Ethereum Transaction
Transfer of Ethereum-compatible assets from one wallet address to another.
Ethereum is more than just another cryptocurrency. It is a programmable blockchain that has smart contracts as its core feature. In turn, smart contracts can digitize any conceivable legal construct and have it automatically executed when conditions are triggered.
Therefore, Ethereum is best viewed as an ecosystem of smart contracts - dApps - which can create an infrastructure that replicates banking functions. Apart from lending, exchanging, and borrowing, it can also host NFT marketplaces, social media platforms, and blockchain games.
Considering its flexibility and wide use range, ETH transactions rely on two types of addresses: Contract Address and Externally Owned Address. The latter represents a wallet that holds public and private keys to access funds. Based on those addresses, Ethereum transactions can be divided into three types:
Regular – ETH transaction in which ETH native cryptocurrency is sent from one EOA to another EOA. On the website that tracks Ethereum transactions - Etherscan - these transactions will be listed under the first "Transactions'' tab.
Internal – ETH transaction that is conducted through a smart contract. For example, if you were to exchange ETH for DAI stablecoin on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap. Etherscan would list these transactions within the next tab called "Internal Txns".
Token – Ethereum blockchain hosts two types of tokens: ERC-20 and ERC-721. The latter are non-fungible tokens - NFTs - which tokenize any media file and store them within smart contracts. On the other hand, ERC-20 tokens are used by dApps. For example, UNI, the governance token for Uniswap, is an ERC-20 token. Likewise, Tether USDT is the most popular stablecoin. Therefore, these token transactions will be listed as either "ERC-20 Token Txns" or "ERC-721 Token Txns."
Both addresses - EOA and Contract Address - consist of 42 characters. If you wanted to send someone 1 ETH from an Ethereum wallet like MetaMask, you would first have to pay a fee called gas price.
Validators across the Ethereum blockchain would then confirm the transaction and add the new data block to the blockchain. As always, Etherscan shows over a dozen data categories within each Ethereum transaction detail.