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Ethereum
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=== '''''History''''' === '''Ethereum’s early days''' Although the Ethereum blockchain has a number of founders, Vitalik Buterin was the one who initially published a white paper explaining the concept of Ethereum in November 2013. Following Buterin’s initial work, other brains jumped on board in various capacities to help bring the project to fruition. Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Amir Chetrit, Anthony Di Iorio, Jeffrey Wilcke, Joseph Lubin and Mihai Alisie are all considered co-founders of Ethereum. Ethereum gained awareness in early 2014 when Buterin brought the concept of the blockchain project into the public eye at a Bitcoin conference in Miami, Florida. The project raised capital via an initial coin offering (ICO) later the same year, selling millions of dollars worth of ETH in exchange for funds to use for the development of the project. Between July 22 and Sept. 2, 2014, the asset sale sold over $18 million worth of ETH, paid for in Bitcoin. Although ETH coins were purchasable in 2014, the Ethereum blockchain did not actually go live until July 30, 2015, meaning ETH buyers had to wait for the blockchain to launch before they could move or use their ETH. Why create the Ethereum blockchain in the first place? One reason would be that the Ethereum blockchain allows for more versatility in terms of building on the blockchain and the surrounding ecosystem. '''Ethereum’s stages of progress''' Although the July 2015 birth of the Ethereum blockchain brought the project to life, its development would be a lengthy process spanning years. Called Frontier, the first iteration of the Ethereum blockchain simply got the chain off the ground and running, hosting smart contracts and proof-of-work (PoW) mining. The initial launch gave folks the opportunity to set up their mining apparatuses and start building on the network. Since Ethereum’s initial launch, the blockchain has taken on many other updates as part of the blockchain’s progression, such as updates called Byzantium, Constantinople and the Beacon Chain. Each update has altered certain aspects of the blockchain. Beacon Chain, for example, launched the consensus layer (previously called Ethereum 2.0) — a shift from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Byzantium and Constantinople each brought a number of changes to the Ethereum blockchain, including a mining payout reduction down to three ETH from five (after Byzantium and preparation for the PoS transition during Constantinople). A significant change to the Ethereum blockchain is the shift over to PoS initiated to scale the blockchain. Numerous projects have built applications on the Ethereum blockchain over the years. Still, the network struggled when traffic notably increased, such as the days of CryptoKitties — digital collectible cats underpinned by the Ethereum blockchain — in 2017. In 2020 and 2021, decentralized finance (DeFi) projects built on Ethereum received significant attention, bringing Ethereum’s scalability issues to the forefront as high network fees plagued participants. Ethereum’s transition to the consensus layer and PoS aims to bring scalability to the well-known blockchain, although the shift occurs in stages. '''The DAO hack''' Some of the Ethereum blockchain’s updates over time were a planned part of Ethereum’s progression, although others were adjustments based on events or factors that called for changes to the blockchain. The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) fork, for example, served as an effort to circumvent a hack. DAOs are a general concept in the crypto industry, whereas The DAO was a specific DAO from the crypto industry’s earlier days. A project that launched in 2016, the DAO served as an Ethereum-based decentralized autonomous organization fund that essentially democratized the fund’s asset allocation. Users don’t have to trust anyone else in the group with DAOs, they just need to trust a DAO’s code which is completely visible and verifiable by anyone. In short, interested parties sent ETH to a pool of funds within the DAO and received DAO tokens in return. These tokens could, at the time, be used to vote on where the DAO would allocate its pool of capital. The DAO attracted about $150 million worth of ETH in 2016, given ETH’s United States dollar price at the time. In 2016, however, the DAO suffered a hack that took over 3.6 million ETH from the DAO’s asset pool. The Ethereum community disagreed on how to handle the ordeal. Part of the community wanted to alter the Ethereum blockchain to essentially nullify the hack. Opposing community members disagreed, expressing that such a play would go against the overarching concept of blockchain technology’s immutability. A majority of the Ethereum community agreed with the play to alter the blockchain in response to the hack, leading to a hard fork of the network. The hard fork resulted in two separate blockchains and two separate native assets on those chains. The Ethereum blockchain forked off to regain the assets lost from the hack. The resulting forked asset and blockchain is the one that now holds the Ethereum name. What is now called Ethereum Classic is the original version of the Ethereum blockchain. '''The Ethereum Merge upgrade: Transition from PoW to PoS consensus''' Considering the environmental concerns associated with PoW mining, the long-awaited integration of the Beacon Chain’s consensus layer with the Ethereum mainnet execution layer was proposed and carried out by the Ethereum founders and developers. So, what happened to Eth2? Ethereum Foundation has rebranded Eth2 to the consensus layer to save users from scams like swapping ETH for ETH2 tokens. Also, it does not mean that two distinct Ethereum networks exist because Eth1 will handle transactions and their execution. At the same time, Eth2 will manage proof-of-stake consensus, but there will be only one network: Ethereum. So, is Ethereum mining dead after the Merge? Despite the flawless implementation of the Merge, Chinese miner Chandler Guo favored miners and forked the Ethereum blockchain to preserve the PoW consensus method. This new fork is called ETHW or proof-of-work Ethereum, in which miners will continue to solve complex mathematical puzzles to receive ETH rewards (similar to Ethereum Classic). '''Ethereum’s future after the Merge''' Ethereum is a significant player in the crypto space, as evidenced by its market capitalization and the vast array of solutions that entities have built on the Ethereum blockchain. However, the network has faced difficulty in scaling. Its transition over to the consensus layer aims to solve its challenges. However, only time will tell regarding the results. Moreover, Vitalik Buterin claimed the Merge would follow another four developmental phases: The Surge, The Verge, The Purge and The Splurge. Nonetheless, it remains to be seen if upcoming updates would enable Ethereum to more effectively manage a wave of arising regulatory issues over digital assets and public blockchains. '''Ethereum price history: analysis & graph''' Here’s a recap of the critical events in the history of Ethereum. These are mainly the important events from a financial point of view, as we have left out the technological milestones of the platform: Mid 2014. The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, gathers up crowdfunding (ICO, Initial Coin Offering) of 18 million dollars. Ethereum goes into the markets with a value of 31 cents per ether (USD). May 2016. Ether places itself into the markets with a capitalization that exceeds 1.000 million US dollars. 17 June 2016. A hacker steals 3,6 million ethers, totaling around 70 million US dollars at that time. Ethereum divides into Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. 20 June 2017. Ethereum reaches a value of $376,36, which is more than 121.400% of its initial value. 13 January 2018. Ethereum reaches its historical high of 1.432,88 USD per ether. 1. That was a pretty stable year, with a slight price rally in Q2. On June 26, Ethereum reached a price of 335 USD, which is the highest price for Ethereum since August 2018. 2. Ethereum has started with a price of 127 USD in 2020. However, it has reached 741.12 USD at the end of 2020. 3. From the first days of the year, Ethereum price has increased significantly. On the 10th of May 1, ETH was 4200,86 USD. It was an all-time high up to this date. 4. Ethereum saw increased adoption by businesses, allowing for decentralized applications that could be used at scale. Many major cryptocurrency exchanges adopted Ethereum, allowing users to buy and sell the cryptocurrency easily. Meanwhile, Ethereum was officially updated with its new Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. 5. Ethereum’s DeFi (Decentralized Finance) ecosystem continues to grow, allowing users to access various financial services through decentralized applications.
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