Cryptocurrencies (Ethereum)

    This is a subject I have been trying to learn more about. I've mainly been looking into Ethereum.

    I know there's a lot of smart people around here, a lot smarter than me anyways. I have been trying to learn more, in a way I can understand how it works and what a cryptocurrency is. But finding teaching materials that explain it to a dummy are few and far between.

    From my limited understanding, Ethereum in particular, is like a decentralized program that can be used to build contracts. These contracts run through every computer on the network and the people running the computer get paid ether, which is the currency.

    Is this correct? Anyone care to add anything?

    I am still learning. :)

    Berkeley has a very good block chain tutorial which also introduces the notion of crypto currency (I guess it's either ethereym or bitcoin) but eitherway the proofs behind both are explained in detail.

    https://www.edx.org/professional-c…in-fundamentals

    You can access it for free for a couple of weeks I guess.

    But basically :

    You have a decentralized network with every actor ( computing power) being referred as a node (think graph theory & distributed systems ).

    Smart contacts are just... Contracts to exchange currency between parties.

    As for who gets what. It's based Pow rn but it will switch to PoS in thf future.

    Adding a block to the block chain means updating the block chain with new transactions. The nodes Need to solve complex mathematical problems if they wish to do so. Once they find the solution, the first one who sends a solution (so called key) gets the right to mine the block and gets 1 ether as a fee for the power deployed to solve the task at first..

    If you have more question, let me know