About Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH) is a programmable blockchain platform launched in July 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and a team of co-founders including Gavin Wood and Joseph Lubin. It generalised the ideas behind Bitcoin into a global, general-purpose computer where developers can deploy smart contracts and decentralized applications. Ether, the native token, is used to pay for computation, secure the network through staking, and act as a unit of account across thousands of on-chain applications.
Ethereum settled into proof-of-stake consensus in September 2022 with the Merge, replacing energy-intensive mining with validators who stake ETH to propose and attest blocks. The network targets twelve-second slots, finalises blocks in roughly two epochs, and burns a portion of base fees under EIP-1559, making issuance partially deflationary when activity is high. Subsequent upgrades have lowered data costs for layer-2 rollups, which now handle the majority of user transactions.
Ethereum hosts the largest smart-contract ecosystem in crypto, including stablecoins, decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, NFTs, and a thriving layer-2 stack led by Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and zk-rollups. Tens of thousands of developers, hundreds of independent client teams, and the non-profit Ethereum Foundation coordinate upgrades through an open EIP process, while staking is distributed across solo validators, liquid-staking tokens, and centralized custodians.
Crypto Market Watch tracks the live Ethereum price ranked #2 by market capitalisation, 24-hour and 7-day price changes, market capitalisation, trading volume, circulating supply, and all-time highs and lows on this page. Data refreshes continuously throughout the trading day so investors can monitor ETH market activity in real time.
