Ethereum is one of the most popular cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin and now has been around 4 years. Under the coin symbols ETH and being pronounced with the slang term of Ether, Ethereum improved upon the bitcoin crypto transmission system in 1 very important way. ETH has now offered the ability to include what are called “smart contracts” onto or as a part of the Ethereum network.
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Ethereum was originally launched with an ICO value of $0.32 per coin and rose slowly over the next few years. In mid 2017, there was a major boom in the usage and purchasing of cryptocurrencies across the board, ETH included. The Ethereum network historically has since worked based of the new Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm. This method basically just uses math equations to figure answers which in turn processes ETH transactions and adds them to the Ethereum blockchain public ledger.
Recently a new algorithm was added to the Ethereum network which processes ETH transactions using a Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm. This puts a certain amount of emphasis on those who are holding a large amount of the ETH currency. Always changing, the Ethereum network controls and maintains itself in a nearly completely autonomous, decentralized international system.
In order to process the many ETH transactions, thousands and thousands of miners all over the globe are required, similar to BTC. Bitcoin, however, by contrast is built upon the mighty sha256 algorithm, generally requiring quite powerful cpu processors to calculate transaction records to add to the BTC blockchain. Ether on the other hand, uses a style of algorithm that happens to be easier to calculate using Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) abilities. This lead to a sudden demand for powerful computer graphics cards and resulted in a rise of unforeseen inflation and drastic increases in the retail prices for graphics cards.
Along with most other alt coin cryptocurrencies, ETH had a nice bull run spike up until the beginning of 2018. Since then, most cryptocurrencies have seen corrections of as much as 90% of their highest value, including ETH itself. Despite the slow and unchanging variance in the vast majority of crypto coins during 2018, we now sit within Q4 of 2019 and are starting to see upward movement in a great many different alt coins. ETH has been up around $300 per coin again recently causing many to hold out hope for a drastic rise in price per token to look out for in the coming months. At its highest point, miners were able to make an income of around $3.00/GPU/Day using sets of modestly decent 4GB graphics cards or above.
The Ethereum blockchain and the programmable nature of ERC20 technology-based currencies are a very powerful and robust infrastructures. Consequently, Ethereum is likely to find itself right along next to Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, and other cryptocurrencies that remain the most popular and widely-used digital forms of wealth.
