Ethereum Market Cap

Ethereum claimed the second largest market cap in the industry in its early days, second only to Bitcoin. Since then, Ethereum never relinquished its relative market position. Thanks to its widespread popularity and high market cap, Ethereum regularly sits near the top of the 24 hours crypto market trading volume charts.

Ethereum reached its highest market cap value in November 2021, which was the first time in history that the combined value of all digital assets hit $3 trillion. At the time, Ethereum’s market cap skyrocketed to almost $550 billion. You can follow up to date ETH markets and the current activity on the cryptocurrency exchanges across hundreds of trading pairs on CoinCodex.

Here’s what the ETH price chart tells us about the most notable Ethereum market cap milestones:

  • $100 million – Ethereum surpassed a 100$ million market cap shortly after its mainnet launch in August 2015
  • $1 billion – Ethereum reaches unicorn status and surpasses the $1 billion market cap milestone in May 2016
  • $20 billion – Ethereum reached $100 price point for the first time in May 2017, which pushed its total market cap beyond $20 billion
  • $100 billion – The market cap of Ethereum reached hectocorn levels in January 2018
  • $200 billion – After more than a two-year long crypto winter, Ethereum surpassed a $200 billion market cap in May 2021
  • $500 billion – ETH market cap reached a half-trillion dollar valuation in October 2021

Ethereum Price History

As mentioned above, ETH tokens first entered circulation via an ICO and started trading in August 2015. While the initial public sale price of ETH was just $0.31 per coin, ETH price reached $2.77 on its first trading day. After the initial rally, ETH had dropped to $0.81 on its second trading day and didn’t break the $1 mark until the start of 2016. In subsequent years, the value of each ETH coin reached as high as $4,867 in November 2021, a massive, 15,700x increase compared to its ICO price.

Here are some key milestones in Ethereum’s price history:

  • $0.31 – Initial investors were able to purchase ETH for $0.31 worth of BTC during 2014’s ICO campaign
  • $1 – ETH surpassed the $1 mark on its first trading day in August 2015
  • $10 – The first time that the ETH price climbed over $10 was in March 2016
  • $100 – The first time that ETH was worth more than $100 was in May 2017
  • $1,000 – ETH surpassed $1,000 for the first time ever in January 2018
  • $4,867 – Ethereum price reached its all-time high of $4,867 in November 2021

As a vehicle to transfer value on the Ethereum networks, ETH price is heavily correlated to supply and demand dynamics and thus directly influenced by network user numbers, the popularity of dApps, and overall health of the blockchain ecosystem.

In addition, the price of each ETH is also largely dependent on the total number of tokens in circulation. Unlike Bitcoin, which has an artificially set max supply of 21 million coins, Ethereum has no cap on its supply. However, the number of tokens in circulation is in part regulated by the Ethereum mining process, which regulates the rate at which new tokens enter circulation, and ETH burning, a deflationary process launched via 2021’s EIP-1559 that transfers a part of every ETH transactions’ fee to a dead wallet (a blockchain wallet with no access key).

On CoinCodex, you can stay up to date with the latest information regarding Ethereum and check algorithmically generated Ethereum price predictions to gain a sense of where its price is likely headed in the near term.