Ethereum

ETH is the native coin of Ethereum, a blockchain for smart contracts and apps.

Ethereum is a public blockchain that runs programs called smart contracts. Its native asset, ether (ETH), pays the fees (gas) for every transaction and program, and it is the stake that validators lock to secure the network. The idea was set out in a whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin, and the network went live with its genesis block on 30 July 2015.

ETH has no fixed supply cap. About 72 million ETH were created at launch, mostly from a 2014 public sale. Since The Merge on 15 September 2022, the network uses proof of stake: new ETH goes only to validators as rewards for their work, while the base fee of every transaction is burned. On 16 September 2026 total supply was about 122.05 million ETH, and about 43.3 million ETH was staked.

Today Ethereum is mainly a settlement layer. It holds the largest stablecoin supply of any blockchain and hosts tokenised funds, decentralised exchanges and lending apps, many of which run on faster layer-2 networks that post their data back to Ethereum. Some of these apps, such as interest-based lending, are not Shariah-compliant, which affects the halal assessment.

No company owns Ethereum. Independent teams build its client software, and changes go through public improvement proposals. The Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss non-profit, funds research and development and describes itself as a steward rather than the network's ruler.