The Ethereum blockchain is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of fraud or third party interference. These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property.

This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middleman or counterparty risk.

The Ethereum blockchain is kept running by computers all over the world. These computers are in a sort of computational race to earn ETH, the native currency of Ethereum. The more processing power they can bring to bear on the problem, the more likely they are to earn ETH.

The current reward for solving an Ethereum block is 5 ETH, plus all of the “gas” (Computation needed to run a transaction) paid by transactions included in that block. Gas prices are set by the market, and can fluctuate based on demand for computational resources.

When a computer successfully solves an Ethereum block, it is rewarded with 5 ETH plus all of the gas from transactions included in that block. The current gas price is set by the market and can fluctuate based on demand for computational resources.

The total supply of ETH is not fixed like Bitcoin’s 21 million maximum supply. Instead, ETH issuance will be capped at 18 million per year (this number equals 25% of the initial supply).

This cap applies to all ETH created through mining and fees charged by smart contracts, but does not include any ETH created as a result of protocol-level inflation (this is currently not happening on Ethereum).

The question then becomes one of whether or not this limit will be reached in practice. There are two main factors that will determine how close we get to this limit: 1) The rate at which new ETH is mined 2) The rate at which ETH is lost/destroyed

1) The rate at which new ETH is mined: Currently, the block reward is 5 ETH per block plus fees paid by transactions included in that block. This number will go down over time as part of the planned Ethereum issuance schedule.

As more blocks are mined, the total number of ETH created each year will go down until it reaches the annual cap of 18 million.

2) The rate at which ETH is lost/destroyed: Currently there is no mechanism for destroying or losingETH other than sending it to an address with no private key associated (i.e., burning it).

It’s possible that new methods for losing/destroyingETH may be developed in the future, but it’s also possible that methods for recovering lost/destroyedETH will be developed as well. In any case, it seems unlikely that the rate at whichETHis lost/destroyed will exceed the rate at which it’s mined, so it’s unlikely that we’ll ever reach the point where there’s more lost/destroyedETH than there is minedETH .

So Is The Number Of Ethereum Limited? It seems likely that we’ll never reach the point where there’s more lost/destroyed ETH than there is mined ETH , so it’s unlikely that we’ll ever reach the 18 million limit .