Recommendation: I notice that a lot of people skip straight to this episode. Even though I agree that Ethereum is more interesting than Bitcoin, I want to encourage you to listen to all the episodes in order—the earlier Bitcoin-focused episodes explain a lot of key concepts that apply to crypto in general, and you'll miss that important foundation if you start here instead.
- What is Ethereum? If Bitcoin is like digital gold, Ethereum (the #2 most popular cryptocurrency) is like programmable money and the foundation of a vast ecosystem of apps
- Smart contracts remove the need for a third party like a bank or lawyer
- You can buy a huge range of goods and services with Ethereum
- The benefits of Ethereum dapps over traditional apps, and how dapps actually run
- What gas is and how the community has been addressing the high gas fee problem
- The transition to Ethereum 2.0 and Proof of Stake, which will make Ethereum use 100x less energy (i.e., it will address the environmental concerns people have with Bitcoin)
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Update: In this episode, I recommended the website gasnow.org. Sadly, it had been based in China and was shut down in October 2021 due to China's crypto ban. Instead, I now recommend
https://etherscan.io/gastracker and
https://ethereumprice.org/gas/.
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The corresponding blog post with links and images:
https://www.michaelcaloz.com/2021/06/09/ethereum-the-2-most-popular-cryptocurrency-and-the-one-im-most-excited-about-smart-contracts-dapps-gas-and-the-high-gas-fee-problem-proof-of-stake-pos-and-ethereum-2-0/
