TL;DR 👀
A super brief summary of the chapter
Bitcoin vs Ethereum
Both let you use digital money without payment providers or banks, but Ethereum is programmable, so you can also build and deploy decentralized applications on its network
What can Ethereum do?
Ethereum is a censorship-resistant peer-to-peer network that can be used for banking, commerce, private internet and more
What is Ether (ETH)?
Ether (ETH) is the gas token of the Ethereum blockchain that's used to finalize transactions on the network
Ether is not controlled by any one entity –– It exists solely through the decentralized participation and cooperation of the community.
What's Unique About ETH?
ETH fuels and secures Ethereum and underpins the Ethereum financial system
What are Smart Contracts?
Smart contracts are computer programs stored on the blockchain that allows us to convert traditional contracts into digital parallels
Smart contracts remove the need for intermediaries in facilitating agreements between two unrelated parties
Smart contracts can perform computations, create currency, store data, mint NFTs, send communications and even generate graphics
Energy Consumption?
Ethereum's proof-of-work is undergoing a merge to a proof-of-stake blockchain, which will reduce the energy required to secure Ethereum by about 99.95%, creating a more secure network for a much smaller carbon cost
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a computation engine which acts like a decentralized computer that has millions of executable projects
Pros & Cons of Smart Contracts
Smart contracts have advantages in accuracy, transparency, clear communication, speed, security, efficiency, paper free, storage and backup, savings and trust
Smart contracts have disadvantages in an ability to change, remedies for security breaches, negotiation limitations and outside data gathering
Decentralized Applications (dApps)
A dApp has its backend code running on a decentralized peer-to-peer network
DApps offer benefits in having private and censorship-resistant programs, but struggle with needing maintenance, mitigating traffic overload and avoiding the risk of hacks
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