What is Ethereum?

Ethereum, or short ETH is a Blockchain that is similar to Bitcoin but what is Etherium. What are the differences? It has some major features that are missing on Bitcoin. Firstly visit Wikipedia for a Basic Understanding:

Ethereum differences

For Example Highlight a few Key difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum:

• Ethereum is a Smart Contract Platform, as of now there is not the same Smart Contract functionality on BTC. Bitcoin is by most Users considered as a Store of Value, some people find this not accurate due to the high volatility.
• Block Time on Ethereum is 10-15 Seconds, compared to Bitcoin where it is aprox. 10 Minutes, therefore offers much faster transaction speed.
• The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the runtime environment for smart contracts in ETH, where such thing is not present in Bitcoin at all.
• Alltough as of right now the ETH Blockchain is based on Proof-of-Work(PoW) it is transitioning to Proof-of-Stake(PoS) with the the launch of Ethereum 2.0 which firs of three Phases startet at 1. December 2020.
• Transaction costs are calculating different on Ethereum by computational complexity, bandwidth use, and storage needs (in a system known as gas), while bitcoin transactions compete by means of transaction size in bytes.
• Bitcoin is hardcapped to 21 Million Coins that are emissioned by mining. As of right now the supply of ETH can be infinite, this is about to Change with ETH 2.0.

Ethereum DAO Event

In 2016 there was a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). In other words his was a set of Smart Contracts that have the purpose to provide a new decentralized business model for organizing both commercial and non-profit enterprises. The DAO was stateless, and not tied to any particular nation state. The DAO was undergoing a Crowdfunding Campaign. It raised a record of $ 150 Million! A Record at that Time!

But the DAO is not perfect. After a exploited for $ 50 Million worth of DAO Tokens by an unknown Hacker in Mid 2016, the Blockchain Community could not reach consensus about how to Handle this event. Certainly there was one group that was seeing the Solution for this in a Hardfork of the Ethereum Blockhain, rendering the loot of the Hacker useless.

In addition it took very long to execute this Hard Fork. In the meantime Miners was still working on the original Chain and refused to move to the Hard Fork. After that there are two Ethereum Chains. We call this Chain ETH Classic now. The Ethereum Classic Community believes that Code is law. Therefore this event should not have ben reversed. In the meanwhile the ETC/Ethereum-Classic was target of multiple successfull 51% attacks. The new Chain is forked at Block 1920000 and is now called Ethereum and has reverted the Hack and the occured loss of Tokens.

Decentralized Finance(DeFI) on Ethereum

Even with the DAO Event Ethereum has continued to blossom and the Community has learned from this Event. In Conclusion the possibility to execute Touring Complete Code on ETH is bringing many interesting Apps and Projects to the Platform. To sum up here is a few notable examples in alphabetical Order:

• Aave – open source and non-custodial liquidity protocol
• Balancer – Balancer is a protocol for programmable liquidity
• Bancor – on-chain liquidity protocol
• Chainlink – decentralized oracle network
• Compound – algorithmic, autonomous interest rate protocol
• Cover Protocol – peer-to-peer coverage market
• Curve – Liquidity Pools & decentralized exchange
• Dodo – on-Chain Liquidity Provider
• Gnosis – create, trade, and hold digital assets
• dy/dx – is a decentralized exchange as well as borrowing and lending functionality
• Maker DAO – Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) System
• Matcha.xyz – defi aggregator, search 17 exchanges at once for best liquidity and price
• REN – open protocol providing access to inter-blockchain liquidity for all decentralized applications
• Sushiswap – Liquidity Pools & decentralized exchange
• Synthetix Network – derivatives trading in DeFi
• Uniswap – Liquidity Pools & decentralized exchange
• wBTC – Wrapped Bitcoin is the first ERC20 token backing 1:1 with Bitcoin
• yearn.finance – provides lending aggregation, yield generation, and insurance
• Zapper – Manage your DeFi assets and liabilities

You can find many interesting more DeFi Projects not only built on Ethereum at Coingecko.