The world of cryptocurrency is dominated by the.

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<p class=”mol-para-with-font”>The world of cryptocurrency is dominated by the entity which started it all: free btc Bitcoin. It is the oldest, most valuable, and best known digital currency by a distance. </p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>The number two by all these measures is <p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Ether, the coin which powers the Ethereum network, has soared almost sevenfold in the last 12 months and is now valued at north of $1,000.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>So how does Ethereum differ to its better known brother Bitcoin? What are its great strengths and weaknesses, and how stable is it?</p><div class=”artSplitter mol-img-group” style=”style”> <div class=”mol-img”> <div class=”image-wrap”> </div> <noscript> </noscript> </div> <p class=”imageCaption”>Ethereum is more of a decentralised computer platform than a cryptocurrency. Ether is the technology’s actual currency and can be bought through exchanges or digital wallets</p></div><h2 class=”mol-para-with-font mol-style-subhead”>What is Ethereum?</h2><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Ethereum is a network founded in 2015 by Russian-born Canadian Vitalik Buterin, who also started Bitcoin Magazine as a teenager and had written the white paper on it two years earlier.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Like Bitcoin, currently with a market capitalisation of over £452.4billion, Ethereum is decentralised, so it does not require a central bank or financial institution to issue it.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Both use blockchains, the digital ledger technology where transactions are recorded and validated using a peer-to-peer network of computers rather than a single organisation.</p><h2 class=”mol-para-with-font mol-style-subhead”>What are the main differences with Bitcoin?</h2><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Simon Peters, a cryptocurrency analyst at eToro, says Bitcoin has a single goal: ‘To become a global decentralised digital currency’ that can be used as a form of payment in shops and accepted by businesses.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Ethereum on the other hand is a decentralised computer platform. Ether is the technology’s actual currency and can be purchased through both centralised and decentralised exchanges, or digital wallets.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Ethereum hosts ‘decentralised applications’ or Dapps, where people can use Ether to pay for services such as finance, social media, and gaming. </p><div class=”artSplitter mol-img-group” style=”style”> <div class=”mol-img”> <div class=”image-wrap”> </div> <noscript> </noscript> </div> <p class=”imageCaption”>Bitcoin is a much larger virtual currency than Ethereum, with a market cap of £452.4billion</p></div><h2 class=”mol-para-with-font mol-style-subhead”>What can Ethereum be used for?</h2><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>A primary function of Ethereum is as a host of ‘smart contracts.’ Running on the platform’s blockchain, they resemble regular contracts, but lack middlemen like lawyers to oversee them.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>Take an example of someone seeking to raise money for an animal welfare charity. On a crowdfunding website like Kickstarter, they would set a fundraising target and hope people donate enough money to hit that goal. When the target is hit, Kickstarter then pays out.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>With a smart contract, there is no third-party facilitator whom the fundraiser and the donors trust to pay out once the target is reached. Instead, a payout is made automatically once the target is achieved.</p><p class=”mol-para-with-font”>This is all enabled by the Ethereum Virtual Machine, something cryptocurrency firm Coinbase describes as ‘like a giant, global computer made up of many individual computers running the Ethereum software’ that allows programmers to operate the smart contracts.</p><div class=”art-ins mol-factbox money” data-version=”2″ id=”mol-180a1e50-5654-11eb-bf8f-9dd438f0b43d” website Bitcoin: Number two crypto Ethereum is climbing faster

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