The Mighty Ethereum: A Guide On The Second Largest Crypto And Its Best Alternatives

4 min readApr 26, 2022

Ethereum is one of the foremost technologies powering many top blockchain projects. Since cryptocurrencies started gaining mainstream adoption, Ethereum has faced criticisms over its network’s poor capabilities and non-carbon emission compliance, leading to the creation of many alternatives like FLOW, Solana, and Cardano.

While Ethereum looks to change these narratives through the proposed ETH2.0, it’s important you understand its basics. Swapzone created this brief guide, that introduces you to Ethereum and some of the network’s alternatives disrupting the blockchain industry.

Understanding Ethereum: Brief Overview

Ethereum is a technology that allows any developer or creator to build decentralized apps (dApps), create decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and perform blockchain-based transactions using ether or ERC-based tokens.

It is the largest distributor of smart contracts, and its cryptocurrency is the second-largest by market capitalization after bitcoin.

Ethereum’s smart contracts distribution has led to a massive outburst in Web3 applications and NFTs. These dApps run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and use Ethereum compliant tokens for governance protocols.

Ethereum Roots: How Vitalik Buterin Created the Second Largest Crypto?

Vitalik Buterin’s interest in cryptocurrency began after his father introduced him to Bitcoin in 2011. He published articles about Bitcoin in a blog called Bitcoin Weekly, where he was paid 5 BTC ($4 at the time) per article.

In 2012, he co-founded Bitcoin Magazine alongside Mihai Alisie. Vitalik would go on to write Ethereum’s first-ever whitepaper explaining a decentralized blockchain that could do more than just crypto transactions.

In 2014, Vitalik, 19 at the time, launched Ethereum alongside other developers like Charles Hoskinson, Gavin Wood, and Joseph Lubin.

According to his bio on About.me, he cried himself to sleep after “Blizzard removed the damage component from his beloved warlock’s Siphon Life spell” from his favorite game at the time, World of Warcraft. This sparked his enthusiasm to push for a decentralized ecosystem because he feared how centralized organizations monopolized power on the web.

How Many Ethereum Are There?

According to verified data on Coinmarketcap, there are about 120.49 million Ethereum in circulation. That is 48.49 million more than was in circulation in 2015 and 6.99 million more than that in January 2021.

Is It Possible To Get Free Ethereum In 2022?

You cannot get Ethereum for free through airdrops unless a good samaritan gift you one. However, some websites offer some ether as rewards when you do surveys, watch videos or ads, or engage in referral contests. These sites are known as Ethereum faucets. Examples may include:

Ethereum-Faucet.org
Allcoins.pw
Free-Ethereum.io, etc.

Ethereum Crash: Why Is It Going Down?

We may attribute Ethereum’s price drop to the recent market crash affecting bitcoin and many other altcoins. Since demand and supply influence the crypto market, the low demand for Ether has also led to Ethereum’s crash.

Ethereum Upgrade: When Will Ethereum Mining End?

The exact range of dates when mining will end on the Ethereum blockchain is not defined. However, the timelines for the three phases of the much-anticipated Ethereum upgrade are as follows:

The first phase launched in December 2020.
The second phase will likely launch in 2022,
While the third phase will launch by 2023.

Ethereum “Merge” protocol kicked off the moving of the network from PoW to PoS in December 2021. Meanwhile, the platform is still transitioning to full-scale PoS consensus, which may take a while.

Is Ethereum Proof-Of-Stake (PoS)?

Following news reports of Ethereum’s upgrade from PoW in December 2021, Ethereum currently supports the PoS algorithm for validations on its blockchain. However, the protocol is yet to commence fully.

Staking vs. Lending Ethereum

Ethereum staking and lending are possible through smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. You may lend Ethereum by pegging it to the value of another blockchain’s token, in what is called wrapped tokens.

Staking Ethereum (possible in ETH2.0) means you hold ETH tokens in an Ethereum wallet or DEX for validatory purposes. In the end, you will earn some interest according to your ETH stakes.