Is our only motive to change the banking system or to decentralize the world?
Sir Isaac newton proposed in his Third book of Opticks (1718) that there exists a medium that is allowing electromagnetic and gravitational waves to travel through and named it aether. Later in the19th century many physicists experimented to prove the existence of aether most famous among them was the Michelson–Morley experiment, but it failed.
No this is not a science fiction article, I am coming to my point, my whole purpose to shed light on this forgotten science theory is to bring to your notice that Vitalik Buterin, a cryptocurrency expert choose the name Ethereum for cryptocurrency that is going to change the way we look at today’s world.
Ethereum – I am here for something big
I would not bore you by talking about history of Bitcoin (BTC) and how Satoshi Nakamoto (an unknown individual or group) implemented years old technology of Proof of Work to make a digital currency with the help of blockchain technology that is grabbing attention of everyone nowadays.
Today I am going to talk about a young developer Vitalik Buterin who looked at blockchain from different perspective and proposed the idea of building decentralized applications in the year 2013.
He proposed the platform that will allow developers to build decentralized applications and called them dApps. He picked the name Ethereum with token name Ether (cryptocurrency used in Ethereum network) derived from Aether with an idea to allow developers to pass their applications through decentralized environment that’s exactly what hypothetically Aether does with electromagnetic and gravitational waves.
Ethreum came into existence on 30th July 2015 with 11.9 million Ethers (a token that has been used in Ethereum network) pre mined. This all happened after a Swiss non-profit company, Ethereum Switzerland GmbH(EthSuisse) developed the Ethereum core which was funded by crowd sale in which participants bought Ethers in exchange for the other cryptocurrency , Bitcoin.
Ethereum project is completely based on blockchain infrastructure and inherited all its properties with some tweaks to make it versatile enough to allow developers to build their own applications on platforms according to their goals.
What am I – Ethereum
Think of a world that is self-driven, you are going to start your day with a visit to your favourite coffee shop and pay in virtual currency token, going to call a cab that will be driverless fully automated and you can pay in another virtual currency token. After spending a hard working day in your office at the end who doesn’t want to grab a couple of beers with friends and you can pay in virtual currency token again. At the end of the week you are going to get paid but again in virtual currency token, soon this is how you are going to spend your life. It is becoming a reality and believe it, that Ethereum started this change and will lead the family of new generation of cryptocurrencies known as Alternative coins (Altcoin).
Now the question is who is going to issue those cryptocurrencies, what if I say that anybody can build and issue their own cryptocurrency using a platform that Ethereum offers known as Ethereum virtual machine (EVM).
Ethereum virtual machine (EVM)
Ethereum introduced an environment that can run a code or set of instructions to execute the operation without any alteration or doubt of failing, that anybody can design according to their needs. Think it as a system on which you can design your application to perform any task for any need to execute computer codes on a blockchain. To make it simple to understand you can actually design your application and issue your cryptocurrency but you don’t have to take the pain of designing the whole blockchain system, you can utilise the infrastructure that Ethereum offers and the best part is that every application is independent and can perform without any alteration, dependence and third party interference. This all is becoming possible with the help of another smart idea known as Smart Contracts.
Smart Contract
For those who don’t understand blockchain, imagine a world of computers connected with each other forming a distributed network and each one of them performing the same task to contribute to the network, we call them nodes.
Now Smart Contract is a self-operating program that runs on a blockchain to execute the function for which it is designed but only when specific conditions are met.
This program can be designed to facilitate any operation like transfer of assets, content or practically anything that holds a value.
Best part about Smart Contract is that it executes on every node of blockchain and that protects the system from any downtime, interference or a hacking attack.
The Future is here – Be in it or be without it
As of January 2018, there are about 250 dApps (decentralised apps) that are live and many more are in development that are being built on Ethereum infrastructure.
Ethereum is not alone, Waves Platform is another decentralized system which is developed by a company known as Waves Platform AG and published in 2016.
Waves allows users to create their own cryptocurrency in its core software and wallet which is build around Scala programming language from scratch. Users can create trade and exchange blockchain tokens and have to pay transaction fees in native Waves token.
It works on Proof of Stake (POS) logic which is different from Ethereum’s Proof of Work (POW). And many experts believe that POS is better as it minimises the massive power needs of POW and also provides rigid structure against competitive mining operations. The whole system works on transaction fees which is negligible due to Smart Contacts as it is removing middlemen from the picture making it peer-to-peer type of infrastructure.
I can’t imagine possibilities that these platforms can offer, think of an operating system that is working on blockchain, rather than using Mac OS or Windows you will be using decentralized computing system that will allow you to run decentralized apps and transactions will process in cryptocurrencies.
In one of the many scenarios one day we will be able to share our computing power to launch a satellite. Yes, I ask you IS OUR ONLY MOTIVE TO CHANGE BANKING SYSTEM OR TO DECENTRALIZE THE WORLD?