Ethereum was the World’s first programmable blockchain, implementing smart contracts to allow the transfer of money to be programmed in a way that had never been done before. The Ethereum network was built on top of a Turing-complete virtual machine, meaning that the entire distributed network could perform any function that a typical computer could, for a price at least. The Ethereum Virtual Machine is the network that hosts many different applications, called Dapps (Decentralized Applications). These Dapps can perform nearly any function, limited only by the imagination of the community that builds on the network.
One of Ethereum’s biggest innovations in the blockchain industry was the creation and implementation of its own programming language, Solidity. This coding language was specifically designed for the Ethereum Virtual Machine, which allowed specific functions that were very difficult to perform with already-existing programming languages. With this new language and virtual machine, it enables Smart Contracts to run on the network.