Original crypto or the pioneering crypto is Bitcoin which was introduced in 2008 by its anonymous creators. Its underlying technology is Blockchain or distributed ledger. Till then Blockchain technology was restricted to financial transactions. Vitalik Buterin, a computer programmer as a teenager learnt about crypto in 2011 through his father. He realised the shortcoming of Bitcoin and visualised the Ethereum platform in 2014. Ethereum uses Blockchain for property transactions or royalty payments to artists.

As it is, both Bitcoin and Ethereum are decentralised — there is no central authority to control them. However, Ethereum takes crypto beyond currency. Ethereum code can enable you to pay crop insurance to a farmer, using drought data. Or royalties can be offered to artists whenever their work of art gets sold.

Ethereun platform has its own in-built currency called Ether. On Ethereum blockchain, a programme of commands can be executed. It is called a smart contract. It is a self-executing contract. Thus Ethereum expands the scope of blockchain technology. Its design enabled creation of NFTs and decentralised finance (DeFi). NFTs provide ownership title and DeFi refers to peer-to-peer financial services, as distinct from financial services accessed from banks or NBFCs.

Ethereum enabled trust-less blockchain transactions for fiat money. In a decentralised system, people have to trust the system, rather than the other person. Ethereum commoditises trust. It is a platform for zero-trust computing.

A blockchain system must satisfy the criteria of decentralisation, security and scalability. Though Ethereum is both decentralised and secure, it is not scalable. Buterin had realized this pitfall.

Each Ethereum transaction needs to be processed by every node in the network. It is an inefficient system. However, as the blockchain technology is still evolving, researchers are working on improving it.

Bitcoin and Ether have not been conceptualised as competitors. Ether, however, could supersede Bitcoin on the basis of its flexibility and versatility.