With decentralized ownership and no sovereignty, the Ethereum blockchain has become an excellent platform for international supply chain networks. The Ethereum crypto network consists of three key players: public chains (AKA blockchains), private chains, and consortium chains. If you want to earn more, trade Ethereum with this platform
A public chain consists of a single global blockchain (e.g., Ethereum) owned by all members in its system who can execute transactions with each other freely through intelligent contracts. In contrast, a private chain only allows its owner to maintain control over its data but cannot interact with other parties in the outside world. Finally, a consortium chain acts as an interlinked network composed of multiple private chains (e.g., hyper ledger) connected.
Anonymous digital ID and verification processes, which are essential building blocks of the Ethereum network, and business applications such as private transaction platforms, SDN (software-defined networking), or Ethereum Virtual Machine or EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) transactions, which may be vital platforms for the future technologies used in supply chains and scenarios that involve sensitive data exchange and cyber-attack recovery, have been developed over recent years. Let’s discuss the chronicles of the Ethereum network.
Founding (2013–2014):
In 2010, open-source software called “Bitcoin” began to develop as a peer-to-peer payment system and currency. After the development of Bitcoin far enough, the idea of Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin, who had been influenced by the Bitcoin project since its early design phase and inspired by bitcoin’s potential for widespread use and Ethereum developers’ dedication to decentralization.
Ethereum would not be realized by Nakamoto until three years later, in July 2015. At this time, the Ethereum community was tiny, less than a thousand people worked on the project, and there were no stable long-term ways to fund development, which is central to creating software.
After that, research and development efforts went into mining with the paradigm shift from mining as an expensive specialized process of competing against other players with expensive hardware and electricity use towards mining as a cost-efficient way of securing and maintaining the blockchain.
Launch and the DAO event (2014–2016):
The Ethereum network launched in July 2015 and was rolled out gradually over the next few months. In November 2015, the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) – was a decentralized venture capital fund. The DAO raised over $150 million by selling a token that people could use to purchase shares in the organization. It was immediately controversial, with some calling it an intelligent contract DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack.
Right after that, people started to attack the DAO by opening a large number of overflow accounts using the large Ethereum blockchain and the enormous computing power that comes with it, resulting in a chain fork and splitting the Ethereum network into two different chains:
“Ethereum Classic” (ETC) and “Ethereum” (ETH).
Within two days of this event, two major updates were released by people to resolve this situation: one update to prevent replay attacks and another proposed protocol upgrade called “Casper” that would have allowed for longer-term funding of more complex smart contracts. After these updates, developers moved on to other projects. The DAO event forced all Ethereum stakeholders to come together and find a way to resolve the situation and prevent similar situations.
It led to the collaboration between different Ethereum projects that formed the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) in 2017, a consortium of various blockchain projects aiming to speed up the adoption of the technology with help from blockchain industry leaders such as Microsoft, Intel, and J.P. Morgan, etc. The EEA is currently the most influential company-led blockchain consortium in which many members have publicly declared their support for the platform and development efforts.
Continued development and milestones (2017–present):
The first Ethereum milestone, Homestead, included updates such as the implementation of a monetary policy, the formalization of a process for introducing hard forks, and the creation of a new mining algorithm to force the existing miners to switch over to this new one.
In March 2017, yet another hard fork was executed to return funds from The DAO into a smart refund contract to make all funds available again for withdrawal.
In October 2017, an announcement was made about switching from Proof-of-work (POW) mining to Proof-of-stake (POS) through a hybrid system in which nodes can mine Ether for themselves using a small amount of POW mining power. These updates were aimed at enhanced security and efficiency, which have set a new milestone for the future of Ethereum.
Some people believe Ethereum is the future of blockchain and possibly even how all financial transactions will eventually be done by people worldwide. The rapid rise in the price of Ether (the unit used to confirm transactions within Ethereum) in late 20121 is perceived by many to be the start of an era of cryptocurrency; this has resulted in some experts calling ETH “the next Bitcoin”. However, the most significant change that Ethereum has brought to blockchains is its use of smart contracts.