Ethereum is a blockchain-powered operating system known for its cryptocurrency, ether

Ethereum is a blockchain-powered platform for building decentralized software and apps

Among crypto enthusiasts, ethereum is known for the cryptocurrency it uses to facilitate transactions: ether, or ETH. It's often compared to an app store. The underpinnings of ethereum's blockchain include dApps, which operate using automated scripts called "smart contracts."

Top Ethereum dApps

Thousands of decentralized apps (dApps) run on Ethereum, including marketplaces, financial platforms, and social networks. Top apps include Uniswap, a decentralized exchange for buying and selling cryptocurrency, and OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for buying and selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs). New apps are built on Ethereum all the time, facilitating billions of dollars worth of transactions. Explore the biggest ones here.

Bitcoin and ethereum are decentralized cryptocurrencies with different functions

Bitcoin, launched in 2009, is primarily a digital currency and store of value with a fixed supply. Ethereum, introduced in 2015, enables smart contracts and decentralized apps, offering more flexibility.

Decentralized applications are blockchain-based and run without a central authority

These apps use smart contracts to automatically execute functions, ensuring security, transparency, and censorship resistance. Built on platforms like Ethereum, Solana, and Binance Smart Chain, DApps power DeFi, NFTs, gaming, and social media, offering users control over their data and assets.

Vitalik Buterin’s current thoughts on Ethereum

Vitalik Buterin isn’t just the founder of Ethereum—he’s also a blogger. In this blog post from late last year, Buterin discusses some of his favorite applications built on Ethereum: prediction markets like Polymarket, where users can bet crypto on the outcome of events like elections. Buterin argues that prediction markets also act as news sites for non-bettors, opening the floodgates for many different kinds of info-based apps on Ethereum. Read the post here.

The Ethereum Foundation’s latest report

The Ethereum Foundation is a nonprofit organization supporting Ethereum in several ways. These include providing grants to developers who want to build on the blockchain, and hosting events promoting crypto’s future, like Devcon. This annual report grants a peek into the nonprofit’s role in Ethereum's operations and the values it seeks to support through its work. The nonprofit’s frontline involvement is another differentiating factor between Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies.

The similarities and differences between bitcoin and ethereum

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap behind Bitcoin. Usually, that comparison just scratches the surface of the overall market cap. Instead, a visual pits the tokens up against each other on a per-token basis and shows how and why the Ethereum/bitcoin ratio has fluctuated over time.

Ethereum’s biggest risks and top criticisms

As it evolves, critics say Ethereum’s constant changes make the platform overly complex and fundamentally less secure. They also say the Ethereum Foundation and a handful of developers wield too much control over the crypto platform, and that gas fees are prohibitively expensive. Some criticisms are addressed in Ethereum’s roadmap, but others strike at the crypto platform’s core. Go deeper on why here.

Learn about Web3 and how it differs from past versions of the internet

Web3 is the idea of a new, decentralized internet built on blockchain technology. It aims to shift control from centralized entities like big tech companies to users through distributed ledgers and smart contracts. Key components include cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that operate without a central authority. Web3 promises more user privacy, ownership, and control over data and digital assets.

The blockchain offers tantalizing possibilities for future use

Think of blockchains as a running list of information, where new details are added to the running chain as discrete "blocks." With crypto, the information contained within each block could be virtually anything, providing flexibility for uses in commerce, legal filings, healthcare records, and more.

Ethereum Classic and the Ethereum hard fork

One year after its launch, Ethereum was forked into two blockchains as a workaround to return funds stolen in a major hack to users. To this day, Ethereum Classic operates separately from Ethereum, and the two blockchains have different goals. Because of this split, investors must be cautious and ensure they’re interacting with the correct blockchain. Funds can’t simply be transferred from one to the other. Learn more here.

Explaining the Ethereum merge in simple terms

Ethereum slowly switched the way it adds blocks to the chain. In 2022, it completed its transition from a proof-of-work model to a proof-of-stake model. That event, called “The Merge,” happened when it combined two Ethereum blockchains operating under different systems. For an explanation of proof-of-work and proof-of-stake, and the significance of switching from one to the other, read this article.

Smart contracts are the foundational technology behind NFTs

Smart contracts use “if that, then this” logic to track the ownership of NFTs and record when they are bought and sold on the blockchain.

Crypto exchanges are online platforms to buy, sell, and exchange cryptocurrencies

Crypto exchanges have grown alongside and fueled the boom in digital currencies. Popular exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance each have separate features, fee structures, and more. You can learn how to begin with the platforms, how to carry out research, and when to be aware of the associated risks.

DAI is a popular stablecoin backed by cryptocurrency rather than fiat currency

DAI is backed by collateralized debt denominated in several major cryptocurrencies, including ethereum's ether. It was created by Rune Christensen in 2017 with the goal of helping create a credit system that would allow users to take out loans collateralized by cryptocurrencies.

NFTs can be used for fractionalized ownership of assets

Non-fungible token is a term used to describe a unique digital asset whose ownership is tracked on a blockchain, such as Ethereum.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Memecoins are cryptocurrency created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes

Dogecoin is perhaps the most famous "memecoin." While they tend to be more volatile than other types of crypto (after all, they're often created due to ephemeral trends), that doesn't mean they can't be valuable: Dogecoin is currently one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world.

The interoperable metaverse and what that means

This explainer video explores the challenges of achieving the interoperability needed to unify economies, avatars and systems across virtual worlds in the metaverse.

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy is a system powered by people creating online content for monetizable audiences. These “creators” and “influencers” make money off their digital audiences through brand deals or revenue shares with social media platforms.

WeChat: The world's second-largest messaging platform

The central technology in Tencent's empire, WeChat boasts roughly 1.4 billion users and provides a platform for the company to expand its ambitions in digital payments, e-commerce, and more. Unlike rival WhatsApp (owned by Meta), WeChat was built as a "superapp"—a single place where users are provided a wide range of features.

What is the Fediverse?

The "fediverse" is a league of like-minded apps looking to make our digital identities—including posts, followers, activity—move seamlessly between networks. It's a decentralized approach, making various social networks interoperable in contrast to Facebook and Twitter, where content is platform-specific. The fediverse provides stability and control to users. Learn more here.

The rebrand to X was to make Twitter an all-in-one social media app

Elon Musk renamed the platform as part of his plan to create an app that goes beyond posts and tweets. The rebrand included a new name, logo, and vision for a platform that offers messaging, video, banking, shopping, and more.

How end-to-end encryption protects messages, even from service providers

Using symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, data is encrypted on the sender's device before being transmitted across application servers that lack the key needed to decrypt it. The message is not decrypted until it reaches the recipient's device, which uses their private key to recover the plaintext. E2EE's effectiveness has led to its adoption by WhatsApp and Signal.

An overview of Linux, from the foundational program to its related operating systems

The Linux kernel, which bridges hardware and software, serves as the basis for many fully customizable operating systems, whose components can be modified or removed to optimize performance or reduce bloat on devices with limited resources. This has made these OSes useful for low-power devices like smart thermostats, as well as for powerful supercomputers that require computational efficiency.

What is the function of money?

Nearly everyone uses some form of money to facilitate day-to-day activities, but what is it, anyways? Economists define money as anything that can be accepted as final payment for goods and services. Shells, beads, corn, and a wide range of objects have acted as money throughout history—explore the common but deceptively abstract concept of money in this eight-minute podcast from the Federal Reserve.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

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Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

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Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

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This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

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Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

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One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.