Welcome Steemers to my little corner of the Steemit Universe where I provide my view points on crypto currencies and more!

<h1>The Beginning:</h1>
Some of you may be asking yourselves "<em>what is Ethereum?</em>" In a nutshell as per the <a href="https://www.ethereum.org/">Ethereum Website</a> :

"<strong>Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts</strong>: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.

These apps run on a custom built blockchain, an enormously powerful shared global infrastructure that can move value around and represent the ownership of property.

This enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middle man or counterparty risk.

The project was bootstrapped via an ether presale in August 2014 by fans all around the world. It is developed by the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit, with contributions from great minds across the globe."

<h1>Translation:</h1>
For those of you who are still scratching your heads trying to figure out what that techno jargon means, here is a more simpler definition. Ethereum is a crypto currency like bitcoin with the main difference of having the ability to add functionality to the process. This functionality can come in the form of creating applications, making confirmed agreements, and more. Ethereum provides a decentralized platform for developers and users alike to make transactions, create legal binding agreements and applications. An example of the above would be if you wish to sell an item you can use Ethereum to build the contract between the buyer and seller, additionally if you wish to build a web application you can use the Ethereum platform to do so.

<h1>Controversy:</h1>
Many critics of of Ethereum question it's security and safety, with added functionality and features leaves this leaves the potential for system vulnerabilities. Such a threat was discovered last year when Ethereum launched it's first application platform called "The DAO". The DAO was a digital decentralized autonomous organization, and a form of investor-directed venture capital fund. The DAO had an objective to provide a new decentralized business model for organizing both commercial and non-profit enterprises. During the summer of 2016 there was a code exploit in The DAO that allowed hackers to steal over 30 percent of the Ethereum net worth. the Ethereum community decided to hard-fork the Ethereum blockchain to restore virtually all funds to the original contract. This was controversial, and led to a fork in Ethereum, where the original unforked blockchain was maintained as Ethereum Classic, thus breaking Ethereum into two separate active blockchains, each with its own cryptocurrency.

The DAO was immediately Delisted afterwards.

<h1>Epilogue:</h1>
Ethereum has made many strides to improve the security of it's platform to ensure all users and developers are properly protected. Since the compromise of The DAO Ethereum has launched many successful projects with little to no issues. I'm fully confident that Ethereum has a bright future ahead.

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Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this article.