Cryptocurrency Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) is up 20% over the past week and more than 40% over the past month, but remains below the all-time highs set in 2021.
Ethereum’s year-to-date gains of 7% trail other large cryptocurrencies, with many of them setting new all-time highs in 2025. Still, the second-largest crypto trades significantly higher than when it was launched in 2015. Here’s a look back.
What Happened: Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed the digital currency via a 2014 white paper, with the goal of adding scripting to make it easier for application development and to set up binding contracts.
Ethereum was officially launched on July 30, 2015. During its first calendar year, Ethereum traded between $0.42 and $1.39 with a starting price of around $0.74, according to SoFi. The first Ethereum transaction was carried out on Aug. 7, 2015, according to Global Data.
Ethereum gained momentum thanks to …