Ethereum
Ethereum (ETH) Price Feed/Tracking and Explanation
What is Ethereum (ETH)?
ETH is the native currency of Ethereum, the leading smart contract network and the leading blockchain in terms of settlement volume.
Who created Ethereum?
Ethereum was co-founded by eight developers in 2014, before launching on the mainnet in 2015. Of the project’s co-founders, only Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s chief scientist, continues to work on the blockchain to this day. The Ethereum network is maintained by developers employed by the Ethereum Foundation, a Switzerland-based non-profit organization launched in 2014.
Ethereum was part of an initial cohort of Web3 projects seeking to facilitate the execution of smart contracts, which describe self-executing autonomous code deployed on a network, that emerged in 2014. Smart contracts were first theorized in a academic article written by cypherpunk and Computer. scientist, Nick Szabo, in 1994.
How does Ethereum work?
ETH is used to pay transaction fees associated with deploying and interacting with smart contracts on the Ethereum network. ETH is also issued as a reward for validators. Ethereum began life as a miner-secured proof-of-work network but later moved to a proof-of-stake model in 2022.
Unlike Bitcoin, which primarily serves as a payment network for a digital currency, Ethereum’s primary smart contract engine – the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) – facilitates the creation of decentralized applications (dApps) that permissionless automate transactions and complex processes. Developers can also launch a wide variety of assets called tokens on Ethereum.
What is the maximum supply of ETH?
Ethereum has a potentially infinite supply, with the rate of new ETH issuance scaling to the number of Ether locked up for staking.
Notably, ETH has seen a deflationary trend since the network adopted the Proof of Stake consensus. This means that the number of ETH in circulation is decreasing over time, due to the network starting to burn base transaction fees from August 2021, combined with a sharp decrease in the number of new ETH entering the offering following Ethereum’s proof-of-stake transition.
As of June 10, 2024, the supply of ETH has decreased by 370,826 coins, or 0.3% since proof of stake was activated on September 15, 2022.
What are the benefits of using Ethereum?
Due to the decentralized and permissionless nature of Ethereum, any developer can deploy dApps or tokens on Ethereum, while any user can interact with the dApps on the network. Ethereum’s dApp ecosystem began to proliferate amid the “DeFi Summer” of 2020, leading to an explosion in the number of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications launched on the network, allowing users to run and interact with financial applications in a decentralized environment.
While Ethereum’s recent popularity led the network to encounter scalability bottlenecks during the 2021 bull market, developers are now striving to achieve high transaction throughput through a semi-public ecosystem. -fragmented layer 2 networks leveraging Ethereum for security and settlement.
What are the risks of using Ethereum?
Cryptocurrencies are subject to significant price volatility. Centralized exchanges pose counterparty risk to users, while non-custodial wallets can be targeted by hackers and scammers, and can be lost forever if a user fails to securely store their private keys. Some jurisdictions have also sought to crack down on cryptocurrency trading and related activities.
What is the historical price range of ETH?
ETH reached an all-time low of $0.433 on October 20, 2015 and posted an all-time high of $4,878.26 on November 10, 2021.