What is Ethereum?
Ethereum (ETH) is a programmable blockchain that launched in 2015. Where Bitcoin was designed primarily as money, Ethereum was designed as a global virtual machine - a world computer that can run arbitrary code in the form of smart contracts. ETH is the native asset of that network and is used to pay for computation, secure the chain through staking, and as a unit of account across most of DeFi.
Ethereum is the largest smart-contract platform by total value locked and by active developers. It hosts stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, lending markets, NFTs, rollups, restaking systems and most of the tokenized real-world asset economy.
How does Ethereum work?
Ethereum switched from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake in 2022 in an upgrade called The Merge. Validators lock up 32 ETH as a bond and are chosen in a randomised schedule to propose and attest to new blocks. Misbehaviour is punished by slashing part of the stake, so honest participation is the profit-maximising strategy.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) executes smart contracts deterministically across all nodes. Each operation costs 'gas', priced in gwei (a billionth of an ETH), so expensive computation is throttled by an economic fee market. Since EIP-1559, a portion of every transaction fee is burned, making ETH issuance deflationary during periods of heavy use.
What is Ethereum used for?
Ethereum is the settlement layer for a large fraction of the on-chain economy. Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC circulate primarily as ERC-20 tokens, decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and Curve quote billions of dollars in daily volume, and lending protocols such as Aave and Compound run fully on-chain credit markets.
In recent years, scaling has moved off mainnet onto Layer-2 rollups - Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, zkSync and others - which batch transactions and post compressed state back to Ethereum. This lets the base layer focus on security and settlement while users transact cheaply on the L2s.
Where can you buy Ethereum?
Ethereum (ETH) is traded on a wide range of centralized and decentralized exchanges. The most liquid markets for ETH sit on tier-1 venues - the sort of exchanges where institutional desks and professional market makers rebalance continuously - which is what keeps the spread tight and the last price tied closely to fair value.
You can open the Markets section above to see the live list of exchanges quoting ETH, sorted by 24-hour volume. Each row links to the venue's trade page so you can go directly from research to execution without copying the ticker around by hand.
What is the daily trading volume of Ethereum (ETH)?
The reported 24-hour trading volume of Ethereum is $602.71M. Volume is a live reading of how much ETH changed hands across all tracked exchanges in the past day and tends to rise during periods of price discovery and fall during consolidation.
For traders, the ratio between volume and market cap is often more informative than either number on its own: a high vol-to-mcap ratio indicates liquid, actively traded supply, while a low ratio suggests that most holders are sitting on the asset.
What is the highest and lowest price for Ethereum (ETH)?
Ethereum reached an all-time high of $4,946.05 on August 24, 2025, and an all-time low of $0.4330 on October 20, 2015. It is currently trading -54.74% from its peak and +516909.62% from its bottom.
The distance from ATH is a useful gauge of recovery potential during a bear market and of stretched positioning during a bull market. Combined with the all-time-low figure it provides a quick statistical frame for thinking about where ETH sits in its long-run price range.
What is the market cap of Ethereum (ETH)?
Ethereum's market capitalization is currently $275.87B, and it is ranked #2 by market cap on Cryptopricing. Market cap is calculated as the current price multiplied by the circulating supply (120.69 million ETH are actively circulating today).
Market cap is a common but imperfect measure. It reflects the theoretical value of every circulating token at the current market price, but it doesn't capture how thin the top of the order book might be - an important caveat for tokens with low floats or illiquid cap tables.
What is the fully diluted valuation of Ethereum (ETH)?
The fully diluted valuation (FDV) of Ethereum is $275.87B. FDV is a projection of what the market cap would be if every token that will ever exist - including those that have not yet been unlocked, mined or issued - were in circulation at the current price.
FDV is a useful second reading alongside market cap. A large gap between mcap and FDV signals that future token emissions could dilute current holders, while a small gap indicates that supply is already mostly out.
How does the price performance of Ethereum compare against its peers?
Over the past 24 hours, Ethereum has moved -2.13%. Over the past seven days, the change is +0.01%. Comparing these figures to the global crypto market cap change (shown in the ticker at the top of this page) tells you whether ETH is leading, lagging or tracking the broader market.
For deeper analysis, the categories strip on the home page groups coins by theme - Layer 1, Meme, DePIN, AI, RWA and so on - and lets you compare Ethereum against its closest peers. The category detail pages surface the underlying coins and their seven-day sparklines in a single view.
How to store Ethereum?
Like any crypto asset, the right way to store ETH depends on how often you plan to use it. Long-term holders typically self-custody using a hardware wallet such as Ledger or Trezor, which keeps private keys offline and immune to most remote attacks.
For active traders, a reputable custodial exchange wallet can be appropriate, especially one with clear proof-of-reserves attestations. Whatever approach you choose, the most important rule is to keep your recovery phrase offline, never share it, and never enter it into a web form or attached to a DM - no legitimate support agent will ever ask for it.
