From technological innovation to policy driving, a review of the past few rounds of ETH price roller coasters.

In 2025, it will be another year of significant Ethereum fluctuation.

Back in 2015, I looked down on Ethereum, foolishly thinking that modifying the protocol based on Bitcoin, especially with sidechain technology, was completely sufficient to achieve all innovations in blockchain, and that creating a separate consensus was entirely unnecessary.

I really started paying attention to Ethereum during the ICO period of 2016-2017. The invention of ICOs is definitely one of the greatest inventions in the cryptocurrency space.

With the booming ICO, Ethereum skyrocketed from below $100 to over $1,000 in just two years, reaching a peak of over $1,400.

However, with the bursting of the ICO bubble, it fell sharply below $100 by the end of 2018.

In 2020, with the reinvention and popularization of DeFi, I began to shift my focus to Ethereum. DeFi also brought about a super bull market for Ethereum, with prices soaring for more than two years, rising from a few hundred dollars to a peak of 4815.

In 2020, 2021, and 2022, it was the most remarkable three years for innovation in the entire cryptocurrency space (mainly the innovations of Ethereum), with DeFi, NFTs, rollups, and zk all maturing during that time. I really miss those years when there were so many innovations to research; I spent a lot of ETH on gas and unexpectedly received many airdrops.

In 2022, as Luna\3ac\ftx and others encountered issues one after another, the massive bubble and leverage of the entire Ethereum ecosystem experienced terrifying chain liquidations, with the price plummeting from 4000 to 880 dollars.

That crash was absolutely epic; the price drop was certainly the largest in history. However, the total number of people, companies, institutions, coins, and money involved in that event should be among the most famous in human history.

With the arrival of 2023, Wall Street began to promote ETFs, and the market for Ethereum started to stabilize, while BTC first experienced a steady increase.

In 2024, with the launch of ETFs, Ethereum surged wildly from over $1500, experiencing a dramatic rise to its second peak of $4100.

But from 2023 to 2024, I felt an extreme confidence from many Ethereum enthusiasts, everyone firmly believes that ETH will surpass its previous high. I was also influenced by this enthusiasm during these two years, at one point pushing Ethereum to my relatives and friends, forgetting the disaster that BCH brought me.

But the reality did not meet everyone's wishes. After the ETF was launched, the price of ETH plummeted from 4100 to 2000.

Especially compared to BTC, Ethereum's price performance is really poor, and the ETH/BTC exchange rate has become a joke in the entire industry; E Guardian has become synonymous with being foolish.

As we enter 2025, Ethereum has encountered a disastrous moment, as President Trump launched a tariff war against the world, temporarily driving the price of Ethereum down to 1300, returning to the price of 8 years ago in 2017, which really scared the baby.

In the second half of 2025, the price of Ethereum miraculously surged again, mainly influenced by various favorable policies in the United States, especially the stablecoin bill and news about the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts.

On August 14, 2025, the price of Ethereum approached its all-time high, reaching 4700, just a little bit short of the historical peak of 4800.

The price of Ethereum has completed the transition from innovation to policy-driven.

Innovation drives prices, which will always bring new bubbles. Technological innovation leads to issuing tokens, issuing tokens leads to frenzy, which then boosts the bubble, and it will inevitably burst, it will definitely crash.

It seems like this has always been the case. The internet is the same; looking back at the entrepreneurship of China's mobile internet, it is also the same.

What happens after the policy drives it?

I feel that the policies are coherent, predictable, and may make the prices of cryptocurrencies more stable.

Those who come for the policies are often wealthier. Uh, those who come for innovation are relatively more adventurous, but obviously tend to be poorer.

But looking at Wall Street now, MicroStrategy, sharpLink Gaming, it feels too greedy. They are raising funds in the stock market with the concept of coins + stocks, spending other people's money to buy coins in large amounts, definitely not caring about the money. They all loudly announce that they are buying hundreds of billions, not knowing how many hidden trades are going on behind the scenes.

I think the cryptocurrency market is destined to be turbulent.

I had chatgpt retrieve famous events that drove Ether price fluctuations, let's watch it, it's quite exciting.

• 2015‑08‑01｜Early stage of mainnet launch (monthly average)｜$1.36

• 2016‑06‑17｜The DAO was hacked (intra-day $21.5→$14)｜$~18*

• 2017‑06‑12｜ICO Boom: First Break Above $400｜$401.49

• 2017‑12‑10｜CryptoKitties congested the network｜$441.72

• 2018‑01‑13｜ICO bubble peaked (intraday ~$1,431)｜$1,346

• 2018‑12‑15｜Bear Market Bottom｜$84.44

• 2020-06-15｜DeFi Summer: COMP mining｜$244.56 (6-20)

• 2020‑09‑17｜Uniswap Airdrop/Liquidity Mining｜$371.86 (9‑20)

• 2021‑11‑10｜Historical High｜$4,865

• 2022‑05‑12｜Terra/UST Chain Sell-off｜$~1,940*

• 2022‑06‑18｜3AC Crisis (Intraday < $900)｜$1,086.82

• 2022‑11‑11｜FTX Bankruptcy｜$1,296 (November Revenue)

• 2024‑05‑23｜Spot Ether ETF rules approved｜$3,776.93

• 2024‑07‑23｜First Day Trading of Spot Ether ETF｜$3,483.07

• 2024‑11‑06｜Trump elected president｜$2,724.17

• 2025-04-02 | Trump announces "reciprocal tariffs" | $1,795.31;

• 2025-4‑10 China retaliatory tariffs effective date closing ** $1,522.52）；

• 2025‑07‑18｜US Stablecoin Bill (GENIUS Act) Effective｜$3,549.56