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What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a platform for decentralised applications built on blockchain. In that way, it is similar to Bitcoin. While Bitcoin was designed to be a cryptocurrency , Ether (the ‘currency’, or fuel, of the Ethereum network) was meant to pay for specific actions on the Ethereum network, with users receiving it for using their computing power to validate transactions, or for contributing to its development [1]. This incentivises contributors to write quality applications (wasteful code costs more), and to keep the network healthy (people are compensated for their contributed resources) [2]. However, since Ether is currently the second largest (by market cap) cryptocurrency traded on multiple online ......