Java is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language created by a team led by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995; Oracle took over its stewardship when it bought Sun in 2010. Java programs are compiled into bytecode that runs on the Java Virtual Machine, which lets the same code run on many operating systems. That portability, along with strong typing and a large library ecosystem, made Java a mainstay of bank core banking platforms, trading systems and payment back-ends, and for years the main language for Android apps. In crypto, Java appears mostly in enterprise blockchain work, for example chaincode on Hyperledger Fabric, and in client libraries. It is unrelated to JavaScript apart from the name.
Last updated 13 Nov 2026