What is Ethereum

What is Ethereum

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

crypto, ethereum, protocol, created, blockchain, episode, applications, cryptocurrency, Gavin Wood, platform, Vitalik Buterin, censorship, ether, smart contract, Charles Hoskinson

00:01

Welcome to the New to Crypto Podcast designed to guide you through the crypto landscape with pinpoint accuracy created for the new and intermediate crypto investor. Join your host Crypto Travels Michael as he takes you through the different facets of getting started and succeeding in your crypto journey. New to Crypto Podcast brings you new episodes daily Monday through Friday with surprise bonus episodes sometimes on the weekend. Let me ask you, are you new to crypto and don’t know where to start? Are you more experienced but have questions? Then you’re in the right place. This podcast is designed for you coming at you from the Trading Center and the lifestyle design studio. Here’s your host Crypto Travels Michael.

00:53

Welcome to today’s show. Today is an extra special one. I’m going to go over one of the most famous blockchains in all of crypto. Today’s show is what is Ethereum. So what exactly is Ethereum? 

01:09

Ethereum is a blockchain platform which has its own cryptocurrency called Ether or Ethereum. Some people you’ll hear call Ether. The Ethereum blockchain is built with a programming language called solidity. A blockchain network is a decentralized public ledger, which is for verifying and recording transactions. 

01:32

So Ethereum is digital money. It’s a community built technology. And today there is 1000s of applications running on Ethereum network users on Ethereum can create, they can publish, they can monetize and they can use the applications on the platform on the network. The cryptocurrency Ether or Eth, is used as payment. 

01:56

People in the crypto community call these decentralized applications that are on an Ethereum network. They’re called DAPPS, decentralized applications and daps for short, so Ethereum is second in market value only after Bitcoin. So Ethereum is an open source blockchain based platform and use to create and share business, financial services, entertainment applications, and more. So Ethereum users pay fees to use DAPPS on the network, and these fees are called gas. 

02:32

And the gas fee varies depending on the amount of computational power required for each transaction verified. So why was Ethereum created? It was created to enable developers to build and publish smart contracts and use decentralized applications or daps. 

02:53

According to ethereum.org, Ethereum describes itself as the world’s programmable blockchain. And Ethereum distinguishes itself from Bitcoin, because it serves as a programmable network. It serves as a marketplace for financial services, games and apps and so much more. 

03:12

And of course, all of those are paid on the network in the ether cryptocurrency and they’re safe from theft and fraud, as well as censorship which is very important in this day and age. So who created Ethereum? 

03:28

Well, in the summer of 2014, eight people gathered in a meeting in Switzerland. Little did they know that when this meeting was over, they would be deciding the future of what became the second largest blockchain platform on the planet. Today, only one of the eight founders or the original eight remains actively working on aetherium. He has since become a multi billionaire. His name is Vitalik Buterin. 

03:56

In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on three of the eight founders. However, on the website for today’s issue, all eight are listed if you want to explore more about each of them. Vitalik, as I already mentioned, was one. The next two are Charles Hoskinson, and Gavin Wood. 

04:15

Charles created the Cardano blockchain, which has the cryptocurrency ADA, and Gavin created Polkadot, which has the cryptocurrency dot more about those two projects later. Also on our site for today’s episode, I have the links to both the original white paper that Vitalik created forEthereum in 2013, and the yellow paper that Gavin Wood created for Ethereum in 2014. 

04:42

So if you’d like to review those or become more familiar, those are yours. Now there is some debate amongst all of the people and evolved as to who brought more value and who was the original creator, or creators of Ethereum. One thing is for certain after that they met the original eight in Switzerland in 2014. The crypto world has never been the same. 

05:07

Ethereum has positively impacted the world of cryptocurrency, as well as major financial markets everywhere. Vitalik is the only one as I mentioned earlier of the original eight who is still actively working on aetherium Charles Hoskinson and Gavin wood they left the project later once the project was launched, and each of them Charles and Gavin later went on to start their own projects, Charles created Cardano and Gavin created Polkadot.

05:40

Those two ecosystems which Charles created his and Gavin created his. The Cardano and Polkadot ecosystems are among the top cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap, as well as the amount of projects that are using and being built on top of their ecosystems. 

06:00

Both projects are exciting projects, which I follow, and on our website for today’s episode, I share all the links about their projects as well. Okay, let’s dive some more into Ethereum. According to ethereum.org, the design behind Ethereum is intended to follow five principles, the Ethereum protocol wants to be as simple as possible for users and for programmers and developers. The vision is that the protocol is open to everyone. A fundamental part of a theorem’s design philosophy is that it’s to be universal. A theory provides an internal scripting language where a programmer can use in order to construct any smart contract or transaction type that can be mathematically defined. If you want to create your own financial derivative or your own currency, you can on Ethereum just set it up as an Ethereum contract and move forward on your project. 

07:01

They also design the Ethereum protocol to be modular and separate as possible. If someone wanted to make a small protocol modification in one place, the application stack would continue to function without any further modification. agility is also something that the ethereum protocol wanted to implement. details of the protocol are not set in stone, meaning if changes need to be made and a consensus was met, there would be flexibility in the protocol to implement. 

07:33

Another core principle in Ethereum protocol is that there is non discrimination and non censorship. The protocol should not attempt to actively restrict or prevent specific categories of usage. I love crypto In this sense, non censorship, and to be part of the Ethereum platform. 

07:54

All you need to get started is a wallet which is made and built for tokens or coins on the Ethereum blockchain. Metamask is one that fits this description. I’ll have a special episode all about Metamask wallets coming up soon. I hope today’s episode has been beneficial for you. It was meant to be an introduction to what exactly Ethereum is, it wasn’t meant to be a deep dive. As time goes on. We will continue building on what we have learned and go deeper for sure. So this concludes our episode for today. I will see you right here tomorrow for the next episode. Until then, make it a great day.

08:38

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