Introduction to Ethereum

Ethereum Financial Services

• Pure currency exchanges
• The original use for blockchain
• Easy transfer of digital currency

Cryptocurrency

• No government backing, Ex: Bitcoin, Ether (ETH)
• Can create your own tokens

Real estate

• Blockchain works well transferring assests
• Write out legal and financial rules (if rules are met, transfer the asset — real estate)
• Automate escrow

ERC-725 Standard

• Smart contract interface
• Associate Ethereum accounts with real-world identities
• Establish an account and make a claim against that account

Smart Contracts

• Rules to register a transaction in the blockchain
• Ethereum creates special runtime environment for smart contracts
• Program that can only run in a specialized environment
• The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — Virtual machine means it runs within another operating system
• Every node runs every smart contract
• Smart contracts are deterministic — Output is the same on all nodes

Creating an Ethereum address means creating keys

• Private and public key
• Public key provides your account address
• Private key must stay secure
• A wallet stores private keys securely
• Use private key to access cryptoassets

Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

• Similar to an Initial Public Offering (IPO)
• Describes the business
• Asks for investment

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

Development and testing blockchains

• Develop apps using local blockchain
• Test apps using test blockchain (doesn’t use real money)

How Blockchain Apps are Different

• Decentralized storage (cost of accessing data)
• Decentralized processing (runs on multiple nodes)
• Bugs will always be there (find bugs before deployment)