Agree with you that it's not clear for newcomers. I'm not affiliated, but basically Ethereum is an alternative cryptocurrency (or alt-coin) to Bitcoin with it'

Agree with you that it's not clear for newcomers. I'm not affiliated, but basically Ethereum is an alternative cryptocurrency (or alt-coin) to Bitcoin with it's own separate mining algorithm and blockchain. The really interesting part is that it comes with a Python-like Turing-complete language, such that you can embed small scripts into transactions to define smart contracts. This theoretically allows you to implement all kinds of applications in a distributed way with no central trusted authority. For example: DNS resolution, options, betting, distributed exchanges.