Ethereum Virtual Machine
The Ethereum Project's logo, first used in 2014.
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| Initial release | 30 July 2015 |
|---|---|
| Repository | github |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C++, Go, Rust |
| Operating system | Clients available for Linux, Windows, macOS, POSIX, Raspbian |
| Platform | x86, ARM |
| Type | Decentralized computing |
| License | GPLv3, LGPLv3 |
| Website | www |
| Ether | |
|---|---|
| Denominations | |
| Symbol | Ξ or ETH |
| Demographics | |
| User(s) | Worldwide |
| Issuance | |
| Currency type | |
Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality, which facilitates online contractual agreements. It provides a decentralized Turing-complete virtual machine, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which can execute scripts using an international network of public nodes. Ethereum also provides a token called "ether", which can be transferred between accounts and used to compensate participant nodes for computations performed. Gas, an internal transaction pricing mechanism, is used to prevent spam and allocate resources on the network.
Ethereum was proposed in late 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, a researcher and programmer. Development was funded by an online crowdsale during July–August 2014. The system went live on 30 July 2015, with 11.9 million coins "premined" for the crowdsale. This accounts for approximately 13 percent of the total circulating supply.
In 2016 Ethereum was forked into two blockchains, as a result of the collapse of The DAO project. The two chains have different numbers of users, and the minority fork was renamed to Ethereum Classic. The majority fork has retained the name Ethereum (the subject of this article).
The value token of the Ethereum blockchain is called ether. It is listed under the diminutive ETH and traded on exchanges. It is also used to pay for transaction fees and computational services on the Ethereum network.
Tokens can be volatile per circumstances, such as ether's plunge from $21.50 to $8 when The DAO was hacked on June 17, 2016.
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the runtime environment for smart contracts in Ethereum. The formal definition of the EVM is specified in the Ethereum Yellow Paper by Gavin Wood. It is sandboxed and also completely isolated from the network, filesystem or other processes of the host computer system. Every Ethereum node in the network runs an EVM implementation and executes the same instructions. Ethereum Virtual Machines have been implemented in C++, Go, Haskell, Java, Python, Ruby, Rust, and WebAssembly (currently under development).
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