Etherum

Ethereum was proposed in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin. Development was crowdfunded in 2014, and the network went live on 30 July 2015, with an initial supply of 72 million coins. The platform allows developers to build and operate decentralized applications that users can interact with.[9][10] Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications provide a broad array of financial services without the need for typical financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks, such as allowing cryptocurrency users to borrow against their holdings or lend them out for interest.[11][12] Ethereum also allows for the creation and exchange of NFTs, which are non-interchangeable tokens that can be connected to digital works of art or other real-world items and sold as unique digital property. Additionally, many other cryptocurrencies operate as ERC-20 tokens on top of the Ethereum blockchain and have utilized it for initial coin offerings

In 2016, a hacker exploited a flaw in a third-party project called The DAO and stole $50 million of Ether.[13] As a result, the Ethereum community voted to hard fork the blockchain to reverse the theft[14] and Ethereum Classic (ETC) continued as the original chain.

Ethereum was initially described in a white paper by Vitalik Buterin,[18] a programmer and co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine, in late 2013 with a goal of building decentralized applications.[19][20] Buterin argued that Bitcoin and blockchain technology could benefit from other applications besides money and needed a scripting language for application development that could lead to attaching real-world assets, such as stocks and property, to the blockchain.[21] In 2013, Buterin briefly worked with eToro CEO Yoni Assia on the Colored Coins project and drafted its white paper outlining additional use cases for blockchain technology.[22] However, after failing to gain agreement on how the project should proceed, he proposed the development of a new platform with a more general scripting language that would eventually become Ethereum.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin (₿) is a cryptocurrency invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.[13] The currency began use in 2009[14] when its implementation was released as open-source software.[6]:ch. 1 Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.[7] Transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Bitcoins are created as a reward for a process known as mining. They can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services,[15] but the real-world value of the coins is extremely volatile.[16] Research produced by the University of Cambridge estimated that in 2017, there were 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin.[17] Users choose to participate in the digital currency for a number of reasons: ideologies such as commitment to anarchism, decentralization and libertarianism, convenience, using the currency as an investment and pseudonymity of transactions. Increased use has led to a desire among governments for regulation in order to tax, facilitate legal use in trade and for other reasons (such as investigations for money laundering and price manipulation).

Bitcoin has been criticized for its use in illegal transactions, the large amount of electricity (and thus carbon footprint) used by mining, price volatility, and thefts from exchanges. Some economists and commentators have characterized it as a speculative bubble at various times. Bitcoin has also been used as an investment, although several regulatory agencies have issued investor alerts about bitcoin.

Binance

CEO Changpeng Zhao had previously founded Fusion Systems in 2005 in Shanghai; the company built high-frequency trading systems for stockbrokers. In 2013, he joined Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet's team. He also worked at OKCoin as CTO for less than a year, a platform for spot trading between fiat and digital assets.

The company was founded in China but moved its servers and headquarters out of China and into Japan in advance of the Chinese government ban on cryptocurrency trading in September 2017.[5] By March 2018 the company had moved once again, this time to Taiwan.

In January 2018 it was the largest cryptocurrency exchange with a market capitalization of $1.3 billion,[6] a title it has retained as of April 2021, despite competition from Coinbase, among others.

In March 2018, Binance announced its intentions to open an office in Malta after stricter regulations in Japan and China.[8] In April 2018, Binance signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Bermuda.[9] Months later, a similar memorandum was signed with the Malta Stock Exchange to develop a platform for trading security tokens.[10] In 2019, company announced Binance Jersey, an independent entity from its parent Binance.com exchange, with the aim to expand its European influence. Jersey based exchange offers fiat-to-cryptocurrency pairs, including the Euro and the British pound.