Determining the value of cryptocurrencies

The value of anything is dependent on supply and demand. The more people want it, the more expensive it will become as long as supply stays consistent.

In the following diagram, you can see how supply and demand affects the price of a specific cryptocurrency in relation to a stable fiat counterpart:

There are many exchanges that have their own liquidity pool where ETH has a different value, since people use different exchanges based on preference. So, how do they all synchronize to have a standard price across all of them? The truth is that they still have slightly different prices. Arbitrageurs work on keeping prices consistent; since they get paid based on the difference in price from exchange to exchange, that's the reason behind the overall stability in prices for each cryptocurrency, especially big cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, where the volume of daily exchanges in big enough to be worth the investment.

The result of price movements over time can be seen in the charts in the next section, where you can quickly analyze the value of the cryptocurrency at specific relevant historical events. Charts provide a great understanding of blockchain adoption.