what is ethereum?

wikipedia | Purpose The stated purpose of the Ethereum project is to "decentralize the web" by introducing four components as part of its roadmap: static content publication, dynamic messages, trustless transactions and an integrated user-interface.^[6] Each of these services is designed to replace some aspect of the systems currently used in the modern web, but to do so in a fully decentralised and pseudonymous manner.^[7]

Ethereum is an open source project. Development began in December 2013, with the first Go and C++ proof of concept builds (PoC1) being released in early February 2014.^[8] Since then, several further PoC builds have been released, culminating with the public launch of the Ethereum blockchain on 30 July 2015.

 

Ether

The currency unit of Ethereum is the Ether, used to pay for computational services on the network.

To finance development, Ethereum distributed the initial allocation of Ethers via a 42-day public crowdsale, netting 31,591 bitcoins, worth $18,439,086 at that time, in exchange for about 60,102,216 Ethers.^{[12][citation needed]}

Ether is divided into smaller units of currency called finney, szabo, shannon, babbage, lovelace, and wei (named after Wei Dai, the creator of b-money). Each larger unit is equal to 1000 of the next lower unit.^[13] In practice, however, the developers encourage the use of ether and wei. Wei is the base unit of implementation and cannot be further divided.

Smart contracts on Ethereum

Smart contracts are computer protocols which verify or enforce the performance of a contractual agreement. On Ethereum, contracts can be written in one of the following four languages: Solidity (a JavaScript-like language), Serpent (a Python-like language), Mutan (C-like) and LLL (Lisp-like). They are compiled into bytecode before being deployed to the blockchain.

Media 

The platform has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, ^[14] Wired,^[15] The Globe and Mail,^[16] SiliconANGLE,^[17] Al Jazeera,^[18] The Telegraph^[19] and the Keiser Report.^[20]