Some people view Ethereum just as a supplement digital coin similar as Bitcoin. But it is way more than that. Ethereum is a open source platform for smart contracts whereas Bitcoin is based on simple concept of digital currency.
What are DAaps ?
Daaps or Decentralized applications are open source applications that work on blockchain technology. These can connect the user and the service providers directly. These application does not need any third party contracts. DAaps has to be open source i.e. the source code should be available to all and has to generate Tokens or digital coins to power itself.
DAaps are categorized on three categories on Ethereum’s White Paper. The first category is applications related to finance and manages money and its transactions. These kind of DAaps has their own blockchian, same as Bitcoin and other Altcoins. The second category DAaps are based on the first category DAps.These category DAaps are applications, where tokens or digital currency are involved but there is a non-financial side to what is being done; a perfect example is self-enforcing bounties for solutions to computational problems. Finally, there are applications such as online voting and decentralized governance that are not financial at all.
Smart Contract is basically just a program that runs on a blockchain but it has some exciting potential to reduce the risk and cost of interaction with other people. There are lot of questions like what to do if there are bugs in the code and how governments would regulate such contracts. But, there is exciting potential to disrupt all kinds of industries like law, gambling, online market place, peer to peer rentals, voting and even corporate organization and governments. With that purpose I will demonstrate creating and using a simple smart contract.
I am using newly released ethereum wallet which i believe is the first version of Mist, a program that will eventually be a user friendly way to explore and use decentralized apps. Once you run the wallet app, it will sink with the network. While experimenting, you probably want to run on the test network.
I also turned on mining so I have some Ether to play with.
It took me more than 10 hours to get around 10 test ether. When you create a account you should create a strong password and in the background it also creates a key- store file. The password and and key-store file is all you to backup an account.
Then we can start by sending some ether. I typed in another account I made on the to address and enter an amount on ether.
At the bottom you can see a slider that goes from left to right i.e. cheaper to faster. This is what set sets fee of pay to miners.