Ethereum was created by Russian-Canadian programmer Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum was first proposed by buterin in 2013 in a document entitled "Ethereum: The Ultimate Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform". in the document, buterin outlines his idea to create a Turing-complete blockchain, or a decentralized computer platform that can run any application, in 2015, Ethereum was officially launched.

Ethereum is a decentralized computing platform that is used to run computer programs called smart contracts like Bitcoin, in Ethereum, anyone can make digital currency transfers without the help of intermediaries (banks or other financial institutions) the technology that allows online financial transactions without intermediaries is called blockchain.

However, the function of the Ethereum blockchain is different from the Bitcoin blockchain, the Ethereum blockchain has more complex and flexible functions than Bitcoin, this is because Ethereum allows developers to freely build applications on the Ethereum blockchain.

Through smart contracts that exist on Ethereum, developers can create various applications, including applications to exchange crypto assets to lend crypto assets.

Smart contract is a term for a computer program written on the Ethereum blockchain, when certain conditions specified in the program are met, the smart contract will automatically execute pre-programmed commands, whether it is to transfer tokens between Ethereum addresses or perform other types of transactions, smart contracts, on the Ethereum blockchain it can be executed by users or other smart contracts.

Basically, a smart contract is a code that can be programmed for anything, the difference between it and other computer programs is that when a developer creates a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, the smart contract will be permanently embed.