Data and figures
A static snapshot by design: everything here is approximate, dated October 2026, and rounded to honest precision. For live numbers use the sources listed at the bottom. Nothing on this page is investment advice, and past figures say little about future ones.
Network parameters
| Parameter | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Slot time | 12 seconds | One block opportunity per slot; some slots are missed |
| Epoch | 32 slots (~6.4 min) | Checkpoint cadence for finality accounting |
| Time to finality | 2 epochs (~13 min) | Under normal operation |
| Base-fee adjustment | Up to ±12.5% per block | Toward the block gas target (EIP-1559) |
| Block gas target | Half of the gas limit | Limit is moved by validators over time |
| Minimum stake per validator | 32 ETH | Deposit to the deposit contract |
| Maximum effective balance | 2,048 ETH | Since the 2025 Pectra consolidation change |
| Finality attack cost | At least 1/3 of staked ETH | The economic root of finality |
Supply and staking
| Measure | Approximate value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Total ETH supply | ~120M | Net roughly flat since 2022: issuance to stakers offsets by burned base fees (ultrasound.money) |
| ETH staked | ~1/3 of supply (~35M) | Steady growth since withdrawals opened in 2023 |
| Active validators | 1M+ | Count decouples from stake as balances consolidate to 2,048 |
| Staking reward rate | ~3-4% per year | Nominal, before costs; declines as total stake grows |
| Fee burn since Aug 2021 | Millions of ETH | EIP-1559 base fees destroyed permanently |
What things cost
Gas counts are stable properties of the operations; the ETH cost of gas floats with demand. Layer-2 prices are post-2024-blob-upgrade orders of magnitude.
| Operation | Gas (L1) | Typical L2 cost |
|---|---|---|
| Simple ETH transfer | 21,000 | Well under one cent |
| ERC-20 transfer | ~50,000-65,000 | Fractions of a cent to a few cents |
| Decentralized-exchange swap | ~100,000-300,000 | A few cents |
| First entry into a lending market | ~150,000-400,000 | A few cents to tens of cents |
| Complex DeFi position (multi-hop) | 300,000+ | Tens of cents |
Energy use
| Era | Security engine | Energy character |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-Merge (2015 to Sept 2022) | Proof-of-work mining | Nation-scale electricity use, comparable to a mid-sized country |
| Post-Merge (Sept 2022 to today) | Proof-of-stake validation | Reduced by an estimated 99.9%+ (CCRI measurements); small-town scale, dominated by ordinary servers |
Historical market notes
Context, not commentary. ETH's price history is extreme; these are round reference points only.
| When | Rough figure | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 crowdsale | ~$0.30 per ETH | The original public sale price |
| January 2018 peak | ~$1,400 | Crest of the first token boom |
| November 2021 peak | ~$4,900 | All-time high to date, at the peak of the DeFi/NFT cycle |
| 2024 range highs | ~$4,000 | Approached, did not exceed, the 2021 record |
Ecosystem size indicators
| Indicator | Approximate reading | Caveat |
|---|---|---|
| DeFi value deposited | Tens of billions USD; peaked near $180B late 2021 | Measured by DefiLlama-style trackers; definitions vary |
| Layer-2 value and activity | Largest rollups hold billions; a large share of transactions settles on L2s | See L2BEAT for staging and value |
| Unique addresses created | Hundreds of millions | Gross count; includes dormant and duplicate addresses |
| Daily transactions | Typically around one million on L1, several times that on L2s combined | Counting methods differ across networks |
| Stablecoins on Ethereum | The majority of major fiat-stablecoin circulation settles on Ethereum or its L2s | Issuer-issued figures, tracked by several public dashboards |
Live data sources
Etherscan for blocks, transactions and contracts; Beaconcha.in for validators and staking; L2BEAT for rollups; DefiLlama for protocol value; ultrasound.money for supply dynamics; Dune for arbitrary queries over raw on-chain data.