Amount of an ERC20 Token

In terms of amount (quantity), there are two different representations for a token: decimal amount and undecimal amount.

Decimal amount

Decimal amount is the quantity in the sense of natural language.

For example, we use USDT to buy BNB or use BNB to buy USDT, we need to pay 600 usdt for 2 bnb or need to pay 0.0099 bnb for 3 usdt. Here, we call these numbers 600, 2, 0.0099, 3 as decimal amount.

decimal amount, is the amount of token we usually see in CEX or the frontend of DEX.

decimal amount may not be an integer, e.g., 0.0099 bnb or 1.25 eth.

Undecimal amount

Undecimal Amount is the quantity used in EVM.

EVM has no data type for float, and all data type for number are integer, e.g., uint8 uint256 int128 …

Since decimal amount may be float number, a problem is how to represent some float number amounts of token like 1.25 bnb.

When we want to transfer 1.25 bnb to an address, the raw data we see in the transaction is 1,250,000,000,000,000,000, which is 1.25 * (10 ** 18). Here, 18 is decimals value of bnb, 1.25 is decimal amount mentioned above, and the raw data in the transaction, 1,250,000,000,000,000,000, is called undecimal amount.

Each erc-20 token has a view function named decimals(), which will return decimal value of that token. And we can get following relationship between undecimal amount and decimal amount:

undecimal_amount = decimal_amount * (10 ** decimal_of_token)

In our example, decimals value of bnb on bsc chain is 18. Thus, decimal amount of 1.25 bnb means undecimal amount 1,250,000,000,000,000,000.

Usually, most erc-20 token’s decimal value on most chains is 18, because 10**18 is nearly 2**64. However, for some erc-20 token, they may have other decimal value. decimal value of usdt or usdc is 6 on most chains.