Ethereum is a proof-of-stake blockchain that runs smart contracts, so what is Ethereum crypto comes down to a programmable network rather than a payment token alone. Its native asset, ETH, pays execution fees and is staked by validators to secure the chain. Ethereum moved from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake with The Merge on 15 September 2022.
At 00:02 UTC on 1 November 2026, ETH was priced at $2,255.17, up 0.52% over 24 hours. Its market capitalization was $275.53B (rank #2), with 24h volume of $5.99B. The price fell 4.37% over seven days and 16.65% over 30 days, and it sits 54.40% below its all-time high of $4,946.05.
Core technology and architecture
Each Ethereum node runs an execution client that operates the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and tracks contract state, plus a consensus client that handles proof-of-stake. Ethereum scales mainly through layer-2 rollups. Rollups execute transactions off Layer 1 and post data back to Ethereum for settlement.
Blob data for rollups arrived with the Dencun upgrade on 13 March 2024. The Fusaka upgrade, activated on 3 December 2025, added PeerDAS, which lets validators sample blob data rather than download every blob in full.
Consensus and network security
Validators must stake ETH to propose and confirm blocks, and the protocol can slash their stake for provable misbehavior. The Merge replaced mining and reduced Ethereum's energy consumption by 99.95%.
The Ethereum Foundation's Launchpad showed 42,068,357 ETH staked and 880,446 validators, with a 2.63% APR, in an undated snapshot. In early October 2026, the exit queue reached 786,275 ETH, the longest wait of 2026, after MetaMask validators began withdrawing following a security incident.
Client concentration is a known risk. In an October 2025 snapshot, Geth held 41.0% of execution clients and Lighthouse held 42.7% of consensus clients. Ethereum.org notes that a bug in a dominant client could affect consensus.
Tokenomics
Total supply and circulating supply are both 122,177,241 ETH in the CoinStats snapshot. Ethereum has no fixed supply cap, and issuance rules can change through protocol upgrades.
At genesis, 60 million ETH (83.5%) went to crowdsale contributors, 6 million (8.3%) to the Ethereum Foundation, and 6 million (8.3%) to early contributors. The crowdsale ran from 22 July to 2 September 2014 and raised roughly $18 million.
Before The Merge, miners were issued about 13,000 ETH per day. Afterward, issuance fell to about 1,700 ETH per day, a reduction of roughly 88%. EIP-1559, activated on 5 August 2021, burns the base fee of each transaction, and cumulative burn reached 4.51 million ETH by 1 March 2026. Net issuance is positive on quiet days and negative on busy days, so supply can decline over a 24-hour period.
Primary use cases and real-world applications
Ethereum is used for decentralized finance, stablecoins, tokenized assets, NFTs, and decentralized autonomous organizations. Ethereum.org reported over $159 billion in stablecoin value and over $76 billion in ETH locked in the protocol, both as of March 2026. KPMG states that Ethereum hosts about 70% of global stablecoin supply.
L2BEAT reported $30.75 billion in rollup value secured for the year ending 27 October 2026. CoinDesk reports that Base and Arbitrum account for more than 80% of layer-2 DeFi total value locked.
Who is behind Ethereum and where is it based?
Vitalik Buterin conceived Ethereum and published the whitepaper in late 2013, according to ethereum.org. Ledger lists eight co-founders: Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Joseph Lubin, Anthony Di Iorio, Mihai Alisie, Amir Chetrit, and Jeffrey Wilcke. Gavin Wood wrote the Yellow Paper, which served as the specification for the EVM. Joseph Lubin founded ConsenSys in November 2014. The network launched with the Frontier release and genesis block on 30 July 2015.
A 2020 Decrypt report stated that Buterin was the only co-founder still actively working on the platform. The sources reviewed do not describe Mihai Alisie's role or later path.
The legal entity is Stiftung Ethereum, a Swiss foundation incorporated in Zug on 14 July 2014, according to the GLEIF record. The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit that funds protocol development and states that it does not control or lead Ethereum. Development is distributed across independent client teams and researchers. The sources do not name a single headquarters country for the development team or the current Foundation council members.
Institutional adoption and ecosystem integrations
The SEC approved eight spot Ether ETFs in July 2024, led by BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust. ETF flows have been volatile in 2026. Spot ETH ETFs recorded $824.41 million in net inflows during the week of 24 to 28 August 2026, their largest five-day total on record. In October, ETH ETFs posted outflows, and BlackRock's ETHA accounted for about 93% of them over three weeks.
BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized money market fund launched on Ethereum on 20 March 2024. J.P. Morgan's JPM Coin went live on Ethereum on 19 October 2026, in addition to Base. Coinbase Research states that the market has largely coalesced around Ethereum as the primary settlement layer for institutional real-world assets.
Ethereum's advantages include its early lead in smart contracts, its deep developer ecosystem, and the composability that lets applications integrate with one another. Its role as a settlement layer for stablecoins and tokenized assets is the most documented source of its current institutional use.
Current development activity and roadmap
Pectra, activated on 7 May 2025, introduced EIP-7702 and higher blob throughput. Glamsterdam, the next combined upgrade, adds enshrined proposer-builder separation (ePBS) and block-level access lists. Ethereum.org lists a Hoodi test fork for 27 October 2026 and a mainnet target of Q4 2026 with no confirmed date. On 27 October 2026, developers patched a Glamsterdam flaw that could have allowed an operator to withdraw ETH intended for new validators, and no losses were reported.
The Protocol team began scoping the Hegotá upgrade in September 2026, with roughly 60 researchers and engineers setting priorities. Post-quantum readiness is targeted for December 2029. The Verge, Purge, and Splurge labels describe planning themes rather than confirmed releases.