Ethereum News and the Future of Cryptocurrency

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Close-up of Ethereum and Bitcoin coins symbolizing cryptocurrency and blockchain technology against a purple backdrop.
Credit: pexels.com, Close-up of Ethereum and Bitcoin coins symbolizing cryptocurrency and blockchain technology against a purple backdrop.

Ethereum has been making waves in the cryptocurrency world with its innovative technology and growing adoption. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, after Bitcoin.

The Ethereum network has seen a significant increase in transaction volume, with over 1 million transactions per day. This is a testament to its growing popularity and widespread use.

The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is expected to bring major improvements to the network, including increased scalability and security. This upgrade is expected to be completed in phases, with the first phase already underway.

Ethereum's smart contract platform is also gaining traction, with many businesses and organizations using it to build decentralized applications.

What Is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system that features its own cryptocurrency, Ether.

Ethereum was first described in a 2013 whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin, who along with other co-founders, secured funding for the project in an online public crowd sale in the summer of 2014.

Credit: youtube.com, The Greatest Ethereum Explanation of ALL TIME (in Under 10 Minutes)!

The project team managed to raise $18.3 million in Bitcoin, and Ethereum's price in the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) was $0.311, with over 60 million Ether sold.

Ethereum's own purported goal is to become a global platform for decentralized applications, allowing users from all over the world to write and run software that is resistant to censorship, downtime and fraud.

What Is?

Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain system. It features its own cryptocurrency, Ether, which works as a platform for numerous other cryptocurrencies and the execution of decentralized smart contracts.

The idea of Ethereum was first described in a 2013 whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin. He, along with other co-founders, secured funding for the project in an online public crowd sale in the summer of 2014.

In that ICO, the project team managed to raise $18.3 million in Bitcoin. Ethereum's price in the ICO was $0.311, with over 60 million Ether sold.

The Ethereum Foundation officially launched the blockchain on July 30, 2015. This was under the prototype codenamed “Frontier.”

What Is a Killer?

Credit: youtube.com, Top 5 Ethereum Killers

A killer in the context of blockchain is a new network that's designed to outperform and outlast the existing one. Ethereum has been the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization since its inception.

Ethereum is plagued with high gas fees and low throughput of between 15 to 30 transactions per second. This has led to the emergence of competitors offering cheaper and faster transactions.

The term "Ethereum Killer" emerged around 2016/2017 as substitute blockchains began to enter the crypto scene. These alternatives aim to solve the limitations of Ethereum's proof-of-work (PoW) model.

Solana uses proof-of-history (PoH) while Binance Smart Chain utilizes both proof-of-authority (PoA) and delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS). Despite these efforts, none of these alternative blockchains have been able to unseat Ethereum as the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Founders and History

Ethereum has a unique history, and it all starts with its eight co-founders, an unusually large number for a crypto project. They first met on June 7, 2014, in Zug, Switzerland.

Credit: youtube.com, We Met The Founder Of Ethereum, VICE on HBO, Season 6 (Bonus Scene)

Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin is perhaps the best known of the bunch, having authored the original white paper that first described Ethereum in 2013. He still works on improving the platform to this day.

Gavin Wood, a British programmer, is arguably the second most important co-founder of ETH, as he coded the first technical implementation of Ethereum in the C++ programming language.

Here are the co-founders of Ethereum, in brief:

  • Vitalik Buterin - authored the original white paper and still works on Ethereum
  • Gavin Wood - coded the first technical implementation of Ethereum
  • Anthony Di Iorio - underwrote the project during its early stage of development
  • Charles Hoskinson - established the Swiss-based Ethereum Foundation and its legal framework
  • Mihai Alisie - provided assistance in establishing the Ethereum Foundation
  • Joseph Lubin - helped fund Ethereum during its early days and later founded ConsenSys
  • Amir Chetrit - helped co-found Ethereum but stepped away from it early into the development

The co-founders were instrumental in shaping Ethereum's early days, with many of them still contributing to the project today.

What Makes Unique?

Ethereum's smart contract platform has pioneered the concept of a blockchain-based system that automatically executes agreements between parties on the internet, reducing the need for intermediates and increasing transaction reliability.

This platform has allowed Ethereum to execute smart contracts using the blockchain, reinforcing the benefits of smart contract technology. The blockchain was designed by co-founder Gavin Wood as a "one computer for the entire planet", making any program more robust, censorship-resistant, and less prone to fraud.

Over 280,000 ERC-20-compliant tokens have been launched on the Ethereum platform, with more than 40 of them making it to the top-100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.

Rosalie O'Reilly

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Rosalie O'Reilly is a skilled writer with a passion for crafting informative and engaging content. She has honed her expertise in a range of article categories, including Financial Performance Metrics, where she has established herself as a knowledgeable and reliable source. Rosalie's writing style is characterized by clarity, precision, and a deep understanding of complex topics.

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