November 15, 2024
Ethereum is a leading blockchain project that has a special role in the industry. Unlike Bitcoin, it has smart contract features that make it possible for developers to build decentralized applications (dApps). Ethereum has a substantial market share in key industries like Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), and games, among others. This article will explore how many ETH there are.
Ethereum and Bitcoin are the two biggest cryptocurrencies in the world. Combined, the two coins have a total market cap of over $524 billion, which is about 57% of the combined crypto market cap of all coins in the industry.
The two cryptocurrencies have substantial differences. For one, Bitcoin is based on the proof-of-work (PoW) technology, while Ethereum is based on the proof-of-stake (PoS) technology. In addition, Bitcoin does not have smart contract features. As such, it is not possible for developers to build applications on top of it.
Following the “merge”, Ethereum also introduced staking to its platform. Staking helps to secure the network by locking your coins for a certain period through an exchange. In October 2022, the total ETH staked was over 15 million, worth over $19.2 billion.
Ethereum has been used to build many well-known blockchain projects, including Compound, Aave, Uniswap, and Maker.
Traders and investors can buy Ethereum online on over 600 online exchanges that exist today.
One thing that makes Bitcoin unique is that it has a finite supply of 21 million. As a result, these are the only coins that will ever exist. There is also a likelihood that miners will produce all those coins because of the rising mining difficulty.
Ethereum, on the other hand, has no supply limit. The first block produced about 72 million coins in 2015. These initial coins were used to fund the development of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and the ecosystem.
According to CoinMarketCap, there are over 122.8 million ETH in circulation. As shown below, there are over 7,100 Ethereum blocks confirmed per day.
Ethereum blocks per day
According to EtherScan, there are almost 2 million Ethereum holders globally. The biggest holder is the Beacon Deposit Contract that has over 14.4 million coins worth over $18 billion. It is followed by Wrapped Ether, which has 4.14 million coins worth over $5.3 billion. Other large holders are exchanges like Binance, Kraken, Bitfinex, and Gemini.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, is also one of the world’s largest Ethereum holders. He is said to hold 355k coins valued $454 million. At the height of Ethereum’s value, he was worth more than $1.7 billion.
The merge is a major event that transitioned Ethereum from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) platform. As a result, the supply dynamics changed when the “merge” happened. One major change is that the number of ETH issued per day fell by about 90% to about 1,600.
Another main change was the introduction of burning. Burning is a process where some ETH coins are removed from circulation completely. This burning includes the base fee for each transaction. The small fee fluctuates based on market activity.
Reduction of supply also happens in cases where validators stay offline for a long time or when they break specific rules that threaten network security. It is estimated that over 800,000 ETH will be burned every year.
The number of Ethereum in circulation has been on an upward trend in the past few years. This trend will likely continue over the years. However, this growth will be offset by burning and potential higher demand as key sectors like gaming and DeFi grow.
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