when a user wants to become a validator and receive payments for blockchain work they must lock ether in a process called staking when ether is staked it cannot be spent if a user acts unethically their staked ether is forfeited 
investors may soon be able to invest in eight different spot ether etfs as the securities and exchange commission sec in may 2024 approved a rule change to list and trade shares of these etfs on the ethereum blockchain participants with enough ether staked are randomly chosen as validators and receive ether as a reward bitcoin is given as a reward for opening a new block on the blockchain ethereum validators are awarded newly minted ether and tips from users new ether tokens are awarded at a rate of about 1 700 eth per day per 14 million eth staked bitcoin will only ever have 21 million coins circulating the last of which is expected to be rewarded in 2140 the blockchain is also programmed to split rewards in half every 210 00 blocks roughly four years ether is limited to a total supply of 120 million when transactions are paid for in ether the fees are burned sent to an address with no keys the network mints new ether and pays the validators maintaining a balance of about 1 700 new ether issued per day 