>> This video is all about the history of Ethereum.
Ethereum's creator, Vitalik Buterin,
originally wanted to extend the Bitcoin platform,
but the core developers weren't interested in
deviating from Satoshi Nakamoto's vision too much,
so we have to create something new.
Buterin created a more general blockchain
that has emerged out of the successes of Bitcoin.
Launched in 2015, Ethereum is the world's programmable blockchain.
It increases what's possible with the platform.
What makes it different from
Bitcoin is that you can use it for lots
of different digital assets, even Bitcoin itself.
It is still digital money but isn't tied to a specific currency.
In fact, there are a multitude
of uses outside of just currency exchange.
Ethereum is far more than just payments.
It's for games, applications,
loyalty programs, learning programs, and more.
Ethereum is an open-sourced global platform
for decentralized applications.
It is also smart-contract-based,
that means you can write code that controls
digital value and runs exactly as programmed.
Smart contracts code describes the rules for how
your personal Ethereum blockchain should
operate and who can participate.
Let's explore the main benefits of Ethereum.
You'll notice that many of these are
the same benefits that Bitcoin provides.
The Ethereum blockchain network
provides accessible thinking for everyone,
privacy by not needing to provide
your personal details and instead
using your set of public and private keys.
Ethereum is a peer-to-peer decentralized network that
is censorship resistant, and what's more,
Ethereum provides the ability to work with commerce and provides
nice compatibility with other platforms and products.
You can think of Ethereum as a Bitcoin computer.
Ethereum has its own currency called Ether,
but it also allows you to create your own cryptocurrency.
If you want to buy some Ether,
you can use a cryptocurrency exchange like Coinbase or Kraken.
To get started, you can get some Ether yourself that you can
use on different platforms and send some to others.
To learn more about how to buy,
I recommend going to etherium.org/eth.
There, you can find recommendations about how to buy Ether.
You also need a wallet to manage
your Ether and your Ethereum account
which will allow you to store,
spend, and receive Ether.
You can find out about how to sign up for
a wallet at ethereum.org/wallets.
Plus, there are many products and
services built on Ethereum blockchain network.
Those are referred to as the D apps,
which stands for decentralized applications.
These are web and mobile applications that are
powered by Ethereum smart contracts.
To find out more about some of
these applications, check out ethereum.org/dapps.
Ethereum's blockchain network works
much like Bitcoin's blockchain network.
The blockchain is composed of millions of transactions.
These transactions are grouped together into blocks.
Each block has several transactions
and each block is synced together.
For a transaction to be verified,
it must go through the mining process for miners to solve
the current block puzzle and create
a new block of valid transactions.
A miner is able to solve
the current block problem using the proof-of-work algorithm.
When a miner validates a new block,
they are rewarded with a certain amount of Ether.
Currently, that amount is about two Ether,
but this amount can continue to change and reduce over time.
Transactions take about 10-15 seconds to be verified,
as opposed to 10 minutes with Bitcoin.
Where Bitcoin limits blocks to one megabyte of data,
with Ethereum, you are limited to the amount of gas that you have.
Gas is used to perform any operation on the network.
You need gas for transactions.
Just as a car can only go as
far as the amount of gas you put into it,
a contract will only execute up to the point of gas it has.
This prevents people from running
infinite or very computationally intensive task
for which miners might not be compensated.
The basic idea is that you need to pay for gas as you go.
Ethereum is also Turing-complete,
which means that a program is sufficiently
expressive and will have predictable behaviors.
It also indicates that anything can be calculated
providing there is enough time and computing power.
The part of the protocol that handles processing is called
the Ethereum Virtual Machine or the EVM for short.
The EVM is a Turing-complete virtual machine.
Ethereum also use an expressive language called Solidity.
This allows programmable smart contracts
versus simple currency transfers that are allowed at Bitcoin.
The code needs to be compiled to
an intermediate bytecode representation
that should be executed on the different platforms.
Each node executes the code and verifies the result.
When a developer writes smart contracts for Ethereum,
they typically write code in Solidity that is
compiled and run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
That's the overview of Ethereum.
Ethereum was built off of the ideas of Bitcoin and it is
wildly popular since it is a programmable blockchain,
and has many other use cases
outside of just cryptocurrency transfer.
At the time of making this video,
the Ethereum Core Development Team is working on Ethereum 2.0.
This will essentially rewrite the platform and make it more
scalable to move from
a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus.
This is exciting as Ethereum
continues to improve and evolve over time.
>> [MUSIC]