Ethereum is an open-source, decentralised blockchain platform that lets you send cryptocurrency to anyone. It also allows you to build different kinds of censor-free applications—games, financial services, etc—that can be used by anyone.

Originally introduced in the Ethereum Whitepaper published by Vitalik Buterin in 2013, Ethereum officially became live in 2015. Like Bitcoin, it also has its native currency, Ether or ETH, and is represented with the symbol Xi (Ξ).

This is similar to how Nigerian Naira is shortened to NGN and represented with the symbol ₦. Same as the United States Dollars, which is shortened to USD and defined with the $ symbol.

ETH (Ether) is what fuels and secures the Ethereum blockchain. When you want to buy ETH, send ETH, or carry out a transaction on an Ethereum application, you'll need to pay a fee in ETH to do so. This fee is called the gas fee and is paid as an incentive for a miner to process and verify what you're trying to do.

Miners are the record-keepers of Ethereum. They are the ones who create the blocks of transactions to be added to the Ethereum Blockchain. Miners solve complex computational problems and in return for their work, they are rewarded with small amounts of newly issued ETH.

In decentralised systems like Ethereum, we need to ensure that everyone agrees on the order of transactions. Miners help this happen by solving computationally difficult puzzles to produce blocks, securing the network from attacks.