What is the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts, gas, and Ether (ETH)?
Let's try explaining it in simple terms 🧵
The majority of big decentralized app (dApps) are built in the Ethereum blockchain (if you want a more in-depth explanation of what a blockchain is, please tell me!)
But... what is Ethereum? You can think of it as a global computer that no one can shut down.
Developers write Smart Contracts that can interact with your funds, think of it as a real contract.
The big difference is that smart contracts are immutable, once they are written, they can't be modified.
This is one of the reasons that security is so important,
If you leave an important function public inside the contract like "withdrawFunds()", someone could go and steal all the contract funds.
Usually, exploits are more complicated than that, but you get the idea.
Smart Contracts in the Ethereum network are written in Solidity.
Solidity is an object-oriented programming language that, for me, is something in-between C++ and TypeScrpt, so if you are used to typed languages, it's pretty easy to pick up (and hard to master)
Writing Solidity code is different than writing JavaScript code, since every computation power that you use, the users of the smart contract will have to pay for, in gas.
Gas is a fee that refers to the amount of computational effort required to execute an operation.
Gas fluctuates depending on the traffic of the network and the complexity of the smart contract.
An operation in the Ethereum Network might cost $150-$250.
There are Layer 2 (L2) networks, like Polygon, or other blockchains, like Solana, that solve this issue.
Gas is measured in gwei, which is the smallest unit of an Ether,
1 gwei = 0.000000001 Ether.
So, what is Ether? Ether is the cryptocurrency attached to the Ethereum network, it's a common misconception that people call Ethereum to the currency.
Bitcoin is even more confusing. Bitcoin, capitalized, is the network, and bitcoin, lowercase, is the cryptocurrency.
There are solutions in the works by the Ethereum team to improve gas fees and make the network more environmentally friendly.
ETH 2.0 and Shards.
And these are two things that should be happening over 2022.
The future is bright and we're early.
That's why we say "gm", because, we're always early.
And if you're reading this and you're interested in learning more, remember:
wagmi (we're all gonna make it)
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Thread 🧵
1. Have a real name and picture.
(Or at least, real-sounding name).
People follow people, it gives them trust, so be yourself, I know it can be scary to show your face online or tell the world your name, but it creates trust.