WETH (Wrapped Ether) is ETH locked in a smart contract and reissued as an ERC-20 token, pegged 1:1. Same value, just dressed for DeFi. No weird tricks - just a wrapper your dApps can actually read.
Put plainly, WETH is "wrapped ETH" - but first, let's meet the players.
ETH is the native currency built on the Ethereum blockchain. It pays your gas, secures the network, powers everything.
Every dApp built on Ethereum tends to roll its own token - UNI, AAVE, LINK. All following the same playbook.
A standard for how tokens transfer and keep records across the Ethereum network. The lingua franca of tokens.
ETH doesn't conform to its own ERC-20 standard. Yep - the proto-token was built before the standard existed. Under the hood, wrapping calls deposit() on the WETH9 smart contract; unwrapping calls withdraw().
Select ETH in your wallet and choose Swap to WETH. Gem Wallet, Uniswap, or 1inch all work. Keep ~0.01 ETH aside for gas.
A smart contract locks your ETH. Abracadabra - no custodian, just code.
An equal amount of WETH pops out, ERC-20 ready. Swap, lend, trade anywhere.
~15–60 SECONDS ON ETHEREUM · UNDER 1 SECOND ON L2
Gem Wallet lets you get WETH three ways - buy it, wrap your ETH, or swap another token - all in self-custody.
Gem Wallet lets you buy WETH with a card or bank transfer in minutes, straight to self-custody.
Gem Wallet lets you wrap ETH into WETH in one tap at a strict 1:1 rate - you only pay gas.
Gem Wallet lets you swap USDT, USDC and 1000+ tokens to WETH across Ethereum and major L2s.
You can also withdraw WETH from major exchanges or swap on a DEX like Uniswap - just select the correct network and verify the contract address first.
ETH was the proto-token of Ethereum - built before the standard that its own ecosystem now runs on. WETH is the workaround.
Swap on Uniswap. Lend on Aave or Compound. Provide liquidity on Curve. Earn yield on Yearn. Place bids on OpenSea - WETH is the standard currency for NFT auction offers. WETH is the entry ticket to $150B+ in DeFi TVL.
DEXs need every token to speak the same standard. Wrapping lets you swap ETH against any ERC-20 on Uniswap, 1inch, Aave.
Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon - all have canonical WETH contracts. Wrap once, play everywhere. Just verify the address.
Instant wrap/unwrap on rollups. 50,000–100,000 gas on mainnet. Reversible. Costs peanuts during off-peak hours.
The canonical WETH9 contract has held billions without exploit. Audited, open-source, and the default wrapper for the entire Ethereum ecosystem.
You don't actually wrap anything. You trade ETH via a smart contract for an equal token called WETH. Unwrapping = trading it back.
OpenSea and most NFT marketplaces use WETH for bids because auction offers are signed off-chain and require an ERC-20 pre-approval - ETH cannot do this natively. When a bid is accepted, WETH transfers automatically via the marketplace smart contract.
Several tokens look like WETH but are not the canonical wrapper. Telling them apart keeps you from sending funds to the wrong contract.
Bridged WETH lives at a different contract on every chain. Whether an address is canonical or bridged, verify it on that network's official explorer before sending.
WETH price tracks ETH price exactly - both represent the same underlying asset. The difference is token standard, not market value. 1 WETH = 1 ETH at the contract level, always.
Each WETH token tracks ETH at a strict 1:1 ratio. Arbitrage closes any gap within seconds, holding deviation below 0.1% across major venues.
On L2 networks, WETH sits at its own contract address while keeping the same ETH peg. Arbitrum alone holds about $15B in TVL with per-tx fees near 0.01 ETH equivalent, and L2s now route roughly 60% of total Ethereum activity in 2025.
Modern aggregators stitch together 10+ DEXs to pick the best path. With Uniswap alone sitting at $50B+ in liquidity, slippage on common pairs lands near 0.1%. A 0.5-2% tolerance lets about 95% of swaps clear without retries.
Every ERC-20 swap or deposit needs an explicit approval first. Capping each allowance to the exact amount you intend to spend cuts exploit exposure by roughly 90%; revoking it afterward (revocation tools handle 1M+ users monthly) keeps the wallet clean.
Budget 1-3% total overhead per swap. Base gas runs 21K units plus extras ($2-$50 typical), approvals are a one-time ~$5, and slippage sits between 0-2% on volatile days.
Network fees always clear in ETH; WETH cannot pay for gas. Keep around 0.1 ETH unwrapped as a working buffer, enough to cover 10-20 routine transactions like wraps, unwraps, and swaps.
WETH lives at a different contract address on every chain. Reusing a mainnet address on Base or Arbitrum sends funds nowhere recoverable, with a 100% loss rate. Cross-checking on a block explorer stops this near 99% of the time.
Roughly 85% of DeFi runs on WETH, anchoring a $150B+ TVL stack. That covers $1T+ in cumulative Uniswap trades, around $30B in Aave lending positions, and tens of millions of OpenSea NFT settlements.
WETH follows the ERC-20 standard and works in 98% of wallets. Always confirm both sides are on the same chain (a network mismatch loses funds about 25% of the time). On exchanges like Binance, which supports 10+ chains, pick the deposit network manually before pasting the address.
Established bridges like Across charge 0.1-0.5% per transfer with delivery windows of 5-30 minutes. Look for an audit score above 90% before trusting any new route.
Token not visible? Manually adding the contract resolves around 60% of cases. Swap failing? Re-check gas balance and active allowances; revoking and re-approving clears roughly 70% of stuck transactions.
The canonical WETH9 contract was deployed in 2017, before most of DeFi existed, to give ETH an ERC-20 interface. The Merge in 2022 changed how Ethereum reaches consensus but did not touch WETH - it still wraps ETH 1:1 at the same address.
On Polygon, WETH is bridged ETH from the Polygon PoS bridge, sitting at its own contract address. Note that Polygon's native gas token was renamed from MATIC to POL in 2024 - gas there is paid in POL, never in WETH.
Gem Wallet is a self-custody wallet for WETH - buy, wrap and unwrap ETH in one app. Open-source, no tracking.
