If you’re interested in ethereum for the first time, it’s probably because you’ve been amazed by the recent evolution of its price. Indeed, after being stable for months, below the 10 euros mark, it’s literally exploding in 2017. And many big investors are supporting this cryptocurrency.
Ethereum, an advanced technology
The ethereum ICO happened between July and September 2014. And it was the largest cryptographic token sale at the time: The project received over 25,000 BTC from selling over 50 million ETH…
Ethereum is now the second digital currency in terms of capitalization. Indeed, with close to $30 billion in capitalization, it’s closely following bitcoin and its $36 billion.
Beyond pure speculation, a crypto-coin derives its value from the utility that it will be able to bring. If its price increases, it means the investors have confidence in the currency. And in the concrete applications that it will be able to create.
Because if there are thousands of digital currencies nowadays, only some of them have real value if you want to invest.
So what makes ethereum stand out? Does this blockchain work like bitcoin’s? Well, you need to understand that Ethereum technology is much more advanced than Bitcoin. While the latter was only created for financial transactions, ethereum will be able to disrupt many domains: Finance, Law, Commerce, Environment, etc.
Indeed, it will potentially revolutionize many industries by automating certain functions that had to be performed manually. In particular, it allows the creation of smart-contracts, which are contracts which will be able to be self-executing depending on whether contracting parties agree.
In order to run contracts, we use a unit of account called ether (called “ETH”). So the ethers are the ethereum coin used by the users of ethereum blockchain. And beyond pure speculation, these are already useful.
Indeed, several hundred Dapps have already been developed by third parties, and many ICOs allow tokens in exchange for ethers.
Moreover, the development team behind Ethereum seems to be highly skilled and competent, as you can see on their GitHub page.
Finally, it has launched a foundation, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, to promote its technology to large companies. And many prestigious partners such as Microsoft and Intel are supporting the digital currency.
Ethereum exchanges
These are some of the best crypto exchanges if you want to buy some:
Coinbase
Cex.io
Coinmama
Coinhouse
LocalBitcoins
Midas
Crypto enthusiast who started from scratch. After a few years of hits and misses, I'm sure cryptos will change the world for the better (if we can manage to protect our privacy). As I learn, I'm building a portfolio of as many coins and tokens I can collect, including mighty bitcoin. Because who knows what lies ahead of us? I hope my articles will help you get started!
