Ethereum's price history suggests that that crypto was worth significantly less in 2022 than during late 2021, although nowhere near the lowest price recorded. Much like Bitcoin (BTC), the price of ETH went up in 2021 but for different reasons altogether: Ethereum, for instance, hit the news when a digital art piece was sold as the world’s most expensive NFT for over 38,000 ETH - or 69.3 million U.S. dollars. Unlike Bitcoin - of which the price growth was fueled by the IPO of the U.S.’ biggest crypto trader Coinbase - the rally on Ethereum came from technological developments that caused much excitement among traders. First, the so-called “Berlin update” rolled out on the Ethereum network in April 2021, an update which would eventually lead to the Ethereum Merge in 2022 and reduced ETH gas prices - or reduced transaction fees. The collapse of FTX in late 2022, however, changed much for the cryptocurrency. As of May 4, 2025, Ethereum was worth 1,808.59 U.S. dollars - significantly less than the 4,400 U.S. dollars by the end of 2021. Ethereum’s future and the DeFi industry Price developments on Ethereum are difficult to predict, but cannot be seen without the world of DeFi - or Decentralized Finance. This industry used technology to remove intermediaries between parties in a financial transaction. One example includes crypto wallets such as Coinbase Wallet that grew in popularity recently, with other examples including smart contractor Uniswap, Maker (responsible for stablecoin DAI), moneylender Dharma and market protocol Compound. Ethereum’s future developments are tied with this industry: Unlike Bitcoin and Ripple, Ethereum is technically not a currency but an open-source software platform for blockchain applications - with Ether being the cryptocurrency that is used inside the Ethereum network. Essentially, Ethereum facilitates DeFi - meaning that if DeFi does well, so does Ethereum. NFTs: the most well-known application of Ethereum NFTs or non-fungible tokens grew nearly ten-fold between 2018 and 2020, as can be seen in the market cap of NFTs worldwide. These digital blockchain assets can essentially function as a unique code connected to a digital file, allowing to distinguish the original file from any potential copies. This application is especially prominent in crypto art, although there are other applications: gaming, sports and collectibles are other segments where NFT sales occur.

In April 2021, the Ethereum market cap reached new heights and grew to over *** billion U.S. dollars - the first time this cryptocurrency achieved that feat. The market capitalization in August 2020 was half this amount. Market capitalization is calculated by multiplying the total number of Ethereum in circulation by the Ethereum price. Compared to the Bitcoin market capitalization, however, Ethereum was not yet as popular.

The price of Ethereum Classic (ETC) - a different crypto than Ethereum (ETH) - decreased significantly following the Ethereum Merge of September 2022. After years of development, the "original" Ethereum changed from proof-of-work (mining) to proof-of-stake (staking) during this event. This change had the potential to impact both the transaction speed as well as the energy consumption of the Ethereum blockchain. Some miners, however, started looking into Proof-of-Work alternatives were they could continue using their mining rigs - including Ethereum Classic (ETC), but also EthereumPOW (ETHW), and Ravencoin (RVN). The influx caused such a spike in hashrate - the computing power required to successfully mine a crypto - that the price declined.

At its peak in September 2021, the floor price of any type of NFT trading was around 10 times higher than it was in early June 2021. This indicates that NFT trading became increasingly popular during that time. Floor price - sometimes also referred to as "price floor" - is a term that originates from commodity trading and refers to the lowest price, rather than the average price, at which an NFT can be bought. This metric only arrived over the summer of 2021 as one of the most requested new features within the crypto community, as floor price can reveal the cheapest value a particular NFT sells for. As prices are measured in Ethereum (ETH), buyers also have to take into account other costs - such as the Ethereum gas price or transaction fee.

The price of the native coin from BNB Chain (formerly BSC) grew by 50 percent in late 2021 but was much lower in 2022. On July 20, 2025, for example, a single BNB coin was worth more than 732.93 U.S. dollars - a value that is very different from the all-time high of 732.93 U.S. dollars in November 2021. Regardless, Binance Coin ranked in the top 10 most expensive cryptocurrencies in 2022. Noticeable is that the price increase of BNB in November 2021 coincides with a similar price change for Ethereum (ETH), a cryptocurrency where BNB initially originated in 2017 before coming to its own years later.BNB's history: From a reward token in 2017 to an ecosystem after 2019As the name suggests, Binance Coin, or BNB, originally started as an extension of the Binance.com trading platform, the most used cryptocurrency exchange in the world. It initially functioned on the Ethereum blockchain network as an ERC-20 token, offering incentives to owners like reduced trading fees, affiliate rewards, or a lottery ticket system ('Launchpad') that let users invest in new, Binance-selected crypto projects. In 2019, however, BNB moved away from the Ethereum network and migrated to Binance's self-developed blockchain: Binance Smart Chain, or BSC (called BNB Chain since February 2022). Here, BNB started to support a chain that initially did not focus on hosting decentralized apps but focused on high transaction speed and being able to handle large amounts of traffic.DeFi and GameFi: the main segments for BNBBSC, however, made significant strides in 2021, partly due to traffic overload and high gas prices on Ethereum, as well as the growing interest in both Decentralized Finance (DeFI) and NFTs. Much like Cardano, Solana, and Terra, Binance Smart Chain consequently became a valid alternative to Ethereum. The total value locked (TVL) of BNBs blockchain within DeFi, for example, ranked only behind that of Terra and Ethereum in early 2022. Another area where Binance's blockchain and token play a significant role is that of GameFi, or 'play-to-earn' blockchain games that are powered by cryptocurrencies. Some of the more well-known and most popular NFT games, like Alien Worlds and Axie Infinity, run on the blockchain behind BNB.

Authors, through Twitter API, collected this database over eight months. These data are tweets of over 50 experts regarding market analysis of 40 cryptocurrencies. These experts are known as influencers on social networks such as Twitter. The theory of Behavioral economics shows that the opinions of people, especially experts, can impact the stock market trend (here, cryptocurrencies). Existing databases often cover tweets related to one or more cryptocurrencies. Also, in these databases, no attention is paid to the user's expertise, and most of the data is extracted using hashtags. Failure to pay attention to the user's expertise causes the irrelevant volume to increase and the neutral polarity to increase considerably. This database has a main table named "Tweets1" with 11 columns and 40 tables to separate comments related to each cryptocurrency. The columns of the main table and the cryptocurrency tables are explained in the attached document. Researchers can use this dataset in various machine learning tasks, such as sentiment analysis and deep transfer learning with sentiment analysis. Also, this data can be used to check the impact of influencers' opinions on the cryptocurrency market trend. The use of this database is allowed by mentioning the source. Also, in this version, we have added the excel version of the database and Python code to extract the names of influencers and tweets. in Version(3): In the new version, three datasets related to historical prices and sentiments related to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance have been added as Excel files from January 1, 2023, to June 12, 2023. Also, two datasets of 52 influential tweets in cryptocurrencies have been published, along with the score and polarity of sentiments regarding more than 300 cryptocurrencies from February 2021 to June 2023. Also, two Python codes related to the sentiment analysis algorithm of tweets with Python have been published. This algorithm combines RoBERTa pre-trained deep neural network and BiGRU deep neural network with an attention layer (see code Preprocessing_and_sentiment_analysis with python).

Following NFT hype and growing demand in the DeFi community, the price of cryptocurrency Solana, or SOL, more than tripled during the summer of 2021. This had all but evaporated by the end of 2022, as a price of 176.91 U.S. dollars for SOL on July 20, 2025, was similar to the price of Solana in early 2021. The collapse of crypto trader FTX in 2022 especially impacted the cryptocurrency, as FTX and its sister firm Alameda Research sold a large amount of the coin to avoid bankruptcy. The Solana protocol is similar to Ethereum in that it can allow for non-fungible tokens to be created ('minted') or traded. Solana, however, uses a technology called 'PoH' or Proof of History, which allows it to reach high transaction speeds. The Solana Foundation, the creators of the protocol, based in Switzerland, claims they could reach up to 65,000 transactions per second compared to 16 for Ethereum. Additionally, Solano had no transaction fees or 'gas', unlike Ethereum, which had growing transaction costs. These two reasons combined - Solana being deemed cheaper and faster than Ethereum - turned this relatively young protocol into a breeding ground for NFT projects in August 2021.

The price of the cryptocurrency based on the famous internet meme broke its price decline in early November 2022, as people started buying the coin after FTX's collapse. This rally only lasted for a few days, however, as a Dogecoin was worth roughly 0.24 U.S. dollars on July 20, 2025. This is a different development than in 2021, when the crypto became very popular in a short amount of time. Between January 28 and January 29, 2021, Dogecoin's value grew by around 216 percent to 0.023535 U.S. dollars after comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The digital coin quickly grew to become the most talked-about cryptocurrency available, not necessarily for its price - the prices of Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), and several other virtual currencies were much higher than those of DOGE - but for its growth.

Ripple, or XRP, prices surged in 2021 but went down significantly as 2022 progressed. As of July 20, 2025, one XRP token was worth 3.43 U.S. dollars. Ethereum's price, for example, kept on reaching new all-time highs, a feat not performed by XRP. Indeed, XRP's price spikes followed relatively late - only occurring in early 2021, against late 2020 for most other cryptos - after the US SEC filed a legal complaint against Ripple in November 2020. This legal action caused the XRP price to plummet from around 0.70 U.S. dollars to 0.20 U.S. dollars.Ripple versus XRP: two become oneTechnically speaking, Ripple is not a cryptocurrency. Renamed from a protocol called OpenCoin in 2013, Ripple facilitates open-source payments. XRP, on the other hand, is the cryptocurrency that runs on this network. In that sense, Ripple and XRP have a similar symbiosis to each other, like the Ethereum network and its cryptocurrency, Ether. Unlike Ethereum - whose price changes are connected to the world of Decentralized Finance or DeFI - Ripple/XRP mostly looks at developments in cross-border payments for companies. In 2020, companies worldwide began to favor fintech solutions for future B2B solutions and, in a way, Ripple is an extension of that.What affects the price of Ripple?Ripple is mostly active in Southeast Asia - a region with a splintered payment landscape and that heavily investigates its own types of state-issued cryptocurrency to make cross-border payments a lot easier. Price spikes tend to follow news on this topic in this specific region. In 2019, for example, the XRP price grew after Japan and South Korea began testing to reduce time and costs for transferring international funds between the two countries. In March 2021, Ripple announced that it had agreed to acquire 40 percent of Malaysian cross-border payments firm Tranglo to meet growing demand in Southeast Asia.

Memecoin Shiba Inu saw its price grow by more than 300 percent within one and the same month, marking a trading fury reminiscent of Dogecoin in early 2021. Indeed, the SHIB coin ranked as one of the biggest crypto in the world based on 24h trading volume in October 2021 - with trading activity being almost as high as that of Ethereum. Originally starting out as a fun token based on the famous Japanese dog breed, the digital currency grabbed mainstream attention in 2021 probably due to its low barrier of entry: Even after its price spikes, Shiba Inu was one of the cheapest coins available, especially when compared to the price of 99 other cryptocurrencies. Combine this with survey information that most consumers in the U.S. and the UK invest in crypto either for growth or fun, and Shiba Inu is probably seen by many as a relatively simple, "quick win" investment. As of May 19, 2025, the price of one million Shiba Inu is 14.08.

Swiss cryptocurrency Cardano (ADA) witnessed a price surge of nearly 100 percent in seven days in early February 2021, amid high interest from investors. One reason for this interest is the digital coin's close relation to Ethereum (ETH), as mathematician Charles Hoskinson co-founded both virtual currencies. Moreover, like Ethereum, ADA has an open-source format, meaning anybody can develop this currency further. As of July 20, 2025, one ADA token was worth 0.83 U.S. dollars.

Six months after its initial release, the value of cryptocurrency Polkadot was already six times higher than it was at the end of August 2020. Nicknamed 'the Ethereum Killer' by Bloomberg in December 2020, the altcoin is similar to Ethereum in that they are both open-source and are a decentralized web. Over the course of 2021, it increasingly attracted interest from crypto fund managers as they thought there were few developments in the Ethereum blockchain and the cryptocurrency from Switzerland's Web3 Foundation was a suitable alternative. By 2025, the situation had changed: As of July 20, 2025, one DOT token was worth 4.41 U.S. dollars.

How many cryptocurrencies are there? In short, there were over ***** as of June 2025, although there were many more digital coins in the early months of 2022. Note, however, that a large portion of cryptocurrencies might not be that significant. There are other estimates of roughly ****** cryptocurrencies existing, but most of these are either inactive or discontinued. Due to how open the creation process of a cryptocurrency is, it is relatively easy to make one. Indeed, the top 20 cryptocurrencies make up nearly ** percent of the total market. Why are there thousands of cryptocurrencies? Any private individual or company that knows how to write a program on a blockchain can technically create a cryptocurrency. That blockchain can be an existing one. Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain are popular blockchain platforms for such ends, including smart contracts within Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The ease of crypto creation allows some individuals to find solutions to real-world payment problems while others hope to make a quick profit. This explains why some crypto lack utility. Meme coins such as Dogecoin - named after a Japanese dog species - are an infamous example, with Dogecoin's creator coming out and stating the coin started as a joke. The many types of cryptocurrency Meme coins are but one group of cryptocurrencies. Other types include altcoins, utility tokens, governance tokens, and stablecoins. Altcoins are often measured against Bitcoin, as this refers to all crypto that followed Bitcoin - the first digital currency ever created. Utility tokens and governance tokens are somewhat connected to NFTs and the metaverse. A specific example is the MANA cryptocurrency, which allows real estate purchases in the Decentraland metaverse. Stablecoins refer to the likes of Tether, which are pegged to a real-world asset like the U.S. dollar. Such coins are meant to be less volatile than regular cryptocurrency.

Ethereum, Solana, and Tron together made up a large majority of the DeFi industry's total value locked (TVL) in 2025. TVL is the closest metric within the DeFi world to an overall market size. The volatile nature of developments in this new market can also be seen in the transaction volume of NFT for various segments. As Ethereum is the main blockchain powering transactions for decentralized finance, price developments of this particular cryptocurrency can have a big impact on DeFi: On September 10, 2021, Ethereum's TVL decreased by over ** billion U.S. dollars due to an overnight price drop.

The market size of decentralized finance market size declined to less than ** billion U.S. dollars come April 2023. This is a significant change from 2021, when the size of the decentralized finance market reached heights it had not reached before. The DeFi market was especially impacted by the crash for Terra (LUNA) and its stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) in May 2022 - with uncertainty still being present in June 2022 when coins such as USDD lost their peg to the U.S. dollar. Moreover, a declining crypto market also impacts DeFi. As Ethereum is the main blockchain powering transactions for decentralized finance, price developments of this particular cryptocurrency can have a big impact. As of July 22, 2025, the market size has increased significantly to approximately ****** billion U.S. dollars.

In May 2022, over ***** billion Terra Classic – the 1.0 version of LUNA - tokens were issued and went into active circulation in a few days. The cryptocurrency’s built-in algorithm triggered this correction following the coin’s significant price drop that month. Terra’s algorithm would "burn" (permanently destroying) LUNA so that it created something else instead: TerraUSD (UST), a stablecoin within the same blockchain. This automated system was meant to keep the price of UST level, potentially avoiding economic sentiment. Because of this initial promise of stability, Terra and its two coins initially played a significant role in crypto lending. The poster child of algorithmic stablecoins Up until May 2022, TerraUSD (UST) was the biggest stablecoin that functioned with an algorithm. At the end of April 2022, the market cap of TerraUSD – now TerraClassicUSD – was *** times larger than what it was one month later, comparable in size to Binance USD. Algorithmic stablecoins are relatively new and, as most stablecoins, have an external asset as collateral. Several of the biggest stablecoins in the world, for example, are backed by real-world U.S. dollar assets, such as cash or securities. Others – such as DAI – rely on the backing of other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum (ETH). TerraUSD had little to no backing, relying on a closed ecosystem. Reset or revival: The LUNA (2.0) aftermath Terra got reset on May 28, 2022: A new *** coin released – taking over the Terra (LUNA) name - whilst the "original" crypto was abandoned and became Terra Classic (LUNC). TerraUSD (UST) remained but became TerraClassicUSD (USTC). Several of the *** LUNA holders, however, hoped for a different solution, rather seeing the (***) coin’s supply be bought back by the company who issued them. The company would then burn them, hopefully restoring the price of the original LUNA. Do Kown, the CEO of the Terra system, stated his company did not have the funds for such a big undertaking. He instead shared a blockchain address on Twitter where individuals could burn their tokens themselves. By June 2022, roughly **** LUNA tokens were destroyed that way – a burn rate of roughly ***** percent compared to the overall circulating supply.