how a wei works
a u s dollar is only divisible into 100 parts and a penny is the atomic unit of u s currency digital currencies can also be divided but they generally use much much smaller units than fiat currencies the smallest unit of the native token for the ethereum blockchain ether is called the wei after wei dai dai is a computer engineer and cryptography enthusiast who is known for supporting the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy oriented technologies ether has many names for different units of wei the names of these sub units indicate the quantity of the units for example a kwei is a kilo meaning a thousand wei but they have informal names as well for example the kwei is also known as a babbage and a gwei is commonly referred to as a shannon the wei s exemplarwei dai has been called an intensely private person and with his skills in cryptography he s able to make sure the public record of him is very small the accepted story in the cryptocurrency community is that he graduated from the university of washington with a degree in computer science and that he worked at microsoft in its cryptography research group mr dai worked in the cryptography research group at microsoft corporation in redmond washington while at microsoft he was involved in the study design and implementation of cryptosystems for specialized applications prior to joining microsoft mr dai was a programmer with terrasciences of acton massachusetts 1wei is an original member of the cypherpunk movement in the 1990s whose members eventually developed the theoretical basis for cryptocurrency in the 2010s in his proto crypto manifesto for a cryptocurrency called b money wei laid the foundation for smart contracts that would self execute and not need intervention by a human third party for enforcement for this innovation he is honored by having the name of the atomic unit of ether named after him 