How does Ethereum work?

In 2014, the Ethereum project raised over 31,500 BTC worth $18.3 million through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). At the time of the fundraising, ether’s price was $0.311, and more than 60 million ether were sold.

Before transitioning to PoS through an upgrade known as the Merge, the issuance rate of Ether was impacted by a feature referred to as the difficulty bomb. This is a mechanism that increased the mining difficulty, raising the time it took miners to discover new blocks. This, in turn, decreased the overall issuance of ether, especially between 2017 and 2020 as the mechanism was activated, reset, and delayed a couple of times ahead of the Merge.

Looking back at the ether price chart from launch to March 2017, its price oscillated around $0.70 and $21. In 2017, the crypto bull market saw ether’s price rise beyond $100 for the first time. In June of the same year, the ether price shot up to $414. Five months later, the crypto market’s bullish streak strengthened due to increased buying pressure, pushing the price of every digital currency to new highs. Because almost every new project launched on Ethereum by doing an ICO, ether was in high demand. By January 2018, ether’s price shot to $1,418 before experiencing a huge fall. It would take another three years for its price to rise again to a new all-time high (ATH) of $4,379 between February and May 2021. On November 16, 2021, ETH hit yet another new ATH of 4,891.70.