The world of the “blockchain” technology is fast gaining attention as individuals, organizations and governments explore its use beyond peer-to-peer money transactions. What attracts them is the security, transparency and lower costs that the technology touts. While Bitcoin is the main application that popularized “blockchain”, strong interest is also witnessed in Ether, which was launched in late July 2015. This decentralized virtual currency runs on the Ethereum blockchain, a crowdfunded project and more the center of attention than its currency. High fees and excessive time in processing a transaction are main disadvantages of Bitcoin, pointed out by experts. Rivals such as Ripple claims to offer better speed and lower costs.That said, Blockchain and cryptocurrency experts point out that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not essentially competing against each other. Some reasons they cite include the fact that Bitcoin has mostly to do with transferring funds around or making payments and is largely focused transforming the financial space. Ethereum, on the other hand, claims the ability to be used in a wide range of activities such as to create markets, store registries, making a will, futures contracts and so on, using something called “smart contracts”.