Blockchain for Real World Applications

5 Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric

Ethereum is a variant of blockchain that was conceived by Russian–Canadian developers, Buterin (2014) and his co-workers. Bitcoin focused on decentralized payments, while Buterin and his collaborators aimed to improve the decentralized finance system with apps powered in the blockchain and to address the various limitations present in Bitcoin. They made an initial proposal that recommended users or applications to push arbitrary computer code into the blockchain using transactions. This is how the concept of smart contracts (or contracts for short) first emerged.

Thus, Ethereum came into being as a peer-to-peer network that works on a decentralized platform called blockchain. This securely executes and verifies application code, hitherto called smart contracts, and allows participants on the blockchain to transact with each other without a trusted central authority. Transactions are sent and received through user-created Ethereum accounts. The sender signs each transaction and incurs Ether (Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency) toward the cost of processing the transaction on the network. Transaction records are immutable, auditable, and securely distributed across the network, giving participants full ownership and visibility of transaction data.

But the thing that makes Ethereum so exciting for users is its network’s ability to do more than just process financial transactions. Ethereum further enhances the merits of the Bitcoin blockchain as ...