EthereumBeginner
Wei
The smallest whole unit of ether: one ETH equals 10¹⁸ wei.
PLAIN-ENGLISH DEFINITION
In more detail
Contracts and node APIs usually work with whole-number amounts, not the decimal ETH figure your wallet displays. Wei makes that possible without rounding tiny amounts away. A surprisingly huge number in a transaction request might simply be an ETH amount written in wei, rather than an enormous payment.
IN THE WILD
How you might use it
A wallet displays 0.01 ETH while the transaction request records 10,000,000,000,000,000 wei.
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