AION Explained
What Is Ethereum?
Ethereum is a programmable public blockchain. ETH is used to pay fees, secure proof-of-stake consensus and interact with applications on Ethereum and related scaling networks.
Smart contracts and applications
Smart contracts are programs stored and executed on the network. They can coordinate tokens, exchanges, lending markets and other applications, but code execution does not guarantee that an application is safe or economically sound.
Proof of stake and scaling
Validators lock ETH to participate in consensus. Layer-2 networks process activity away from Ethereum's base layer and submit proofs or transaction data back for settlement.
- ETH pays transaction fees
- Validators help secure the chain
- Layer-2 designs have distinct trust and withdrawal assumptions
Principal risks
Users face price volatility, smart-contract bugs, phishing, bridge failures, application governance risk and mistakes when moving assets between networks.
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