Much in the same way that a kWh will cost a certain amount on your electricity bill, gas has an Ether cost that anyone using the EVM has to pay in order to commit a change to the Ethereum blockchain.Īlso like a kWh, the cost of gas isn’t fixed to a certain amount of Ethereum-it can be adjusted so that EVM operational costs don’t become prohibitively high or so cheap that the network is flooded with junk transactions. Gas is a way of describing the amount of work being done by the EVM, similar to kilowatt hours being a measure of expenditure and not an actual unit of energy. Ether is the part of the Ethereum network that has actual, relatable, real-world value, and it in turn can become gas to fuel the EVM. Ethereum’s developer pages do add a bit of insight into how Ethereum defines a DApp, which it classifies as “an application built on a decentralized network that combines a smart contract and a frontend user interface.”ĮVM DApps eliminate failure points because the apps are built on the back of the Ethereum blockchain, which spreads out the code, assets and management of applications over the entire EVM network.Ĭreating a shared network the size of the EVM isn’t cheap, and that’s where the Ether cryptocurrency comes in. The definition of what DApps are is up for debate, but at its most basic level a decentralized application is one that has no central point of failure. The EVM is a decentralized runtime environment for building and operating smart contracts, also called decentralized applications (DApps).
There are basically three layers to Ethereum: The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the cryptocurrency Ether and gas, which is the actual EVM “fuel” that Ether translates to. For the sake of consistency, we’ll use those specific terms throughout this guide. Ethereum is a decentralized computer network that runs applications, and Ether is the cryptocurrency that fuels it. SEE: Ethereum Cheat Sheet: Everything you need to know (free PDF) (TechRepublic) What is Ethereum, and how does it differ from Ether cryptocurrency?ĭespite their often interchangeable usage, Ethereum and Ether are technically two different things. But to simply call it a cash alternative misses out on a lot of what it’s actually for. Instead of just being an alternative to the dollar, euro or pound, Ether has a specific application.Įther can be traded for its cash value, and it is one of the most highly valued cryptocurrencies. Decentralized digital cash like Bitcoin has made cryptocurrency, and by extension the blockchain, a hot topic for discussion, and the cryptocurrency known as Ethereum is one of the hottest.īut Ethereum isn’t technically just another cryptocurrency-it’s a whole decentralized computer network powered by a cryptocurrency called Ether. Cryptocurrency: It’s a word that anyone who spends any time online is sure to have heard of by now.