Vitalik Buterin: If Bitcoin Is a Pocket Calculator, Ethereum Is a Smartphone

In a recent interview, while talking about the motivation behind Ethereum (ETH), the second most valuable cryptocurrency in the world, its creator Vitalik Buterin said that if you think of Bitcoin as a pocket calculator, then Ethereum is like a smartphone. The Russian-Canadian programmer's comments during a video interview with Business Insider that was released on Thursday (February 28th). Vitalik started by explaining how he got into the crypto space: "So, I first got into the crypto space back when it was just called the Bitcoin space, around 2011. I thought it was something really interesting.

I started getting into the community more and more. I co-founded Bitcoin Magazine." Next, he explained that after doing some Bitcoin-related work for around two years, he eventually quit college/university to focus on Bitcoin full-time. A short time later, came the realization that there were more things you could do with blockchain technology than just using it to create a "single peer-to-peer currency." So, he came up with the main idea behind Ethereum, "this idea of a blockchain with a built-in programming language." He then explained what was the biggest problem with Bitcoin that he was trying to solve with Ethereum: "Just too limited functionality.

Think of the difference between a pocket calculator and a smartphone, where a pocket calculator does one thing, and it does one thing well, but really people want to do these other things. And if you have a smartphone, then on the smartphone, you have a pocket calculator as an app, you have play music as an app, you have a web browser, and pretty much everything else. So, basically, taking that same idea of increasing the power of the system by making it more general-purpose, and applying it to blockchains."