Benzinga - Cryptocurrency Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) was launched in 2015 and has become the second most valuable in the crypto sector over time. Here’s a look at the history of Ethereum and how much an early investment is worth today.
What Happened: Ethereum was proposed via a white paper from co-founder Vitalik Buterin in 2014. Buterin launched the white paper with the goal of Ethereum 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.
One of the events that helped Ethereum gain momentum was its listing on cryptocurrency platform Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) in 2016. Ethereum became only the second-ever cryptocurrency, after Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), to be listed on the platform.
Over the years there have been several major events and updates to Ethereum including the fork of Ethereum 2.0 and Ethereum Classic (CRYPTO: ETC).
Ethereum has maintained its position as one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies over the years, helped by the boom of non-fungible tokens in 2021. Many of the NFTs were built on the Ethereum blockchain. A record sale of a Beeple NFT created interest in NFTs and Ethereum.
While 2022 brought several bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and sent the price of Ethereum lower, it also was the year of another important event for Ethereum with the merge that happened in September.
The Ethereum merge took the cryptocurrency from being a proof-of-work, such as Bitcoin, to a proof-of-stake.
The latest update called the Shanghai update is expected to be deployed on April 12, 2023. The update will do several things in the evolution to proof-of-stake including allowing validators to withdraw staked Ether.
Related Link: How To Buy Ethereum
Investing $1,000 in Ethereum: Now the second most valuable cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $230 billion, Ethereum is one of the most followed and talked about cryptocurrencies.
An investment in the cryptocurrency the year it launched would have generated a strong return for investors.
While it was harder to invest in Ethereum prior to its inclusion on major cryptocurrency exchanges, investors were able to get the crypto after it launched.
Based on a starting price of $0.74, an investor could have purchased 1,351.35 ETH at the time of launch.
The $1,000 investment in Ethereum at launch would be worth $2,579,200.12 today based on a price of $1,908.61 at the time of writing.
At its all-time high of $4,815 set in November 2021, the $1,000 investment in Ethereum at the time of launch would have been worth $6,506,750.25.
Ethereum has traded between $896.11 and $3,173.45 over the last 52 weeks. There is no guarantee that the cryptocurrency will return to yearly or all-time highs.
While many missed out on investing in Ethereum in the early days, the exercise shows that sometimes investing a small amount in a high-conviction idea can have a huge payout in the future.
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