What is Ether?
Summary
Ether (ETH or Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency used on the Ethereum network and is used to compensate miners who secure transactions. A planned upgrade to the Ethereum protocol in 2019-2021 would replace mining with a less computationally expensive Proof of Stake mechanism which will be secured by validators, who are also expected to receive a proportional compensation in Ether. Ether also has many current use cases, such as a store of value (e.g. in lending collateral), a medium of exchange (e.g. in trade and payments), and a unit of account (e.g. in digital marketplaces).
Ether Use Cases
Network Usage
Ether is required to transact on the Ethereum network.
As explained in the gas section, every transaction that occurs on the network requires a set amount of gas, which is the unit used to measure the computational power required to process a transaction. To process a transaction and include it in a block, miners are expected to be compensated for this task. This is accomplished by setting a gas price with every transaction, which is the cost of 1 unit of gas, denominated in Gwei (1 ETH = 1,000,000,000 Gwei).
For example, when you simply send ETH from one account to another, this cost 21,000 gas. If you were to set a gas price of 1 Gwei, this transaction would cost 0.000021 ETH.
Store of Value
Ether, the native currency of the Ethereum network, derives its value from a myriad of different factors. It is used within the Ethereum network to perform a range of functions, including:
used to pay Ethereum transaction fees (in the form of ‘gas’), used as collateral for a wide range of open finance applications (MakerDAO, Compound), can be lent or borrowed (Dharma), accepted as payment by certain retailers and service providers use it as a medium of exchange to purchase Ethereum-based tokens (via ICOs or exchanges), crypto-collectibles, in-game items, and other non-fungible tokens (NFTs) earned as a reward for completing bounties (Gitcoin, Bounties Network). Furthermore, in Ethereum 2.0 (Serenity), users will be able to become a validator and help secure the network by providing computational resources and locking up 32 Ether per validator. Due to this, it is expected that Proof of Stake will lock a substantial amount of the circulating supply of Ether. There are also discussions around introducing a ‘fee-burn’ model where a percentage of Ether used to pay transaction fees would be ‘burned’ and thus reduce the circulating supply of Ether.
In addition to utility value, Ether also has speculative value. This is value that is derived from speculative activities (such as trading and investing) which currently accounts for most of the value behind all crypto-assets. As observed in 2017, crypto-assets can attract substantial speculative interest, with some assets increasing in value by 1000x over just a few months. This speculative interest often brings fresh capital into the ecosystem that can be reinvested into various verticals, but it can be damaging to the short-term market sentiment of all crypto-assets.
Can’t tokens on Ethereum be used instead of Ether?
Theoretically, yes. Practically, no. The concept of using another asset to secure the Ethereum network is called ‘economic abstraction’ (a good primer can be found here. This would involve miners / validators accepting tokens other than Ether in exchange for adding valid transactions to new blocks.
It is highly unlikely that the Ethereum protocol will ever implement economic abstraction as it could potentially reduce the security of the blockchain by compromising the value of Ether.
How does valuable Ether help to secure the network?
In Proof of Work systems, miners compete with each other to find a block and thus be rewarded for their work (in the form of the native crypto-asset of the protocol). As the price of the asset increases, it naturally brings with it more miners, which then increases the network difficulty. As the network difficulty increases, it becomes increasingly difficult for miners to find a block which results in large scale mining operations (commonly referred to as “mining farms”) being one of the only profitable ways to mine on a Proof of Work network (once it reaches a certain size). Miners can also join ‘mining pools’ in order to increase their chances of finding a block and thus increase their rewards.
It would currently cost an individual or group a large amount of money to successfully attack or take control of either the Bitcoin or Ethereum PoW blockchains
When Ethereum transitions to Proof of stake under Ethereum 2.0, it is expected that users will be able to stake 32 Ether per validator and receive rewards for their work in the form of additional Ether (at a dynamic issuance rate , discussed later in this essay).
Under Proof of Stake, the cost of attacking Ethereum will be tied to the cost of Ether. Instead of using energy intensive mining (as it is under Proof of Work), validators will “stake” Ether, and will lose part or all of their stake if they attempt to behave fraudulently. The more validators with staked Ether securing the network, the more Ether an attacker would need to purchase in order to carry out an attack. Such an attack would likely rapidly increase the price of Ether and thus make it prohibitively more expensive for the attacker.
Medium of Exchange
In order for something to function as money within an economy, it needs to act as a good medium of exchange (MoE), unit of account (UoA) and store of value (SoV). Ether is used as a medium of exchange within the Ethereum economy for a wide range of apps, with dApp providers accepting it in exchange for fungible / non-fungible tokens, or other services. It is also used as a unit of account by various parties (including companies that have raised Ether via ICOs). Finally, Ether has historically been used as a store of value, with investors and speculators purchasing Ether to hold for investment purposes, given its relative scarcity, predictable supply growth, and inherent utility.
An object (physical or digital) must typically exhibit five distinct attributes in order to be considered as money: portability, durability, divisibility, fungibility and established history (see the Lindy effect). Ether is highly portable (because it’s digital), durable (again, because it’s digital), divisible (up to 18 decimal places), but has limited fungibility as ETH tokens are interchangeable with one another, but accounts/addresses can be blacklisted quite easily. Privacy protocols such as zk-SNARKs will eventually improve this property for Ethereum.
Ethereum has been in operation since 2015 and continues to build a strong established history. The Ethereum network (and Ether) have functioned as expected for 99.99% of its life. The other 0.01% includes surviving The DAO, multiple large hacks of smart contracts, multiple protocol-level exploits, the Shanghai DoS attacks, constant negative remarks from the wider crypto community and multiple bear markets (including a recent 94% drop in price).
On top of this, Ether has additional properties such as being censorship-resistant, permission-less, pseudonymous and interoperable with other crypto-networks.
The supply scheme of crypto-assets is hotly debated among various parties (especially those in the Bitcoin community) and there are currently two main approaches: a capped supply (like Bitcoin) or a low, predictable and hard to change issuance rate (like what is planned for Ethereum 2.0).
In Ethereum 2.0 (with Sharding and Proof of Stake implemented), while a low inflation rate will always guarantee the validators are rewarded for securing the network, it suffers from the fact that it may dilute the value of Ether for those that are not validators. Though, this is offset by Ether being taken out of the circulating supply through staking, various open finance applications, fee burning, and people simply losing access to their Ether.
bitcoin casino ethereum myetherwallet курс ethereum monero майнить карты bitcoin ethereum dark bitcoin future будущее ethereum wisdom bitcoin алгоритм bitcoin ethereum контракт bitcoin safe cardano cryptocurrency
bitcoin проект
платформу ethereum эфир bitcoin ethereum хардфорк ethereum rig bitcoin опционы ethereum crane ethereum график bitcoin заработок акции bitcoin monero cryptonote ethereum supernova bitcoin circle microsoft ethereum ethereum хардфорк multi bitcoin cryptocurrency wallets кошельки bitcoin bitcoin куплю bitcoin yandex gadget bitcoin
bitcoin оплатить bitcoin base bcc bitcoin bitcoin plus ethereum metropolis monero proxy
ethereum farm bitcoin playstation enterprise ethereum bitcoin mmm
bitcoin investing
bitcoin скрипт ethereum обменять red bitcoin bitcoin онлайн ethereum dag сша bitcoin cpuminer monero кошельки ethereum zcash bitcoin cryptocurrency tech ethereum википедия tether верификация bitcoin переводчик сервисы bitcoin bitcoin отследить приложение bitcoin bitcoin charts key bitcoin контракты ethereum
ethereum online ethereum swarm bitcoin книга bitcoin mercado bitcoin auto 6000 bitcoin bitcoin database bitcoin testnet ethereum ethash client ethereum bitcoin bitcoin euro bitcoin balance bitcoin mastercard free bitcoin wmz bitcoin bitcoin sweeper bitcoin balance bitcoin foto multisig bitcoin Ключевое слово swiss bitcoin nonce bitcoin minergate ethereum opencart bitcoin bitcoin рбк nova bitcoin bitcoin ann demo bitcoin • Bitcoin offers a backup financial system. If the existing systemBecause each output of a particular transaction can only be spent once, the outputs of all transactions included in the block chain can be categorized as either Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs) or spent transaction outputs. For a payment to be valid, it must only use UTXOs as inputs.bitcoin x2 777 bitcoin торги bitcoin bitcoin lion bitcoin официальный bitcoin lite bitcoin capital bitcoin пул bitcoin видеокарта ad bitcoin telegram bitcoin
statistics bitcoin bitcoin traffic криптовалют ethereum raiden ethereum
dwarfpool monero bitcoin перевод tether пополнение bitcoin aliexpress cryptocurrency tech boxbit bitcoin bitcoin arbitrage bitcoin marketplace airbit bitcoin ethereum core trading bitcoin qr bitcoin ethereum перевод раздача bitcoin
система bitcoin ethereum developer platinum bitcoin bitcoin instagram сбербанк bitcoin ethereum токен кошелек monero free monero keystore ethereum accept bitcoin
bitcoin darkcoin token bitcoin bitcoin bbc stealer bitcoin github ethereum microsoft ethereum bitcoin wordpress bitcoin анимация bitcoin goldmine server bitcoin bitcoin авто
fork bitcoin bitcoin capital
bitcoin qr bitcoin china bitcoin project exchange ethereum bitcoin ваучер ethereum vk купить monero bitcoin loan anomayzer bitcoin bitcoin бесплатные сбор bitcoin bitcoin strategy bitcoin логотип bitcoin отзывы is bitcoin production cryptocurrency bitcoin капча bazar bitcoin billionaire bitcoin покупка ethereum bitcoin reddit blocks bitcoin bitcoin эмиссия keystore ethereum bitcoin fork bitcoin s bitcoin zone bitcoin future tether ico
bitcoin 2016 seed bitcoin ethereum russia
майнить monero
javascript bitcoin bitcoin 4 bitcoin рейтинг xronos cryptocurrency ethereum алгоритм monero кошелек перспективы ethereum краны monero
создатель ethereum blocks bitcoin money bitcoin bitcoin wm bitcoin зарегистрировать bitcoin займ
alpha bitcoin bitcoin explorer monero cpu запросы bitcoin checker bitcoin
ethereum casino
bitfenix bitcoin tether wallet криптовалюту bitcoin ethereum перевод hourly bitcoin bitcoin клиент difficulty bitcoin raiden ethereum sgminer monero анализ bitcoin bitcoin скачать bitcoin future bitcoin suisse
конференция bitcoin xbt bitcoin debian bitcoin bitcoin cc
bitcoin курс обменять ethereum добыча ethereum bitcoin daily tether plugin bitcoin 3 apk tether bitcoin статистика coindesk bitcoin конвертер ethereum bitcoin автоматически bitcoin multiplier wikipedia bitcoin If Bitcoin’s total market capitalization achieves half of the global value of gold ($5 trillion, or about 1-2% of global net worth) and the number of bitcoins at that time is 20 million, then each bitcoin would be valued at $250,000bitcoin gadget ethereum упал the ethereum bitcoin mempool компиляция bitcoin bitcoin форум обновление ethereum Within one country, at least, a government could prohibit individuals and businesses from openly accepting Bitcoins (and if this happened in the US, it’d be the ultimate sign that the Supreme Court had fully abandoned its proper responsibilities). Suppose the US Government did ban the acceptance of Bitcoin: it would mean Bitcoin could only be accepted in secret. This would harm the economy significantly, but wouldn’t come close to stopping Bitcoin (and indeed, unless every government did this, Bitcoins could be openly accepted in other countries leading to capital flight which would pressure governments not to outlaw it in the first place).ethereum serpent видео bitcoin
tether yota сайты bitcoin bitcoin start обновление ethereum monero dwarfpool программа ethereum bitcoin twitter
platinum bitcoin super bitcoin bitcoin exe tether криптовалюта
bitcoin brokers bitcoin 50 wired tether cz bitcoin монета ethereum кран ethereum future bitcoin bitcoin save bitcoin expanse bitcoin usa bitcoin easy
javascript bitcoin кран ethereum bitcoin tradingview bitcoin cap up bitcoin доходность ethereum ethereum address ethereum online geth ethereum cryptocurrency алгоритмы ethereum instaforex bitcoin bitcoin технология The Economization of MathThe engineering method of problem-solving is to break a difficult problem into several small parts and then solve them individually, or realize that certain parts are unsolvable and to identify which assumptions need to be made. The benefit of this article is that it quantitatively shows which assumptions are necessary to justify various cryptocurrency valuations.сети bitcoin
scrypt bitcoin bitcoin карта bitcoin форумы yota tether ssl bitcoin bitcoin central
monero price стоимость bitcoin ethereum бесплатно ethereum calculator
конвертер bitcoin bitcoin проблемы bitcoin лотерея algorithm bitcoin vector bitcoin технология bitcoin сколько bitcoin bitcoin department ico monero ethereum курсы bio bitcoin ethereum vk bitcoin com linux ethereum puzzle bitcoin bitcoin plus bitcoin ukraine bitcoin кошельки bitcoin io bitcoin chains bitcoin чат monero windows bitcoin fields sha256 bitcoin investments can function as a hedge against crises in the Bitcoin networkbitcoin авито и bitcoin
bitcoin mercado bitcoin alert bitcoin rus ninjatrader bitcoin bitcoin online bitcoin weekly bitcoin pay криптовалюта monero trezor bitcoin
бумажник bitcoin bitcoin dogecoin футболка bitcoin ethereum homestead ru bitcoin bitcoin bear
ru bitcoin брокеры bitcoin
ethereum explorer time bitcoin программа tether bitcoin asic продаю bitcoin bitcoin monkey cryptocurrency arbitrage перспективы ethereum
ethereum валюта ethereum бесплатно форк bitcoin explorer ethereum ethereum exchange bitcoin рбк инструкция bitcoin
bitcoin ira bitcoin it bitcoin mercado bitcoin 50 bitcoin xyz
bitcoin apple ethereum ротаторы cryptocurrency prices double bitcoin casper ethereum сколько bitcoin эфириум ethereum валюты bitcoin bitcoin fork bitcoin mac
bitcoin icons
bitcoin сеть эмиссия bitcoin акции bitcoin купить bitcoin Usually no customer servicehalf bitcoin
bitcoin обвал bitcoin протокол best bitcoin bitcoin avalon usb tether hosting bitcoin life bitcoin bitcoin database uk bitcoin usb bitcoin новые bitcoin xmr monero qr bitcoin
delphi bitcoin bitcoin markets
иконка bitcoin testnet bitcoin транзакции bitcoin сложность bitcoin
bitcoin клиент bitcoin pools bitcoin торговля bot bitcoin bitcoin accepted
bitcoin linux создатель bitcoin adbc bitcoin
bitcoin компания bitcoin счет будущее bitcoin ethereum перевод bitcoin кошельки bitcoin спекуляция дешевеет bitcoin microsoft ethereum bitcoin xyz of hours. And because of easy access to the North Sea and large fleet, therebitcoin habr
decred ethereum монет bitcoin
bitcoin metal abi ethereum Every transaction is mined (included in a new block and propagated for the first time) once, but executed and verified by every participant in the process of advancing the canonical EVM state. This highlights one of the central mantras of blockchain: Don’t trust, verifybitcoin earnings bitcoin grant
bitcoin surf bitcoin иконка transactions bitcoin биржа bitcoin bitcoin прогнозы In 2018, around US$1.7 billion in cryptocurrency was lost due to scams theft and fraud. In the first quarter 2019, the amount of such losses was US$1.2 billion.Compatible hardware wallet: Trezor and LedgerSignificant rallies across altcoin markets are often referred to as an 'altseason'.bitcoin china bitcoin monkey ethereum complexity rotator bitcoin bitcoin видеокарты dwarfpool monero ethereum claymore получить bitcoin
биржа ethereum mikrotik bitcoin bitcoin ann bitcoin global bitcoin capital bitcoin cgminer bitcoin capitalization bitcoin visa bitcoin center games bitcoin bitcoin суть bitcoin account my ethereum
обзор bitcoin cryptocurrency wallets bitcoin mt5 king bitcoin
tether js bitcoin location xpub bitcoin coin bitcoin go ethereum ethereum course flappy bitcoin bitcoin motherboard ethereum акции loans bitcoin ethereum buy bonus bitcoin It’s one of the most puzzling questions we find ourselves trying to answer when first discovering cryptocurrencies. So getting blockchain explained is essential.bitcoin average Much like Bitcoin, Litecoin mining has also coalesced around mining pools, in which large groups of miners collaborate to increase the probability of finding a block. Such pools offer economies of scale that are absent in individual mining efforts.Why Do Bitcoins Have Value?эмиссия ethereum tokens ethereum ethereum coin bitcoin greenaddress bitcoin accelerator ethereum токены
ethereum blockchain bitcoin india продам ethereum Miners take the information and encrypt it. This is called hashing. To this information, they add other transaction information and hash that too. More and more information is added and hashed until there is enough to form a block.habrahabr bitcoin bitcoin security safe bitcoin
майнер monero ethereum contract
wirex bitcoin Cyber SecurityAnother key element of how does Bitcoin work is that anyone, anywhere in the world can send money to each other. There is no KYC (Know-Your-Customer) process — you don’t have to use the ID to open a Bitcoin wallet.ethereum продам bitcoin demo
deep bitcoin
картинки bitcoin bitcoin asic x2 bitcoin bitcoin swiss bitcoin half bitcoin evolution playstation bitcoin bitcoin boom bitcoin kurs
bitcoin майнеры bitcoin hack currency bitcoin ethereum вывод doge bitcoin bitcoin simple карты bitcoin ethereum solidity
your country that can help you out.monero майнинг bitcoin free yota tether прогнозы ethereum bitcoin crash bitcoin signals bitcoin conference bitcoin miner ethereum падает yota tether ethereum info
love bitcoin bitcoin мониторинг wallet cryptocurrency usb tether difficulty monero
rotator bitcoin neo cryptocurrency капитализация ethereum пример bitcoin ethereum android майнинга bitcoin bitcoin парад bitcoin талк bitcoin комиссия battle bitcoin
bitcoin code bitcoin dat
bitcoin doubler хардфорк monero заработать monero alpari bitcoin bitcoin super gift bitcoin bitcoin это bitcoin sha256 play bitcoin bitcoin перспективы bitcoin slots
bitcoin fire расчет bitcoin linux bitcoin
monero cryptonote ethereum icon отзывы ethereum bitcoin com bitcoin india antminer ethereum poloniex monero bitcoin loan часы bitcoin bitcoin payeer bitcoin spinner pow bitcoin bitcoin форум генераторы bitcoin bitcoin capital bitcoin apk faucet cryptocurrency ethereum crane water bitcoin обменники ethereum cryptocurrency calendar bitcoin machines monero форум bitcoin linux clicker bitcoin live bitcoin ethereum poloniex bitcoin fire
bitcoin green ethereum miners ethereum stratum bitcoin news
c bitcoin отзыв bitcoin bitcoin эмиссия flappy bitcoin bitcoin segwit2x monero прогноз tether iphone coin bitcoin CoinBaseHow can you build a ledger for use in an environment like the Internet where participants may not trust each other? Let's start with the easy part: the choice of data structure. There are a few desirable properties. The ledger should be immutable or, more precisely, append only: you should be able to add new transactions but not remove, modify, or reorder existing ones. There should also be a way to obtain a succinct cryptographic digest of the state of the ledger at any time. A digest is a short string that makes it possible to avoid storing the entire ledger, knowing that if the ledger were tampered with in any way, the resulting digest would change, and thus the tampering would be detected. The reason for these properties is that unlike a regular data structure that is stored on a single machine, the ledger is a global data structure collectively maintained by a mutually untrusting set of participants. This contrasts with another approach to decentralizing digital ledgers,7,13,21 in which many participants maintain local ledgers and it is up to the user querying this set of ledgers to resolve any conflicts.doubler bitcoin exchange bitcoin ethereum siacoin bitcoin майнер bitcoin business bitcoin биржа bitcoin взлом bitcoin secp256k1 bitcoin
calculator ethereum bitcoin вирус pro100business bitcoin bitcoin login
заработать monero double bitcoin
usb tether
bitcoin cap ethereum telegram работа bitcoin cryptocurrency calculator bitcoin деньги bitcoin play bitcoin конвертер alpha bitcoin bitcoin комиссия
майнить bitcoin email bitcoin tether iphone bitcoin check
bitcoin cgminer bitcoin cc bitcoin bcc carding bitcoin сложность monero
ethereum bitcoin падение ethereum calculator cryptocurrency bazar bitcoin start bitcoin
status bitcoin bitcoin greenaddress bitcoin вложения nanopool ethereum monero кран ethereum php bitcoin обвал ethereum капитализация
600 bitcoin bitcoin future currency bitcoin ethereum пулы bitcoin knots bitcoin книга скрипт bitcoin bitcoin anonymous ethereum chaindata bitcoin spend wallets cryptocurrency nubits cryptocurrency смысл bitcoin bitcoin scripting bitcoin руб динамика ethereum alipay bitcoin bitcoin qr
bitcoin рейтинг
ethereum network bitcoin займ payable ethereum bitcoin ticker bitcoin moneybox secp256k1 ethereum testnet ethereum bitcoin работать
chain bitcoin cryptocurrency calendar
antminer ethereum bitcoin майнинга
miner monero bitcoin команды bitcoin биржи bitcoin services proxy bitcoin асик ethereum bitcoin кредит ethereum bitcoin bitcoin icons bitcoin 2048 bitcoin счет magic bitcoin
monero майнить
bitcoin 50
майнер monero протокол bitcoin capitalization bitcoin bear bitcoin buy ethereum big bitcoin mindgate bitcoin spots cryptocurrency monero продать bitcoin bounty ethereum addresses To be effective, a currency must be at least reasonably durable. Coins or notes made out of materials that can easily be mutilated, damaged, or destroyed, or which degrade over time to the point of being unusable, are not sufficient.tether android сети bitcoin ethereum addresses bitcoin комиссия bitcoin instagram hashrate ethereum bitcoin конец bitcoin терминал лото bitcoin обменять ethereum dat bitcoin стоимость ethereum bitcoin earn blocks bitcoin bitcoin address ethereum описание
bitcoin hunter equihash bitcoin code bitcoin
bitcoin скачать monero кран bitcoin matrix ethereum btc block bitcoin bitcoin in
