by Mike Orcutt
“(…) Bitcoin eventually took off, and soon people latched onto the idea that its blockchain could be used to do other things (…) But its design, intended specifically for a currency, limited the range of applications it could support, and Bitcoin aficionados started brainstorming new approaches.
It was from this primordial soup that Ethereum emerged.
In a 2013 white paper, Vitalik Buterin, then just 19, laid out his plan for a blockchain system that could also facilitate all sorts of “decentralized applications.”
Buterin achieved this in large part by baking a programming language into Ethereum so that people could customize it to their purposes. These new apps are based on so-called smart contracts—computer programs that execute transactions, usually involving the transfer of currency, according to stipulations agreed upon by the participants.
(…) . Whereas Bitcoin is the first shared global accounting ledger, Ethereum is supposed to be the first shared global computer. The technology is nascent, and there are plenty of kinks to iron out, but that’s what all the fuss is about.”