Cryptocurrencies have been around a lot of controversies, from those who call it the world’s next payment method to those who view it solely as a hypothetical bubble. Ethereum as you might know is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies that have appeared over the last few years. It ranks second in total size after Bitcoin, and with 8 co-founders, Ethereum made its debut in 2015. The cryptocurrency or platform is called Ethereum, and the individual unit is called ether. This article will provide insights into what Ethereum is, how it works, and its benefits of Ethereum.
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum performs on a decentralized computer network, or distributed ledger called the blockchain for managing and tracking the currency. To understand it better, think of a blockchain as a running receipt of every transaction that's ever taken place in the cryptocurrency. Computers in the network verify the transactions and ensure the integrity of the data. The platform establishes a peer-to-peer network that securely executes and demonstrates the application code called smart contracts. They allow participants to transact with others without a trusted central authority.
Transaction records are usually permanent, verifiable, and securely distributed over the network providing ownership to the participants and full transparency to the transaction data. Transactions are only sent and received by user-created Ethereum accounts. The sender is supposed to sign transactions and pay Ether, Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency as a price for conducting transactions on the network.
How does Ethereum work?
Like any other cryptocurrency on the market, Ethereum also uses a shared digital ledger where all ether transactions are documented. It is publicly accessible, fully transparent, and challenging to alter afterward. This is blockchain, and it is formed through the process of mining. The Ethereum blockchain is similar to that of bitcoin, except for its programming language that lets developers write software through which blockchain transactions handle and automate precise outcomes. This software is called a smart contract. If a conventional contract summarizes the terms of the relationship, smart contracts ensure those terms are attained by writing the code. Software is responsible for automatically executing the agreement as soon as predefined are satisfied, minimizing delay and expenditure concerned with completing a deal manually.
Miners take care of verifying clusters of Ether transactions to create ‘blocks’ and securing them cryptographically by simplifying complex algorithms. These algorithms can therefore be adjusted to their difficulty level, to keep the processing time of blocks near constant, i.e. around one per 14 seconds. For example, an Ethereum user could create a smart contract to send a certain amount of Ether to your contact on a certain date. They would write this code into the blockchain, and when the contract is complete - i.e., the approved dates arrive – the ether would automatically be released to the contact. This underlying idea can be applied to more complex setups and its potential is possibly never-ending, with projects already advancing toward the areas of insurance, property, legal, crowdfunding, and finance.
What does Ethereum do?
Ethereum powers several applications delivering a wide scope of functions:
Currency: With the help of a cryptocurrency wallet, you can send and receive or pay for goods and services, if the digital currency can be accepted as payment. Platforms such as Coinbase even let you take charge of the coins in a digital wallet so you can make them less exposed to hacking attacks, theoretically.
Non-fungible tokens: NFT or Non-fungible tokens are generally created using the same type of programming used for cryptocurrencies. These tokens are powered by Ethereum and can let artists or others sell art or other elements straight to buyers using smart contracts.
Decentralized apps or Dapps: Dapps are often built on Ethereum platforms - can be developed for a variety of purposes gaming, finance, and social media. Ethereum powers digital apps to let users play games, invest and send money, keep track of their investment portfolios, follow social media channels, etc.
Smart contracts: Smart contracts are a permissionless app that automatically runs when the contract’s conditions are met. They are usually used to automate the execution of an agreement so that all members can be immediately certain of the result, without the involvement of any intermediate or loss of time.
Decentralized finance: DeFi or decentralized finance is a blanket term for financial services on public blockchains, primarily Ethereum. With the use of Ethereum, some people may be able to avoid centralized control over the movement of money or other assets.
Benefits of Ethereum
Ethereum provides a highly flexible platform for building decentralized applications with the help of an Ethereum virtual machine and a native solidity script language. Decentralized application developers who implement smart contracts on Ethereum profit from the diverse ecosystem of developer tooling and set best practices that are bundled with the maturity of the protocol.
Following are the current capabilities and benefits of Enterprise Ethereum:
Data Coordination
Because of Ethereum's decentralized ecosystem, it can allocate information and trust so network participants don't have to depend on the central entity to handle the system and mediate transactions.
True Traceability
One benefit of Ethereum that stands out is the ability to provide true traceability. As all the transaction details are stored in the ledger and no one can alter it, businesses can leverage this and form a traceability approach. Moreover, it can also help in figuring out any inability inside the system and fixing them as soon as they are discovered.
Large, Existing network
The benefits of Ethereum are a reliable network that has been tried and tested through years of processes and billions of value trading hands. It has a large and dedicated global community and is the biggest ecosystem in blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Rapid Deployment
With an open-source SaaS platform like Hyperledger Besu, enterprises can efficiently deploy and manage private blockchain networks instead of coding a blockchain implementation.
Automated Smart Contract
Smart contracts are a type of automated digital contract that enables a user to conduct anything having value under certain conditions. It could be funds, properties, company shares, gold, or anything else. It lets us automate several Web 3.0 functions as well, like yield farming, NFT minting, liquidation of collateral loans, gaming, etc.
Network size
The Mainnet demonstrates that an Ethereum network can operate with tons of nodes and millions of users. Most enterprise blockchain competitors only run networks of less than 10 nodes without any reference case for the vast and suitable network. Network size is necessary for enterprise consortiums bound to outgrow many nodes.
Fully immutable platform
One of the most profitable benefits of the Ethereum blockchain is that it offers a fully immutable platform. It means that no one can modify any of the data within the ledger of this platform. Therefore all the transaction information.
Are you ready to include Ethereum in your business?
With new inventions, new possibilities have come to light in recent years. Ethereum’s decentralized platform is already creating a new outlook. A few years ago, setting up a permissioned blockchain network was still time-consuming and involved assembling a team of blockchain developers and spending a lot of time and money on writing custom code.
Implementing an enterprise solution will help you preserve private transactions, yet work together to build shared, secure, and future-proof IT infrastructure and security. Evon technologies, our software development company in India, helps you accomplish this. Get started and contact us or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are looking to take your first steps toward enterprise Ethereum.
