So far, there hasn’t been much news regarding any involvement of NASA with blockchain technology, or digital currencies. However, things are about to change, as a research project that recently received funding from NASA, will be looking for ways to leverage Ethereum’s smart contracts, to help automate spacecraft manoeuvring and avoid space debris.

NASA, which is also co-running the research and development effort of the project, has mentioned that the development may revolutionize the search for deep space probes. To put things better into perspective, NASA is investing in a project that would use blockchain and smart contract technology to not only enhance space communications, but also to make navigation efforts safer and more efficient.

Given its versatility, Ethereum has grown to not only be known as a digital currency, but rather as a platform for creating innovative, crypto-based projects as well. In an effort to further encourage development of apps, services and tokens on the Ethereum platform, six large blockchain-related companies alongside with a Japanese venture capital firm, have decided to create the Ethereum Community Fund (ECF).

According to recent reports, the purpose of the ECF will be to fund projects and businesses that are part of the Ethereum ecosystem. At the beginning, the community fund will start with $100 million, raised by six projects alongside the venture capital firm. Reports indicate that the Ethereum creator, Vitalik Buterin, will be part of the advisory body.

Ethereum’s evolution during the last couple of days creates big hopes for the smart contracts and digital currency system. On the 10th of January, the digital currency managed to hit another all-time high, marking a 60% increase in value in a single week.

With this in mind, Ethereum managed to hit an all-time high of $1,416, which gives it an increase of 13,000% in around a year, a figure enviable by many other cryptocurrencies. While the massive growth in price begun recently, it is expected that it will last for a longer period of time.

The last few months have been truly kind to the world of digital currencies, considering the fact that all major cryptocurrencies have reached unbelievable new all-time highs, thanks to increasing investor interest, bitcoin futures, and new blockchain and crypto-based platforms revolutionizing our current financial system from the ground up.

With this in mind, Ethereum, which is the world’s second biggest digital currency in terms of market capitalization has reached a new all-time high on Thursday, the 14th of December, with values first breaking the $600 threshold, and then surging even higher to $750. At the time of writing, the value of Ether, has decreased a bit, as it is currently trading at approximately $670.

At this moment in time, internet users throughout the world do not have full control over the data that they share across all websites. Instead, all of the data shared goes through a middleman that processes it and then sends it to the next interested party.

Decentralized Apps (dapps), built with the help of the Ethereum network are bound to change this in the future. Their sole purpose is to connect providers and the afferent users directly. Another main characteristic associated with dapps is the fact that they often have an open-source API, provide immutability thanks to the blockchain and most do not have a point of failure.

In a short period of time, Ethereum has managed to gain a lot of popularity on the digital currency market, with millions of dollars-worth of investments being poured into the new, trustless, smart contracts technology, which has a huge potential to further revolutionize the way we transmit data of all kinds, and the security behind it.

The last couple of months have brought forward a couple of growths and decreases in value, so this article will focus on some of today’s main factors that will further encourage Ethereum development, adoption and popularity. Additionally, Vitalik Buterin, has recently mentioned that: “I would say that Ethereum’s main benefits are in its generality and in its utility to many kinds of industries. There are applications in finance, identity, supply chain tracking, health care, energy and many other areas. This is a result of Ethereum deliberately being designed as a general-purpose programming platform.”