Bitcoin vs Ethereum
A side-by-side look at Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) — live price, market capitalization, supply, all-time records and project fundamentals. Figures refresh hourly from public market data. For informational purposes only; not financial advice.
Bitcoin vs Ethereum: Key Metrics
| Metric | BTC | ETH |
|---|---|---|
| Market cap rank | #1 | #2 |
| Price | $65,637.00 | $1,794.56 |
| Market capitalization | $1.32T | $216.59B |
| 24-hour trading volume | $26.73B | $14.92B |
| 24-hour change | -1.33% | -1.27% |
| Circulating supply | 20,043,646 | 120,684,109 |
| Maximum supply | 21,000,000 | No fixed cap |
| All-time high | $126,080.00 | $4,946.05 |
| All-time low | $67.81 | $0.432979 |
| Genesis / launch | January 3, 2009 | July 30, 2015 |
| Hashing algorithm | SHA-256 | Ethash |
| Categories tracked | 8 | 15 |
Bold values mark the larger figure for size-based metrics (market cap, volume). Larger is not inherently “better.”
What Are Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Bitcoin BTC
Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized cryptocurrency, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It enables peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions without intermediaries like banks or governments, operating on a blockchain secured by Proof of Work mining and the SHA-256 cryptographic algorithm. With a fixed supply cap of 21 million coins and programmatic halvings every four years that reduce miner rewards, Bitcoin is designed as a deflationary digital asset often called "digital gold." Its value stems from solving the double-spending problem without trusted intermediaries, creating the first truly scarce digital asset with censorship resistance and permissionless access that no government, corporation, or individual can control. Bitcoin operates as a decentralized peer-to-peer network where transactions are recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, distributed across thousands of computers globally.
Full Bitcoin profile →Ethereum ETH
Ethereum is a global, open-source platform for decentralized applications. In other words, it is a decentralized blockchain platform that enables developers to build and deploy smart contracts and applications without central authority control. Unlike Bitcoin, which primarily functions as digital currency, Ethereum operates as a programmable global computer where developers can create any type of decentralized service. The platform hosts over $14 billion in DeFi applications with hundreds of thousands of active users across financial protocols, NFT marketplaces, and gaming platforms.
Full Ethereum profile →Category Overlap
How Bitcoin and Ethereum are classified by CoinGecko, and where they overlap.