The document discusses the innovative potential of Ethereum, a cryptocurrency platform designed to function as a decentralized, un-ownable digital computer for executing smart contracts. It highlights how Ethereum's architecture distinguishes it from Bitcoin by focusing on computing capabilities rather than just payments, allowing for autonomous transactions and the potential disruption of traditional business models. Furthermore, it suggests that Ethereum could lead to a new economy of interconnected devices, reducing reliance on human intermediaries in financial transactions.

1. teamsteverhyner.com http://www.teamsteverhyner.com/whats-the-big-idea-behind-ethereums-world-computer/
Steven L.
Rhyner
What’s the Big Idea Behind Ethereum’s World Computer?
Since the beginning of 2016, those with a pulse on the digital currency industry have eagerly watched the
development of next-generation cryptocurrency platform Ethereum.
As a
relatively
new
development utilizing bitcoin technology, Ethereum aims to implement a globally decentralized, un-ownable, digital
computer for executing peer-to-peer contracts. Put more simply, Ethereum is a world computer you can’t shut down.
This combination of cryptographic architecture and Turing completeness could enable entirely new industries to
spawn. In turn, traditional business models, occupying the role of middleman, could increasingly feel the pressure to
innovate or face irrelevance.
Such an innovation, proponents say, could eliminate censorship, fraud, and the role of the third party in online
collaboration.
The Ethereum virtual machine
The Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) refers to part of the protocol that handles internal state and computation. It is
often referred to as the project’s defining innovation over other blockchain-based systems.
By taking the cryptographic payment structure of bitcoin and adding a Turing complete scripting language, Ethereum
is attempting to create the most viable tool for executing smart contracts using blockchain technology.
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2. The term “Turing complete” here means a system capable of performing any logical step of the computational
function.
A technology in wide use today which employs Turing completeness is JavaScript, the programming language which
powers the World Wide Web. Smart contract technology would describe a computer protocol which obviates the
need for a contractual clause and, instead, is self-executing and self-enforcing.
What differentiates Ethereum from bitcoin is that it doesn’t stand first to be a payment system, but rather a
computing platform.
The cryptocurrency that runs Ethereum’s blockchain, ether, acts as a sort of fuel to power the engine of this
computing platform. Ether is consumed by miners for accessing resources of the network.
The more ether a user holds, the more “gas” they can pump into the computational engine of the Ethereum virtual
machine.
Autonomous
corporations
One of the defining features of the
21st century corporation is
populating the role of the employee with machines rather than humans.
Bitcoin is one of the first models of such a corporation. The miners of the bitcoin network can be seen as employees
rather than as humans were in the traditional corporate model.
Ethereum takes this development one step further. Interestingly, the role of the customer (which is currently
populated by humans) stands to be overtaken by machine functionality as smart contracting systems enable end-to-
end payments without requiring a human initiator.
What Ethereum will help facilitate is an economy of interconnected devices where machines can transmit money
and data in a manner dwarfing the efficiency of human input. Businesses which overlook this trend will pay dearly
due to new supply channels which disintermediate the old world’s third party infrastructure.
In a business landscape where corporations run autonomously, analog money will continue to be dumped in favor of
digitized money.
The consumer of today has come to expect instantaneous, global, and friction-free payments.Nearly half of
millennials are anticipating tech startups to disrupt the legacy banking sector, and although there remains much
progress to be made, advances in cryptocurrency (and smart contracting) will enable a velocity of money which
moves toward the esteemed ideal of conducting business at the speed of thought.
Ethereum today is where bitcoin was in 2010 – raw infrastructure, lack of developers, and plenty of skeptics.
Competitors, such as Rootstock, add legitimacy to the use case Ethereum is attempting to bring to market.
From trustless crowdsales to democratic organizations, smart contracting platforms could unlock a new frontier in
Internet-enabled innovation.
Travis Patron is a digital money researcher and instructor of the Ethereum Technology Course.Here he explains why
he believes the smart contracting innovation enabled by Ethereum could unlock a new frontier in Internet innovation.
Image via Ethereum
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views
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3. of, and should not be attributed to, CoinDesk.
Re-posted from www.coindesk.com March13, 2016 by Travis Patron
For information on mining Bitcoin and/or Ethereum click here.
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