Ethereum is a pop star among digital money, and its creator Vitalik Buterin was recently named the prince of crypto by Time magazine. This is the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world and the most high-powered as it gives access to the broad crypto community to unlimited opportunities for dApps and smart contracts. Ethereum is one of the most developed ecosystems with a DeFi total value locked (TVL) of more than $228b and an ETH total market capitalisation of $500b.
Last year the price of Ethereum jumped to $4,800, which is a sweet all-time high point. In 2022 ETH is not so cheerful after collapsing below $3K. Now the digital silver is stuck within the interval between $2,600 — $4,100. The recent market rally shows some signs of possible growth. In this article, we are going to observe the price changes of Ethereum and define what is the highest price Ethereum has been.
Genesis of Ethereum and The History of Rising
The history of digital silver began in 2013, with Vitalik Buterin’s decision to create his vision for the next-gen crypto platform. The main feature of Ethereum is smart contracts which are special programs that run under certain conditions. They allow to make programmable trustless transactions and build the whole ecosystem of decentralised applications. Smart contracts can help automatically execute fair transaction which was preprogrammed.
In 2014 Ethereum had financial rounds and managed to attract investments for 31,550 bitcoins. This allowed Vitalic and his team to start the project’s development. July 30 2015 was the first launch of the Ethereum blockchain. It was called Frontier. Vitalik appeared to be a good manager, and he started to popularise his invention. Ethereum managed to establish a series of partnerships with large firms, including Microsoft. According to ETHERSCAN.IO, on August 7, 2015, ETH has added to the Kraken crypto exchange. The initial price was $2.77 per coin. Three days later, the price fell four times, to $0.68, due to early rapid sales of investors.
Ethereum Price Changes During 2015-2017
On August 13, 2015, the interest of investors led to Ethereum’s rise to $1.18. The next price peak of Ethereum happened only six months later. It is significant that on August 18, 100,000th block was mined. The price of the coin fell to $1. Then the cost of Ethereum gradually decreased during the next two months. During this period, Ethereum created its own community and organized the DevCon-1 conference which made an important contribution to its popularization.
The second version of the protocol called Homestead was launched in 2016. The price of ETH in the first 2.5 months of 2016 grew more than ten times, and capitalisation reached $1 billion. Ethereum became popular in the media, and even some celebs started to mention it. But then something went wrong, and hardfork led to unexpected problems. The rate collapsed twice almost immediately to $7.3
The next peak happened because of the DAO scandal. It reached $20.6 while magazines and socials were viral about this phenomenon of decentralised autonomous organisations on the base of Ethereum. The DAO managed to collect more than 12 million ETH during the token sale. But it turned out that the DAO had a great hole in security, so some hackers managed to steal $50 million on June 16, 2016. After this hack, the price of ETH fell by 30%. To avoid problematic code, the community decided to make another hardfork. People who wanted to use the old system called it Ethereum Classic. In the next article, we will try to define what is the highest Ethereum Classic has ever been.
In mid-September 2016, the ETH price resumed a $15. This happened because of the news that Ethereum got supported by the Ledger Nano S. On September 22, it became known about the DDOS attack on the Ethereum network. This event led to the beginning of a downward trend, which graduated from December 5 at the level of $6.
In 2017, the price of Ethereum grew smoothly enough and reached a mark of $ 13 for a coin on February 23. In March, ETH rose to $40-50 and remained in these positions until April. Next, the price reached the level of $150. Then happened the ICO hype, and Bitcoin’s instant blast-off led ETH to gain the $800 level.
New Era: Ethereum Price Changes During 2018-2022
On January 13, 2018, the maximum rate of Ethereum is recorded at $1400. But Bitcoin was jumping into crazy volatility, so Ethereum should follow the king. In February, ETH fell to $900, and until April was a smooth descent to a level of $380, then a sharp rise to $830 and again a stable fall until mid-September. In November, Bitcoin struck the level of $ 6,000 and had fallen almost twice during the month, and ETH dropped to $ 85.Bear Trend for ETH in 2018 ended in absolute minimum at $140.
In January 2019, Ethereum returned to the second position in the capitalisation ranking, and its value reached $160. At this point, the courses of almost all altcoins were synchronised with Bitcoin. In April and May, Bitcoin’s price grew by nearly $2,000, but the market has reacted enough to change the trend. At the peak of growth, ETH cost $280-300, but by the end of the year, it fell again to the already familiar values of $145.
In 2020, the whole ETH community waited for Ethereum 2.0 launch preparations. At the beginning of 2020, the altcoin was worth $130 and then up by 460%. The cryptocurrency ended the year above the $1200 mark. In January 2021, the altcoin broke its former record, stopping at $2,000. On November 9, 2021, the altcoin updated its all-time high at $4,900. On May 12, the value of the coin exceeded $4,300. Along with this new high, the market capitalisation of Ethereum for the first time amounted to $500 billion. On November 9, 2021, the altcoin updated its all-time high at $4,900.
In 2022 the Ethereum Network is showing a constant expansion but also struggles with many problems with scalability and high gas prices. Also, the price of Bitcoin is highly volatile these days, and Ethereum continues to follow. But we will see what Crypto Summer is preparing for us.
