What is Ethereum?
Are you new to the world of Ethereum? Then you've come to the right place. Let's start with an overview.
Ethereum is the foundation for a new era of the internet:
An internet where money and payments are integrated.
An internet where users own their own data and apps don't spy on you or steal from you.
An Internet that gives everyone access to an open financial system.
An internet built on a neutral, open-access infrastructure that is not controlled by any company or individual.
Ethereum was launched in 2015 and is the world's leading programmable blockchain.
Like other blockchains, Ethereum has a native cryptocurrency called ether (ETH). ETH is digital money. You may have heard of bitcoin. ETH has many of the same characteristics. It exists exclusively in the digital space and can be sent virtually instantly around the world. The amount of ETH is not regulated by any government or company - ETH is decentralized and limited in quantity. People all over the world use ETH for payments, as an investment of value, or deposit it as collateral.
But unlike other blockchains, Ethereum can do much more. Ethereum is programmable. That means developers can use Ethereum to create entirely new kinds of applications.
These decentralized applications (or "dApps") benefit from the cryptographic incidents of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. They are trustworthy, which means that once uploaded to Ethereum, dApps will always run exactly as programmed. They can manage digital assets, creating new types of financial applications. The applications can be decentralized, which means that no single entity or person controls them.
Right now, thousands of developers around the world are developing apps on Ethereum and creating innovative dApps, many of which you can already use today:
Cryptocurrency wallets that let you make cheap, instant payments using ETH or other assets.
Financial apps that allow you to invest in, as well as borrow and lend, digital assets
Decentralized markets where you can trade digital assets or even trade "predictions" about real-world events
Games where you can own game assets and even earn real money
And a whole lot more
The Ethereum community is the largest and most active blockchain community in the world. It includes core protocol developers, cryptography researchers, cypherpunks, mining organizations, ETH holders, app developers, regular users, anarchists, Fortune 500 companies, and as of now, you.
There is no company or centralized organization that controls Ethereum. Ethereum is run and improved over time by a diverse global community that works on everything from the core protocol to end-user apps. This website was created through the collaboration of many different people and is constantly evolving in the same way, just like the rest of Ethereum.