At its core, Ethereum is a decentralized global computing platform. Designed to solve the shortcomings of the Bitcoin network, it's become the blockchain of choice for many developers, who can leverage its smart contract technology to create their own decentralized apps (dapps).

This distinguishing feature has quickly propelled Ethereum into the world's second largest blockchain, with over 13,000 dapps and an equal measure of NFT projects.

This article will explain why Ethereum has become the platform of choice for many developers, and seven reasons why developers might choose to build on Ethereum. We'll also show you how to get started with developing dApps on Ethereum.

‍What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a decentralized Layer-1 blockchain platform known for pioneering the concept of smart contracts. It was launched in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin who observed that by adding a computing layer to a blockchain, you could create an "ecosystem" of applications working together, all connected through a native currency.

This insight allowed the Ethereum blockchain to become a powerhouse of innovations, with thousands of dapps developed for financial services, art and NFTs, community building, and many other functions.

Ethereum has a native token called Ether (ETH), which is used to process transactions recorded across the ecoystem.

6 Reasons Why Developers Choose Ethereum

1. Ethereum Has the Largest Ecosystem

Ethereum is the most valuable smart contract-enabled blockchain in existence and its native currency, Ether, is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

As the major blockchain network for developers, Ethereum has become a powerhouse of creative blockchain-based solutions.

The Ethereum ecosystem has the largest active developer community, which has led to the creation of various open source tools and development frameworks. As a result, developers do not need to create tools and smart contracts from scratch, because most existing frameworks are freely available for public use.

And this mentality is built into Ethereum by design. The greater the number of projects running in the ecosytem, the greater value of the overall network.

2. Ethereum is the Most Mature Network

The Ethereum community has been tested across various use cases since 2015.

Ethereum has been implemented by thousands of businesses across multiple sectors, and there are over 300 projects with more than 50 million deployed smart contracts.

While size is not necessarily a market of reliability, Ethereum’s stability over the years has come to be a reason for developers to rely on it. The network has undergone multiple protocol updates, so developers feel that when large problems arise, the decentralized community is capable of solving them.

3. The Ethereum Roadmap Continues to Improve

Even though Ethereum is the most efficient smart contract-enabled blockchain, it still has improvement on its roadmap.

The upgrades are meant to refine the network protocol for better performance.

Developers should factor in these upgrades in the Ethereum roadmap as a reason to build on Ethereum.

By constantly pushing updates to the blockchain network, Ethereum is seen by developers as capable of adapting to its demands, including computing throughput, and transaction speed. These upgrades make it the “maximally resilient platform” that it intends to be.

An example of such an upgrade is the Ethereum "Merge," in which the network shifted from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. The result led to greater security and a reduction in energy consumption.

The core focus of the Ethereum current roadmap is to make transactions cheaper, reduce gas fees, increase its security level, and refine its user experience.

One plan in the Ethereum roadmap is to make the blockchain protocol quantum resistant.

Quantum Computing, when it matures, will put some of the cryptographic features of Ethereum at risk.

By following a public roadmap, developers can find clarity and transparency on what the future holds for the Ethereum protocol - directly from the network itself. This also help developers plan ahead to implement the changes that help improve their dapps.

4. The Solidity Programming Language

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) supports two major languages - Solidity and Vyper.

Experienced developers can easily pick up one of the intermediate languages like Yul, Yul+, Huff, and Cairo as they are more advanced.

Beginners can develop their applications with Solidity and Vyper as they are relatively easy to learn. 

By supporting many languages, software developers can integrate with the Ethereum Virtual Machine in a programming language they are most comfortable with.

5. Ethereum has Robust Development Tools

As a network, Ethereum provides robust development tools for dapp deployment.

This makes it easy for developers to quickly start a local Ethereum instance, compile it, and test it.

Just as there are smart contract programming languages, there are also many frameworks and tools created for Ethereum-based dapp development. 

Some of these frameworks are listed below: 

• Truffle: An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and a testing framework for Ethereum. 
• Hardhat: An Ethereum IDE for building and deploying apps to the mainnet. 
• Brownie: A Python-based IDE and testing framework.
• OpenZeppelin SDK: A Smart Contract Toolkit with multiple development resources.
• Alchemy’s Create-Web3-dapp: An Ethereum Development Platform that helps developers create a full-stack dapp in 4 minutes.
• Alchemy’s SDK-js: An easy way to connect a dapp to the blockchain. 
• Foundry: A modular toolkit for Ethereum application development written in Rust.

6. Higher Security

By building on Ethereum, developers can leverage the security measures offered across the ecosystem.

Since many projects have faced different forms of security issues like hacking and loss of assets in the past, solutions have been provided by reputable auditing firms to help prevent such occurrences.

Newer blockchains simply do not have the same robust security measures as Ethereum. And this kind of support can mean life or death for a dapp or any blockchain project.

Start Developing on Ethereum

With Alchemy, getting started with developing on Ethereum is easy.

The following are some basic steps to take in developing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain:

1. Get an Ethereum Endpoint URL 
2. Sign Up for a Free Alchemy Account: Create an account with Alchemy to get started.
3. Create an Alchemy App: To use any Alchemy tool, you need an API key. Click “Create App” in the dashboard. 
4. Install AlchemyWeb3js: To install AlchemyWeb3.js, run the following command: 

Using NPM:

Using Yarn:

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