Ethereum in October 2026: the hard road for number two
Ethereum is trading around $2,711 in October 2026, well above the former $1,860 to $1,900 ceiling, which Ethereum broke out of on August 19. ETH lost more than Bitcoin in the downturn from autumn 2025 to summer 2026: competition from fast chains such as Solana, falling fee revenue as activity shifted to layer 2, and weak ETF demand all weighed on the valuation.
Why ETH still cannot be written off
Ethereum remains by far the largest smart contract platform by total value locked, and the backbone of stablecoins, tokenisation and DeFi. Staking locks up a substantial share of supply. The question is not whether the market will pay for that role again, but at what valuation.
The crypto market right now
Total value and sentiment of the market from our own charts. While the page is open, the values refresh at the pace of their source.
What is Ethereum (ETH)?
Ethereum is the largest smart contract blockchain, launched on 30 July 2015 and largely designed by Vitalik Buterin. Ether (ETH) pays for computation on the network and has secured it since the switch to proof of stake in September 2022: whoever stakes ETH validates blocks and earns rewards. There is no maximum supply; new ETH is issued as rewards, while part of the fees is permanently burned.
Ethereum (ETH) key figures
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Current price | $2,678.6 |
| Market cap | $327,060,000,000 |
| ETH in circulation | about 122.1 million, as of 30 September 2026 |
| Maximum supply | none; new ETH issued as rewards, part of the fees burned |
| All-time high | 4,946 US dollars on 24 August 2025 (CoinGecko) |
| 2026 high and low | 3,403 US dollars on 14 January, 1,506 US dollars on 6 June |
| Third quarter 2026 | from 1,572 to 2,680 US dollars, up 70.5 percent |
| Consensus | Proof of stake since September 2022 |
What actually moves the Ethereum price
Ethereum is not a currency in the narrow sense but the settlement layer for most of decentralised finance. The value of ETH therefore depends less on a scarcity narrative than on actual network usage: every transaction permanently burns part of the fee. In periods of high activity supply shrinks; in quiet periods it grows slightly – Ethereum is deflationary at times and inflationary at others, depending on how busy the network is.
Since the move to proof of stake, the network is no longer secured by computing power but by capital that has been put up as collateral. A substantial share of all ETH is locked and unavailable to the market at short notice. That cushions downward moves, but it also amplifies upward ones, because the freely tradable float is smaller than the total supply suggests.
The metrics we watch on Ethereum
- Fee revenue and burn rate: the most direct link between usage and token value – unlike most layer-1 tokens.
- Share of ETH staked: determines how much supply is effectively taken off the market.
- Activity on the layer-2 networks: Arbitrum, Base and Optimism settle on Ethereum. Their growth supports the base layer but shifts fees away from it – an effect that cuts both ways.
- Stablecoin volume on Ethereum: the bulk of global stablecoin holdings sit here. That demand persists even in sideways markets.
Why Ethereum is harder to value than Bitcoin
Bitcoin has a fixed supply curve; Ethereum does not. Its circulating supply depends on usage, and usage depends on whether applications stay on Ethereum or migrate to cheaper chains. A forecast therefore has to answer two questions at once: is the ecosystem growing – and does the value of that growth accrue to the base token or to the layer-2 networks built on top of it?
How this forecast could fail
If applications and liquidity migrate permanently to Solana, Sui or other chains, the fee model collapses – and with it the core argument for ETH. Conversely, a US regulatory ruling on staking rewards would change the supply picture at short notice. Both scenarios remain open, which is why we work with ranges rather than a single target number.
Ethereum price history since 2019
The table shows annual values in US dollars from the daily candles of the ETH/USDT pair on Binance, rounded to whole dollars. Ethereum has turned just below 5,000 US dollars twice, in 2021 and 2025, and fell by more than half in both following years.
| Year | Open | High | Low | Close |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 131 | 367 | 101 | 129 |
| 2020 | 129 | 759 | 86 | 736 |
| 2021 | 736 | 4,868 | 714 | 3,676 |
| 2022 | 3,676 | 3,901 | 882 | 1,196 |
| 2023 | 1,196 | 2,446 | 1,191 | 2,282 |
| 2024 | 2,282 | 4,108 | 2,100 | 3,338 |
| 2025 | 3,338 | 4,957 | 1,385 | 2,972 |
| 2026 (to 30 Sep) | 2,972 | 3,403 | 1,506 | 2,680 |
Ethereum in October: quarterly balance and dates
ETH closed the third quarter of 2026 up 70.5 percent, after the second quarter had ended down 25.3 percent. The quarterly low was 1,553 US dollars on 1 July, the high 2,807 US dollars on 21 September. Two topics matter most for October: the staking queue, in which around 1.6 million ETH are waiting for activation according to our report (Ethereum price prediction: the staking queue), and the planned Hegotá fork (Ethereum after Hegotá).
October has tended to be friendly for ETH: five of the eight Octobers since 2018 ended higher, with an average gain of 6.6 percent. The average, however, leans heavily on October 2021 at plus 42.9 percent; without it the picture is balanced.
| October | Change in the month |
|---|---|
| 2018 | -14.7% |
| 2019 | +0.7% |
| 2020 | +7.4% |
| 2021 | +42.9% |
| 2022 | +18.4% |
| 2023 | +8.6% |
| 2024 | -3.2% |
| 2025 | -7.2% |
Can Ethereum reach 10,000 US dollars?
With about 122.1 million ETH in circulation, a price of 10,000 US dollars would mean a market capitalisation of around 1.22 trillion US dollars, a good 3.7 times today's. Unlike Bitcoin, supply is not fixed: whether it grows or shrinks depends on how much in fees is burned on the network. In our optimistic scenario ETH stands at $8,152.3 in 2029 and at $20,624 in 2033; the average for 2033 is $3,728.
Buying Ethereum
ETH is listed on all major exchanges, including euro pairs. What matters on fees and licensing is shown in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges. Which providers hold a MiCA licence is listed in our list of MiCA-licensed crypto exchanges, checked against the ESMA register on 30 September 2026.
