Ethereum (ETH)

Bitcoin was a radical innovation for money and currency. However, the underlying blockchain technology can be used for much more than direct financial exchanges. Ethereum is a blockchain with a built-in fully fledged Turing-complete programming language – a decentralized computer. Now, you can create “contracts” that self-execute, and allow complex systems like decentralized autonomous organizations as well as many other things that we have not yet imagined by simply writing code. Since launch, Ethereum became the world’s most popular blockchain for development. It became also known for The DAO hack and resulting split in Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, and for setting standards such as the ERC-20 token. Today, it is by far the most innovative and thriving ecosystem that enables layer 2 protocols and 1000s of dApps in all industries, especially in DeFi with “money legos” that are based on each other. Ethereum is in the process of switching to ETH 2, a state-of-the-art PoS blockchain to meet industry requirements and become the backbone of open finance and Web 3.

These resources help you to get to know Ethereum, understand how Ethereum works and how you can use Ethereum. Other smart contract blockchain protocols usually compare themselves to Ethereum and try to improve in some areas.

These resources help you to get to know Ethereum on a technical level and to start working with it. After going through these resources you are able to determine when it makes sense to use Ethereum, how to set up and run a node, network or application. Don’t forget to check out the tooling.

Anyone can join the network and participate in the PoW mining process by contributing computing power – similar to Bitcoin mining. Transactions on Ethereum include money transfers and signing smart contracts. Currently the block reward is 2 Ether. Ether is mostly used for direct transactions, to exchange ERC-20 tokens and as base money in DeFi. There are constantly discussions about adapting the mining difficulty adjustment process and moving from PoW to ProgPoW before switching to PoS – without agreement or specified timelines.

Ethereum has some well-known leaders such as Vitalik Buterin, Vlad Zamfir and Joseph Lubin but a decentralized governance process has evolved and includes the larger community, core developers and important companies in the ecosystem. The Ethereum community has adopted many standards such as Ethereum Improvement proposals that are helpful to organize and govern the community and network.

Great write-ups can be found here and here.

Ethereum is a very inclusive, tech-focused ecosystem. By now, Ethereum is the dominant smart contract protocol with the largest developer community and most decentralized applications. Ethereum Foundation and Consensys have been very important growth drivers which are now joined by large projects, investors & users.

The most important part on the Ethereum Roadmap is the upgrade from Ethereum 1 to Ethereum 2.0. This major upgrade and the transitioning is long-awaited but it will not take place at a single point in time but be rolled out in phases. Ethereum 1 and Ethereum 2 will likely co-exist for some time and value transfers will be possible in both directions. This phased rollout will include Sharding, Proof of Stake, a new virtual machine (eWASM) and more.

Roadmap insights can be found here, here & here and discussions in Ethresear.ch.

The Ethereum ecosystem is very decentralized with 1000s of companies, developers and influencers all around the world working on education, DeFi or gaming. Make sure to add interesting Ethereum projects here and great influencers here.