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Cryptocurrencies are digital tokens. Ownership of these digital tokens are kept in a ledger called a blockchain. Every transaction or transfer of tokens is recorded in the blockchain. Everyone can also see the blockchain as it is a public ledger. Both Bitcoin and Ether are cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin was the first to demonstrate blockchain technology. In practice, these tokens function like programmable money. However the usefulness of Bitcoin is limited. Ethereum was developed to expand the original concept so more things could be done with these digital tokens. Ethereum made the programmable tokens more powerful with features like smart contracts. It is worth noting that each cryptocurrency has its own blockchain which can be confusing.

DAO is an autonomous corporation that runs on top of Ethereum. The digital token in the Ethereum ecosystem is called Ether. So the DAO raised somewhere around ~$150M USD in equivalent Ether funds during its IPO-like phase.