Everything You Wanted To Know About Ethereum But Were Too Afraid To Ask
I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me to explain what Bitcoin is over the years, but I don't think anyone has ever asked me to explain Ethereum.
Maybe their eyes glazed over when I ran out of bitcoins so they wanted to save another ear.
But today we are wondering what is Ethereum?
If you thought bitcoin was hard to explain...
A short history of Ethereum and its founder Vitalik ButerinEthereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap as of 2018. It's the brainchild of Russian-Canadian programming producer Vitalik Buterin, who first laid out the idea in a 2013 white paper.
At this point, Buterin has been involved with Bitcoin for several years. He first learned about Bitcoin in 2011 from his father, a computer scientist, while he was studying at the age of 17 (he would soon drop out). That same year he found Bitcoin Magazine.
Lest you feel unworthy, Buterin is only 27 years old and already a billionaire. He has already given more than $2 billion to charity.
Philosophically, Buterin is a committed techno-libertarian. In 2018 he co-authored Emancipation Through Radical Decentralization with economist Glen Weill, in which he proposed that “Markets and technology can be used to decentralize all forms of government and change our reliance on government and formal rules.
In a 2019 article, Flexible Design, authored by Harvard graduate student Joe Hitzig, proposed a new approach to optimal goods and services that uses "four votes" to fund public goods, a more complex voting system than the current one. system of direct democracy.
Buterin published the Ethereum whitepaper in 2013. He chose the name after reviewing Wikipedia's article list. "It looked good," he said, "and it had the word 'ether,' which refers to the hypothetical invisible medium that penetrates space and lets light through.
He announced the project at the North American Bitcoin Conference in 2014 and development began with an outstanding founding team that included Anthony D'Iorio, Charles Hoskinson (Co-Founder of Cardano), Mihai Allis and Amir Cherit and more. , Joseph. Lubin, Gavin Wood. and Jeffrey Willock.
In the summer of this year, they raised money to crowdfund the project. Even then, Buterin was considered a genius in cryptographic coding circles.
I remember being invited to participate in this funding but was disappointed that the project did not go through. You!
The project was finally launched in 2015 and after a $150 million crowd sale, the project was a huge success despite several setbacks including a $50 million hack and several forks.
Ethereum has a market cap of $400 billion. Ether, traded on the Ethereum network, has surged from less than $1 in late 2015 to almost $3,500 today.
What exactly is Ethereum?The main principle of the project was to use blockchain technology outside of alternative digital currency systems. Bitcoin has its own blockchain, like Ethereum, a generally separate network that uses the same distributed ledger technology to verify and record transactions (the blockchain).
Like most cryptocurrencies, Ethereum is an open source platform. Ether is used as a payment method, but this is not the purpose of Ethereum.
Byte Tree's Charlie Morris likened it to a decentralized app store. Developers can use the platform to create and publish smart contracts and distributed applications (dApps), and it is a marketplace for financial services (DIFI), NFTs (Non-Sector Tokens), games and apps, all of which can be paid for in the Ether. .
So why is it known as the “programmable blockchain of the world”? According to him, it is “inclusive, decentralized, secure and can be used for any trade”.
Therefore, programmers can implement decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain. They will be immutable and persistent, and users will be able to interact with them.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications for all types of financial services (such as decentralized exchange houses or credit and credit systems) do not require traditional financial intermediaries such as banks or brokers.
Ethereum enables the creation and trading of NFT tokens linked to digital artifacts and other digital assets.
Platforms are used by many for initial coin offerings, and many cryptocurrencies actually run on the Ethereum blockchain (known as the ERC-20 token). The DAOs, Digital Autonomous Organisms, are formed on platforms.
So overall, Ethereum has many advantages and is a great way to take advantage of the incredible innovations in the industry.
Will Ethereum lose the race?One of my closest friends, the "Original Gangster" of Bitcoin, who probably prefers to remain anonymous at this point, told me:
Many feel the same way. The lock is not as strong as bitcoin. Ethereum is truly decentralized, and the many spikes that have emerged in response to hackers prove it, critics say. They cannot be implemented on a truly decentralized platform. Many coins are pre-mined and given to the founders. Ethereum 2.0 will be coupled with lag. The transaction costs, known as gas fees, are huge (I can confirm that). Sometimes they cost hundreds of dollars when they should cost pennies. A ticking time bomb, say critics.
Maybe. Ethereum has many competitors like Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, Cardano, Terra and Solana. Both Cardano and Solana have had unusual streaks over the past few weeks. Most of them are technically advanced, crits are fast and powerful. You certainly don't have extra gas bills.
But what they don't have is a network of users. Ethereum has it. It's the first coin people think of after bitcoin, even if you can't call it that. This usually gives you the benefit of being the first to move.
But that's the market. Everyone makes a proposal, presents their arguments and the prize is the result. The best man doesn't always win.
Ethereum is second only to Bitcoin. He's had a great year behind some great years. Bitcoin, like gold and silver, has more advantages and is more flexible. It usually goes in a cycle, but more, but when a correction comes, it hurts more.
By the end of 2015, it had fallen to $0.42. In early 2017, it fetched about $1,400. It then lost 95 percent of its value at $80. This year's fix is over 60% cheaper. But the bottom line is that it started at less than $800 in 2021 and has now quadrupled to $3,500.
Address is moved. But how long?
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