Ethereum seasonality: best and worst months
Each calendar month’s record across all completed years, ranked by median return (the middle year, which one wild month can’t distort the way it distorts the average).
| Month | Median | Average | Years up | Best | Worst |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | +15.6% | +16.7% | 6 of 10 (60%) | +78.1% (2021) | −26.8% (2022) |
| Apr | +10.4% | +21.8% | 7 of 10 (70%) | +69.8% (2018) | −17.4% (2024) |
| Feb | +8.5% | +9.1% | 7 of 10 (70%) | +53.3% (2017) | −32.2% (2025) |
| Mar | +8.1% | +17.7% | 7 of 10 (70%) | +206.0% (2017) | −53.6% (2018) |
| May | +6.2% | +27.2% | 6 of 10 (60%) | +183.3% (2017) | −28.8% (2022) |
| Oct | +0.7% | +3.6% | 6 of 10 (60%) | +43.0% (2021) | −17.1% (2016) |
| Aug | −2.4% | +9.6% | 5 of 11 (45%) | +93.8% (2017) | −34.8% (2018) |
| Dec | −3.0% | +5.8% | 4 of 10 (40%) | +70.8% (2017) | −20.7% (2021) |
| Jul | −4.0% | +10.7% | 5 of 11 (45%) | +56.9% (2022) | −28.3% (2017) |
| Nov | −4.4% | +5.0% | 5 of 10 (50%) | +59.5% (2020) | −43.3% (2018) |
| Sep | −5.6% | −5.2% | 5 of 11 (45%) | +13.1% (2016) | −22.5% (2017) |
| Jun | −8.7% | −8.6% | 3 of 11 (27%) | +22.2% (2017) | −44.9% (2022) |
- Strongest by median: January (+15.6%, up 6 of 10 years), April (+10.4%, 7 of 10) and February (+8.5%, 7 of 10).
- Weakest: June (median −8.7%, up only 3 of 11 years) and September (−5.6%, 5 of 11). Every month from June to December has a negative median except October (+0.7%).
- Averages mislead: May’s +27.2% average comes mostly from +183% in May 2017; its median is +6.2%. March’s +17.7% average leans on +206% in March 2017.
Read this as history, not a forecast. Each month has only 10 or 11 observations, one or two extreme years swing the averages, and many “seasonal” patterns in crypto fade once people trade on them. Nothing here says what next month will do. If you want to think in probabilities instead, the ETH price target probability tool models the odds of reaching a price by a date from ETH’s volatility. For day-of-week and hour-of-day patterns, see the best time to buy ETH.
Is October good for ETH? (“Uptober” check)
The “Uptober” idea comes mostly from bitcoin. For ETH the record is ordinary: up in 6 of 10 Octobers from 2016 to 2025, median +0.7%, average +3.6%. The best was +43.0% (2021) and the worst −17.1% (2016). October 2026 is down 10.6% month to date through October 17. Over the whole fourth quarter (September 30 to December 31), ETH rose in 5 of 10 years, from +145.8% in 2017 and +105.0% in 2020 to −43.8% in 2018 and −28.4% in 2025.
Ethereum all-time high: price and date
| Record daily close | $4,831.24 on August 22, 2025 |
|---|---|
| Record intraday high | $4,955.90 on August 24, 2025 |
| Previous record (2021 cycle) | $4,811.90 close Nov 8, 2021 · $4,867.81 intraday Nov 10, 2021 |
| October 17, 2026 close | $2,399.68: −50.3% vs record close, −51.6% vs intraday high |
| Rise needed for a new record close | about +101% from the October 17 close |
The 2021 record close stood for 1,383 days (about 3.8 years) before ETH beat it on August 22, 2025. As of October 17, 2026, the new record is 421 days old. For every ETH bear market, its depth and how long the recovery took, see the Ethereum drawdown and recovery history. Prices on other exchanges differ slightly: CoinGecko, which blends many venues, lists ETH’s all-time high as $4,946.05 on August 24, 2025. To see how many ETH it would take to hold $1 million at the record or any other price, try the ETH millionaire calculator.
ETH price milestones: first close above $1,000, $2,000, $3,000…
| Level | First close at or above | Days closed at or above | Most recent close at or above |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | May 19, 2017 ($125.14) | 3,426 of 3,803 (90.1%) | Oct 17, 2026 (latest) |
| $500 | Dec 11, 2017 ($518.00) | 2,327 of 3,803 (61.2%) | Oct 17, 2026 (latest) |
| $1,000 | Jan 6, 2018 ($1,006.68) | 2,137 of 3,803 (56.2%) | Oct 17, 2026 (latest) |
| $2,000 | Apr 2, 2021 ($2,134.68) | 1,316 of 3,803 (34.6%) | Oct 17, 2026 (latest) |
| $3,000 | May 3, 2021 ($3,433.99) | 612 of 3,803 (16.1%) | Jan 28, 2026 |
| $4,000 | May 11, 2021 ($4,179.76) | 131 of 3,803 (3.4%) | Oct 27, 2025 |
| $4,500 | Nov 2, 2021 ($4,595.01) | 37 of 3,803 (1.0%) | Oct 8, 2025 |
ETH needed less than two years to go from $13 to $1,000 (January 2018), then about three more years to make its first close above $1,500 (February 2, 2021). It has spent only 3.4% of its Coinbase history at $4,000 or more, and its last close above $3,000 was on January 28, 2026.
ETH price on October 17 in every year
A quick way to see the cycles: the Coinbase close on the same calendar day each year. Use the date lookup above for any other day.
| Date | Close | Change vs a year earlier |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 17, 2016 | $11.96 | – |
| Oct 17, 2017 | $316.37 | +2,545% |
| Oct 17, 2018 | $203.21 | −35.8% |
| Oct 17, 2019 | $177.31 | −12.7% |
| Oct 17, 2020 | $368.48 | +107.8% |
| Oct 17, 2021 | $3,847.18 | +944.1% |
| Oct 17, 2022 | $1,331.49 | −65.4% |
| Oct 17, 2023 | $1,565.24 | +17.6% |
| Oct 17, 2024 | $2,604.91 | +66.4% |
| Oct 17, 2025 | $3,832.99 | +47.1% |
| Oct 17, 2026 | $2,399.68 | −37.4% |
Biggest daily moves
- Worst day: −43.3% on March 12, 2020 (the COVID crash, $194.62 open to a $110.30 close), then −27.6% on May 19, 2021 and −25.6% on June 18, 2016.
- Best day: +32.6% on December 12, 2017, then +30.1% on May 19, 2017 and +28.9% on March 16, 2017.
- The lowest Coinbase close ever was $6.75 on December 5, 2016. Even the 2018 bottom ($83.00 on December 14, 2018) was above that.
Thinking about whether this history makes ETH worth holding? Our is Ethereum a good investment guide weighs the case for and against, and how to read ETH’s 2026 performance explains what a year-to-date number does and doesn’t tell you.
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<a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-price-history">Ethereum Price History (Coinbase ETH-USD)</a> by GrowYourEthereum, licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>.
@misc{growyourethereum_ethereum_price_history_2026,
author = {{GrowYourEthereum}},
title = {Ethereum Price History (Coinbase ETH-USD)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-price-history}},
note = {Data set, updated October 18, 2026. CC BY 4.0}
}Embed it instead: ETH open, high, low, close and yearly return for every year since 2016 (Coinbase ETH-USD). Paste this into any page that accepts HTML. It is free, has no ads and keeps a visible credit line.
<iframe src="https://growyourethereum.com/embed/eth-price-history" width="100%" height="620" style="border:none;max-width:780px;display:block;" title="Ethereum price by year by GrowYourEthereum" loading="lazy" ></iframe> <p style="font-size:13px;">Source: <a href="https://growyourethereum.com/data/ethereum-price-history">Ethereum price history</a> by GrowYourEthereum (CC BY 4.0).</p>
More datasets, JSON files and embeddable widgets: free Ethereum data for journalists, researchers and builders.
Methodology
- Data: Coinbase Exchange ETH-USD daily candles (UTC days), fetched October 18, 2026, from May 18, 2016 (Coinbase’s first ETH-USD day) to October 17, 2026, the last complete daily close. That is 3,803 candles; Coinbase has no candle for May 21–22, 2016.
- Yearly and monthly changes are close-to-close (last daily close of the period vs the last close of the previous period). Highs and lows are intraday. 2016 starts from the first close ($13.18); October 2026 and 2026 are to date.
- Seasonality uses completed months only (June 2016 to September 2026): 11 years for June to September, 10 for the other months. Milestones use daily closes, not intraday spikes.
- Prices only, in U.S. dollars, with no fees, spreads, staking rewards or taxes. Other exchanges and aggregators differ slightly, especially for intraday highs and lows. Pre-2016 prices are not included.
Ethereum price history FAQ
What is Ethereum’s all-time high price?
On Coinbase’s ETH-USD market, ETH’s record daily close is $4,831.24 on August 22, 2025, and its highest intraday trade is $4,955.90 on August 24, 2025 (UTC days). Aggregators that blend many exchanges show slightly different figures; CoinGecko lists $4,946.05 on August 24, 2025. The previous record close was $4,811.90 on November 8, 2021, so that record stood for 1,383 days (about 3.8 years).
How far is ETH below its all-time high now?
ETH closed at $2,399.68 on October 17, 2026, which is 50.3% below the $4,831.24 record close and 51.6% below the $4,955.90 intraday high. It would need to rise about 101% from that close to set a new record close. For how long past ETH drawdowns took to recover, see our drawdown history page.
What was the price of ETH at the end of each year?
Coinbase December 31 closes: 2016 $8.16, 2017 $741.27, 2018 $130.53, 2019 $128.54, 2020 $737.67, 2021 $3,675.80, 2022 $1,195.25, 2023 $2,281.07, 2024 $3,330.32 and 2025 $2,966.84. On October 17, 2026 it closed at $2,399.68, down 19.1% for the year so far.
What is the best month for Ethereum historically?
By median monthly return (June 2016 to September 2026, Coinbase closes), January (+15.6%, up in 6 of 10 years) and April (+10.4%, up in 7 of 10) have been strongest. May has the highest average (+27.2%), but that is driven by +183% in May 2017; its median is only +6.2%. June has been weakest: average −8.6%, up in just 3 of 11 years. With only 10 or 11 years per month, these patterns are not reliable predictions.
Is October (“Uptober”) a good month for ETH?
Not reliably. From 2016 to 2025, ETH rose in 6 of 10 Octobers, with a median of just +0.7% and an average of +3.6%. The best was +43.0% in October 2021 and the worst −17.1% in October 2016. October 2026 was down 10.6% month to date through October 17. The whole fourth quarter (September 30 to December 31 close) was positive in 5 of 10 years.
When did ETH first reach $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 and $4,000?
First Coinbase daily closes at or above each level: $1,000 on January 6, 2018 ($1,006.68); $2,000 on April 2, 2021 ($2,134.68); $3,000 on May 3, 2021 ($3,433.99); $4,000 on May 11, 2021 ($4,179.76); and $4,500 on November 2, 2021 ($4,595.01). ETH has closed at or above $4,000 on only 131 of the 3,803 days in this dataset.
How much was Ethereum in 2016, and why does this data start there?
Coinbase opened its ETH-USD market on May 18, 2016, with a first daily close of $13.18; ETH’s lowest Coinbase close was $6.75 on December 5, 2016. Ether itself launched on July 30, 2015 and traded on other venues before Coinbase listed it, but we only publish Coinbase prices, so there are no 2015 figures here. Aggregators such as CoinGecko show earlier prices, including a low near $0.43 in October 2015.
Why does the 2017 low show $0.10?
That is a real trade from the GDAX (now Coinbase Exchange) flash crash on June 21, 2017: a roughly $12.5 million market sell order triggered hundreds of stop-loss orders and margin liquidations, and ETH briefly traded as low as $0.10 before recovering to about $300 within seconds. ETH’s lowest daily close in 2017 was $8.18 on January 1. Daily closes are the better measure for most comparisons.
Can I reuse this Ethereum price history data?
Yes. The tables, heatmap, chart and the three CSV files (yearly, monthly and daily) are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). Credit “GrowYourEthereum, Ethereum Price History (Coinbase ETH-USD), CC BY 4.0” and link to this page. The raw prices come from Coinbase Exchange’s public API, and Coinbase’s terms apply to that raw feed.
Sources
- Coinbase Exchange API: product candles (ETH-USD daily OHLC used for every figure on this page)
- CoinGecko: Ethereum price, all-time high and all-time low (cross-check)
- ethereum.org: Ethereum history and forks (Frontier launch, July 30, 2015; the Merge, September 15, 2022)
- CNBC (June 22, 2017): Ethereum briefly crashed from $319 to 10 cents on GDAX
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Educational data page. Not financial, tax or legal advice. Past performance and past seasonality do not predict future results. GrowYourEthereum is independent and not affiliated with Coinbase or any exchange. Figures computed from Coinbase Exchange data on October 18, 2026. This page and its CSV files: CC BY 4.0.