Wei to ETH
Live rate · updated every 60 seconds
1 wei equals
0.000000000000000001 ETH
Live · BTC $59,433 · updated just now
About this conversion
Wei to ETH conversion divides a wei amount by 10^18 to get ether. Wei is the smallest unit of ether, named after cypherpunk Wei Dai, whose b-money proposal inspired bitcoin and Ethereum. Solidity stores every ETH value as wei because integer math avoids the rounding drift that plagues floating-point decimals.
Conversion table
| wei | ETH |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.000000000000000001 ETH |
| 10 | 0.000000000000000010 ETH |
| 100 | 0.000000000000000100 ETH |
| 500 | 0.000000000000000500 ETH |
| 1,000 | 0.000000000000001000 ETH |
| 5,000 | 0.000000000000005000 ETH |
| 10,000 | 0.000000000000010000 ETH |
| 100,000 | 0.000000000000100000 ETH |
How the math works
Wei to ETH math is one operation: divide the wei value by 10^18. One ETH equals 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei (one quintillion wei). For example, 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 wei divided by 10^18 equals 5 ETH. Solidity contracts and block explorer transaction logs show raw wei integers, so dividing by 10^18 is how you read them in human ETH terms.
Common questions
How do I convert wei to ETH in code?
Most Ethereum libraries ship a built-in wei to ETH helper. Use formatEther(weiValue) in ethers.js or viem. Use web3.fromWei(weiValue, 'ether') in web3.py or web3.js. These helpers return a string to preserve precision and avoid JavaScript number overflow.
Why does Solidity use wei instead of decimal ETH?
Solidity uses wei because the EVM has no native decimal or floating-point type. All values are uint256 integers, which means math is exact and deterministic across every node. Decimals would introduce rounding errors, and consensus requires every node to compute the same result.
What is the largest wei value a uint256 can hold?
A uint256 can hold a maximum value of about 1.16 x 10^77. Total ETH supply is roughly 120 million ETH, which is about 1.2 x 10^26 wei. The uint256 ceiling is around 10^51 times larger than every wei that will ever exist, so overflow from supply alone is impossible.
Who is Wei Dai and why is the unit named after him?
Wei Dai is a computer scientist who published b-money in 1998, an early proposal for anonymous digital cash. His work influenced both bitcoin and Ethereum. Ethereum's smallest unit was named wei to honor that cypherpunk lineage, matching how bitcoin's smallest unit honors Satoshi Nakamoto.
Do block explorers show wei or ETH?
Block explorers like Etherscan show both. The summary view displays ETH for readability, but raw transaction logs, event data, and internal calls show wei integers. Developers debugging contracts read the wei values directly to verify exact amounts without rounding.
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