Ether

Ether (ETH) is the cryptocurrency used on the Ethereum blockchain that can be used to operate smart contracts. The Ether presale was held in 2014, and approximately 60 million Ether were created for participating presale buyers and 12 million Ether were created to fund development of decentralized applications (dApps) on Ethereum. Each year, the issuance of Ether is 18 million, which is about 25 percent of the initial supply sold during the ether presale, and about 3 Ether are issued every fifteen seconds to miners.

The payment solution doesn't need a third party to process or approve transactions. It is considered as processing power for the applications on the Ethereum network.

Ether differs from Ethereum in the sense that it is used for transactions made on the Ethereum platform. Ethereum requires Ether as payment for any of the programs and services that are connected to the network and require computing power. Ether transaction fees vary according to the amount of fuel needed for the service.