Imagine banking systems, social networks and even public organizations that are completely autonomous, transparent and without individual ownership. No one lender could create a mortgage crisis. No government could shut down a service.

This dream is part of what motivates a new generation of software developers who are building on the success of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin to create broader applications for the underlying technology.

Bitcoin is based on the computing concept of the “blockchain.”Blockchains are databases on peer-to-peer computer networks (where machines pool together their powers) made of time-stamped entries called “blocks” that are encrypted and unchangeable, and describe transactions such as money transfers. No one person or system holds the entire ledger of transactions, and no one can falsify a transaction, because everyone in the network helps validate and run the database. In short: ownership is decentralized, and security is bolstered.

In 2013, a young programmer and writer, Vitalik Buterin, wondered if blockchain technology could be used for all sorts of online applications, not just cryptocurrencies or money transfers. He was neither the first nor the last to consider how to do this, but he helped come up with one of the most important non-currency uses of blockchains. Buterin’s project, Ethereum, was launched in 2015 under the stewardship of the Ethereum Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization, to explore the greater possibilities of decentralized computing power.