Ethereum Price History (ETH-USD): Daily Coinbase Prices Since 2016

This dataset provides the daily closing price of Ethereum (ETH-USD) from the Coinbase series published on FRED by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (identifier CBETHUSD). The series starts in May 2016 and is quoted every calendar day — suited to short-horizon macro analysis as well as multi-cycle studies and correlation work with traditional risk assets. Earlier Ethereum price history (2015–2016) predates the Coinbase listing and is not covered.

Dataset: Ethereum Price in USD, Coinbase via FRED (2016–2026) · Updated 2026-09-20

Source: Coinbase (ETH-USD), retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (series CBETHUSD)

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats.

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/ethereum-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/ethereum-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df.describe())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/ethereum-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

Daily closing prices are the Coinbase ETH-USD series as published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on FRED under the identifier CBETHUSD, retrieved through the FRED API. The series starts on 18 May 2016 and is quoted every calendar day. Historical values are not adjusted after publication.

The Eco3min pipeline pulls the series once a day and writes a structured CSV with two columns (date, eth_price_usd). Attribution: Source: Coinbase, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The series carries FRED’s “Copyrighted: Citation required” status: it may be reused with attribution to Coinbase and to FRED, but it is not available under a Creative Commons licence.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The series is the Coinbase ETH-USD close as republished by FRED: a single-venue reference from the largest US-regulated exchange, widely used by financial media and research desks. The Eco3min pipeline pulls it daily.

• Release latency. FRED updates CBETHUSD daily; the latest observation typically appears within one to two days of the close. The Eco3min pipeline pulls the FRED series daily.
• Revisions policy. Exchange closing prices are not revised once published; FRED may restate values if the upstream Coinbase feed is corrected. Such restatements are infrequent and small.
• Alternative sources. Other venues (Binance, Kraken) and cross-exchange aggregates (CoinGecko, CryptoCompare, Messari, Glassnode) typically diverge from the Coinbase close by a few basis points during normal trading and can diverge meaningfully (1–3%) during stress episodes.
• Known gaps. None — the cryptocurrency market trades 24/7, including weekends and traditional market holidays. This is a structural difference from equity and bond datasets and affects correlation calculations with weekday-only series.

For analyses crossing Ethereum with traditional markets, weekend ETH observations should be either dropped or forward-filled depending on the use case; mixing them with weekday-only datasets without alignment introduces noise.

Common Pitfalls When Using Ethereum Price History

Ethereum price history is one of the most analysed series in crypto, but several recurring interpretation errors distort the signal.

1. Source confusion — single venue vs cross-exchange aggregate. The Coinbase close differs from Binance or Kraken spot prices, and from cross-exchange aggregates such as CoinGecko, during volatility episodes, sometimes by 1–3%. Users running historical backtests on another venue should source from that venue directly; this series is a reference close, not an executable price.
2. Pre-Merge vs Post-Merge supply dynamics. In September 2022, Ethereum transitioned from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, eliminating mining-driven sell pressure and introducing native staking yields around 3–4% annualized. Statistical models calibrated on pre-2022 data may misread post-Merge correlations and volatility patterns.
3. ETH vs ETC after the 2016 DAO fork. Following the 2016 DAO hack, the original chain split into Ethereum (ETH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC). Some pre-2016 historical archives blend the two prices; this dataset tracks ETH, the post-fork majority chain.
4. Price level vs gas fees and on-chain activity. ETH price and Ethereum network fees (gas) are related but not equivalent — a rising price can coincide with falling gas fees during bear-market deleveraging, and vice versa during DeFi activity bursts. Reading the Ethereum price history alone as a proxy for network usage misses the underlying activity signal.

Historical Regimes

2015–2017 — Early adoption. Ethereum launched in July 2015 at sub-$1 prices. The ICO boom drove ETH from under $10 in early 2017 to nearly $1,400 by January 2018, establishing Ethereum as the dominant smart-contract platform.

2018–2020 — Crypto winter. The post-bubble drawdown took ETH from $1,400 to under $90 by December 2018 (–94%). The 2018–2020 period saw consolidation, the rise of DeFi prototypes, and a gradual recovery to the $200–400 range.

2020–2021 — DeFi summer and bull run. The COVID-era liquidity surge and the explosion of DeFi total-value-locked drove Ethereum price history into a parabolic run from $130 in March 2020 to an all-time high near $4,800 in November 2021, alongside the Bitcoin and Nasdaq Composite bull cycle.

2022 — Terra, FTX, and the Merge. The Terra-UST collapse (May 2022), 3AC liquidation, Celsius bankruptcy, and the FTX implosion (November 2022) compressed ETH from $4,800 to under $900 — a –81% drawdown. The September 2022 Merge to proof-of-stake completed during the worst of the deleveraging.

2023–2024 — Post-Merge institutionalization. Approval of US spot Bitcoin ETFs (January 2024) and Ether ETFs (July 2024) institutionalized crypto exposure and supported a recovery in the Ethereum price toward the $3,500–4,000 range. ETH staking yields stabilized around 3–4% annualized, creating a new on-chain reference rate.

2024–2026 — Macro-driven cycle. Ethereum price history over the most recent window correlates closely with both the US M2 money supply trajectory and the US dollar index, confirming the asset’s macro-beta character within the broader liquidity regime.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Ethereum price history is best analysed alongside the broader risk-asset complex and macro liquidity indicators that drive crypto beta.

Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub

Sources

• Coinbase — ETH-USD daily close, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (series CBETHUSD)

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Ethereum Price History (ETH-USD, Coinbase via FRED, 2016–2026).<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/ethereum-price-history-dataset/