Ethereum (ETH): questions and answers
Every answer below is written from the sources listed at the end of this page, with the date each one was checked.
The question that decides how you read Ethereum
Ethereum's interesting question is not what a smart contract is. It is what happens the first time the community has to choose between the code being final and the outcome being fair.
By 2013 several projects were trying to extend Bitcoin into things other than money: coloured coins, Mastercoin, Ripple. Vitalik Buterin's argument was that each of these was a narrow, bolted-on protocol solving one use case, and that the fragmentation was the problem.
The proposal was to stop adding special cases and ship a general one: a blockchain with a built-in, Turing-complete programming environment, where new applications are deployed as contracts rather than negotiated as protocol changes.
What is still unsettled
Ethereum decided not to buy throughput by raising base-layer capacity aggressively. Instead most activity was pushed onto rollups, which keeps the cost of running a node modest but adds new assumptions: bridge contracts, sequencers, and proof systems that users must trust in ways that base-layer transactions do not require. Whether that division ends up more or less decentralised than one large chain is not yet answerable from evidence.
What this means when you swap ETH
Since the move to proof-of-stake, transactions are included in twelve-second slots and reach finality after roughly two epochs — on the order of a quarter of an hour — rather than accumulating probabilistic depth. EIP-1559 replaced blind fee auctions with a burned base fee plus a tip, which makes estimation far more predictable but does not stop spikes when demand surges.
The dangerous part of sending ETH is not the address, it is the network. The same twenty-byte address exists on mainnet, on every EVM rollup and on other EVM chains, so an ETH transfer sent to the right address on the wrong network is a genuinely common and often unrecoverable mistake. Check the network label on both sides before confirming, and remember that ERC-20 tokens need ETH in the same account to pay gas.
Common ETH questions
- How do I swap Ethereum (ETH) instantly on Monivo?
- Pick ETH as the asset you want to receive, choose what you're paying with, paste your wallet address, and confirm. Monivo routes your order to the provider offering the best rate, and most swaps complete in under 10 minutes — no account needed.
- Can I swap ETH with no KYC?
- Yes. Crypto-to-crypto swaps of ETH on Monivo require no identity verification and no sign-up. Only fiat purchases (card or bank transfer) require KYC, because banks and payment processors mandate it.
- Is swapping Ethereum on Monivo non-custodial?
- Yes. Monivo never holds your funds. ETH is sent directly to the wallet address you provide, so you stay in control the whole time.
- Which network does ETH use here?
- Monivo supports Ethereum on the ETH network. Always double-check that your receiving wallet supports this network before confirming.
- What fees apply when I swap ETH?
- Monivo adds zero fees on top. The quote you see already reflects the strongest quote we found across connected providers, including their network and processing costs — all fees are included in the shown amount.
- My ETH address works on several networks — does that mean the funds move between them?
- No. An Ethereum-style address is just a key, and the same key controls a separate balance on every EVM network. Sending ETH to your correct address on the wrong network leaves the funds on that network, and recovering them ranges from fiddly to impossible. Always match the network, not just the address.
- Why is my ETH swap waiting when the network fee looked fine?
- Ethereum confirms in twelve-second slots but only reaches finality after about two epochs, roughly fifteen minutes, and many services wait for that before crediting. A transaction with a low tip during a demand spike can also sit unmined until the base fee falls.
Sources and dates (5)
- The earliest publicly archived Ethereum whitepaper is dated January 2014, not 2013. Wayback Machine capture of ethereum.org · 2014-01-11 · checked 2026-09-21
- A re-entrancy flaw in The DAO allowed repeated draining of funds. Ethereum Foundation blog · 2016-06-17 · checked 2026-09-21
- The hard fork at block 1,920,000 moved the compromised funds to a recovery contract. Ethereum Foundation blog · 2016-07-20 · checked 2026-09-21
- Post-fork guidance warned about replay attacks between the two chains. Ethereum Foundation blog · 2016-07-26 · checked 2026-09-21
- Execution-layer upgrades are named after Devcon host cities. ethereum.org fork history · checked 2026-09-21