There are differences of up to 2 million ETH between the multiple results. The supply figure is “an estimate”, according to Vitalik Buterin.

Since last August 7th, there has been a controversy over the supply of Ether (ETH) on Ethereum, which seems to be close to 112 million. However, the figure may vary depending on the block explorer or website consulted.

Ethereum does not have a mechanism to calculate the supply as Bitcoin does. There is disinterest in the verifiability of the supply in the attitude of Ethereum leaders and the community. This contrasts with the importance that bitcoiners give to transparency in issuance and circulation.

At the time of writing this article, Etherscan.io provides the following result: 112,134,530.78 ETH. This amount includes 72,009,990.50 ETH of the Genesis block that the Ethereum Foundation maintains (64.2%) and 40,115,806.10 ETH generated as mining rewards (35.8%).

However, when consulting CoinMarketCap and Messari, they show 112,125,823 ETH and 111,549,784 ETH, respectively. CoinMarketCap is very close to Etherscan, but Messari is behind by more than 500,000 ETH.

This discrepancy of 500,000 ETH, at a price close to USD 400, leads to a not insignificant difference in the market capitalization, since it is close to USD 260 million.

Whilst CoinMarketCap indicates that Ether’s capitalization is USD 44,509.12 million, Messari shows that it is USD 44,251.84 million. At least, there is a difference of no less than USD 257.28 million.

Bitcoin’s Transparency

Bitcoiner Michael Goldstein explains that it is only necessary to provide a specific command, gettxoutsetinfo, via the Bitcoin client command line. This allows anyone with access to a node to obtain a set of basic Bitcoin statistics, including the total supply, without trusting third parties.

On August 7th, the also bitcoiner Pierre Rochard offered one million satoshis (about USD 120) to whoever sent a script that would calculate the supply of Ether. He received two responses, but the results did not match.

Vitalik Buterin’s Opinion

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin did not consider as important the remarks about a lack of accuracy to offer an indisputable figure for the supply of Ether.

Buterin showed a CoinMarketCap line graph where the price and supply of Ether appear along with other variables. He stated that it does take into account the supply of Ether and then said something that created even more controversy.

Concerning why Ethereum enthusiasts did not seem concerned about the remarks on inaccuracy, Buterin said that they knew what the protocol rules stated about the supply of Ether.

Right now, Ethereum is going through a major transition process. From a technical point of view, it aims to change the consensus mechanism from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS). This process should be consolidated at the beginning of 2021, with the launch of Ethereum 2.0.

On the other hand, there has been pronounced decentralized finance (DeFi) boom on Ethereum. For example, this has enabled the development of lending platforms that handle collateral funds in Ether worth billions of US dollars.

By Alexander Salazar

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