All You Need To Known About Ethereum?

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is simply a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts.

What are smart contracts?

Smart contracts are programs that do exactly as they are planned without the risk of fraud,

downtime, or third-party interference.

Smart contracts simply make it easier for two parties to exchange any asset, it may be cash,

stocks, real estate, or any other kind of digital asset.

These contracts can be made by anyone on the Ethereum network and what makes up this

contract are the terms and conditions both parties agreed upon.

Once these smart contracts are implemented you can alter them.

So basically Ethereum is a network that runs this type of contract.

Let us look at the brief history of Ethereum;

Ethereum has grown rapidly since its release; it became the second-largest cryptocurrency in

January 2018 behind Bitcoin.

Ethereum was created by a Canadian programmer named Vitalik Buterin in 2013.

They started looking for funds to develop this Ethereum network in 2014, and in 2015 (July 30 th,

2015 to be precise) Ethereum officially launched.

When Ethereum officially launched, 72 million coins were minted.

Now, these first coins were given away to the people who provided the initial funding for the

project and they still make up around 65% of the total number of coins in the system as of April

2020.

So, that is the brief history of Ethereum. Now I am going to explain further how Ethereum

works or what exactly it does so you will have a better understanding of Ethereum.

Ethereum manages and tracks the currency through a decentralized computer network, known

as a blockchain.

Let me make it simpler of you, when I say “decentralized” I simply mean it is independent.

While a blockchain can simply be thought of as a continuous record of all cryptocurrency

transactions that have ever occurred.

Ethereum was basically created to give users full control of their content online without

involving third parties

Do you get?

Don’t confuse Ethereum with Ether, they are not the same. Ether is the cryptocurrency of the

Ethereum network, just like Naira is the currency of Nigeria.

Do you understand what I mean?

Ether is what fuels the Ethereum network. In basic terms just know that ether is the currency

and Ethereum is the network.

It may be better for you to think of Ethereum as a token that supports numerous apps as

opposed to just a cryptocurrency that enables user-to-user payments.

Ethereum can also power numerous apps with different features an example is NFTs which

stands for Non-fungible tokens; by publishing your work on the blockchain, you can earn money

from it.

Another example is Decentralized apps simply known as dAPPs; Ethereum also powers digital

apps that let you send money, play games, invest, check their investments, follow social media,

and more.

Part of what makes Ethereum appealing is its decentralized network. That is, its independence.

Unlike a bank, you can exchange currency without the need of a middleman, and since there is

no central bank, the currency is basically independent.

Another interesting thing about Ethereum is that although a transaction everybody can see the

transaction on the blockchain, Ethereum still lets you to do it almost anonymously.

I hope you are following.

Well aside from the network being independent and it keeping you anonymous, Ethereum also

has other benefits like its liquidity, volatility, and also the fact that it has lower inflation risk.

But there is a drawback or disadvantage of Ethereum which is its high transaction fee.

Transaction fees are calculated depending on how much gas is used, this is simply done by

multiplying the amount of gas used by the gas price.

Ethereum transaction needs to be paid for since it uses computing resources to work.

The fee needed to complete an Ethereum transaction successfully is called gas. Every operation

carried out on the Ethereum network consumes a particular amount of gas.

While the term “gas price” is the amount of ETH that is paid to miners for processing

Retail investors with less money are priced out of the network since using the Ethereum

blockchain might cost money.

I want to also point out to you that most use cases and applications have been built on the

Ethereum blockchain, even if other smart contract blockchains have lower fees.

Moving on,

You can either mine or purchase Ethereum. To mine Ethereum, you will need

 Mining application

 mining pool address

 graphic cards

 crypto wallets

 GPU drivers

 And lastly an Operating system preferably windows 10(64-bit).

How do you start mining?

To start mining the first thing you need to do is select a

 mining pool,

 after selecting a mining pool the next step is to create a cryptocurrency wallet,

where you will store your ETH,

 The next step after this is to select mining software an example is Ethminer.

 The next step is to create a BAT file.

 Now you can start mining.

If you don’t want to mine Ethereum, you can simply purchase it through any cryptocurrency

exchange platform like Paybis, Binance, or Luno. There are several other cryptocurrency

exchange platforms.