Uploaded August 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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This video explains what the Ethereum ether denominations are.

In Ethereum the most often used denominations are ether and wei.
A wei is the smallest denomination within the Ethereum system.
It is like cents to dollars or pennies to pounds.
One dollar equals 100 cents.
One ether equals 1.000.000.000.000.000.000 wei, that is one with 18 zeros or 10^18.

Next to ether and wei the following denominations are used:
- shannon (one shannon equals 10^9 wei). Used for gas prices.
- szabo (one szabo equals 10^12 wei)
- finney (one finney equals 10^15 wei). Used for micropayment.

These denominations are confusing for the general public.
Instead metric prefixes are used, like:
Giga (G) 10^9
Mega (M) 10^6
kilo (k) 10^3
milli (m) 10^-3
micro (μ) 10^-3
nano (n) 10^-9

For example: 20 shannon = 20 Gwei = 20 x 10^9 wei

Check out all my other Ethereum related tutorial videos:
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The presentation used in this video tutorial can be found at:
mobilefish.com/developer/blockchain/blockchain_quickguide_ethereum_related_tutorials.html

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