Ethereum is one of the most fascinating inventions created in the last few years. Although Bitcoin (also based on cryptocurrency) gets more headlines, the future may very well belong to Ethereum. We will explain in this step by step guide what is Blockchain? What is cryptocurrency? What is Ethereum? why Ethereum is so unique? How does Ethereum work? Why should you use Ethereum? How to buy Ether? And many more! In this guide, we will try to answer all your questions, and give you a full understanding on blockchain, cryptocurrency and Ethereum.
Ethereum is a public platform that is based on a technology called blockchain.
Ethereum is an open source platform, that means that it is supported by the community and doesn’t belong to any one person or company. Ethereum uses distributed computing and smart contracts functionality.
Ethereum provides a cryptocurrency token called "ether". You can buy ether (sometimes people say “buy Ethereum”) and use it to buy and sell products and other currencies. People often buy ether with the intention of investing in Ethereum, believing that it has a bright future and so the price will rise in the future.
Ethereum was proposed in late 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, a cryptocurrency researcher and programmer. The system went live on 30 July 2015, with 11.9 million coins "premined".
The lessons in this step by step guide will help you grasp the magnitude behind Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and Ethereum ideas:
🤔 Ether currency and smart contracts
The value token of the Ethereum blockchain is called ether. It is listed under the code ETH and traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. It is also used to pay for transaction fees and computational services on the Ethereum network.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the runtime environment for smart contracts in Ethereum.
🤔 Ethereum wallet
A cryptocurrency wallet stores the public and private keys which can be used to receive or spend the cryptocurrency. A wallet can contain multiple public and private key pairs. There are over nine hundred cryptocurrencies; the first and best known is bitcoin. Some wallets support multiple cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrency itself is not in the wallet. In case of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies derived from it, the cryptocurrency is decentralized stored and maintained in a publicly available ledger. Every piece of cryptocurrency has a private key. With the private key, it is possible to write in the public ledger, effectively spending the associated cryptocurrency.
🤔 How to buy Ethereum
Buying Ethereum or other cryptocurrency is pretty easy, but please note that it is very volatile! and so if you are buying Ethereum as a speculative investment and you are not a professional investor we suggest that you’ll do it carefully and buy a small amount
Here are the steps for buying ether on a software wallet:
* Download the wallet app (you can use coinbase for instance, they are probably the most popular).
* Follow the app instructions and set an account.
* Add a payment method.
* Press the Buy button.
* Sometimes the Bank will call you to make sure this is not a fraud meant to take your money.
🤔 Ethereum mining
Ethereum Frontier like all blockchain technologies uses an incentive-driven model of security. Consensus is based on choosing the block with the highest total difficulty. Miners produce blocks which the others check for validity. Among other well-formedness criteria, a block is only valid if it contains proof of work (PoW) of a given difficulty. Note that in Ethereum 1.1, this is likely going to be replaced by a proof of stake model.
🤔 Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin cryptocurrency and Blockchain, however, many people don’t really understand what they mean, how they are built and why everybody is talking about the amazing future of blockchain and blockchain based cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and others.
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