Ethereum price and where to buy ETH

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a blockchain that runs programs, called smart contracts, as well as payments. ETH is its native asset: it pays the network fees that every transaction and contract call costs, and it is what validators stake to secure the network.

Ethereum switched from mining to proof of stake. Validators lock up ETH, propose and attest to blocks, and a new block slot arrives every 12 seconds. Stablecoins, decentralised exchanges and most tokens you have heard of run on Ethereum or on networks that settle to it.

How to buy Ethereum, step by step

1. Pick an exchange. Every exchange we track lists ETH. Compare fees, funding options and whether it serves your country in our exchange reviews.
2. Create and verify your account. Regulated exchanges ask for identity documents before you can deposit fiat.
3. Fund the account. A bank transfer or a stablecoin deposit usually costs far less than a card payment.
4. Buy ETH. Use the ETH/USD or ETH/USDT market. You can buy a fraction of one ETH.
5. Decide where to keep it. On the exchange is simplest, but the exchange then holds your coins. If you withdraw to a wallet you control, choose the network the wallet expects. ETH exists on Ethereum itself and on several networks built on top of it, and sending it on the wrong one is the most common way beginners lose funds.

Where to buy Ethereum at the best price

The cheapest venue to buy ETH is the one marked cheapest in the table above, after its trading fee. On a market this deep the fee usually decides more than the price.

• The price on that venue. The table lists every dollar-quoted ETH market we track, with its gap to our composite.
• The trading fee. It differs by venue, account tier and order type. Our fee comparison lists spot fees side by side.
• How you fund the account. Card payments often cost several percent. A bank transfer or a stablecoin deposit is usually far cheaper.

Why the Ethereum price differs between exchanges

Every exchange has its own order book, so each prints its own ETH price. In our minute-by-minute measurement the gap between the highest and lowest venue averaged about 0.028 percent, almost as tight as Bitcoin’s 0.025 percent, and it went above half a percent in fewer than one minute in a thousand.

That tightness comes from depth: the more traders arbitrage between venues, the faster a gap closes. The spread figure at the top of this page is the live measurement. Our guide on why crypto prices differ between exchanges explains the mechanism.

What moves the Ethereum price

Mostly Bitcoin. In our hourly composite, Ethereum moved with Bitcoin at a correlation of about 0.86, where 1 would mean identical moves, and its moves were about 1.4 times the size of Bitcoin’s. A sharp Bitcoin move usually shows up in ETH in the same hour, a little larger.

Ethereum-specific drivers exist on top of that: network activity, which changes how much ETH is burned, staking flows, and leverage. The funding rates on this page show whether traders are paying to be long or short right now.

Pros and cons of Ethereum

Pros

• The largest smart-contract network: most stablecoins, decentralised exchanges and tokens run on it or settle to it.
• ETH can be staked to earn a share of network rewards.
• One of the most liquid markets we track; its price agrees across exchanges almost as closely as Bitcoin’s.
• Part of every transaction fee is burned, which offsets new issuance.

Cons

• No fixed supply cap, so the supply can grow when the network is quiet.
• Base-layer fees rise sharply when the network is busy.
• Several networks carry ETH, and withdrawing on the wrong one can lose funds.
• It moves about 1.4 times as much as Bitcoin hour to hour in our data.

How ETH supply works

Ethereum has no hard cap. New ETH is issued to validators as staking rewards, and part of every transaction fee, the base fee, is burned and removed from supply. When the network is busy the burn can exceed issuance and the supply shrinks; when it is quiet, issuance wins and the supply grows slowly.

That is a different model from Bitcoin’s fixed 21 million, and it is why ETH supply is a moving number rather than a countdown.

Ethereum and Bitcoin compared

Need a figure for a specific amount? The ETH to USD converter applies our live price to any amount.