What Is Ethereum
Ethereum, proposed by Vitalik Buterin in 2013 and launched in 2015, enables smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps), becoming the backbone for decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFTs. Its key features include the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and Ether (ETH), used for transactions and gas fees. Ethereum is transitioning to Ethereum 2.0, shifting from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake to enhance scalability, security, and energy efficiency, alongside introducing sharding to improve transaction throughput.