ETH

Ethereum

Layer 1

The settlement layer for most stablecoins and DeFi, but its fees and burn have shrunk as activity moved to L2s.

Leader, weak value capture v1.2 · as of 2026-10-20 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Ethereum still hosts ~$144.5B of stablecoins, over half of DeFi TVL, ~$14.8B of US spot ETFs and a growing set of treasury companies, and Fusaka shipped on schedule in Dec 2025. The token has not kept up: −38% in a year and −68% from the $4,946 ATH (24 Aug 2025) to the $1,566 low (26 Jun 2026), before recovering to ~$2,457. Fee burn offset only ~2% of new ETH in 2026, so supply is growing again. The bull case now rests on Glamsterdam's 200M gas limit bringing activity, and fees, back to L1.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$2,457
+2.1% 24h · −7% 30d · CoinGecko 20 Oct
Market cap
$300.1B
rank #2 · FDV $300.1B, no max supply
24h volume
$11.5B
3.8% of market cap
From ATH
−50%
ATH $4,946, Aug 2025
2026 YTD
−17%
$2,970 → $2,457
Staked
43.9M ETH
≈ 35% of supply · 19 Oct

The last 12 months

$1k$2k$3k$4k$5kOct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec2025-10-27: $4158.5676$4,159 peak2026-06-26: $1566.0081$1,566 low2026-09-22: $2775.1687$2,7752026-10-20: $2455.839$2,4561Fusaka goes live22026 high at $3,3523Drop below $2,0004BlackRock staking ETF5FOCIL picked for Hegotá6Year low at $1,5667Glamsterdam on Sepolia8BitMine at 6.04M ETH9Glamsterdam on Hoodi10Glamsterdam mainnet
TechMarketProductGovernanceAdoptionUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 21 Oct 2025 to 20 Oct 2026.

Key events
  1. 1
    03 Dec 25 Fusaka goes live. PeerDAS lets nodes sample blob data, and blob-only forks then raise L2 data capacity in steps.
  2. 2
    15 Jan 26 2026 high at $3,352. The best close of the year, still a third below the $4,946 ATH of Aug 2025.
  3. 3
    06 Feb 26 Drop below $2,000. ETH falls −15% in one day, from $2,143 to $1,824, its sharpest daily drop of the year.
  4. 4
    12 Mar 26 BlackRock staking ETF. ETHB launches, staking 70–95% of its ETH and passing most rewards to holders.
  5. 5
    10 Apr 26 FOCIL picked for Hegotá. Developers move FOCIL to the next fork and note ePBS for Glamsterdam is harder than expected.
  6. 6
    26 Jun 26 Year low at $1,566. After ~$540M of ETF outflows in May and leveraged liquidations; −68% from the ATH.
  7. 7
    06 Oct 26 Glamsterdam on Sepolia. First public testnet fork with ePBS and block-level access lists.
  8. 8
    18 Oct 26 BitMine at 6.04M ETH. The largest ETH treasury company now holds 4.9% of supply, about 5.07M of it staked.
  9. 9
    26 Oct 26 Glamsterdam on Hoodi. Last major testnet fork; the gas limit rises to 200M in the same epoch.
  10. 10
    Q4 26? Glamsterdam mainnet. No date set yet; the Foundation will announce it after Hoodi, and estimates point to Dec 2026 or later.

How a USDC payment on Base ends up on Ethereum

User
Sends USDC on Base

Pays a fee of a fraction of a cent, in ETH.

Sequencer
Coinbase orders it

Confirms within seconds and keeps the margin between user fees and L1 costs.

Batch poster
Posts a blob to L1

Thousands of L2 transactions compressed into one blob; the blob fee is paid in ETH.

Validators
Include the blob

Stakers (~35% of ETH) propose and attest; they earn new ETH plus tips.

Ethereum L1
Burns the base fees

Execution base fee and blob fee are burned under EIP-1559; the rollup posts its state root.

Finality
Settled on Ethereum

L1 finality in ~13 minutes; withdrawals from Base to L1 wait out a 7-day challenge window.

Where ETH comes in: it pays gas on Base and the blob fee on L1, and both L1 fees are burned. Validators stake ETH and receive newly issued ETH. Most of the user's fee stays with the sequencer, and blobs are cheap, so very little ETH is burned per payment: this is the L2 fee-capture debate in one picture.

Usage and adoption

ETH, 1 Jan to 9 Oct 2026 (282 days)
Burned (execution + blob fees)
~16.5k
Issued to validators
~797k

ethsupply.fyi ledger via CryptoSlate: 796,623 ETH issued vs 16,525 ETH burned, so fees offset 2.07% of new supply and net supply grew ~778k ETH (+0.64%). Offsetting issuance needs ~2,992 ETH of burn a day: a ~13.9 gwei base fee at today's 60M gas limit, or ~4.2 gwei at Glamsterdam's planned 200M. A clean 12-month monthly series was not available, so this uses the 2026 year-to-date ledger.

  • strong signal
    L1 chain fees
    ~$258k / day

    DefiLlama, 19 Oct. What users pay Ethereum itself; apps on Ethereum earned $5.67M the same day.

  • strong signal
    Stablecoins on Ethereum
    ~$144.5B

    DefiLlama, 19 Oct. The largest stablecoin base of any chain; real settlement demand.

  • strong signal
    US spot ETF assets
    ~$14.8B

    After 19 Oct; cumulative net inflows $12.84B, now in an outflow streak.

  • medium signal
    DeFi TVL
    $49.4B

    DefiLlama, 19 Oct. Moves with the ETH price, so partly a price effect.

  • medium signal
    Base paid to L1
    ~$8,800 / 30 days

    To 7 Sep 2026, on ~$14.4B TVL. Single source, not independently confirmed.

Ethereum is used more than ever as a settlement and stablecoin layer, but that usage pays little to ETH holders: in 2026 the burn covered ~2% of issuance. The scoreboard to watch is daily burn vs issuance once Glamsterdam raises the gas limit, alongside ETF and treasury demand.

Project

What it is
The largest smart-contract chain (live since 2015, proof of stake since 2022): base layer for DeFi, stablecoins, tokenized assets and the L2 rollups that settle on it.
Team
Co-founded by Vitalik Buterin and others; the Ethereum Foundation coordinates research, while independent client teams (several execution and consensus clients) build the software.
Technology
Fusaka (3 Dec 2025) added PeerDAS and blob-only forks to raise L2 data capacity. Glamsterdam adds ePBS and block-level access lists, aiming at a 200M gas limit (from 60M).
Traction
~$144.5B stablecoins and $49.4B DeFi TVL (DefiLlama, 19 Oct). But L1 chain fees were only ~$258k in a day, against $5.67M in app fees.
Competitors
Solana and other fast L1s for trading and payments; its own L2s (Base, Arbitrum) for users and fees; Bitcoin for the store-of-value bid.
Key risks
L2s pay L1 very little (Base: ~$8,800 in 30 days, one source), so burn stays low; ETF outflows; treasury companies such as ETHZilla selling ETH when their shares trade below NAV.
Roadmap
Glamsterdam: on Sepolia since 6 Oct, Hoodi testnet 26 Oct, mainnet date not yet set (estimates: Dec 2026 or later). Next, Hegotá with FOCIL (censorship resistance), estimated H1 2027.

Token performance

1-year return (21 Oct 2025 → 20 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
ETH
-38%
BTC
-25%

ETH fell further than BTC over 12 months. Over 3 years ETH is up about +53% (from ~$1.6k in Oct 2023), against ~+179% for BTC (from ~$29.7k). 3-year figures are manual and approximate because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$1,566 low (26 Jun) to $3,352 high (15 Jan), daily closes; now $2,457
12-month drawdown
−62%, from $4,159 (27 Oct 2025) to $1,566 (26 Jun 2026); −68% from the $4,946 ATH. Up +57% from the low since.
Liquidity
$11.54B traded in 24h, 3.8% of market cap; rank #2
Flows
US spot ETFs: four straight outflow days to 19 Oct (−$103M that day), −$320M in the week to 16 Oct. BitMine still adds ~12.5k ETH a week.
ATH check ATH check passed. The $4,946 high (24 Aug 2025) came ten years after launch and is also the current-cycle high, so it is used as the reference.

Tokenomics

Supply
122.15M ETH, no cap. Net +778k ETH (+0.64%) in 2026 to 9 Oct.
Issuance
Validator rewards: 796.6k ETH from 1 Jan to 9 Oct 2026, ~2,800 ETH a day, about 0.8% of supply a year gross. Issuance rises with the amount staked.
Unlocks
None: no vesting or investor unlocks. The staking queues matter instead: 1.22M ETH waiting to stake (~21 days) and a near-empty exit queue (19 Oct).
Utility
Gas on L1 and most L2s, blob fees paid by rollups, staking collateral for validators, and the main collateral asset in DeFi.
Concentration
43.9M ETH (~35%) staked. BitMine holds 6.04M ETH (4.9% of supply), SharpLink ~0.87M; US spot ETFs ~$14.8B.
Sinks
Fee burn: 16.5k ETH in 2026 to 9 Oct, 2.07% of issuance (~4.6M burned since 2021). Demand sinks: staking, ETFs (staking ETFs since late 2025), treasury companies.

Bull case

Glamsterdam reaches mainnet around the turn of the year and the 200M gas limit pulls trading and payments back to L1; at that gas limit a ~4.2 gwei base fee would burn all new issuance. ETF flows turn positive again and BitMine keeps buying, taking ETH back above the $2,775 September high toward $3,350.

Bear case

L1 fees stay near zero because activity lives on L2s that pay L1 little, so supply keeps growing ~0.6–0.8% a year. ETF outflows continue and more treasury companies sell below NAV; price loses the ~$2,390 floor of daily closes since late August and heads back toward the $1,566 June low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • Glamsterdam mainnet date after the 26 Oct Hoodi fork, and the gas limit after it
  • Daily ETH burn vs issuance (ultrasound.money, ethsupply)
  • Weekly spot ETF flows and BitMine / SharpLink holdings
  • ~$2,390 floor (daily closes since late Aug) and the $2,775 September high

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

ETH against EUR · USD · USDT · USDC · AUD · BTC · CAD · CHF · DAI · EURC · FIDD · GBP · JPY · SOFID · USD1

24h $91.4M · ±2% depth $27.4M

OKXlisted

ETH against EUR · USDT · USDC · AED · AUD · BRL · BTC · PLN · TRY

24h $357.9M · ±2% depth $18.7M

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinanceETH/USDT$912.0M$73.5M
OKXETH/USDT$334.4M$18.7M
GateETH/USDT$324.8M$18.8M
MEXCETH/USDT$271.5M$10.4M
CoinbaseETH/USD$241.5M$11.3M

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
Uniswap V3CLETH/USDT · Ethereum$29.7M$3.83M
Uniswap V3CLETH/USDC · Ethereum$35.2M$3.31M
Uniswap V3CLETH/USDC · Ethereum$10.5M$2.25M

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all ETH volume: 2.5%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

Where to follow

Official
People on X
Code and governance
Data
Media
  • Bankless podcast, YouTube and newsletter with a strong Ethereum focus
  • r/ethereum main community forum