WETH(WETH)

Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) is quite literally Ether or ETH cryptocurrency in a wrapper designed to make it compatible with Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications. All fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain have to follow the ERC-20 standard published in 2015. However, since Ethereum was created before the development of the ERC-20 standard, it does not adhere to it.

Given how DeFi applications built on the Ethereum blockchain support ERC-20 tokens, ETH cannot natively be used to exchange for other ERC-20 tokens. Wrapping ETH into WETH makes it ERC-20 compliant and solves this issue since the value of WETH is the same as that of its underlying — ETH.

Initially created by 0x Labs, You can think of WETH as a stablecoin, like USDT, that is pegged to the U.S. Dollar, except, in this case, WETH is pegged to ETH, and WETH value depends on the price of ETH.

Apart from allowing ETH to be used within DeFi applications on Ethereum, WETH also improves the compatibility of ETH with other blockchains. For example, if you wanted to use your ETH on the Avalanche network, you'd first have to convert it to WETH before sending it to the Avalanche-Ethereum bridge. 

WETH price 

Since it is pegged 1:1 with ETH, WETH’s price movements have to mirror those of Ether. From trading over $1,000 in late January 2018, WETH price descended below $200 by August 2019, and according to our live WETH price chart, the token ended 2019 at around $125.

Since then, however, the value of WETH has surged along with the price of ETH — closing 2020 at over $700, $4,000 in May 2021 and setting a new all-time high around $4,500 in November of the same year.

Similar to its rise, the price of WETH also drops with ETH, as was seen in Q1 and Q2 of 2022, where both WETH and ETH traded well below $3,000 amidst the wider cryptocurrency drawdown.

How WETH works

To mint WETH, you need a custodian to hold your ETH as collateral — the custodian can be a smart contract, a multi-signature wallet, or a merchant. For example, if you want to mint WETH through a smart contract, you simply send your ETH and receive WETH tokens in return.

You can also directly swap your ETH tokens for WETH on exchanges like Uniswap. Different blockchains may have similar WETH versions for their native networks — there’s no strict standard for creating WETH tokens. Therefore, WETH on different blockchains may differ in technical structure, but all are nevertheless pegged to the value of Ethereum. This makes WETH interchangeable with Ethereum. 

WETH news, updates, and highlights

Crypto custodian BitGo launched WETH on the Tron blockchain in January 2021. Then there was a lull until $320 million worth of WETH was hacked through the bridge that connects Solana with other DeFi blockchain networks. This was one of the largest DeFi hacks and brought into question the security of DeFi protocols and blockchain bridges. The bridge in question, Wormhole, however, reimbursed the stolen funds within hours, much to the relief of its users. 

In the same month, crypto lender Celsius network added $30 million worth of wrapped Ether to the liquidity pools of Maple Finance, a DeFi institutional crypto lending platform. 

According to WETH’s official website, there is, hopefully, not much of a future for WETH. Currently, developers are working to make ETH compatible with the ERC-20 standards. Steps are also being taken to replace ERC-20 with the more evolved ERC-223 token standard. The latter is a superset of ERC-20 and has backward compatibility. Ultimately, as Ethereum upgrades to new token standards, WETH is likely to become obsolete.

Frequently asked questions about WETH

• Can you mine WETH?

You cannot mine WETH since these are tokenized versions of ETH. You can mint new WETH, either by exchanging ETH, BTC, and other tokens for WETH on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap or by using custodians that require ETH as collateral. 

• What are the benefits of WETH vs ETH?

You can escape the high gas fees on Ethereum during network congestion by using WETH on other blockchains that are faster and cheaper. It also increases the utility of ETH tokens by simply boosting interoperability across blockchains, like the ability to trade WETH on Solana or Avalanche without losing exposure to ETH.

• What can you do with WETH?

You can use WETH to pay gas and transaction fees on DeFi protocols and pay for goods and services. WETH is also used to make offers on NFTs sold on most marketplaces, such as OpenSea.

• How to buy WETH?

You can exchange cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH for WETH on decentralized exchanges, swap ETH through a smart contract that mints WETH, or use custodians like merchants and wallets.