Wei
The smallest atomic unit.
1 Ether = 1018 Wei. Gas costs returned by eth_gasPrice are in Wei as hex. Converting the raw hex gives you the exact Wei amount without rounding.
Live example0x3B9ACA00 → 1,000,000,000 Wei
Blockchain & Web3
Hex & Ethereum Web3-Leitfaden
Warum Ethereum Hex verwendet — und was Wei, Gwei und Ether bedeuten.
← KonverterGwei
The gas price standard.
EIP-1559 base fees come back as hex integers in Wei. Divide by 109 to get the Gwei figure you see on gas trackers.
Live example0x174876E800 → 100 Gwei
Ether
The account balance unit.
eth_getBalance returns hex Wei. Divide by 1018 to get the ETH figure a wallet shows the user.
Live example0xDE0B6B3A7640000 → 1 ETH
Why Ethereum chose hexadecimal.
JSON transport
JSON has no native 256-bit integer type. Ethereum represents all integers as "0x..." hex strings so they can be transmitted precisely without floating-point loss.
Compact encoding
One hex digit = 4 bits. A 32-byte hash (256 bits) becomes 64 hex characters — versus 78 decimal digits or 256 binary characters.
EVM alignment
The EVM operates on 32-byte (256-bit) words. Hex maps directly — one 64-char string = one EVM word.
Common RPC hex fields.
| RPC Method | Field | Meaning | Unit |
|---|---|---|---|
| eth_blockNumber | result | Current block height | block |
| eth_getBalance | result | Account ETH balance | Wei |
| eth_gasPrice | result | Current gas price | Wei |
| eth_getTransactionByHash | value | ETH transferred | Wei |
| eth_getTransactionByHash | gas | Gas limit | gas units |
| eth_getTransactionReceipt | gasUsed | Gas actually used | gas units |