Trendy names are part of the bitcoin mystique. Here's another one. [Ethereum news story] A Google search on this blog picks up scattered transient references to 'Ethereum', apparently from the embedded news feeds in the right navbar, plus a couple of real references, including News : 2016-03. Time for a separate post on this topic?
Yes, it's time. The main site for the product/service is Ethereum Project (ethereum.org). It starts,
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference. These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property.
Wikipedia's main article is Ethereum:-
Ethereum is a public blockchain platform with programmable transaction functionality. It provides a decentralized virtual machine that can execute peer-to-peer contracts using a cryptocurrency called Ether. [...] History: Ethereum was initially described in a white paper by Russian Canadian Vitalik Buterin, a programmer involved with Bitcoin, in late 2013 with a goal of building decentralized applications. As opposed to other "bitcoin 2.0" projects that were being built on top of the Bitcoin protocol, Ethereum created its own blockchain to provide greater development flexibility by inclusion of a Turing complete programming language.'
The phrase 'Turing complete' is computer science jargon for a full programming language. Also relevant is Wikipedia's Smart contract:-
Smart contracts are computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract, or that make a contractual clause unnecessary. Smart contracts usually also have a user interface and often emulate the logic of contractual clauses.
The Wikipedia 'Ethereum' page references Ethereum, a Virtual Currency, Enables Transactions That Rival Bitcoin’s by Nathaniel Popper (nytimes.com):-
A new virtual gold rush is underway. Even as Bitcoin, riven by internal divisions, has struggled, a rival virtual currency -- known as Ethereum -- has soared in value, climbing 1,000 percent over the last three months. [...] Since Bitcoin was invented, there have been many so-called alt-coins that have tried to improve on Bitcoin, but none have won the following of Ethereum.
I had already picked up the NYT article in News : 2016-03, but neglected to mention Popper. He first appeared in News : 2016-01:-
[Two] stories were by Nathaniel Popper, writing for NYT's DealBook. Popper is the author of 'Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money' (Harper, 2015).
That's enough for this post. Keywords: smart contracts, gold rush.
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