Many people believe Bitcoin to be very complicated, when in fact it’s a lot more simple and intuitive than what most people think. This series aims to help everyone get a grasp of the basics, and over time also present further learning opportunities for those that want to know more. Bitcoin is often explained by comparing it to something specific people already know, but this is often what creates a lot of confusion. Bitcoin is a new technology that is unlike anything we have seen before, so a better way to think of it is as a combination of a few different things we are already used to: Firstly, because it allows you to move money so easily, Bitcoin functions as a payment system, similar to bank transfers or credit cards, only a bit better. Second, Bitcoin is in some sense similar to gold - that is why many people even refer to it as ‘digital gold’ or ‘Gold 2.0’. Think of it as using gold for money, except it also very easy to move. Third, Bitcoin is like the internet in that no single person or entity controls it, so anyone can pretty much use it as they like. This gives it some very unique characteristics. These three characteristics also reinforce one another, so they are all interwoven. But more on all of this in the next few sections. For now, just imagine what would happen if you took a big pot and threw in a credit card, a piece of gold, and a hint of ‘internet’ - mix it all up - and pull out a brand new compound - Bitcoin!

How did we transfer money thousands of years ago, when we all still lived in little villages and knew and trusted each other? We simply exchanged things with each other, as we still do with cash today. But when money moved online things got a bit trickier, and the way the banks and credit card systems dealt with this was to create a ‘ledger system’ – basically records of account showing who owns what. For example, if John wants to transfer $100 to Sarah online, the bank moves the money from John to Sarah. John cannot do it himself because there is a risk he might cheat – he can copy and paste the digital money (it’s only numbers on a computer after all) and send the $100 to two different people; nobody would know. Instead, we trust the bank to send the money and make sure it’s only sent to one person. Now, the bank can also cheat, but we trust them that they don’t. If the transfer is between two accounts at the same bank, it’s easy to transfer, but if it’s between two different banks it gets a bit more complicated. They might have different ledger systems that need to be reconciled. For this they charge a fee, and it often takes more time to complete the transfer. When they are banks or other financial systems in foreign countries, it gets even more complicated: different languages, systems, currencies, more parties to co-ordinate and so on, so the fees and transfer times increase. That’s why the current financial system is so complex. It’s just a massive entanglement of various ledger systems around the world. Bitcoin is changing all of this. How? It is simply one global ledger system that synchronizes across the entire internet, so that everyone can access the same ledger account in real time no matter who or where they are. The result? Money can easily be transferred between parties without all the lag times and exorbitant fees. Just like it used to be before the world became big and complicated. And what do people use Bitcoin as payment system for? Everything that one would do with normal money: send to friends and family - both local or abroad, buy things online, get paid for their work and so on.

Over the centuries, gold has been considered as an object of value by many different groups of people all over the world. It’s important to note that gold in itself has no value - it’s just a piece of shiny metal. Its value comes from the (somewhat perplexing) fact that everyone just agreed that it has value, and therefore it becomes valuable. The reason they chose gold versus other objects is important - gold has certain characteristics that make it a better ‘store of value’ (as it is commonly known) than other objects: For one, it is rare, which means it has limited supply(there is only a certain amount of gold in the world - if it was too abundant everyone would have it and then it would have no value). It is malleable (it can be melted and made into smaller units i.e. coins, and importantly the per unit value doesn’t change when you break it into smaller pieces, unlike things like diamonds). It is stable and doesn’t degrade, it’s easy to recognise and very importantly, difficult to counterfeit. As it turns out, Bitcoin has all of these same characteristics, and more. It has limited supply (only a specific amount of Bitcoin exists and will ever be produced). It can be made into smaller units without losing unit value (1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 Satoshis - the smallest unit into which a Bitcoin can be broken down to, similar to the cents in a Dollar or pennies in a pound; this is also why one can buy less than one Bitcoin at a time). Its technology makes it very stable, it won’t degrade, and it’s impossible to counterfeit. On top of this, and unlike gold, you can move Bitcoin to any place on earth within minutes, no matter how big or small the amount. That’s why many people say that Bitcoin is not just digital gold, but a better version of gold. On top of that, Bitcoin has value as a payment system in itself, which gives it even more value. The more people use Bitcoin for payments, the more valuable this system becomes. It’s a bit like buying shares in Visa and then using those shares to buy a coke at your local 7-11. Because you used the Visa shares to pay, Visa (the payment system) becomes more valuable, and Visa shares become worth more. In this way, the value of Bitcoin comes from both its gold-like characteristics as well as its payment system abilities.

The internet has changed the way people live and do business, and is arguably one of the biggest advancements in human history. What many people don’t realise is that the internet we know today might never have happened at all because there were a number of ‘rival’ ‘internets’ being built at that time. These were specific companies that wanted to connect all the computers in the world and share information, but do it on their own system, so that people had to pay to access their own ‘information superhighway’. The modern internet was different in that it was, by design, an open system that anyone could use as they please, and it wasn’t owned by anyone, so no gatekeepers. This lead to something called ‘permissionless innovation’ - people can try and test new things without needing access granted by some gatekeeper. This lead to an explosion of innovation and adoption of the ‘open’ internet, and is the reason the internet is so pervasive today. The design also means that most parts of the internet are ‘interoperable’ - this means that the internet or email I use can connect to the same internet or email a person in another country uses. This is similar to different countries speaking different languages - a German person and a Chinese person will struggle to communicate, but if they both speak English it’s much easier. The internet allowed everyone to essentially speak ‘one global language’. In this sense, Bitcoin is similar to the internet. For one, it’s not owned by anyone, so anyone can use it as they please - no gatekeepers. This is often referred to as ‘decentralised’. It also allows for permissionless innovation, and this is the reason why so many people are building companies and applications on top of it and it is growing so fast. Lastly, Bitcoin is also interoperable. Like email or the internet, my Bitcoin and your Bitcoin work on the same system, one big global transaction ledger and, in some sense, the world’s first truly global currency.

There are a number of ways you can get Bitcoin: Just like traditional money, you can earn it by providing goods or services, and asking for people to pay you in Bitcoin rather than in traditional money. This is often a cheaper and easier alternative to other payment methods and one of the easiest ways to get your hands on some Bitcoin. Another way is how most people get their Bitcoin: buy it from a credible Bitcoin broker or exchange provider, like Koinascent. This is similar to how you would buy foreign currency at your bank or shares online. This is often the easiest way to get Bitcoin because you are virtually guaranteed that someone will be willing to sell their Bitcoin to you on such a platform. You can also get Bitcoin by mining for it, but this has become very difficult to do for the average person. Most mining is now done by huge companies with very expensive and highly specialised equipment, which a typical person or computer cannot compete with. So unless you have a lot of expertise and a huge amount of money to spend on this, rather just buy or earn the Bitcoin.

Many people wonder how the price of Bitcoin is calculated, but it’s important to remember that it works no different than it would with other currencies or objects. Let’s first look at how the prices of most things are derived - we can use oranges as an example. What is the price of an orange? Well, it depends. As a starting point, one would derive the price of an orange based on two things: how much someone is trying to sell it for, and how much another person is trying to buy it for. If John wants to sell it for USD2.50 and Sarah is only prepared to pay USD2.00, there is no deal. But if they agree on a price that works for both, let’s say USD2.25, then the transaction will happen. If it’s winter there might be more people wanting to buy oranges, so the price will go up. Or if there is a drought the supply of oranges will become less, so more people are trying to buy less oranges, which can also drive the price up. Bitcoin and other currencies are a bit different from oranges in that they are what is called ‘homogeneous’ - one dollar is identical to another dollar, just as one Bitcoin is the same as another. Oranges on the other hand can vary in size and quality. All this means is that it’s easier to come up with a price of a currency or Bitcoin. Once again, just what a buyer and seller will agree on. Many people might not realise that other currencies work exactly the same - if you are holding a coin or note of your own local currency in your hand, at any given point in time there are millions of people buying and selling your local currency, so while you might observe it as stable, it’s value actually continuously changes. When you want to exchange it for another currency at a currency desk, let’s say for USD, one day you pay 10 local currency to a dollar, the next day maybe 11 or 9. Bitcoin works exactly the same way - you can just think of it as a currency other than the one you are used to.

There is often public misconception that Bitcoin is mostly used by criminals, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is mainly because many people think Bitcoin is anonymous, when in fact it’s the opposite - all Bitcoin transactions are transparent for the whole world to see. People might not be able to link the identity to Bitcoin right away (that is also why it is sometimes called ‘pseudo anonymous’), but once they do, they can track everything you’ve ever done on the Bitcoin network. This makes it a particularly bad tool for illicit use. While Bitcoin might actually turn out to be one of the safest and least ‘bad’ ways to use money, it doesn’t mean that criminals don’t use it. Just like normal money, they do. But there are two important things to note - firstly, that as more data becomes available in the industry, the more it is becoming clear the number of bad uses is very, very minute - if the entire Bitcoin ecosystem is represented by a big mountain, the size of the bad parts is a couple of rocks. Second, that in any financial system, this is a risk that can never be eliminated, merely mitigated, and Bitcoin has some of the best tools in the world for that. It’s worth expanding on Bitcoin’s parallel with the internet particularly in the context of all the ‘bad stuff’ that people associate Bitcoin with. Is the internet all good? Definitely not. Terrorists, money launderers and drug smugglers use Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp to communicate and coordinate every single day. Some people might feel uneasy about the fact that at least 5–30% of visible online traffic relates to pornography. And here we’re not even considering the deep and dark web, where there are all kinds of really bad things going on that we’re not going to even mention here. But despite all these issues, does society make a concerted effort to try and ban the internet? No. And it’s not so much because it’s hard to do so, it’s more because the positives to society grossly outweigh the negatives. For these same reasons, we should all be very careful how we think about Bitcoin, because most evidence suggests Bitcoin to have the same net positive effect, if not more, than the internet. Both the internet and Bitcoin are tools that can be used by the ‘bad guys’ or the ‘good guys’, and thankfully most of the world are in the latter category.

As mentioned in an earlier section, one can think of Bitcoin as one big global ledger system that records transactions (or ‘moving money’) between one person to another. Whenever Bitcoin transactions are processed on the Bitcoin network – that means Bitcoin is moved from one person to another – someone has to make sure all the transactions are recorded properly and that the ledgers on all the systems are synchronized all over the world. In the case of Bitcoin, this process is not done by people or companies, but by thousands of computers all over the world that are all connected to the internet. These computers are knowns as ‘miners’, but they should really simply be called ‘computers that process transactions’. To do this processing in a very secure way, these computers need to perform very complicated calculations that take a lot of computing power, and in turn, require a lot of energy and expensive and specialised processing equipment. Someone - the owner of the computers - needs to pay for all this equipment and electricity, so they need to be compensated for all the money and effort they are putting into making this network work. They earn this compensation through newly minted Bitcoin - so in short all new Bitcoin that is created acts as a reward and incentive mechanism for people to contribute their computers to the system to help process transactions. Another way to look at it is to consider what would happen if a large bank built the world’s biggest global transaction processing system: they would spend a few billion dollar on it and then charge everyone transaction fees to recoup this cost. With Bitcoin mining, the cost of this global system has just been spread over thousands of computers, and they recoup their cost through newly minted Bitcoin. In short, it’s simply a democratisation of financial infrastructure.

Moving around Bitcoin is very easy, but in the background an important part of moving and storing Bitcoin involves something called a ‘private key’. The easiest way to understand private keys is to think about an old-fashioned mailbox system: Let’s say Maria wants to send mail to Peter. First she needs to know what Peter’s mailbox address or number is. Let’s say Peter’s mailbox is number 2034. Similarly, if she wants to send Bitcoin to Peter, she needs to know his Bitcoin address, which is a number that uniquely identifies him. This is also sometimes called his wallet address, or public key, which functions similar to your bank account number. It’s a long and complicated number because there are so many Bitcoin post boxes in the world, but thankfully you don’t have to remember it, you can find it on the internet. So now Maria deposits the Bitcoin in Peter’s mailbox. She can have a peek inside and see the Bitcoin there, in fact anyone who walks by can see that mailbox 2034 is filled with one Bitcoin. This is part of the exciting part of Bitcoin - that everyone can see all the transactions but without anyone having to share their identity. People can see there is one Bitcoin in 2034, but no-one, except for Maria and Peter, will know it belongs to Peter. Now let’s see how Peter gets his Bitcoin - well he can see it’s there, so he doesn’t have to do anything. But if he wants to move it, he needs to open the box to send it to someone else. To open this he needs a key - and this is his own unique key, also called a private key, that him, and only him can use to open the mailbox. When he opens it he can remove the Bitcoin and deposit into someone else’s box, let’s maybe say he is buying an online game from Microsoft, now he can deposit it into Microsoft’s box and once they can see the Bitcoin received, they will ship the new game to him. If Maria deposits into the wrong mailbox, she cannot move it back. This is similar to cash - once you paid it to someone you can’t easily get it back. Also note that no-one can move the Bitcoin, except for Peter, who has the key to the mailbox. And if he loses his key? Well then no-one can access that post box, forever! It’s also important for Peter to make sure no-one steals his key, because if they do they can unlock his box and steal his Bitcoin. So it’s important he keeps the key safe, or entrust it with someone that can do so.

Safely storing your Bitcoin is very important. Unlike other types of money that is controlled by banks, with Bitcoin you have many more options on how to store and control your money. Remember your private key that you need to move your Bitcoin? Well that is literally the key to storing it. Whoever has the key controls the Bitcoin. These keys can be either in digital or even in physical format i.e. written down on a piece of paper. How to store it then? You can leave the key in your pocket, but that’s not too secure. You can put it in a safe - that’s a lot better. But someone can still break into your house and steal it. Given you want to use your Bitcoin regularly, you might also want to put some or all of it in a digital version on your phone so you can access it easier. The only problem is that if you lose your phone it means you will also lose your key, and there is no way to get it back. That is why companies like Koinascent exist - not just to make it easier to buy, sell and use Bitcoin, but also to securely store it. We do this by taking your private keys and storing them in a physical bank vault with access controls like fingerprint and retina scans. In fact, it’s not just one vault, it’s a number of vaults across many continents. And we build it in a way that you have to access the keys from multiple vaults and put them together to actually be able to extract the Bitcoin, similar to the old movies where nuclear submarines need 3-5 ‘launch codes’ from different generals to be able to launch nuclear weapons. This is commonly knowns as ‘multisig’ (multiple signatures required). Bitcoin is very safe when it is stored like this, but there is one potential weak link: you need to trust the people storing the keys on your behalf. There are many reputable companies like Koinascent that you can rely on, but also many others that either don’t store it properly or might pretend to store it and then misappropriate it. The great thing about Bitcoin is that unlike old money, you have the choice - whether you store it yourself, in physical or digital format, or whether you rely on someone else to safeguard it for you (or even a combination of all of these). The way Bitcoin is often stored is also one of the biggest ironies of Bitcoin - the world’s global currency that was designed to be used online, is mostly stored ‘offline’, in physical bank vaults and detached from the internet. Who would have thought!

Recognising scams to reduce the risks Successful criminals stay ahead of law enforcement and regulation. They operate on the fringes of technological innovation and take advantage of people who are still learning. Therefore, as with any new technology, there are risks associated with digital currencies. We want you to understand the risks and ensure that you have the tools to protect yourself and your money. Phishing attacks Owning digital currency makes you a more attractive target for cybercrime. Koinascent will keep your Bitcoin safe. But only you can keep your passwords safe. ‘Phishing’ is an attack whereby criminals use legitimate-looking fake websites to trick you into entering your password / details. They then use your password to access your account. Different types of phishing attacks Phishing websites. Attackers create fake versions of websites to try and get you to enter login details. Beware of clicking through from fake Google ads. Before entering any details check the website address carefully to make sure you are at the correct URL. Email phishing. Attackers will send legitimate-looking emails in an attempt to convince you to share login details. Check the sender email and make sure the website to which you are directed has the correct address. Spearphishing. Attackers try to gain information about a specific individual. If they know you have digital currency, attackers may even impersonate digital currency company employees to gain your trust. These impersonators may contact you by phone or email. You might think you’ll spot traps and avoid them. But ask yourself, are you 100% confident in every link you’ve ever clicked? Are you willing to bet all your Bitcoin or Ethereum on that? These are steps you should take to be safe. Always check your browser address bar to verify that you’re visiting the correct website address and not a fake site Use two-factor authentication on all your Bitcoin wallets and your email addresses Use a password manager program If you use a Gmail account, do a quick security check Investment scams Because the digital currency space is relatively young, there are investment scams trying to part you from your money. Scams come in all shapes and sizes but with a little practise, you can easily spot and avoid them. Cloud mining scams 99% of cloud mining operations are suspicious. Legitimate Bitcoin miners will tell you that the profit margins on mining are razor thin. There is nobody out there mining Bitcoin, making 10%, 20%, 30% per month as these scams are promising. Avoid these at all costs. Multi-level marketing scams If the company is punting its referral programme harder than its product, it’s probably a scam. Chances are, they’re paying existing investors with new investors’ deposits. Eventually the music stops and they disappear, leaving everybody out of pocket, and only then do victims realise they actually have no idea to whom they sent their money. Bitcoin “doublers", or high yield investment programmes (Ponzi schemes) These scams convince you that they have found a special or secret method to making incredible returns. Whether its trading on your behalf, or exploiting technical aspects of digital currency. In reality, they haven’t found anything - if they had, they wouldn’t need your investment. Their only skill is conning you. Move along, swiftly. How to spot a scam Do some research before investing in something. If the returns being promised sound too good to be true, it’s probably a scam. Also, check out the Bad List at badbitcoin.org. If it’s listed here it’s definitely suspicious and almost certainly a scam. Volatile markets Although this is not related to criminal activity, it’s important to be aware that Bitcoin and other digital currencies are exceptionally volatile. Price fluctuations can be violent and it’s important that you don’t risk inappropriate amounts of money (more than you can afford to lose). Read our blog posts on dollar cost averaging and runaway markets for more information. Keep in mind that during violent market movements, misinformation may be spread in the news and digital currency service providers may experience service disruptions. You may not always be able to sell your digital currency at a moment’s notice.

While Bitcoin is a very exciting technology and new form of money, it doesn’t mean that there is no risk associated with it. As a starting point, it’s important to remember that the same intuitive rules that apply to traditional money also applies to Bitcoin. For example, don’t store cash under your mattress else it might get stolen, or don’t trust your money with strangers. Bitcoin also has some fairly unique risks: for one, it’s a brand new technology, and while it appears very secure and robust, there is always a chance that it might fail. That is also a reason why you should never put ‘all your eggs in one basket’ and never buy more Bitcoin than you can afford to lose. Bitcoin is also more volatile (i.e. it can move a lot in value both up or down in a short space of time) than many other currencies, and while this appears to be stabilising over time, it’s sure to experience many highly volatile moments in the future. Also remember that Bitcoin transactions are like cash in that they are irreversible - so if you send Bitcoin to the wrong person, or your Bitcoin wallet is compromised and someone steals your Bitcoin, it might be very difficult if not impossible to get it back. Bitcoin is also not backed by any entity, so if you lose your Bitcoin, your service provider or ‘the Bitcoin network’ will not be able to reimburse your funds. That’s why you need to ensure you use highly trusted product or service providers to help you, similar to how you would ask a bank to help you safely store your money. Lastly, Bitcoin’s value is determined by the amount of people or business that are willing to accept it, and this is by no means guaranteed. If it grows it will be very good for Bitcoin, but if less people want to use Bitcoin, it will have a very negative impact on the price and might lead to Bitcoin not being used at all. To summarise, Bitcoin is very exciting and has tremendous potential to change the world, but make sure you understand the risks that go hand in hand with that.

Bitcoin was ‘invented’ by a person or group of people using the name ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’. Does anyone know who this really is? Despite many articles and investigation to unmask the person(s), there is still no conclusive evidence of who they are. Does it matter? Not at all. Satoshi designed the entire Bitcoin system in an ‘open source’ manner - this means the code is available for everyone to inspect and see, so there are no hidden secrets, and no influence on it from the creator. Over time many others have also worked on this code so it’s already very different from the initial outline Satoshi proposed. It’s also worth mentioning that there is a common misconception that Satoshi invented Bitcoin all by himself. Like many big breakthroughs in the sciences, Satoshi’s invention was built on the shoulders of giants. For the past few decades many top scientists, engineers and mathematicians were involved in research around cryptography, systems and so on. Satoshi managed to pull all of this work together into one coherent plan and then helped to start implement it. If you read the Satoshi whitepaper you’ll even notice that he references all the other work on which he relied to complete his invention.

In many ways, Ethereum is similar to Bitcoin. It’s a public, peer-to-peer network or blockchain with its own digital currency called Ether. Ethereum was created by Vitalik Buterin in 2014 and the purpose of Ethereum is to be a platform on which smart contracts can be built and run. Put very simply, Ethereum is intended to be a world computer. Where Bitcoin stores a list of balances and transactions on its blockchain, the Ethereum blockchain is designed to store different types of data. This data can be accessed and used by computer programs running on the Ethereum blockchain. These programs are called decentralized apps, or dapps. Developers around the world can build and run decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain. The purpose of these is to improve the industries of finance, personal information storage, governance and more by using the transparent nature of a blockchain.

Ethereum was first mentioned in 2013 in a whitepaper by Vitalik Buterin, a developer who was working on Bitcoin at the time. Buterin believed that Bitcoin should be made more customisable. He believed Bitcoin should go a step further than simply being a store of wealth and that it needed smart contract features to determine automatically when payments should occur, for example. This project was not taken up for Bitcoin, therefore Buterin created Ethereum in 2014 for this purpose. Ethereum pioneered what’s known as an initial coin offering (or ICO), selling to initial investors about 60 million Ether tokens while the project was still in development. This kickstarted a large drive to develop and further promote the Ethereum ecosystem whilst paying for legal fees and development costs. Since then, Ethereum has grown substantially. Multiple other projects have launched, and begun development on the Ethereum platform, with varying degrees of success.

Ethereum and Bitcoin share many similarities. In this article, we’ll try to highlight the most fundamental differences between them. The biggest difference is the purposes or ultimate goals of these projects. Bitcoin aims to be a store of wealth, a digital gold if you will, and eventually become a globally adopted currency which could improve or replace conventional money to some extent. The purpose of Ethereum is to become a platform upon which smart contracts and decentralised apps can run. Another important difference is the supply. Where the number of Bitcoin is capped at 21 million ever to be produced, Ethereum is not capped to any specific quantity. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are produced in a process called mining. There are plans to shift Ethereum production to a proof of stake model, which should be more environmentally friendly than mining. More information on proof of stake can be found in the links below. There are several technical differences in the technologies that underpin the Bitcoin and Ethereum platforms but at this early stage of these projects, they may seem very much alike. As these projects grow and mature, however, the differences may become much more apparent and could affect their trajectories quite differently.

As mentioned in an earlier article, the purpose of Ethereum is to be a platform on which smart contracts can run. But what are these? Let’s explain with a simplified example of what Ethereum might be able to do in future. Ethereum aims to make everyday life more efficient and cost effective by automating everyday processes and removing middlemen from the systems we use. This could be to the legal system, the financial system, computer systems or more. For example, let’s assume John has the following documents stored on the Ethereum blockchain: his identity documents, his last will and testament, and the title deed for his house. We assume, the day John dies, his certificate of death is also uploaded to the blockchain. The processes that must occur to transfer John’s estate are admin intensive because there are several parties involved that are often slow and opaque. This may include legal professionals, the government, tax authorities and the property registrar. However, because all these documents are stored on the Ethereum blockchain, something interesting is possible. Once John’s death certificate is officially issued and uploaded to the blockchain, John’s last will and testament can be put into action. Assuming John bequeathed his house to his next of kin, ownership to the house can be transferred to his next of kin automatically by the Ethereum network. Therefore, John’s next of kin will inherit John’s house exactly as John intended, without having to contact a legal professional. This may sound overwhelming and scary but the amount of time and resources saved by not having to wait for John’s next of kin, legal professionals and the property registrar to come into contact with each other and prepare and execute this transaction is immense. Many fascinating projects are being built but nothing like this works at scale at the moment. Many things need to fall in place for large scale adoption and it remains to be seen how instrumental Ethereum will be.

There a number of ways you can get Ether: Just like normal money, you can earn it by providing goods or services, and asking people to pay you in Ether. This is often a cheaper and easier alternative to other payment methods, and one of the easiest ways to get your hands on some Ether. Another way is how most people get it: buy Ether from a credible Ether broker, or from and exchange provider, like Luno. This is similar to how you would buy foreign currency at your bank or shares online and often the easiest way to get Ether because you are virtually guaranteed that someone will be willing to sell their Ether to you on such a platform. You can also get Ether by mining for it, but this has become very difficult to do for the average person. Most mining is now done by huge companies with very expensive and highly specialised equipment, which a typical person or computer cannot compete with. So unless you have a lot of expertise and a huge amount of money to spend on this, rather buy or earn your Ether.

Many people wonder how the price of Ether is calculated, but it’s important to remember that it works no different than it would with other currencies or objects. Let’s first look at how the price of most things are derived - we can use oranges as an example. What is the price of an orange? Well, it depends. As a starting point one would derive the price of an orange based on two things: how much someone is trying to sell it for, and how much another person is trying to buy it for. If John wants to sell it for USD2.50 and Sarah is only prepared to pay USD2.00, there is no deal. But if they agree on a price that works for both, let’s say USD2.25, then the transaction will happen. If it’s winter, there might be more people wanting to buy oranges, so the price will go up. Or if there is a drought the supply of oranges will become less, so more people are trying to buy less oranges, which can also drive the price up. Ether and other currencies are a bit different from oranges in that they are what is called ‘homogeneous’ - one dollar is identical to another dollar, just as one Ether is the same as another. Oranges on the other hand can vary in size and quality. All this means is that it’s easier to come up with a price of a currency or Ether: once again, just what buyers and sellers will agree on. Many people might not realise that other currencies work exactly the same - if you are holding a coin or note of your own local currency in your hand, at any given point in time there are millions of people buying and selling your local currency, so while you might observe it as stable, it’s value actually continuously changes. When you want to exchange it for another currency at a currency desk, let’s say for USD, one day you pay 10 local currency to a dollar, the next day maybe 11 or 9. Ether works exactly the same way - you can just think of it as a currency other than the one you are used to.

There is often public misconception that Ethereum is mostly used by criminals, but nothing could be further from the truth. This misconception typically arises because many people think Ethereum is anonymous, when in fact it’s the opposite - all Ethereum transactions are transparent for the whole world to see. People might not be able to link your identity to an Ethereum transaction right away (that is also why it is sometimes called ‘pseudo anonymous’), but once they do, they can track everything you’ve ever done on the Ethereum network. This makes it a particularly bad tool for illicit use. While Ethereum might actually turn out to be one of the safest and least ‘bad’ ways to use money, it doesn’t mean that criminals don’t use it. Just like normal money, they do. But there are two important things to note - firstly, that as more data becomes available in the industry, the more it is becoming clear the number of bad uses is very, very minute - if the entire Ethereum ecosystem is represented by a big mountain, the size of the bad parts is a couple of rocks. Second, that in any financial system this is a risk that can never be eliminated, merely mitigated, and Ethereum has some of the best tools in the world for that. It’s worth expanding on Ethereum’s parallel with the internet particularly in the context of all the ‘bad stuff’ that people associate Ethereum with. Is the internet all good? Definitely not. Terrorists, money launderers and drug smugglers use Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp to communicate and coordinate every single day. Some people might feel uneasy about the fact that at least 5–30% of visible online traffic relates to pornography. And here we’re not even considering the deep and dark web, where there are all kinds of really bad things going on that we’re not going to even mention here. But despite all these issues, does society make a concerted effort to try and ban the internet? No. And it’s not so much because it’s hard to do so, it’s more because the positives to society grossly outweigh the negatives. For these same reasons, we should all be very careful how we think about Ethereum, because most evidence suggests Ethereum to have the same net positive effect, if not more, than the internet. Both the internet and Ethereum are tools that can be used by the ‘bad guys’ or the ‘good guys’, and thankfully most of the world are in the latter category.

Ethereum and Bitcoin share many similarities. In this article, we’ll try to highlight the most fundamental differences between them. The biggest difference is the purposes or ultimate goals of these projects. Bitcoin aims to be a store of wealth, a digital gold if you will, and eventually become a globally adopted currency which could improve or replace conventional money to some extent. The purpose of Ethereum is to become a platform upon which smart contracts and decentralised apps can run. Another important difference is the supply. Where the number of Bitcoin is capped at 21 million ever to be produced, Ethereum is not capped to any specific quantity. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are produced in a process called mining. There are plans to shift Ethereum production to a proof of stake model, which should be more environmentally friendly than mining. More information on proof of stake can be found in the links below. There are several technical differences in the technologies that underpin the Bitcoin and Ethereum platforms but at this early stage of these projects, they may seem very much alike. As these projects grow and mature, however, the differences may become much more apparent and could affect their trajectories quite differently.

As mentioned in an earlier article, the purpose of Ethereum is to be a platform on which smart contracts can run. But what are these? Let’s explain with a simplified example of what Ethereum might be able to do in future. Ethereum aims to make everyday life more efficient and cost effective by automating everyday processes and removing middlemen from the systems we use. This could be to the legal system, the financial system, computer systems or more. For example, let’s assume John has the following documents stored on the Ethereum blockchain: his identity documents, his last will and testament, and the title deed for his house. We assume, the day John dies, his certificate of death is also uploaded to the blockchain. The processes that must occur to transfer John’s estate are admin intensive because there are several parties involved that are often slow and opaque. This may include legal professionals, the government, tax authorities and the property registrar. However, because all these documents are stored on the Ethereum blockchain, something interesting is possible. Once John’s death certificate is officially issued and uploaded to the blockchain, John’s last will and testament can be put into action. Assuming John bequeathed his house to his next of kin, ownership to the house can be transferred to his next of kin automatically by the Ethereum network. Therefore, John’s next of kin will inherit John’s house exactly as John intended, without having to contact a legal professional. This may sound overwhelming and scary but the amount of time and resources saved by not having to wait for John’s next of kin, legal professionals and the property registrar to come into contact with each other and prepare and execute this transaction is immense. Many fascinating projects are being built but nothing like this works at scale at the moment. Many things need to fall in place for large scale adoption and it remains to be seen how instrumental Ethereum will be.

There a number of ways you can get Ether: Just like normal money, you can earn it by providing goods or services, and asking people to pay you in Ether. This is often a cheaper and easier alternative to other payment methods, and one of the easiest ways to get your hands on some Ether. Another way is how most people get it: buy Ether from a credible Ether broker, or from and exchange provider, like Luno. This is similar to how you would buy foreign currency at your bank or shares online and often the easiest way to get Ether because you are virtually guaranteed that someone will be willing to sell their Ether to you on such a platform. You can also get Ether by mining for it, but this has become very difficult to do for the average person. Most mining is now done by huge companies with very expensive and highly specialised equipment, which a typical person or computer cannot compete with. So unless you have a lot of expertise and a huge amount of money to spend on this, rather buy or earn your Ether.

Many people wonder how the price of Ether is calculated, but it’s important to remember that it works no different than it would with other currencies or objects. Let’s first look at how the price of most things are derived - we can use oranges as an example. What is the price of an orange? Well, it depends. As a starting point one would derive the price of an orange based on two things: how much someone is trying to sell it for, and how much another person is trying to buy it for. If John wants to sell it for USD2.50 and Sarah is only prepared to pay USD2.00, there is no deal. But if they agree on a price that works for both, let’s say USD2.25, then the transaction will happen. If it’s winter, there might be more people wanting to buy oranges, so the price will go up. Or if there is a drought the supply of oranges will become less, so more people are trying to buy less oranges, which can also drive the price up. Ether and other currencies are a bit different from oranges in that they are what is called ‘homogeneous’ - one dollar is identical to another dollar, just as one Ether is the same as another. Oranges on the other hand can vary in size and quality. All this means is that it’s easier to come up with a price of a currency or Ether: once again, just what buyers and sellers will agree on. Many people might not realise that other currencies work exactly the same - if you are holding a coin or note of your own local currency in your hand, at any given point in time there are millions of people buying and selling your local currency, so while you might observe it as stable, it’s value actually continuously changes. When you want to exchange it for another currency at a currency desk, let’s say for USD, one day you pay 10 local currency to a dollar, the next day maybe 11 or 9. Ether works exactly the same way - you can just think of it as a currency other than the one you are used to.

There is often public misconception that Ethereum is mostly used by criminals, but nothing could be further from the truth. This misconception typically arises because many people think Ethereum is anonymous, when in fact it’s the opposite - all Ethereum transactions are transparent for the whole world to see. People might not be able to link your identity to an Ethereum transaction right away (that is also why it is sometimes called ‘pseudo anonymous’), but once they do, they can track everything you’ve ever done on the Ethereum network. This makes it a particularly bad tool for illicit use. While Ethereum might actually turn out to be one of the safest and least ‘bad’ ways to use money, it doesn’t mean that criminals don’t use it. Just like normal money, they do. But there are two important things to note - firstly, that as more data becomes available in the industry, the more it is becoming clear the number of bad uses is very, very minute - if the entire Ethereum ecosystem is represented by a big mountain, the size of the bad parts is a couple of rocks. Second, that in any financial system this is a risk that can never be eliminated, merely mitigated, and Ethereum has some of the best tools in the world for that. It’s worth expanding on Ethereum’s parallel with the internet particularly in the context of all the ‘bad stuff’ that people associate Ethereum with. Is the internet all good? Definitely not. Terrorists, money launderers and drug smugglers use Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp to communicate and coordinate every single day. Some people might feel uneasy about the fact that at least 5–30% of visible online traffic relates to pornography. And here we’re not even considering the deep and dark web, where there are all kinds of really bad things going on that we’re not going to even mention here. But despite all these issues, does society make a concerted effort to try and ban the internet? No. And it’s not so much because it’s hard to do so, it’s more because the positives to society grossly outweigh the negatives. For these same reasons, we should all be very careful how we think about Ethereum, because most evidence suggests Ethereum to have the same net positive effect, if not more, than the internet. Both the internet and Ethereum are tools that can be used by the ‘bad guys’ or the ‘good guys’, and thankfully most of the world are in the latter category.

As mentioned in an earlier section, one can think of Ethereum as one big global ledger system that records transactions (or ‘moving money’) from one person to another. Whenever Ethereum transactions are processed on the Ethereum network – that means Ether being moved from one person to another – someone has to make sure all the transactions are recorded properly and that the ledgers on all the systems are synchronized all over the world. In the case of Ethereum, this process is not done by people or companies, but by thousands of computers all over the world that are all connected to the internet. These computers are knowns as ‘miners’, but they should really simply be called ‘computers that process transactions’. To do this processing in a very secure way, these computers need to perform very complicated calculations that take a lot of computing power, and in turn, require a lot of energy and expensive and specialised processing equipment. Someone - the owner of the computers - needs to pay for all this equipment and electricity, so they need to be compensated for all the money and effort they are putting into making this network work. They earn this compensation through newly minted Ethereum - so in short all new Ethereum that is created acts as a reward and incentive mechanism for people to contribute their computers to the system to help process transactions. Another way to look at it is to consider what would happen if a large bank built the world’s biggest global transaction processing system: they would spend a few billion dollar on it and then charge everyone’s transaction fees to recoup this cost. With Ethereum mining, the cost of this global system has just been spread over thousands of computers, and they recoup their cost through newly minted Ethereum. In short, it’s simply a democratisation of financial infrastructure.

Moving Ether around is very easy, but in the background an important part of moving and storing Ether involves something called a ‘private key’. The easiest way to understand private keys is to think about an old-fashioned mailbox system: Let’s say Maria wants to send mail to Peter. First she needs to know what Peter’s mailbox address or number is. Let’s say Peter’s mailbox is number 2034. Similarly, if she wants to send Ether to Peter, she needs to know his Ether address, which is a number that uniquely identifies him. This is also sometimes called his wallet address, or public key, which functions similar to your bank account number. It’s a long and complicated number because there are so many Ether ‘mailboxes’ in the world, but thankfully you don’t have to remember it, you can find it on the internet. So now Maria deposits the Ethereum in Peter’s mailbox. She can have a peek inside and see the Ethereum there, in fact anyone who walks by can see that mailbox 2034 is filled with one Ethereum. This is part of the exciting part of Ethereum - that everyone can see all the transactions but without anyone having to share their identity. People can see there is one Ethereum in 2034, but no-one, except for Maria and Peter, will know it belongs to Peter. Now let’s see how Peter gets his Ethereum - well he can see it’s there, so he doesn’t have to do anything. But if he wants to move it, he needs to open the box to send it to someone else. To open this he needs a key - and this is his own unique key, also called a private key, that he, and only he can use to open the mailbox. When he opens it he can remove the Ethereum and deposit into someone else’s box, let’s maybe say he is buying an online game from Microsoft, now he can deposit it into Microsoft’s box and once they can see the Ethereum received, they will ship the new game to him. If Maria deposits into the wrong mailbox, she cannot move it back. This is similar to cash - once you paid it to someone you can’t easily get it back. Also note that no-one can move the Ethereum, except for Peter, who has the key to the mailbox. And if he loses his key? Well then no-one can access that post box, forever! It’s also important for Peter to make sure no-one steals his key, because if they do they can unlock his box and steal his Ethereum. So it’s important he keeps the key safe, or entrust it with someone that can do so.

Safely storing your Ether is very important. Unlike other types of money, which are typically stored in and controlled by banks, Ether provides many more options to store and control your money. Remember your private key that you need to move your Ether? Well that is literally the key to storing it. Whoever has the key, controls the Ether. These keys can be in digital or even in physical form i.e. written down on a piece of paper. How to store your private key then? You can leave the key in your pocket, but that’s not too secure. You can put it in a safe - that’s a lot better. But someone can still break into your house and steal it. Given you want to use your Ether regularly, you might also want to keep some or all of it in digital form on your phone so you can access it more easily. The only problem is that if you lose your phone, you will also lose your key, and there is no way to get it back. That is why companies like Luno exist - not just to make it easier to buy, sell and use Ether, but also to store it securely. We do this by taking your private keys and storing them in a physical bank vault with access controls like fingerprint and retina scans. In fact, it’s not just one vault, it’s a number of vaults across several continents. And we build it in a way that one must access the keys from multiple vaults and put them together to be able to extract the Ether, similar to the old movies where nuclear submarines need 3-5 ‘launch codes’ from different generals to be able to launch nuclear weapons. This is commonly knowns as ‘multisig’ (multiple signatures required). Ether is very safe when it is stored like this, but there is one potential weak link: you need to trust the people storing the keys on your behalf. There are many reputable companies like Luno that you can rely on, but also many others that either don’t store your Ether properly or might pretend to store it and then misappropriate it. The great thing about Ether is that unlike old money, you have the choice - whether you store it yourself, in physical or digital format, or whether you rely on someone else to safeguard it for you (or even a combination of all of these). The way Ether is often stored is also one of the biggest ironies of Ethereum - the world’s global currency that was designed to be used online, is mostly stored ‘offline’, in physical bank vaults and detached from the internet. Who would have thought!

While Ethereum is a very exciting technology and new form of money, it doesn’t mean that there is no risk associated with it. As a starting point, it’s important to remember that the same intuitive rules that apply to traditional money also applies to Ethereum. For example, don’t store cash under your mattress else it might get stolen, or don’t trust your money with strangers. Ethereum also has some fairly unique risks: for one, it’s a brand new technology, and while it appears very secure and robust, there is always a chance that it might fail. That is also a reason why you should never put ‘all your eggs in one basket’ and never buy more Ethereum than you can afford to lose. Ethereum is also more volatile (i.e. it can move a lot in value both up or down in a short space of time) than many other currencies, and while this appears to be stabilising over time, it’s sure to experience many highly volatile moments in the future. Also remember that Ethereum transactions are like cash in that they are irreversible - so if you send Ethereum to the wrong person, or your Ethereum wallet is compromised and someone steals your Ethereum, it might be very difficult if not impossible to get it back. Ethereum is also not backed by any entity, so if you lose your Ethereum, your service provider or ‘the Ethereum network’ will not be able to reimburse your funds. That’s why you need to ensure you use highly trusted product or service providers to help you, similar to how you would ask a bank to help you safely store your money. Lastly, Ethereum’s value is determined by the amount of people or business that are willing to accept it, and this is by no means guaranteed. If it grows it will be very good for Ethereum, but if less people want to use Ethereum, it will have a very negative impact on the price and might lead to Ethereum not being used at all. To summarise, Ethereum is very exciting and has tremendous potential to change the world, but make sure you understand the risks that go hand in hand with that.