[Alephium](https://alephium.org/){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"} is a layer-1 blockchain that combines the robustness of Proof-of-Work with the programmability of the latest smart-contract networks. ALPH is the native coin used for gas in transactions, mining rewards, and operations on the network. Scalability, decentralization, and security are achieved all without giving up on any of the three pillars, says Alephium, offering "the Web3 you were promised".

Unlike most new Proof-of-Stake systems, Alephium retains the battle-tested security of PoW through its novel Proof-of-Less-Work mechanism-a greener, more energy-efficient version that consumes as much as 87% less energy when placed under the same load as traditional mining systems. The network also introduces BlockFlow, a sharded architecture able to process over 20,000 transactions per second, with Alephium taking its place as one of the fastest PoW blockchains currently out there.

Usability, accessibility, developer-friendly tools, and smart-contract functionality with its own Ralph language are the areas of focus, along with wallet infrastructure for all. In short, Alephium is an ambitious evolution of the PoW model that is fast, highly scalable, secure, and sustainable.

[![alph-swap.png](https://blog.exolix.com/uploads/alph_swap_cca7c86342.png)](https://exolix.com/currencies/alph){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"}

Why Alephium Is Special
-----------------------

Alephium stands out within the crowded blockchain landscape because of the way it combines performance, security, scalability, and sustainability, a combination hardly ever reached by Proof-of-Work networks. Backed by a very technical team and an active community, Alephium introduces several key innovations that revise what a decentralized system can provide.

### Fast

Alephium achieves block times of just 8 seconds, with the network throughput at 2 blocks per second, matching the speed of leading Proof-of-Stake blockchains, while retaining PoW-level security. Each one of its constituent 16 chains produces a block every 8 seconds, ensuring confirmation times are swift and transaction latency is low.

### Scalable

Alephium's BlockFlow sharding technology allows the network to scale throughput to more than 20,000 transactions per second, adding no extra complexity for users and developers. Among its many parallel chains, Alephium provides a single-chain experience: all assets and contracts remain accessible and interoperable across shards.

### Secure

Each layer is designed with security in mind. Alephium's stateful UTXO model and MEV-aware architecture safeguard users against common attack vectors such as reentrancy, double spending, and unlimited token approvals. Smart contracts have better protections compared to with other vms, maximizing their reliability while limiting their vulnerability to attacks.

### Sustainable

Unlike traditional PoW systems, Alephium Proof-of-Less-Work reduces energy consumption by 87% when placed under the same conditions. It can therefore achieve green consensus without giving up decentralization. This efficiency puts Alephium as a sustainable alternative in these times focused on green technologies.

### Programmable

Alephium combines the security of [Bitcoin's](https://exolix.com/currencies/btc){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"} UTXO with the smart contract flexibility of Ethereum: the stateful UTXO model opens up smart contracts with mutable state, a huge leap toward sophisticated DeFi, NFTs, and dApp ecosystems-all while continuing to safeguard user assets.

### Developer-Friendly

It comes with an Alphred Virtual Machine specifically made for the platform and an expressive programming language called Ralph, tailor-made for Alephium's architecture. It offers developers an intuitive Typescript SDK, comprising an array of tools that make smart contract development, dApp deployment, and token integration seamless and efficient.

Alephium is not copying any of the existing models for its blockchain but rebuilds them, embedding the resilience of PoW with the scalability of Web3 to make sure the infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized applications will be ensured.

Alephium (ALPH) Tokenomics
--------------------------

The ALPH coin is designed to be used on the Alephium network as the primary medium of exchange, reward, and value transfer. Post-Danube upgrade, Alephium adopted a predictable tail emission model with no fixed maximum supply. Rather, new ALPH coins keep entering into circulation through mining emissions, while a portion of fees is burned to balance inflation.

### Supply and Emissions

The coin supply can be expressed with the equation:

Total Supply = Circulating Supply + Reserved Supply + Locked ALPH

Mining emissions are unlimited, and there is a 500-minute lock period before the mined coins become liquid. All transaction fees get automatically burnt, thereby creating a partial deflationary effect.

Current coin allocation overview:

-   Mining Emissions: Unlimited - 500 minutes lock period

-   Burned: All transaction fees via Proof of Less Work mechanism

-   Seed/Private Sales: 80 million ALPH, vesting quarterly over 2--4 years

-   Ecosystem Allocation: 30 million ALPH, unlocked quarterly over 4 years

-   Treasury Allocation: 30 million ALPH, vested quarterly over 3 years

This hybrid model of continuous emissions with burn ensures that runaway inflation cannot be prevented without steady network rewards. The effective inflation rate of ALPH is determined by the balance between new issuance and the amount of fees burned over time.

### Economic Model

Alephium's Proof-of-Less-Work consensus maintains network rewards while decreasing future energy costs. Emissions are pivotal for maintaining decentralization, as miners who secure the network are compensated in ALPH. Transaction-fee burning introduces a self-balancing dynamic: the total liquid supply decreases as network usage increases.

The Alephium Coin (ALPH) is the utility and store-of-value asset within this ecosystem, thanks to aligned miner incentivization, community participation, and fee burns.

How to Get ALPH
---------------

The ALPH coin is provided via many channels. Users can acquire it either on centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges, or even directly inside Alephium's wallets. It's designed to be convenient, private, and accessible whether through card payments, trading pairs, or peer-to-peer transfers.

[![alph-swap.png](https://blog.exolix.com/uploads/alph_swap_cca7c86342.png)](https://exolix.com/currencies/alph){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"}

### On-Ramps

You can purchase ALPH directly in Alephium's mobile and desktop wallets using debit and credit cards, bank transfers, and even Apple Pay. This integration allows for instant access to the native coin, with no need to rely on third-party platforms. Availability may vary depending on your home country due to regional restrictions around payments.

### Centralized Exchanges

There are several CEX listings of ALPH trading pairs which allow one to trade major cryptocurrencies, or even fiat currencies, for ALPH. They then custody your purchased coins until you decide to transfer them to your own wallet in self-custody. For the full list of active CEX listings, consult data aggregators such as [CoinMarketCap](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/alephium/) and [CoinGecko](https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/alephium).

### Decentralized Exchanges

For self-custody users, ALPH natively resides on decentralized platforms such as Elexium, Ayin, and Nightshade. Wrapped versions of ALPH can also be found on Uniswap and PancakeSwap via official Alephium bridges.

For this reason, it is always advisable to check the liquidity in advance with the understanding that some of the pools may have low volume. This is especially true with the more minor DEXs.

### Bridged ALPH

Bridged ALPH enables interoperability between ecosystems. Through the Alephium Bridge, wrapped ALPH can be moved seamlessly by users between the Alephium and Ethereum and BNB networks, extending utility across a wide variety of different DeFi protocols and enabling participation in cross-chain ecosystems.

### Transfers Among Peers

With the Alephium Wallet, users can directly swap ALPH with others. Just share your wallet address, and you will be able to safely send or receive tokens. The whole transaction is completed in seconds by means of Alephium's high-throughput network.

Listed here are only some of the ways to express the Alephium core values: open access, decentralization, and user sovereignty. In other words, all are welcome, and this ecosystem is easy for anyone to interact with.

Building on Alephium -- Developers, Tools, and Node Operation
------------------------------------------------------------

By open-sourcing its ecosystem, Alephium empowers developers, miners, and community contributors to actively participate in the expansion of the decentralized infrastructure. The project provides a powerful set of tools, SDKs, and documentation that make the process of creating and maintaining decentralized applications straightforward and efficient.

### Developer Environment

Alephium was designed with the developer in mind. Its programming language, [Ralph](https://docs.alephium.org/ralph/), focuses mainly on security, simplicity, and scalability. Based on the stateful UTXO model, Ralph enables developers to create powerful, efficient smart contracts that are safeguarded against common exploits like reentrancy or over-approval bugs.

The secure ALPHred Virtual Machine of the network is running fast and deterministic, giving full control of transaction logic and gas usage to the developers. This makes the integration of new dApps, wallets, and financial tools easier with Alephium SDKs and API libraries.

### Contributing to the Ecosystem

Alephium is fully open source in its development. One can explore the repositories, propose enhancements, or simply create their own. For teams developing decentralized applications, one can create pull requests on the Alephium repository in order to display their dApps on the public ecosystem showcase.

Developers can also apply for the Alephium [Grant](https://alephium.org/grants/) and Rewards Program or the Bug Bounty Program. Both focus on incentivizing innovation while encouraging security research. Participation details and guidelines can be found on the official GitHub and Discord channels.

### Running Alephium Nodes

Running nodes is essential to maintain decentralization and thus support the stability of the network. Alephium's node software is, therefore, optimized for consumer-grade hardware, allowing participation even by individuals and small teams.

Running a node enables:

-   Direct contribution to network security and consensus.

-   The result is that developers of dApps have better reliability and lower latency.

-   Support for transaction validation and mining pool operations.

Documentation provides details on setting up full nodes in several environments and includes numerous performance monitoring tools.

Mining on Alephium
------------------

Alephium enables both solo and pool mining. Its current status entails four groups of addresses and sixteen chains, with a pre-set targeted block time of eight seconds and a reward of 0.1915 ALPH per block. On average, 172,800 blocks are mined per day, and newly mined coins are locked for 500 minutes before they are transferable.

To support miners, a community channel is available to discuss any configuration and optimizations suggestions.

What Makes Alephium Sustainable and Secure
------------------------------------------

Alephium was born with the conviction that decentralization should never have to compromise on sustainability or security. Its core architecture and consensus mechanism were the result of years of extensive research into how Proof-of-Work networks could evolve to meet modern efficiency standards while remaining resilient against attacks.

### Proof-of-Less-Work (PoLW)

The key to Alephium's sustainability rests in the Proof-of-Less-Work consensus algorithm. In contrast to the energy-consuming mining involved in Bitcoin, PoLW eventually reduces the consumption of electricity by up to 87 percent through better difficulty and reward in block generation. The design will guarantee that this network will remain decentralized while rewarding miners proportionally for the contribution of computational work without any excess energy being wasted.

### Security by Design

The Alephium Stateful UTXO model combines Bitcoin's unspent-transaction-output system with Ethereum-like programmability. This structure isolates each contract's state, preventing many common vulnerabilities on account-based chains. It offers built-in protection against exploits like:

-   Reentrancy attacks involve malicious contracts repeatedly draining funds.

-   Unlimited Approvals: These expose token balances to potential misuse.

-   Cross-chain inconsistencies due to unified shard-aware logic of Alephium.

MEV-aware architecture design minimizes the manipulation of miner extractable value within the network to ensure integrity in both transaction ordering and execution.

### Environmental and Network Stability

Alephium uniquely combines PoLW and multi-chain sharding for both energy efficiency and high throughput, while avoiding central points of failure. Its light node design makes it possible for anyone to run a validator on consumer-grade hardware, further strengthening decentralization.

Alephium keeps an open, secure, and environmentally-friendly Proof of Work, publicly verifiable by anyone, which currently makes it one of a few scalable blockchains that are consistent with international goals about sustainability.



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What Is Alephium (ALPH), What is Alephium used for and How to use ALPH? The Full Guide to the ALPH coin here, on Exolix Blog!

What Is Alephium (ALPH)?

ALPH is the native coin used for gas in transactions, mining rewards, and operations on the network. Scalability, decentralization, and security are achieved all without giving up on any of the three pillars, says Alephium, offering "the Web3 you were promised".

Introduction to Ethereum (ETH) 
-------------------------------

[Ethereum](https://exolix.com/currencies/eth){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"} is the second most valuable cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization and is a base for decentralized financing and smart contracts. Founded in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and a group of coders, Ethereum aims to be much more than a simple peer-to-peer exchange platform, in that with Ethereum, one can create dApps, tokens, and even smart contracts.

While [Bitcoin](https://exolix.com/currencies/btc){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"} is electronic gold, Ethereum represents a programmable blockchain, enabling innovation in everything from NFTs to sophisticated financial instruments. Its native currency, Ether (ETH), is used as a means of paying for network transactions, staking, and computational services on the Ethereum network.

Due to the fact that Ethereum's total coin supply is not fixed, the total supply of Ethereum coins fluctuates over a period of time because the issuance of ETH is dictated by dynamic mechanisms that were introduced together with Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.

This tutorial will show you how many Ethereum coins are out there, how the supply of Ethereum works, and what influences the total and circulating supply of Ethereum coins.

[![eth to usdt swap](https://blog.exolix.com/uploads/Frame_1991431864_11_155800f2ce.png)](https://exolix.com/pairs/eth-to-usdt){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"}

Circulating Supply of Ethereum Coins
------------------------------------

By 2025, the total circulating supply of the Ethereum coins stands at around 120 million, if statistics by on-chain and tracking platforms such as CoinMarketCap are anything to go by. The figure represents the total Ethereum coins available and in active circulation within the exchange platforms and smart contracts.

The entire supply of Ethereum is dynamic, unlike Bitcoin, meaning the total supply of Ethereum changes over time. This is because the total Ethereum supply shifts with the staking rewards and burning of fees associated with Ethereum transactions. Bitcoin has a fixed total supply of 21 million Bitcoin.

-   The London Hard Fork, or EIP-1559, launched in August 2021, is a significant change in Ethereum's monetary policy. This update included a 'burn' function that subtracted a certain part of ETH in every single transaction, thereby helping to balance out the effect of new ETH created for validators and making it a potentially 'deflationary' asset in times of high usage.

-   Since Ethereum's transition into Proof-of-Stake, also referred to as "The Merge" in 2022, block rewards have been replaced by validator rewards, bringing a much slower rate of new ETH being added to circulation. This coupled with the burn mechanism means a net decrease in the supply of ETH, where more is being 'burned' than being added amidst heavy network activity.

The circulating supply of Ethereum is a changing figure, propelled mainly by three different drivers:

-   Validator rewards (new ETH creation).

-   Burn of transaction cost: ETH removed.

-   Network activity levels affect both producing and burning.

This serves the Ethereum vision of a deflationary currency in the long run, since with increased use, the currency will become rarer.

Maximum Supply of Ethereum Coins
--------------------------------

Ethereum stands alone among other top cryptocurrencies in the fact that it doesn't have a fixed total supply built into its network. This means the total supply of Ethereum coins is theoretically unlimited, as opposed to many other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, for which 21 million BTC are written into code as a total supply cap.

At the time of Ethereum's launch in 2015, not having a supply cap was an explicit design choice. This is because the founders needed the flexibility of monetary policy to facilitate growth, staking, and thus the sustainability of the ecosystem. However, with the advent of EIP-1559 and Ethereum's shift to Proof-of-Stake, the direction of supply has been much more fine-tuned and at times even deflationary.

### Key Factors that Limit ETH Supply Growth:

-   Lower Issuance  Rate. Ethereum moved to Proof-of-Stake, and the emission of new coins per day is reduced by more than 90%. The validators earn lower rewards with Proof-of-Stake since increased gas fees lead to slower emission of new coins.

-   Fee Burning. Part of each transaction cost is burnt forever, and this continuously decreases the total amount of ETH in circulation. This will be a constant supply management tool that will be implemented, especially at times of peak network usage.

-   Deflationary Epoch. When the amount of ETH burnt is more than the amount of ETH created by staking rewards, the network changes into a deflationary period where the total supply decreases.

As of 2025, the total supply of Ethereum is about 120.2 million ETH, with slight changes every day due to the burn process and the rewards issued to the validators. While theoretically unlimited, owing to both the low rates and constant burning, the supply of Ethereum is ultimately capped and deflationary.

Understanding Ethereum's Dynamic Supply Model
---------------------------------------------

The coin supply of Ethereum is not pegged with a fixed issuance schedule because it's governed by an adaptive monetary rule, responsive to network activity. This helps Ethereum manage a delicate balancing act of incentives related to both inflation and deflation and network security.

### 1\. Proof-of-Stake and Validator Rewards

Following the Merge, Ethereum transitioned from its energy-intensive mining to PoS validation. Validators have to stake a certain amount of ETH to start validating transactions and get a small reward for doing so. New ether is issued in the process, at a speed much lower compared to PoW.

Presently, a growth rate of 0.5% is needed to keep the network secure without flooding the market with too much supply.

### 2\. Fee Burning ​_ EIP155

Every Ethereum transaction has an associated base fee, which is 'burned' rather than being rewarded to the validators. The busier the network is, the more ETH that's being destroyed. When a network is very busy, such as at an NFT project launch, or a DeFi spike, the ETH can be considered a deflationary asset because the total supply actually reduces.

This combination of staking rewards and burn fees comprises what is referred to as Ethereum's elastic supply mechanism: when network usage is low, it grows; and when usage is high, it shrinks.

### 3\. The Effect: Artificial Scarcity

The net effect is a self-reinforcing environment with increasingly scarce Ethereum whose usage is positively correlated with a rise in its scarcity. This is a design both for establishing value for ETH and as a store of value asset akin to Bitcoin, except with additional versatility.

This ever-changing supply mechanism is a reflection of Ethereum's overall vision of achieving a sustained economic model within its decentralized economy. Here, user activity will help create a natural level of scarcity.

[![usdt-to-eth.png](https://blog.exolix.com/uploads/usdt_to_eth_34b3ce6fd0.png)](https://exolix.com/pairs/usdt-to-eth){:target="_blank" rel="dofollow"}

The Future of Ethereum's Monetary Policy
----------------------------------------

Ethereum's dynamic supply mechanism is one of the most complex economic frameworks in the crypto space. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, which follow fixed supply schedules and halving cycles, Ethereum's supply is governed by code and reflects a level of versatility according to changing demands and needs.

### Toward a Sustainable, Self-Balancing Economy

A combination of staking, burning, and smart contracts makes Ethereum's economy self-regulating based on the level of activity. As demand increases, so will ETH burned, which will drop supply levels and help maintain value levels. The burn level shall fall as demand drops; this will maintain the incentives for validators and ensure that the network security features remain intact.

This is what makes Ethereum both a blockchain network and a digital economic infrastructure with the potential for adaptation within the global setting. The more Ethereum is used for dApps, NFTs, and DeFi solutions, the rarer the ETH will be.

### ETH As 'Ultrasound Money'

It should be since, after the Merge, for the most part, the ETH is actually being talked about as "ultrasound money" by Ethereum supporters. This is because the Ethereum supply can actually reduce over time, a property considered to be even stronger than Bitcoin's fixed supply. In this sense, ETH is both a store of value and a productive asset, since it can be used continually.

### What Lies Ahead

Going ahead, Ethereum's monetary policy will continue to evolve with the upgrades in the network like danksharding and proto-danksharding/EIP-4844 that should help with the scaling and cost reduction in transactions. This, in turn, can have further effects on the burn levels and staking, helping in defining the longer-term levels of inflation and deflation related to the coin.

The future supply of Ethereum is pegged neither to a fixed figure but rather on user activity and usefulness, an ideal which informs its decentralized, flexible, and sustainable digital economy characteristics.

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How many Ethereum coins are out there, how the supply of Ethereum works, and what influences the total and circulating supply of Ethereum coins and more on our Blog

How many Ethereum (ETH) coins are there?

How many Ethereum coins are out there, how the supply of Ethereum works, and what influences the total and circulating supply of Ethereum coins

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Bradley Pierce

Crypto Niche Expert

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