021 a single swap could cost $50 or more.
One level deeper
On September 15, 2022, in an upgrade called the Merge, Ethereum dropped proof of work for proof of stake. Instead of miners burning electricity, validators lock up ether as a deposit (at least 32 ETH each) and take turns proposing and checking blocks. The Ethereum Foundation estimated that the switch cut the network’s energy use by more than 99.9%.
Ether has no fixed cap. New ether is paid to validators, while since August 2021 the base part of every fee has been burned: 4.65 million ETH so far. The supply was 120.5 million at the Merge and is 122.2 million now (November 11, 2026).
The idea came from Vitalik Buterin, who described it in a white paper in 2013, at 19. In 2016 a bug in a popular contract, The DAO, let an attacker drain about 3.6 million ether. The community split: Ethereum rolled the theft back, and those who refused kept the original chain going as Ethereum Classic.
Ether’s price since 2015
Monthly averages of daily closes, on a log scale. Ether’s record close so far was $4,831, on August 22, 2025. The latest close is 58% below it.
The numbers behind the chart
| Date | Ether price |
|---|---|
| Sep 2015 | $0.99 |
| Dec 2015 | $0.88 |
| Dec 2016 | $7.84 |
| Dec 2017 | $636 |
| Dec 2018 | $108 |
| Dec 2019 | $137 |
| Dec 2020 | $623 |
| Dec 2021 | $4,051 |
| Dec 2022 | $1,236 |
| Dec 2023 | $2,261 |
| Dec 2024 | $3,643 |
| Dec 2025 | $3,018 |
| Nov 2026 | $2,208 |
Why it matters
It turned blockchains from ledgers of coins into platforms for apps: most stablecoins, DeFi and NFTs started on it.
Ether is the second-largest coin: about 11% of the combined value of the coins on this site (November 11, 2026).
Its switch to proof of stake was the largest test yet of a blockchain changing its rules while running, and it changed how new ether is issued.
A common mistake
Myth: Ether, like bitcoin, has a fixed supply.
In fact: It has no cap. New ether is issued to validators every day and fees burn some of it. Since the Merge the supply has grown by 1.4%, from 120.5 million to 122.2 million ETH.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between Ethereum and ether?
Ethereum is the network; ether (ETH) is its coin, as the bitcoin network has the bitcoin. People often use the two names for the same thing.
What is gas on Ethereum?
The unit for the work a transaction needs: a plain transfer uses 21,000 gas, a complex app call far more. You pay the gas used times the gas price, in ether; the base part is burned and the tip goes to the validator.
Who runs Ethereum?
No single company. Independent validators and node operators around the world run the software. The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit, funds research and development but cannot change the rules alone.
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About the numbers
- The numbers on this page are recalculated from the data every night; the sources are listed at the end of the page.
- Cardano market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
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- Polkadot market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- New ether per day: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric IssTotNtv. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Ethereum market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Ether supply: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric SplyCur. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Ethereum price: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric PriceUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Chainlink market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
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- USD Coin (USDC) market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Tether (USDT) market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Stellar market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Monero market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- XRP market capitalization: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, metric CapMrktEstUSD. License: CC BY-NC 4.0.
- Crypto data: Coin Metrics Community Network Data, used under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.
- This page explains a term. It is not investment advice.