Buy Ethereum (ETH) with AUD

What is Ethereum (ETH)?

Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency in the crypto market and the first blockchain network that allows decentralized applications (aka dApps) to be developed on it. Before Ethereum, most blockchains and cryptocurrencies in the crypto market were mainly used for person-to-person money transfers, but after Vitalik Buterin came up with the idea of Ethereum, decentralized applications that we can use in daily life started to be created and have come to the present day.

Ether (ETH) is the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain, which is used for transaction fees, governance mechanisms, and node creation. If you want to imagine Ethereum simply, think of a shopping mall. Imagine that there are different applications on each floor (layers of Ethereum) and that shoppers (everyday users) buy and sell things from different applications within the mall. The base currency of this mall is ETH.

Ethereum is the name of the Ethereum blockchain, although Ethereum is often referred to as the token. The currency is called Ether, and the ticker is ETH. In an everyday example, Australia is the name of the country, the Australian Dollar is the name of the currency and AUD is the ticker.

What is Ethereum mining?

In its simplest form, ETH mining simply means contributing to confirmations during the creation of blocks on the Ethereum blockchain and being rewarded with ETH. In the legacy version of Ethereum (before September 2022), the Ethereum network used the PoW (Proof-of-Work) mechanism. After this update, called Merge, the Ethereum mainnet switched to PoS and underwent a fork. Therefore, Ethereum mining with GPUs and CPUs is no longer possible, at least for the mainnet. However, the miners in PoW are replaced by validators in Ethereum PoS. As a validator on Ethereum, you can contribute to block confirmations and receive ETH rewards. However, the prerequisites may not be suitable for everyone.

To become a validator on the Ethereum blockchain, you need to link 32 ETH to a smart contract on the Ethereum network and run multiple pieces of software. Sounds a bit technical, right? For non-technical users, pool applications developed on the Ethereum network, such as Lido and Rocketpool, allow users to contribute 32 ETH to the Ethereum blockchain without any technical knowledge. This way, for the amount of ETH you stake on the network, you get the block reward earned for the amount of ETH you stake.

What is Ethereum Merge?

The Ethereum blockchain has received major updates (Berlin Upgrade, London Upgrade, etc.) from time to time since its inception. The most important update it has received throughout its history, which is recognized in the market, is “The Merge”. With this update, on September 15, 2022, Ethereum disabled the PoW (Proof of Work) algorithm and switched to PoS (Proof of Stake). Since the Ethereum PoS chain, the “Beacon Chain”, which has been in operation since 2020, and the Ethereum main network (Mainnet) were merged, the update was named “Merge”. The Beacon chain became the main chain after this update. After switching to the PoS mechanism, the network's energy consumption decreased by 99%. After the update, the Ethereum network was forked and a new network called EthPOW was formed with nodes that continue to use the PoW mechanism.

Who are the founders of Ethereum?

Ethereum was founded in 2013 by 8 co-founders. These people are Vitalik Buterin, Mihai Alisie, Anthony Di Lorio, Amir Chetrit, Charles Hoskinson, Gavin Wood, Jeffrey Wilcke, and Joseph Lubin. Among these names, Vitalik Buterin is still working on Ethereum. Many of these names later left Ethereum and took senior positions such as founder and CEO in different blockchain projects. The Ethereum network, which started to be developed in 2014, was launched on July 30 2015, on the blockchain network mainnet.

What are the popular dApps on Ethereum?

Since its inception, Ethereum has been home to many different categories of decentralized applications. These categories include Decentralized Finance (DeFi), NFT, Games, Gambling, Marketplaces, and Social Media applications. Some of the most popular dApps include Aave, Uniswap, EigenLayer, OpenSea, Blur, Pendle, Ethereum Name Service, Sushiswap, and many more.

What is the circulating supply of Ethereum?

As of May 2024, Ethereum's circulating supply is 120,128,511. This number is also equal to the maximum and total supply of ETH. ETH has an inflationary tokenomics. This is because ETH needs to be minted for block rewards to be given to validators. However, since some of the ETH used for transaction fees is burned on the network, these amounts balance each other out and the amount of ETH remains mostly constant. In fact, the supply of ETH started to decrease slightly after the Merge update.