What is Ethereum (ETH)?
Ether (ETH) powers Ethereum, a programmable blockchain proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2013 and launched in July 2015 by a group of co-founders. Rather than acting only as money, Ethereum runs smart contracts, which let developers deploy applications that execute exactly as written.
- Type
- Layer-1 smart contract platform
- Launched
- 2015
- Consensus
- Proof of Stake
- Max supply
- No fixed cap
- Swap network
- Ethereum
- Sector (Messari)
- Smart Contract Platform
How Ethereum works
Since the Merge in September 2022, Ethereum has been secured by Proof of Stake: validators lock up ETH, propose and attest to blocks, and can lose part of their stake for misbehaviour. Every operation on the network costs gas, which is paid in ETH and compensates validators for processing transactions.
What ETH is used for
ETH pays for transaction fees and is widely used as collateral in decentralized finance, from lending protocols to decentralized exchanges. Holders also stake it to help secure the network and earn protocol rewards.
ETH supply
Ether has no fixed maximum supply. New ETH is issued to validators, while the base fee of every transaction is burned under EIP-1559, so net supply can rise or fall depending on network activity.
Before you swap ETH
Make sure your withdrawal goes to an address on Ethereum mainnet and not to a layer-2 or another EVM network that uses the same address format. Gas prices on Ethereum fluctuate with demand, which can affect the cost of moving ETH in or out.