Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of fraud or third party interference.
Ethereum is how the Internet was supposed to work. It is a censorship-resistant platform where developers can build next-generation decentralized applications (dapps).
In Ethereum, you can write code that controls money, and build applications accessible anywhere in the world.
What is a blockchain?
A blockchain is a digital ledger of all cryptocurrency transactions. It is constantly growing as “completed” blocks are added to it with a new set of recordings.
Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. Bitcoin nodes use the block chain to differentiate legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere.
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of fraud or third party interference.
What is Ether?
Ether is the cryptocurrency generated by the Ethereum platform. It is used to pay for transaction fees and computational services on the Ethereum network.
What are smart contracts?
Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. The code and the agreements exist across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network.
Smart contracts were first proposed by Nick Szabo in 1996. .
What is a Dapp?
Dapp is an abbreviated form for “decentralized application”. A dapp exists on a decentralized peer-to-peer network as opposed to one centralized server controlled by one party.
No single entity owns or operates the dapp; instead, it runs on the network provided by its users.
A dapp has its backend code running on a decentralized peer-to-peer network, such as an Ethereum blockchain; and its frontend code can be written in any programming language that can make calls to its backend (i.e., interacting with the Ethereum network).
What Is an Ethereum Block?An Ethereum block contains all information pertaining to completed transactions within a given period of time (most commonly 10-20 seconds). A unique feature of Ethereum blocks compared to Bitcoin blocks, for example, is their variable size; an Ethereum block can be anywhere between 1kb and 4mb, whereas Bitcoin blocks are fixed at 1mb each time. This allows for more information to be processed per second on the Ethereum network than on Bitcoin’s network.