Ethereum is a decentralized transaction-based state machine. Ethereum was designed to make smart contracts more usable for developers. Smart contracts are decentralized programs that usually allow for some a transaction between the owner of the contract and anyone who would want to purchase something from the contract owner.

For example, I could set up a smart contract where a listener sends my smart contract some ether and I send the listener a podcast episode automatically. Smart contracts can also interact with each other, to network together complex transactions. In the same way that web development has been made easier by PaaS and SaaS, smart contracts will make building financial systems simple.

Preethi Kasireddy is a blockchain developer who writes extensively about cryptocurrencies. She joins the show to describe how the Ethereum platform works, including the steps involved in a smart contract transaction. This episode covers some advanced topics of Ethereum, and if you are out of your comfort zone, don’t worry–you aren’t alone.

We have covered the basics of cryptocurrencies in detail, and we have also tackled more complex aspects of them in past episodes. Download the Software Engineering Daily app for iOS and Android to hear all of our old episodes. They are easily organized by category, and as you listen, the SE Daily app gets smarter, and recommends you content based on the episodes you are hearing. If you don’t like this episode, you can easily find something more interesting by using the recommendation system.

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Transcript

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