Ethereum is an open blockchain network that allows everyone to create and use autonomous blockchain applications. Ethereum, like Bitcoin, is an open-source project created by a large number of people all around the world. Ethereum, on the other hand, was created to be adaptable and flexible, unlike the Bitcoin protocol.

A blockchain is a distributed computing system in which each network node performs and tracks the same transactions, which are organized into blocks. Only one block can be added at a time, and each block has a mathematical proof that verifies that it is added in the correct order. The blockchain's "distributed database" is thereby maintained in synchronization across the whole network. Strong authentication protects individual user connections with the ledger (transactions). Mathematically enforced economic incentives programmed into the protocol incentivize nodes that manage and validate the network.

Vitalik Buterin, Gavin Wood and Jeffrey Wilcke, the founders of Ethereum, started development on a next-generation blockchain in 2014 with the aim of implementing a general, fully decentralized smart contract network. Ethereum is a blockchain that can be coded. Rather than providing users with a pre-defined series of operations, Ethereum allows them to construct their own operations of any complexity. It acts as a platform for a variety of decentralized blockchain technologies, including but not limited to cryptocurrencies, throughout this way.

Ethereum, like every other blockchain, provides a peer-to-peer network protocol. Many nodes connecting to the Ethereum network manage and upgrade the blockchain database. Every node in the network runs the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) and follows the same set of instructions. As a result, Ethereum is sometimes referred to as a "world machine."

Ethereum integrates numerous elements and technologies that Bitcoin users would be familiar with, while also adding many new features and developments. The account is Ethereum's base entity, while the Bitcoin blockchain was just a list of transactions. Any account's state is tracked on the Ethereum blockchain, and all state changes are transfers of value and information between accounts. Blockchains are concerned with achieving consensus for decentralized computations, regardless of their nature. And this is precisely what the Ethereum network offers: a blockchain capable of doing any computation as part of a transaction.