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1-Page Summary of Ethereum

Overview

Bitcoin is just one of many cryptocurrencies that has been making headlines. Cryptocurrencies are often touted as the next big thing in finance, but few people really understand how they work. In fact, it’s not the currency itself that will change things; rather, it’s the technology behind them — blockchain technology — that has truly revolutionary potential.

There are three main beliefs about blockchain technology. The first belief is that it will render banks obsolete. Another belief is that they’ll also revolutionize the way we contract and secure data. And the third belief is that blockchain technology represents a fad, which will eventually implode on itself. After reading this article, you’ll understand why Henning Diedrich believes this to be true or false, as well as his reasons for believing so.

Big Idea #1: Digital currency was developed by cypherpunks in reaction to online privacy issues.

The world entered the computer age in the 1980s, but some people were not happy about it. They thought that computers would lead to a surveillance state like George Orwell’s 1984. So, programmers decided to fight back with code and protect privacy rights.

So, as a result of the cypherpunks’ efforts, there was an increase in privacy protection for people. The main goal of the movement was to make sure that their digital information remained private and safe from hackers. This would allow them to do things like send money anonymously without anyone knowing who they are or what they’re doing.

The Cypherpunks group took the first step towards a private communication system in 1997. They launched the Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer, which was an anonymous and decentralized email system. Soon after that, they came up with b-money (the first cryptocurrency), invented by Wei Dai.

B-money worked similarly to how bitcoin works today, but it was centralized. It didn’t have a decentralized way to maintain accounts.

However, other attempts at creating cryptocurrencies followed, but each died when the dot-com bubble burst. Nearly a decade of silence followed. Then in 2008 bitcoin emerged and has been growing ever since. Bitcoin’s inventor is known as “Satoshi Nakamoto”, but his real name remains a mystery. But it’s clear that he wanted to make banks obsolete by making all transactions directly between users without any central registry or bank involvement needed.

Now that you know the history of cryptocurrencies, how do they work?

Big Idea #2: A blockchain is a powerful, secure and decentralized database that can track and manage transactions.

If you’ve heard about Bitcoin, you might have wondered what the word “blockchain” means. A blockchain is a secure database that contains transactions and can be used for many purposes but is best known as the technology behind digital currencies like Bitcoin. The simplest explanation of a blockchain is to think of it as a series of blocks linked together in a chain using cryptography. Each block holds transactional information in encrypted form, such as when one account transfers bitcoins to another account.

The main difference between a blockchain database and other types of databases is that it’s decentralized.

One of the best features about digital currency is that it can’t be duplicated. If you have five bitcoins, this data isn’t stored in one central location; rather, it’s distributed across a network of computers. Therefore, if someone tried to quickly change their bitcoin amount from five to fifteen, everyone else on the network would know and prevent it from becoming official.