cETH wallet

What is cETH (CETH)?

Holding cETH means holding a claim on ETH deposited into a Compound v2 market, not ETH itself. The ETH market is the odd one out among Compound's markets: because ether is not an ERC-20 token, the cETH contract takes raw ETH directly rather than a token approval, and hands back cETH, an ERC-20 with 8 decimals instead of the 18 people expect from ether.

The number on your balance does not move. What moves is the exchange rate between cETH and the ETH sitting behind it, which drifts upward as borrowers in that market pay interest. So a wallet showing the same cETH figure for months is behaving correctly; redemption is what converts the position back into ether at whatever rate the contract holds at that moment. Redeeming happens through Compound's own contract, and the gas for it is paid in ETH, which you need to keep outside the position.

Two practical traps: cETH is not a wrapped ether like WETH and will not be accepted anywhere WETH is expected, and Compound's newer v3 markets use a completely different token design, so cETH belongs to the older v2 generation of contracts.

Because a cETH balance changes value without ever changing its number, there is nothing for a holder to maintain. Tangem simply queries the chain and shows what the contract currently credits to your address, while the private key stays inside the card's chip. Supported networks in Tangem (1): Ethereum. For a position that quietly revalues itself, storage that you touch only when you want out is the sensible arrangement.