A Rocky Year: Ethereum Turns 11 Years as ETH Trades 61% Below the High Set Last August

It has been 11 years since the network behind the world's largest altcoin launched. Here's what happened since. Ethereum’s (ETH) genesis block turned 11 on July 30, closing quite a busy year. The network now runs on a 60 million gas limit, double where it sat two years ago, with rollups carrying roughly 95% of its transactions. On the morning of the anniversary, blocks were landing about 229 transactions each, close to 21 per second on the base layer, and running 55% full. The base fee sat near 5.3 gwei, which works out to about $0.20 for a plain ETH transfer, $0.52 for an ERC-20 transfer, and $3.79 for a swap, according to data from Etherscan. Scaling and ETFs The fund wrappers arrived alongside the scaling. Morgan Stanley began trading the cheapest US ether ETP at a 0.14% expense ratio on Tuesday, staking 50% to 80% of its holdings and passing the rewards through. Likewise, BlackRock’s ETHB holds spot ETH and stakes a portion of it, the firm’s first crypto fund to do so. Both lean on Revenue Procedure 2025-31, the safe harbor letting exchange-traded products stake and distribute rewards without a separate tax charge. Two upgrades are queued for this year: Glamsterdam and Hegotá. ...