What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a public blockchain network with a vast vision. Ethereum's designers realized that if you built a public blockchain network, you could do a lot more than just track digital currency: you could run a global public computer, always available and open to the world. And that's what Ethereum is: it's a global network that is capable of running programs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM. Programs are written for the EVM in a language called Solidity, and the network uses a cryptocurrency, called ether (or ETH, pronounced "eeth") to compensate the people that maintain the network--and also as a token of value for transactions carried out on the network.