Eager to follow in the success of Bitcoin, various other currencies have begun to spring up – each one has a particular technological quirk, and different mathematical proof to back it up. But all of these currencies have the same goal: create a better world with decentralization.
Ethereum is the world’s first decentralized computer. While Bitcoin brought about solutions to the financial world, Ethereum seeks to bring about solutions to programs.
Historically, building a decentralized application required a complex background in cryptography and mathematics to verify its integrity. But Ethereum simplifies this, making it accessible to anyone on the web.
Developers can create applications that always execute the code they say they will – you do not need to trust anything or anyone, and can verify what the code is, and what it does. These applications are also always available, and guaranteed to be in the Ethereum database forever – there is no downtime, no takedowns, no disappearing servers or failed hosting. And most importantly, these applications are resistant to many attacks – things like denial of service attacks, or keyloggers, or trojans are a thing of the past with Ethereum.
But it’s not just applications – websites, too, can be hosted on Ethereum. Imagine never having to worry about what you search for or post; imagine if you were free from advertisements and big brother agencies that store your data for later use.
Ethereum was created to revitalize the original idea of the Internet.
- Source: Genesis Mining.
- Recommended reading: Quora thread, Blockgeeks guide, Ethereum Whitepaper on Github.