Ethereum opens its ‘Frontier’ for business

Ethereum, the much-hyped, much-discussed platform for supporting smart contracts and other kinds of decentralized applications, officially launched the first phase of its project on Thursday. It’s the first concrete sign that an idea that began with one person more than a year-and-a-half ago is close to becoming reality.
If it takes off, Ethereum promises to take the technology underlying bitcoin and open it up to supporting virtually any product or service that could be digitized, from “smart” contracts that enforce their own rules to trading platforms to supply-chain management, to voting, gambling, insurance, healthcare, or data storage.
Called “Frontier,” this phase is a bare-bones site that is up and running but isn’t exactly “live” yet, Stephan Tual, Ethereum’s chief operating officer, explained in a phone interview with MoneyBeat. “It’s in a thawing phase,” he said, open to developers to begin working on.

Some time next week, according to plan, it will go live, but with more than 70 teams already working on the platform, he said he’s happy with it. “I’m quite happy, actually,” Mr. Tual said. “It’s been a year and a half of blood, sweat, and tears, but we finally got there.”
This first phase essentially opens up Ethereum’s blockchain to…

Read the full article written by Paul Vigna on The Wall Street Journal

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