Topic: Don't understand Ethereum!? (Read 98 times)
An educative piece, although I have been using ethereum for years, I have to be honest that I don not even understand the workings behind it or even how it originated although I always knew that it is the brainchild of Vitalik Buterin.
Here's a great explanation from Dapp.com
What is Ethereum?
By late 2013, Vitalik Buterin developed the idea of Ethereum in the shape of a white paper which he went on to share with his mates and the very proposal was further spread as well. Due to the scattering of the idea, around 30 to 40 people approached Vitalik for having further discussions on the concept and even when he was aspiring for the criticism on his plan, nobody came up with the critical reviews for further improvement. In the following year 2014, this model was made public where the core group was involved in making it happen. Besides Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Lorio, Charles Hoskinson, Joe Lubin, and Gavin Wood were also part of the core functional team. The same team proposed to conduct the crowd-sale of Ether which was the local token of the Ethereum for seeking funds for further development.
Basically, Ethereum is a decentralized system that depicts that it is beyond the control of one centralized authority or entity. While in contrast, an overwhelming majority of the online enterprises, organizations, and setups are developed on the centralized systems of authority. Despite the fact that the same system has been under functionality for hundreds of years, the history and past events associated with it have proved with erroneous constantly. Nevertheless, the use of the system is still essential in the case when different factions have a mistrust or lack of mutuality with each other.
So, as Ethereumm is decentralized, it works entirely autonomously which means it comes free from inherent control of any of the authority. For the exact same reasons, Ethereum is free from any central threat point of failure as it gets managed by many hundreds and thousands of volunteer computers around the world which make it least probable for going offline even for a moment. In the same way, the personal data and credentials of the users stick on their very devices whereas the content based on the digital media like videos or apps remains under the authority of their developers without a need to get monitored by the rules made by the hosting companies like YouTube or iOS etc.
Additionally, it is significant to understand that even though the Bitcoin and Ethereum are always compared with each other, still it is worthy to mention that both are contrasting projecting with an utterly separated purpose of existence. Bitcoin is the first ever cryptocurrency which is also a money transfer which is based and developed by the public ledger technology known as the blockchain. On the other hand, Ethereum might have got the inspiration from the back-end technology of Bitcoin, still, it managed to enhance and increase the level of its capacities up to a great extent. It is based on the whole network within the Internet browser, coding language and payment mechanism which work in a combination to allow users for developing decentralized applications on the blockchain of Ethereum. Such applications could whether be utterly new ideas or a reformed shape of a decentralized system of pre-existing techniques. That is how the role of a middle agent is cut off and the whole of the expenses connected with the intervention of third parties are also eliminated.
How does the Ethereum work?
Since it is already mentioned that Ethereum relies on the working capacities and functionality of Bitcoin and its blockchain design, however, there are numerous alterations for the applications other than the money system’s assistance. The only identical aspect of both blockchains is their storage of all the histories of transactions on their respective network however, Ethereum’s blockchain tends to perform way much more functions than that. Other than the history of the transactions, each node on Ethereum network also needs to download the latest state or commonly known as the current status of every contract within the network while each user’s balance and smart contract code are stored as well.
More importantly, Ethereum blockchain is known as transaction oriented state machine and when you consider the computer science, a certain machine is prescribed as being able to interpret the sequence of inputs and transforming into the latest state based on the inputs. Right when the transactions are performed, the machine changes to a different state.
Each form of Ethereum is comprised of millions of transactions and such transactions are combined together to make blocks where every single block is chained along with its previous blocks. However, prior to the binding of the transaction with the ledger, there is a need for verification and validation, it has to go through a sophisticated process which is known as mining. Just to simplify things a bit more, mining is the name of a process under which a group of nodes uses its computing technology to completing a working challenge which is more precisely a mathematical task. Depending on the power and capability of the computer, the more powerful it would be the quicker mathematical exercise or puzzle could be solved. Also, the response or answer to this challenge is itself a proof of work and ensures the authorization of a certain block.
A great majority of the miners residing all over the world are competing against one another for having to form and authorize a block as whenever a new miner guarantees a block, new Ether tokens get formed and are issued to that miner. Miners are an integral part of the Ethereum networks because they do not only authorize and confirm the transactions and other functionalities but also formulate new tokens of the currency’s network.
What is Ethereum?
By late 2013, Vitalik Buterin developed the idea of Ethereum in the shape of a white paper which he went on to share with his mates and the very proposal was further spread as well. Due to the scattering of the idea, around 30 to 40 people approached Vitalik for having further discussions on the concept and even when he was aspiring for the criticism on his plan, nobody came up with the critical reviews for further improvement. In the following year 2014, this model was made public where the core group was involved in making it happen. Besides Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Lorio, Charles Hoskinson, Joe Lubin, and Gavin Wood were also part of the core functional team. The same team proposed to conduct the crowd-sale of Ether which was the local token of the Ethereum for seeking funds for further development.
Basically, Ethereum is a decentralized system that depicts that it is beyond the control of one centralized authority or entity. While in contrast, an overwhelming majority of the online enterprises, organizations, and setups are developed on the centralized systems of authority. Despite the fact that the same system has been under functionality for hundreds of years, the history and past events associated with it have proved with erroneous constantly. Nevertheless, the use of the system is still essential in the case when different factions have a mistrust or lack of mutuality with each other.
So, as Ethereumm is decentralized, it works entirely autonomously which means it comes free from inherent control of any of the authority. For the exact same reasons, Ethereum is free from any central threat point of failure as it gets managed by many hundreds and thousands of volunteer computers around the world which make it least probable for going offline even for a moment. In the same way, the personal data and credentials of the users stick on their very devices whereas the content based on the digital media like videos or apps remains under the authority of their developers without a need to get monitored by the rules made by the hosting companies like YouTube or iOS etc.
Additionally, it is significant to understand that even though the Bitcoin and Ethereum are always compared with each other, still it is worthy to mention that both are contrasting projecting with an utterly separated purpose of existence. Bitcoin is the first ever cryptocurrency which is also a money transfer which is based and developed by the public ledger technology known as the blockchain. On the other hand, Ethereum might have got the inspiration from the back-end technology of Bitcoin, still, it managed to enhance and increase the level of its capacities up to a great extent. It is based on the whole network within the Internet browser, coding language and payment mechanism which work in a combination to allow users for developing decentralized applications on the blockchain of Ethereum. Such applications could whether be utterly new ideas or a reformed shape of a decentralized system of pre-existing techniques. That is how the role of a middle agent is cut off and the whole of the expenses connected with the intervention of third parties are also eliminated.
How does the Ethereum work?
Since it is already mentioned that Ethereum relies on the working capacities and functionality of Bitcoin and its blockchain design, however, there are numerous alterations for the applications other than the money system’s assistance. The only identical aspect of both blockchains is their storage of all the histories of transactions on their respective network however, Ethereum’s blockchain tends to perform way much more functions than that. Other than the history of the transactions, each node on Ethereum network also needs to download the latest state or commonly known as the current status of every contract within the network while each user’s balance and smart contract code are stored as well.
More importantly, Ethereum blockchain is known as transaction oriented state machine and when you consider the computer science, a certain machine is prescribed as being able to interpret the sequence of inputs and transforming into the latest state based on the inputs. Right when the transactions are performed, the machine changes to a different state.
Each form of Ethereum is comprised of millions of transactions and such transactions are combined together to make blocks where every single block is chained along with its previous blocks. However, prior to the binding of the transaction with the ledger, there is a need for verification and validation, it has to go through a sophisticated process which is known as mining. Just to simplify things a bit more, mining is the name of a process under which a group of nodes uses its computing technology to completing a working challenge which is more precisely a mathematical task. Depending on the power and capability of the computer, the more powerful it would be the quicker mathematical exercise or puzzle could be solved. Also, the response or answer to this challenge is itself a proof of work and ensures the authorization of a certain block.
A great majority of the miners residing all over the world are competing against one another for having to form and authorize a block as whenever a new miner guarantees a block, new Ether tokens get formed and are issued to that miner. Miners are an integral part of the Ethereum networks because they do not only authorize and confirm the transactions and other functionalities but also formulate new tokens of the currency’s network.
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