Eth

Eth can refer to two distinct concepts in different contexts. In the context of writing systems, eth refers to the letter ð (uppercase Ð, lowercase ð), a consonant used in Old English and Icelandic to represent the voiced dental fricative /ð/, as in "this." It originated from Latin scribal practice and medieval runic influences. In modern English usage, the character is largely obsolete, but it survives in academic transcriptions and is retained in Icelandic orthography alongside thorn (Þ/þ). In computing and encoding, the characters ð and Ð are assigned Unicode points U+00F0 and U+00D0.

Eth also denotes the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network. Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain that supports programmable smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). It was proposed in 2013–2014 and launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and others. The native token, ETH, is used to pay transaction fees, compute operations, and participate in network security and consensus. In 2022, Ethereum transitioned from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake with the Merge, reducing energy consumption and altering issuance dynamics. The network operates with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, enabling a wide range of applications including decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Ongoing scaling efforts include layer-2 solutions and planned sharding to increase throughput. ETH remains the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, and its monetary policy includes periodic issuance alongside mechanisms that burn a portion of transaction fees under EIP-1559, introducing potential deflationary pressure in some conditions.