Hyderabad: ETHEREUM is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency. It was launched in 2015 and it is the most open-ended decentralized software platform. It features smart contracts — the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — and uses its currency called Ether for peer-to-peer contracts.
Ethereum’s smart contracts use blockchain stored applications for contract negotiation and facilitation. These contracts allow the blockchain to provide a decentralised way to verify and enforce them, which makes it difficult for fraud or censorship. The aim is to provide greater security than traditional contracts and bring down the associated costs.
Ethereum discourages centralised pool mining through its Ghost protocol rewarding stale blocks. There is no advantage to being in a pool in terms of block propagation. Ethereum uses a memory hard hashing algorithm that mitigates against the use of ASICS and encourages decentralised mining.
In terms of purpose, bitcoin was created as an alternative to regular money and is a medium of payment transaction and store of value. Whereas, Ethereum was developed as a platform to facilitate peer-to-peer contracts and applications through its own currency vehicle.