Ethereum(ETH)

Ethereum is by far the most popular blockchain network after Bitcoin and hosts the majority of apps critical to the cryptocurrency ecosystem today. These include decentralized exchanges (DEXs), decentralized finance protocols (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and a variety of popular tokens, such as UNI, SHIB, ENS, and its own native cryptocurrency, ETH.

While the Russian-born Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin is often cited as the founder of Ethereum and was termed “the prince of crypto” when he made the cover of TIME, he is one of eight co-founders who worked on Ethereum in 2014. The other names include Anthony Di Iorio, Amir Chetrit, Jeffrey Wilcke, Mihai Alisie, Joeseph Lubin, Gavin Wood and Charles Hoskinson.

Vitalik Buterin is, however, the one who conceived the network when he published the Ethereum whitepaper in 2014. The whitepaper described Ethereum as “A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform” and envisioned a blockchain with a built-in programming language, allowing anyone to code self-executing applications using smart contracts.

Despite its share of controversies, Ether or ETH, the native asset of the Ethereum blockchain, has managed to grow into the second-largest cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization and is effectively the backbone of the infrastructure that powers Web 3.0 experiences.

Out of the early co-founders, only Vitalik Buterin is still actively working on Ethereum. Others have either left to explore other spaces or start their own crypto and blockchain projects, such as Joseph Lubin, the founder of ConsenSys, Gavin Wood, the founder of Polkadot (DOT) and Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano (ADA).

ETH price

Like BTC, the price of ETH has also increased significantly with adoption and popularity. Compared to ETH’s ICO price of around $0.31, the $1,400 high it reached at the start of 2018 marked a gain of over 457,000%.

Even between 2017 and 2018, Ethereum price in USD rose over 18,000% according to our live ETH price chart, and while the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization dropped into the $80s twice after that, it set a new all-time high of over $4,800 in November 2021.

Looking at ETH price in BTC terms, the ETH/BTC pair peaked at over 0.11 in mid-2017 and we are yet to see that all-time high challenged.

Some of the key drivers for Ethereum price action remain scalability breakthroughs and the upcoming ETH 2.0 upgrade. On the flip side, any regulatory actions against DeFi, NFTs, or other Web 3.0 services/solutions could impact the price of ETH since the majority of recent growth by the network can be attributed to such protocols.

How Ethereum works

Ethereum, the blockchain, works much like Bitcoin, and miners commit computing power in exchange for potential block rewards. The major difference, however, is that Ethereum acts as a blockchain computer, allowing developers to use the built-in language — Solidity — to write code or sets of instructions that can be executed autonomously if certain conditions are met.

An example of this is a smart contract that is designed to issue randomized non-fungible tokens to any address that sends a request until a limit is reached. This is typically how NFT mints work, where users send mint requests to a smart contract that executes on a first-come, first-served basis.

Similarly, smart contracts can be designed for a variety of different tasks, ranging from holding tokens and distributing them based on certain conditions, or functioning like a singular system serving a complicated solution, such as that of a decentralized exchange like Uniswap.

While its flexibility makes it popular for decentralized applications, its scalability issues mean that transactions become more and more expensive as network usage grows.

Each transaction on the network is fueled by ETH and users have to pay “Gas” based on how computationally intense their transactions are. Gas fees vary between times of the day, and days of the week, and can get prohibitively expensive during periods of high network activity, such as when a popular NFT collection is being minted by tens of thousands of people at a time.

The Ethereum blockchain also supports a variety of token types, for example, ERC-20, ERC-721 and ERC-1155, that can be issued via smart contracts. These tokens utilize the underlying security of the Ethereum blockchain and often serve utility-based functions inside their respective protocols. Examples of such tokens include UNI, ENS, USDT and more.

ETH news, updates and highlights

ETH is nearly always in the news due to its popularity and widespread usage. However, looking back at its history, one of the most important events was the DAO hack. In 2016, a decentralized autonomous organization or collective was formed, allowing token holders of the DAO to benefit from the organization’s investment activities. The idea was a success, bringing in more than $150 million from backers.

However, a security loophole in the DAO’s smart contract allowed a hacker to start draining it of funds. This exploit posed a real threat to the nascent network and divided the community when it came to picking a solution. One group supported forking the blockchain and restoring the pre-hack state while another group advocated blockchain immutability and the “code is law” principle.

The Ethereum or ETH we know today is the forked version that restored the pre-hack state of the blockchain so that investors in the DAO would not lose their funds. The chain that continued ahead despite the hack became Ethereum Classic with the native token ETC.

Since then, however, the forked chain, Ethereum, has grown massively while Ethereum Classic has been mired by security issues and attacks, and has much less adoption and usage. Similarly, the price of ETH has overtaken the price of ETC by a huge margin.

One of the catalysts for the price of ETH in 2021 was the London Hard Fork, or Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 (EIP-1559), which introduced a burning mechanism for a portion of all transaction fees on the network. This resulted, theoretically, in a deflationary element being added to ETH’s supply. By the end of Q1 2022, more than 2 million ETH had been burned after this update, valued at over $6 billion.

The next big catalyst for the price of ETH is likely to the upcoming ETH 2.0 upgrade, which will also move the Ethereum network from the current, proof-of-work consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake. Meanwhile, Ethereum Classic is likely to remain on the proof-of-work model.

Frequently asked questions about ETH

• Can you mine or stake ETH?

Yes, you can mine ETH, like BTC, before the ETH 2.0 upgrade goes live. After that, Ethereum will shift to proof-of-stake, where validators stake their assets instead of committing computing power.

• What are some of the best ETH wallets?

ETH has a wide ecosystem of wallets and services, but the most popular wallet, by far, is MetaMask, developed by ConsenSys, a company founded by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin.

• What can you do with ETH?

ETH is primarily used to pay for transactions on the Ethereum network. However, you can also trade ETH for several popular cryptocurrencies or stake ETH in various protocols to earn yield. Users can also move ETH across chains using bridges or wrap ETH into WETH for seamless swapping with other ERC-20 tokens.

• How to buy ETH?

You can buy ETH on nearly any crypto exchange and platform today, using cryptocurrencies or traditional payment methods.