Let’s learn about Ether in a few words.
Ether
Ethereum’s (the name of the network) unit of currency is called Ether. You need ether to do anything on the network (Ethereum network). Aside from things like reading data on the network, it does not cost any ether. For example, if you want to send ether (1,2,3..) to another user it will cost extra Ether.
Ether is also used to run dAPPs(Decentralized Apps) or smart contracts. We will talk about it more later.
Ether’s smaller unit is Wei (it’s like a cent of the dollar). One quintillion wei equal to one Ether.
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It is like your money in your bank account. But there is some difference between Ether and traditional money. Let’s see…
- This money is yours. You can control your own funds with your wallets. No third party is necessary.
- This is secured by cryptography, protects your wallet, fund and transactions.
- This follows a peer-to-peer transaction system, which means no medium is needed like banks. But it is secure, you can do it anytime, anywhere, and with anyone.
- The important point is this is decentralized. There are no central banks or organizations that can decide to print more Ether.
- Available for everyone. You just need an internet connection to accept Ether.
- No limitations on the number of transactions. Eg: you can send 0.000000000000000001 or 111111… ether.
What happens when a new Ether is created?
When a new Ether is created it’s distributed to the nodes in exchange for their help in participating and securing the network. However when a new ether is created it is not distributed evenly to all nodes, the new ether is distributed to one node at a time through a process called mining. That is how it gets created or minted in the network.
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