Ethereum calls its White Paper, a Yellow Paper. Perks of being first. It can certainly be understood why Ethereum had such lightning fast growth and significant partnerships. If they ran their business as they have written in Yellow Paper, it was, and it turned out to be, inevitable.

Four major segments covered are Intro to Bitcoin (and blockchain ), Ethereum philosophy, Applications and Misc., and Concerns. Each of those segments is further divided into subject matter topics and are covered in great detail. 187 pages of introduction to blockchain and Ethereum and, by extension, all ERC20 tokens.

One of the main reasons so many programmers and developers continue to use Ethereum applications and code for specialized tokens is because it represents a revolution in the way that people view the blockchain.

Ethereum allows programmers to run their own programs and software on the Ethereum network. More importantly, it allows programmers to convert other programs in separate programming languages into usable, blockchain-enabled programs.

As a result, the entire process of creating a blockchain program has been overhauled, made easier and user friendly by Ethereum. This innovation lends several real-world industries a potentially revolutionary opportunity.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has been called the greatest innovation of Ethereum. This Turing-complete software operates entirely on the Ethereum network and it allows any programmer to run any program, regardless of the language it was written in, on the Ethereum network.

This means that virtually any program, if given enough time and memory, can be changed into a decentralized program with all the security benefits of a program with blockchain technology.

This isn’t to say that, before Ethereum, the creation of blockchain-enabled programs was entirely impossible. Before the days of Ether and the Ethereum network, programmers had to go through the painstaking process of creating their own, entirely original blockchain before they could run a program on it. (or just copy and tweak the BTC one – case in point: LTC)

This means that the creation of a currency would be an extensive project, taking months to years to even make substantive progress.

With Ethereum, this process is streamlined. Instead of creating a new blockchain, those looking to run their new program can simply plug it into the Ethereum Virtual Machine and convert their work into a usable entity on the Ethereum network.

Latest Ethereum development roadmap was presented by Vitalik Buterin himself during Beyond Block Taipei 2017 on November 25th, 2017.

It is called Ethereum 2.0, it is expected to last 3-5 years and expected to solve or at least tackle with following problems:
1. Privacy (Byzantium hard fork)
2. Consesus safety (Casper – Introducing POS)
3. Smart contracts (formal verification, Viper)
4. Scalability (?????)

Focus was on point 4. Scalability
Ethereum wants to scale thousands of transactions per second on chain without any supernodes using sharding – individual blockchains acting like supernodes within one blockchain, thus making blockchain of blockchains (very simplistic explanation, original video with Vitalik Buterin explaining it is in References & Links section).

Vitalik Buterin
ETH Creator
Vitalik Buterin first discovered blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies through Bitcoin in 2011 and was immediately excited by the technology and its potential. He cofounded Bitcoin Magazine in September 2011, and after two and a half years looking at what the existing blockchain technology and applications had to offer, wrote the Ethereum white paper in November 2013. He now leads Ethereum’s research team, working on future versions of the Ethereum protocol.

Dr Gavin Wood
Co-founder
Dr. Gavin Wood wrote the ethereum yellow paper, the “technical bible” that outlines the specification for the ethereum virtual machine (EVM) that handles the state of the ledger and runs smart contracts, for example (see: How Ethereum Works).

Joseph Lubin
Co-founder
Joseph Lubin went on to found the Brooklyn-based ConsenSys, a start-up that focuses on building decentralized apps.

Foundation Council

Vitalik Buterin
ETH Creator / Council Member

Patrick Storchenegger
Council Member
Patrick Storchenegger is an attorney at law and notary public in Canton Zug, the so-called “Crypto-Valley” in Switzerland. He has many years of experience in international tax and business consultancy, company and capital market law. He advises several international concerns, including those engaged in trading, re-insurance, transportation and blockchain technology as well as donating pro bono services to charitable organisations.

Technical Steering Group

Jeffrey Wilcke
Ethereum Founder / Development
Jeff is one of the founders of Ethereum. He started the first implementation of Ethereum using the Go programming language in 2013 and has been the Go team lead and head developer ever since. The Go client launched successfully on July 30, 2015, marking the release of the genesis block and Ethereum platform.

Ethereum does not just have advisors, it has an organization full of advisors. Ethereum Enterprise Alliance is the world’s largest open-source Blockchain initiative, was established to connect Fortune 500 companies, Blockchain start-ups, academics, and industry experts together with a common goal.

Some of the board members include:

Marley Gray – Microsoft
Blockchain Principal Program Manager

Jennifer McKellar – CME Group
Senior Director, Digitalization

Thomas Willis – Intel
Business Director, Open Source Technology Centre

100,000 USD, see “ICO details”