Just when you were (maybe) beginning to get a basic understanding of the digital currency bitcoin, a second-place digital currency is gaining steam and growing in value.It’s called ether, it is the token of a blockchain network called Ethereum, and less than one year after launching, its market cap now exceeds $1 billion.On Thursday, Ethereum hit another business milestone when Coinbase, the leading mainstream platform for buying and trading of bitcoin, added support for ether.Coinbase customers—there are 4 million of them in 32 countries—can now easily buy and trade ether using the Coinbase web site or mobile app.But would they want to?First they’d have to understand it.If bitcoin, which runs on a decentralized, permission-less, peer-to-peer blockchain, is still in its infancy—a point bitcoin believers love to make—then Ethereum is barely out of the womb.As the New York Times wrote in March, the network “is complicated enough that even people who know it well have trouble describing it in plain English.”Ethereum’s creator is Vitalik Buterin, a 22-year-old Russian tech-wunderkind who began working on the concept at age 19.

A presentation Buterin made at Ethereum’s developer conference last year listed use cases such as: issuing assets; crowdfunding; domain registration; title registration; gambling; prediction markets; and the Internet of Things, among others.Ethereum is not without troubling security issues: Last month a decentralized network called The DAO, built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, was attacked, in a theft of $50 million worth of ether.After the attack, an SEC official expressed grave concern over the network’s security.Still, many in the cryptocurrency world say Ethereum is even more exciting than bitcoin because of the ability to smore smart contracts on its network.Many developers are already running early-stage apps on top of Ethereum, for all manner of services including blockchain payments via Slack and placing bets on which tech startups will get popular first.Coinbase had already added ether to its more formal cryptocurrency exchange site for institutional investors, GDAX, back in May.

“We saw individual as well as developer interest in Ethereum rise at the end of 2015, and by the early part of 2016 our customers on GDAX were saying, ‘Give us the ability to sell ether,'” says Adam White, VP of business development and strategy for Coinbase.Bringing ether to its mainstream wallet product was the obvious next step.Coinbase adding ether (everywhere but New York) also means that all partners using the Coinbase “buy widget” can do the same.One such partner is Lawnmower, a mobile app that originally launched as a “roundup” service that invests your spare change into bitcoin, using Coinbase.Lawnmower recently changed its model to allow users to set an auto-purchase of bitcoin once a month at a set price, and it just updated its app this week to include a news hub for intel on many cryptocurrencies, including ether, litecoin, and ripple.In other words: Lawnmower, like Coinbase, saw ether pulling into second in the crypto race.“Some of these assets recently, like ether, our users have made it clear they want to learn more about it,” says Alex Sunnarborg, Lawnmower CFO.

“So we just said, ‘Let’s move as fast as we can on it.'”Lawnmower added an index that shows ether’s price over time, compares it against bitcoin, and even has the full original white paper on Ethereum.What it couldn’t add was the ability to actually buy ether.Now that Coinbase has implemented that, it can.All of the momentum for ether reflects that bitcoin will not be the only digital currency of interest.ethereum notificationsIt was the first to come along, in 2009, but there is room for more.bitcoin cbcAnd indeed, there were more—like dogecoin, litecoin (whose inventor now works for Coinbase), and ripple—but White says, “Nothing uniquely differentiated itself until Ethereum.litecoin cpu poolWhile bitcoin is a fantastic global transaction network, we see Ethereum offering a worldwide computational network.”Coinbase was the first bitcoin wallet to get mainstream recognition.

It was also by far the best-funded bitcoin startup until the mysterious 21 Inc.raised $116 million in a single round last year.Adding Ethereum to Coinbase, White says, “required a fresh look at how we design the platform.We wanted to keep it super simple, easy to understand, so that people like my dad, when they hear about Ethereum in the paper, and he wants to buy $100, he can go to Coinbase and it’s still a very simple process.”If the casual investor does want to dip a toe into ether, Coinbase now allows it through a bank account, credit or debit card.Ether currently trades at around $12.Coinbase expects to see “a very significant amount of interest.”—Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology.Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.Read more:The latest Bitcoin price hike is not all about BrexitBritish bitcoin market sent incredible signals ahead of BrexitHere’s why 21 Inc.is the most exciting bitcoin company right nowHow early bitcoin leader Coinbase is staying relevant amid the blockchain craze

Ethereum​, the smart-contract focused blockchain​, has hit a record high market capitalization of $1.5 billion, as the price of its internal cryptocurrency​, Ether (ETH) trades at just over $18.Around $40 million worth of ether changes hands daily via online exchanges.This record comes at a time when Bitcoin​, the world's oldest and largest blockchain-based digital currency has rallied to around $700, a two year high.Some people have speculated that Ethereum could be more important and influential than Bitcoin.(For more, see: Is Ethereum More Important Than Bitcoin?)Ether, the internal digital currency on the Ethereum blockchain is more than just an asset that investors can buy and sell.Rather more, it is used to fuel internal transactions to and from smart contracts.Smart contracts, not to be confused with legal contracts, are self-executing agreements that exist entirely as pieces of software and in this case which exist on the blockchain.These pieces of software can be called upon and then executed by a virtual machine composed of each node in the blockchain simultaneously.

This is referred to as the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM.One or more smart contracts in tandem can be used to create trusted, decentralized applications that can range from gaming & gambling to voting & governance to the creation of novel assets.One important example is the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO.Earlier this year, TheDAO (which is just one of many DAOs) crowdfunded over $150 million, making it the largest crowdfunding project ever.TheDAO essentially serves as a pooled investment fund where its token holders can issue proposals and vote on other proposals on investments it will make - and then receive pro rata dividend flows from any profits made.(For more, see: Why the Ethereum DAO is Revolutionary) Smart contracts are powered by ether, and small increments of it - known as "gas" - are required every time one is called.The price of gas (valued in ether) is determined by the supply and demand for EVM processing power at any given time.The price of ether, the internal digital currency on the Ethereum blockchain, is trading at just over $18, putting Ethereum's market cap at $1.5 billion, a record high.