{"id":27141,"date":"2022-07-13T16:59:44","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T20:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/?p=265357"},"modified":"2022-07-13T16:59:44","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T20:59:44","slug":"what-investors-should-know-about-ethereum-eth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moneysense.ca\/columns\/ask-a-crypto-expert\/what-investors-should-know-about-ethereum-eth\/","title":{"rendered":"What investors should know about Ethereum (ETH)\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s start with the second part of your question, Bruce. To be honest, this is the first time I have read about Forsage. It\u2019s calling itself a \u201cdecentralized networking platform.\u201d It seems interesting, so thank you for bringing this to my attention.<\/p>\n

Now, to your first question.<\/p>\n

As you may already know, Ethereum\u2019s ETH<\/a> is the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world, after bitcoin<\/a> (BTC). What is unique about ETH, and why would investors consider buying it instead of BTC?<\/p>\n

Well, if the Bitcoin platform is all about peer-to-peer digital gold, Ethereum will be the decentralized internet of the future. It is a programmable blockchain<\/a>\u2014a distributed digital ledger\u2014that allows developers to create and host decentralized applications (dApps) that run on code (a.k.a. smart contracts).<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s unpack this for a second.<\/p>\n

While bitcoin\u2019s main utility is as a payment coin or as a store of value, its usability is purposefully kept very limited. Ethereum, on the other hand, has a programmable blockchain where anyone can run their smart contracts. <\/p>\n

The contracts are executed by a decentralized network of miners\/validators<\/a>. When called upon, these miners use their own resources (hardware, time and electricity) to execute the contracts. In return, they earn a reward\u2014called \u201cgas fees\u201d\u2014for their services. Essentially, Ethereum is a decentralized global supercomputer that rents out its resources to execute smart contracts.<\/p>\n

Decentralized applications on Ethereum<\/h2>\n

What exactly are these decentralized applications? You may be familiar with DeFi<\/a> (decentralized finance) and NFTs<\/a> (non-fungible tokens), which have both made headlines in recent years for disrupting traditional methods of banking and certifying authenticity, respectively. DeFi and NFTs<\/a> are both examples of dApps, and they\u2019re just the beginning of what may be achieved with Ethereum. With further upgrades, we can possibly run a decentralized World of Warcraft or a decentralized social media platform, for example. However, we are still a long way off from that.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s start with the second part of your question, Bruce. To be honest, this is the first time I have read about Forsage. It\u2019s calling itself a \u201cdecentralized networking platform.\u201d It seems interesting, so...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.andrewwbradley.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}