$ETH Ethereum ($ETH) was proposed in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin and launched in 2015. Unlike Bitcoin, which was created purely as a digital currency, Ethereum was designed as a decentralized platform for building smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). It introduced the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing developers to run code on the blockchain. This innovation laid the foundation for decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, and Web3. Ethereum initially used a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism but transitioned to Proof of Stake (PoS) in 2022 with "The Merge," making it more energy-efficient. ETH is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and plays a central role in the evolving crypto ecosystem.