Ethereum

Ethereum being an open-source blockchain platform lets you build and deploy decentralized applications which run on the blockchain technology. Like Bitcoin, there is no one to own or control Ethereum – it is an open-source project built with the help of many people around the globe. Unlike the Bitcoin protocol, Ethereum was designed to be flexible and adaptable. It is quite easy to create new applications on Ethereum platform, and with the Homestead release, it is now safe for anyone to use those applications.

The evolution of blockchain in Ethereum

Bitcoin a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System was first published in 2008. The use of blockchain for more general uses was already discussed in the original paper; it was not until half a decade later, blockchain technology emerged as a common term. In late 2013, inventor of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin proposed that a single blockchain with the capability to be reprogrammed to perform any arbitrarily complex computation could subsume these many other projects. In 2014, Ethereum founders Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood and Jeffrey Wilcke began work on a next-generation blockchain that had the ambitions to implement a general, fully trustless smart contract platform.

Ethereum Virtual Machine

Ethereum is a programmable blockchain. It gives the user a set of pre-defined operations. Ethereum allows users to create their own operations of any complexity they require. In this way, it serves as a platform for many different types of decentralized blockchain applications, including but not limited to cryptocurrencies. Ethereum in the narrow sense refers to a suite of protocols that define a platform for decentralized applications. At the heart of it is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (“EVM”), which can execute code of arbitrary algorithmic complexity. In computer science terms, Ethereum is “Turing complete”. Developers can create applications that run on the EVM using friendly programming languages modeled on existing languages like JavaScript and Python.

Ethereum platform highlights

• Ethereum uses the Turing language on the blockchain. This allows the exchange of simple or complicated contracts on the network which allows the elimination of third parties - as per an article I wrote on Ethereum yesterday. This makes Ethereum into a killer app on the blockchain that very few others have.
• Ethereum has the backing from corporate clients, and in recent days the price of its cryptocurrency ETH has rocketed. The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance (EEA) is working with dozens of enterprise grade companies in all verticals from banking to healthcare. Only Bitcoin can match this level of corporate buy in. No other crypto coins have this much corporate clout.
• Ethereum comes with a great roadmap of where they want to be in years 3 to 5, and they are implementing it with a strict rigor of which the community is proud of. This is a platform with a clear vision of where it wants to go.