Ethereum
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ethereum
Until relatively recently, building blockchain applications has required a complex background in coding, cryptography, mathematics as well as significant resources. But times have changed. Previously unimagined applications, from electronic voting & digitally recorded property assets to regulatory compliance & trading are now actively being developed and deployed faster than ever before. By providing developers with the tools to build decentralized applications, ethereum is making all of this possible.
Like Bitcoin, ethereum is a distributed public blockchain network. Although there are some significant technical differences between the two, the most important distinction to note is that Bitcoin and Ethereum differ substantially in purpose and capability. Bitcoin offers one particular application of blockchain technology, a peer to peer electronic cash system that enables online Bitcoin payments. While Bitcoin is used to track ownership of digital currency (bitcoins), ethereum focuses on running the programming code of any decentralized application.
In the Ethereum, instead of mining for bitcoin, miners work to earn Ether, a type of crypto token that fuels the network. Beyond a tradeable cryptocurrency, Ether is also used by application developers to pay for transaction fees and services on the ethereum network.
While all blockchains have the ability to process code, most are severely limited. ethereum is different. Rather than giving a set of limited operations, ethereum allows developers to create whatever operations they want. This means developers can build thousands of different applications that go way beyond anything we have seen before.
Before the creation of ethereum applications were designed to do a very limited set of operations. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, for example, were developed exclusively to operate as peer-to-peer digital currencies.
Any services that are centralized can be decentralized using ethereum. Think about all the intermediary services that exist across hundreds of different industries. From obvious services like loans provided by banks to intermediary services rarely thought about by most people like title registries, voting systems, regulatory compliance and much more.
Ethereum is also being used as a platform to launch other cryptocurrencies. Because of the ERC20 token standard defined by the Ethereum Foundation, other developers can issue their own versions of this token and raise funds with an initial coin offering (ICO). In this fundraising strategy, the issuers of the token set an amount they want to raise, offer it in a crowd sale, and receive Ether in exchange. Billions of dollars have been raised by ICOs on the ethereum platform in the last two years, and one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world, EOS, is an ERC20 token.
There are many ways you can plug into the ethereum network, one of the easiest ways is to use its native Mist browser. Mist provides a user-friendly interface & digital wallet for users to trade & store Ether as well as write, manage, deploy and use smart contracts. Like web browsers give access and help people navigate the internet, Mist provides a portal into the world of decentralized blockchain applications.
There is also the MetaMask browser extension, which turns Google Chrome into an ethereum browser. MetaMask allows anyone to easily run or develop decentralized applications from their browser. Although initially built as a Chrome plugin, MetaMask supports Firefox and the Brave Browser as well.
Provenance is using ethereum to make opaque supply chains more transparent. By tracing the origins and histories of products, the project aims to build an open & accessible framework of information so consumers can make informed decisions when they buy products.
Shortly after the funds were raised, The DAO was hacked by an unknown attacker who stole Ether worth around $50 million dollars at the time. While the attack was made possible by a technical flaw in The DAO software, not the ethereum platform itself, the developers and founders of ethereum were forced to deal with the mess.
Both ethereum blockchains have the same features and are identical in every way up to a certain block where the hard-fork was implemented. This means that everything that happened on Ethereum up until the hard-fork is still valid on the Ethereum Classic. From the block where the hard fork or change in code was executed onwards, the two ethereum blockchains act individually.
Despite the fallout from The DAO hack, ethereum is moving forward and looking to a bright future. By providing a user-friendly platform that enables people to harness the power of blockchain technology, ethereum is speeding up the decentralization of the world economy. Decentralized applications have the potential to profoundly disrupt hundreds of industries including finance, real estate, academia, insurance, healthcare and the public sector amongst many others.
Business use of public blockchains: Some companies will employ public ethereum with their use cases that employ the same stack of blockchain components that they have purchased or built for their private Ethereum-based implementations.
The ethereum platform is also helping to shift the way we use the Internet. Decentralized applications are pushing a fundamental change from an Internet of information where we can instantly view, exchange and communicate information to the Internet of value where people can exchange immediate value without any intermediaries.
Ether's more pronounced bounce is being attributed to news that the Ethereum Merge, which will see the blockchain become nearly carbon neutral, is tentatively scheduled to be executed on Sept. 19. That date was penciled in during a recent conference call among ethereum developers, though it was noted that the date is subject to change.
The Ethereum Merge will see the blockchain transition from its current proof-of-work system to proof of stake. What does that crypto mumbo-jumbo mean? The short story is that the solving of cryptographic puzzles, which is the part that guzzles electricity, will no longer be part of the blockchain mining process. As a result, it's estimated that ethereum will see its carbon footprint drop by 99.65%. You can find a full explanation of the Ethereum Merge here.
The word has been in a lot of headlines as the cryptocurrency world's new favorite thing soared in value. The ethereum price of something called an ether token grew in value up over 3,000% from 2016 - 2017. 041b061a72