Читать книгу Blockchain Data Analytics For Dummies - Michael G. Solomon - Страница 39

Bitcoin did just what it was supposed to do and provided a new way to exchange value. With Bitcoin, many individuals and small business could interact directly with customers or one another without involving banks or payment processors. It didn’t take long for other blockchain implementations to emerge, each with its own cryptocurrency. As blockchain become more popular, developers and researchers started looking for other ways to use the new technology. They found that with just a few changes, blockchain technology could do far more than just trade cryptocurrency.

Just five short years after Nakamoto’s paper was released, Vitalik Buterin, the cofounder of Bitcoin Magazine, published a whitepaper that proposed the use of Ethereum, a new, more functional blockchain implementation that could do much more than just exchange cryptocurrency. Buterin had a plan for Ethereum and built a base of interest and financial support for this new generation of blockchain. The Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization, was founded and Buterin became the primary developer of Ethereum.

Ethereum was designed to be different than previous blockchain implementations. The two primary differences are Ethereum's smart contract and native cryptocurrency, ether. In Ethereum, you can access blockchain data only by executing a smart contract. Smart contracts provide rich functionality and blockchain data integrity, and make it possible for blockchain technology to do much more than first-generation implementations. With the release of Ethereum, blockchains could carry out a wide range of business transactions beyond just handling payments, such as automating many business decisions or even carrying out entire transactions automatically. Imagine a ridesharing app that sends an autonomous (driverless) car to transport you to your destination and then automatically transfers payment for the ride from your account into its own account — all automatically! That’s just one example of what is possible in Ethereum.