$ETH Ethereum, which was launched in 2015, is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization after Bitcoin. But unlike Bitcoin, it was not created to be digital money. Instead, the founders of Ethereum aimed to build a new type of global and decentralized computing platform that embraces the security and openness of blockchains and extends those attributes to a wide range of applications.

Everything from financial tools and games to complex databases is already running on the Ethereum blockchain. And its future potential is only limited by the imagination of developers. As the nonprofit organization Ethereum Foundation states: "Ethereum can be used to codify, decentralize, secure, and trade practically anything."