Ethereum (ETH)

General Data and Information. The Ethereum white paper was released by Vitalik Buterin in late 2013 after proposals to include a scripting language to enable decentralized applications (dApps) on the Bitcoin blockchain failed to gain traction. Ether is the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain and is used to compensate nodes for performing computations in the Turing-complete instruction set of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). These instructions form the backbone of smart contracts and digital asset ownership which are recorded and issued upon the Ethereum blockchain. The development and governance of Ethereum relies upon the use of open-source Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) whereby developers and the wider public can submit proposals to improve or change standards to the Ethereum platform. These proposals can affect all aspects of the Ethereum ecosystem, from core code changes and ERC token standards through to public informational resources. Interestingly, the current Ethereum (ETH) blockchain is a fork of the original Ethereum chain after a flaw in the DAO smart contract resulted in the theft of around 3.5 million ETH in 2016. The proposal to reverse the theft was approved by 97% of stakeholders, which resulted in a hard fork with Ethereum (ETH) blockchain reversing the theft, whilst the Ethereum Classic (ETC) chain continued unchanged from the original (preserving the concept of immutability of blockchains). Milestones. Late 2013 - Ethereum White Paper released by Vitalik Buterin. July/August 2014 - Ethereum Crowdfunding to fund development. 30th July 2015 - Public launch (Version 1, codename “Frontier”) with 72 million coins premined to support development. October 2015 - First Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP-1) lays out the rules for governance and community consensus.

14th March 2016 - First “stable” release (Version 2, codename “Homestead”) with updates to security, transaction processing and pricing. June 2016 - The DAO hack. 20th July 2016 - ETH/ETC Hard Fork. 16th October 2017- Version 3 (codename “Metropolis: Byzantium”) with updates to the Ethereum Virtual Machine and smart contracts. 2017 - Ethereum Smart Contracts enable the funding of many crypto-currency projects via Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). December 2017 - Cryptokitties brings out scaling problems in Ethereum, with the network being congested and transactions being delayed. 28th February 2019 - Version 3.5 (codename ”Metropolis: Constantinople”) implementing zk-SNARKS borrowed from ZCash. Utility. Ethereum is the original and still dominant platform for issuing smart contracts that enable ICOs and decentralized applications (dApps) on a public blockchain via the Ethereum Virtual Machine and Solidity. Smart contracts and asset ownership are stored on a public blockchain which makes it possible to easily prove the veracity of contract claims. However, the downside of this public visibility is the public visibility of security holes or unintended consequences of loosely programmed smart contracts (a problem that reared its ugly head in the DAO hack). Ethereum forms the backbone of ICO launches, as projects are able to issue ERC-20 tokens to early investors which are redeemable project native tokens when the project mainnet goes live. These fungible tokens act as unique and transferable proofs of investment in the project. Non-fungible Ethereum tokens (ERC-721) are also able to be used to represent ownership of digital assets (such as Cryptokitties) or to act as tokens to represent ownership of real world assets.

Significant Features. - Designed as a Virtual Machine with a Turing-complete language means that Ethereum is the Swiss Army tool of blockchains. Highly flexible and adaptable, but perhaps not always the most efficient solution. - A comparatively large hashrate makes Ethereum one of the more secure blockchains in existence. - Solutions to scaling problems are being investigated, including sharding and a move to Proof of Stake consensus protocol. These changes are slated to be released under the codename Casper. - Alternative sidechain solutions (like MATIC) are also being released independently from the Ethereum core solutions. - Unlimited total supply. Average blocktime 10-20 seconds. - Transactions are pseduo-anonymous. Funds are sent address to address, but an owner identity can eventually attributed to an address given enough data and analysis. - Average Blocktime of 10-19 seconds; Total supply Unlimited; Proof of Work consensus based on ethash algorithm. References: ..

While Bitcoin is revered as the pioneer of cryptocurrencies that built a legacy of its own and launched a whole industry of innovation through Blockchain technology, it still remained limited in its application and practical implementation. Then came Ethereum, which opened the doors of the locked hurdles, unleashed the true potential of the application of cryptocurrencies and opened the world’s eyes to what Cryptocurrency is set to achieve.
Ethereum is an open-source, public Blockchain platform that is decentralized and gives room for independent companies to build their own decentralized applications and cryptocurrency tokens on its platform. Those cryptocurrencies are then known as ERC-20 tokens. Ethereum builds smart contracts and stores information on a network of international nodes. A cryptocurrency known as Ether is used to pay network nodes in order to process transactions (Chinchilla, 2019).

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Ethereum technology is well-developed and has been reported to have made quite an impression as it is already widely used around the world. More and more decentralized apps are being built on the network platform with each passing day. The language used for the coding and programming of many DApps (decentralized applications) is Solidity and the creators have the option to implement smart contracts on their apps.The language Solidity is developed particularly to improve the smart contracts from a security point of view (Solidity, 2018).

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Ethereum was founded by Vitalik Buterin, who has made his mark in the cryptocurrency and Blockchain community as an enthusiast and a promoter. He is very well-respected within the crypto-community and has promoted the understanding and overall knowledge of cryptocurrencies through his undying efforts of contributing to different blog posts and forums. He also founded the Bitcoin Magazine in May 2012 in order to enhance awareness of the general public towards the use of cryptocurrencies and Blockchain technology (Snyder, 2017).

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Ethereum has previously announced that it will be rolling out an upgraded version of the Ethereum Blockchain platform. They have named the upgrade Constantinople. However, the release was recently delayed because the team noticed some serious security concerning bugs in the design of the platform (Jameson, 2019).
Another major fact regarding the Ethereum network is that the network was bottlenecked due to an influx of transactions. In December 2017, the user activity on the decentralized app ‘CryptoKitties’ increased to such extent that the whole Ethereum network faced delayed transactions and reduced speed (Cheng, 2017).

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The code is developed by the Ethereum team who constantly publishes new updates and upgrades of the Ethereum network. The activity can be tracked on their GitHub profile. The focus these days is on the latest upgrade of the Ethereum network known as Constantinople. The upgrade will be released soon and will considerably improve the speed of the transactions while consuming way lesser energy (Chinchilla, 2019).

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With the ongoing level of development by the Ethereum team, it is likely that the team will overcome the hurdles that have been hindering the use of the technology to be used efficiently. The limitation mainly occurs in the shape of limited TPS that is allowed on the network.
The technology, however, will probably remain as the leading platform for the development of decentralized applications and will grow at a steady rate as smart contracts get more interesting and usable for people and businesses.

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The most important project in Ethereum’s pipeline currently is the Constantinople upgrade. The upgrade, expectedly, will enhance the performance of the network by increasing the transactional capacity of the network and minimizing the energy demands of the processes.

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Ethereum holds exceptional growth potential. With an already well-developed platform and a large number of users, Ethereum could be the sole base for building decentralized applications in the future. The attraction of smart contracts will prove to be very beneficial to the Ethereum network once the technology starts to become mature (Jameson, 2019).

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Shortly after Ethereum was launched as an open-source platform, many well-known substitutes have emerged in the market that all claim to offer the same level of performance, if not better. However, Ethereum still remains the most popular platform for decentralized applications that offers smart contracts as well.

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Ethereum has captured a huge portion of the business community already. Almost every decentralized app (DApp) is built on Ethereum technology. An alliance is known as ‘Ethereum Alliance’ is a composition of around 200 big companies, which include, but are not limited to, MasterCard, Credit Suisse, UBS, Microsoft and Intel (Sharma, 2019).

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The Ethereum community is perhaps the largest community in the crypto-world. It is also one of the most active ones, where community members frequently contribute to the development of the technology. They promote news and publicize any new development regarding Ethereum on different social media platforms. To put things into perspective, the Ethereum subreddit (Part of the Reddit Forum) has over 400,000 subscribers.

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The team consists of well-chosen figures who are experts in their own field and which complement each other also. The CEO of the company is Vitalik Buterin.

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