Get Smart on Smart Contract Platforms

In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin: a decentralized, digital store of value free from the control of central authorities. While Satoshi succeeded in creating the largest decentralized digital monetary network in existence with over $750B in market cap (as of March 18, 2022), many argue that the Bitcoin network lacks programmability and has limited use cases beyond serving as a store of value or facilitating simple peer-to-peer transfers of value. In 2015, the first notable smart contract platform, Ethereum, was launched, creating the foundation for an ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) to be developed and unleashing the potential use cases for the cryptocurrency ecosystem.