Ethereum

What is Ethereum (ETH)?

ETH is the native currency of Ethereum, the leading smart contract network and top blockchain by settlement volume.

Who created Ethereum?

Ethereum was co-founded by eight developers in 2014, before launching on mainnet in 2015. Of the project’s co-founders, only Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s chief scientist, continues to work on the blockchain to this day. The Ethereum network is maintained by developers employed by the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss-based non-profit organization launched in 2014.

Ethereum was among an initial cohort of web3 projects seeking to facilitate the execution of smart contracts, which describe self-executing autonomous code deployed on a network, that sprung up in 2014. Smart contracts were first theorized in an academic paper written by cypherpunk and computer scientist, Nick Szabo, in 1994.

How does Ethereum work?

ETH is used to pay the transaction fees associated with deploying and interacting with smart contracts on the Ethereum network. ETH is also issued as rewards for validators. Ethereum started life as a Proof of Work network secured by miners, but later transitioned to a Proof of Stake model in 2022.

Unlike Bitcoin, which primarily serves as a payments network for a digital currency, Ethereum’s core smart contract engine — the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — facilitates the creation of decentralized applications (dApps) that permissionlessly automate complex transactions and processes. Developers can also launch a wide variety of assets called tokens on Ethereum.

What is the maximum supply of ETH?

Ethereum has a potentially infinite supply, with the rate of new ETH issuance adapting to the number of Ether locked up for staking.

Notably, ETH has trended deflationary since the network adopted Proof of Stake consensus. This means that the number of ETH in circulation is decreasing over time, owing to the network beginning to burn base transaction fees from August 2021, combined with a sharp decrease in the number of new ETH entering supply following Ethereum’s Proof of Stake transition.

As of June 10, 2024, the supply of ETH had fallen by 370,826 coins or 0.3% since Proof of Stake was activated on Sept. 15, 2022.

What are the benefits of using Ethereum?

Due to Ethereum’s decentralized and permissionless nature, any developer can deploy dApps or tokens on Ethereum, while any user can interact with dApps on the network. Ethereum’s dApp ecosystem began to proliferate amid the “DeFi Summer” of 2020, which led to an explosion in the number of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications launching on the network — enabling users to perform and interact with financial applications in a decentralized environment.

While the recent popularity of Ethereum led to the network encountering scalability bottlenecks during the 2021 bull market, developers are now working to achieve high transaction throughput through an ecosystem of Layer 2 networks leveraging Ethereum for security and settlement.

What are the risks of using Ethereum?

Cryptocurrencies are subject to significant price volatility. Centralized exchanges pose counterparty risk to users, while non-custodial wallets can be targeted by hackers and scammers, and can be lost forever if a user fails to securely store their private keys. Some legal jurisdictions have also sought to crack down on cryptocurrency trading and related activities.

What is ETH’s historic price range?

ETH tagged an all-time low of $0.433 on Oct. 20, 2015, and posted a record high of $4,878.26 on Nov. 10, 2021.