Because of the ERC20 token standard defined by the Ethereum Foundation, other developers can issue their own versions of this token and raise funds with an initial coin offering ICO.

In this fundraising strategy, the issuers of the token set an amount they want to raise, offer it in a crowd sale, and receive Ether in exchange.

Billions of dollars have been raised by ICOs on the ethereum platform in the last two years, and one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world, EOS , is an ERC20 token.

Ethereum has recently created a new standard called the ERC token for tracking unique digital assets. One of the biggest use cases currently for such tokens is digital collectibles, as the infrastructure allows for people to prove ownership of scarce digital goods.

Many games are currently being built using this technology, such as the overnight hit CryptoKitties , a game where you can collect and breed digital cats.

Because decentralized applications run on the blockchain , they benefit from all of its properties.

Because smart contract code is written by humans, smart contracts are only as good as the people who write them.

Code bugs or oversights can lead to unintended adverse actions being taken. If a mistake in the code gets exploited, there is no efficient way in which an attack or exploitation can be stopped other than obtaining a network consensus and rewriting the underlying code.

This goes against the essence of the blockchain which is meant to be immutable. Also, any action taken by a central party raises serious questions about the decentralized nature of an application.

There are many ways you can plug into the ethereum network, one of the easiest ways is to use its native Mist browser. Like web browsers give access and help people navigate the internet, Mist provides a portal into the world of decentralized blockchain applications.

There is also the MetaMask browser extension, which turns Google Chrome into an ethereum browser. MetaMask allows anyone to easily run or develop decentralized applications from their browser.

Even people without a technical background can now potentially build blockchain apps. This is a revolutionary leap for blockchain technology that could bring decentralized applications into the mainstream.

The ethereum platform is being used to create applications across a broad range of services and industries. Here are a few exciting projects.

Weifund provides an open platform for crowdfunding campaigns that leverages smart contracts. It enables contributions to be turned into contractually backed digital assets that can be used, traded or sold within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Uport provides users with a secure and convenient way to take complete control of their identity and personal information.

Instead of relying on government institutions and surrendering their identities to third parties, users control who can access and use their data and personal information.

BlockApps is looking to provide the easiest way for enterprises to build, manage and deploy blockchain applications. From the proof of concept to full production systems and integration with legacy systems, Blockapps provides all the tools necessary to create private, semi-private and public industry-specific blockchain applications.

Provenance is using ethereum to make opaque supply chains more transparen t. Predictions on future real-world events, like who will win the next US election, are carried out by trading virtual shares.

If a person buys shares in a winning prediction, they receive monetary rewards. Remember how ethereum can be used to build Decentralized Autonomous Organizations?

Well in , something bad happened. The DAO was a project developed and programmed by a team behind another startup called Slock.

Their aim was to build a humanless venture capital firm that would allow investors to make decisions through smart contracts. TypeScript CC TypeScript 35 29 23 5 Updated Dec 8, Go GPL Python CC TypeScript 15 18 39 3 Updated Dec 8, CMake 18 3 0 0 Updated Dec 8, JavaScript GPL JavaScript 3, 9, 63 1 issue needs help 25 Updated Dec 7, JavaScript 7 4 0 0 Updated Dec 8, Previous Next.

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Explore our Questions Ask Question. Active Hot Week Month. Ethereum-based permissioned blockchain variants are used and being investigated for various projects.

In Ethereum all smart contracts are stored publicly on every node of the blockchain, which has costs. The downside is that performance issues arise in that every node is calculating all the smart contracts in real time, resulting in lower speeds.

As of January , the Ethereum protocol could process about 25 transactions per second. In comparison, the Visa payment platform processes 45, payments per second leading some to question the scalability of Ethereum.

Ethereum engineers have been working on sharding the calculations, and the next step called Ethereum 2 was presented at Ethereum's Devcon 3 in November Ethereum's blockchain uses Merkle trees , for security reasons, to improve scalability, and to optimize transaction hashing.

The Ethereum network has at times faced congestion problems, for example, congestion occurred during late in relation to Cryptokitties. Decentralized finance is a use case of Ethereum.

Vitalik Buterin picked the name Ethereum after browsing Wikipedia articles about elements and science fiction, when he found the name, noting, "I immediately realized that I liked it better than all of the other alternatives that I had seen; I suppose it was the fact that [it] sounded nice and it had the word ' ether ', referring to the hypothetical invisible medium that permeates the universe and allows light to travel.

Izabella Kaminska, the editor of FT Alphaville , pointed out in that criminals were using Ethereum to run Ponzi schemes and other forms of investment fraud.

However, it also estimated that only 0. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Open source blockchain computing platform. Main article: The DAO organization.

Further information: Cryptocurrency. Main article: Decentralized finance. On social governance. Our governance is inherently social, people who are more connected in the community have more power, a kind of soft power.

Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 9 January Ether Is the Digital Currency of the Moment. Published ". The New York Times.

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Archived from the original on 23 February Retrieved 21 February The New Yorker. Retrieved 4 February Archived from the original on 20 August Retrieved 20 August The company was founded in and is based in Baar, Switzerland.

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Archived from the original on 6 June Archived from the original on 25 June