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For all of Ethereum's features, it has a minimal amount of moderate value use-cases in production. I'm not talking about wishful thinking of future use cases he

For all of Ethereum's features, it has a minimal amount of moderate value use-cases in production. I'm not talking about wishful thinking of future use cases here. Ethereum has yet to find a killer use case to take it mainstream. Although the DAO was suppose to be the big use case, all that did was expose the fact the developers and leaders of the project are willing to fork the chain to protect the early investors. Frankly, it might as well be a Silicon Valley startup, except it doesn't have to justify having good use-cases or adoption. Just keep the hype machine going and it'll do well. If hype trends off, without finding a killer use-case, well, I don't suppose it will matter much.

kbody 9y ago
At the moment their use-case is "selling blockchain" to enterprise. Plus ease of creating even more altcoins to ICO so some people can make quick money without any real product. It's even more unforunate that there are people from Ethereum Foundation training people just to make succesful ICOs (see the recent Gnosis debacle), but that's the price of having a wild west so innovation can grow, it attracts "sketchy" characters which unfortunatelly distract from real world breakthroughs. I'm just glad that we still have a lot of genuine people focusing on work that will push the cryptocurrency world forward.
phire 9y ago
I spent the weekend researching Ethereum and speculating on why people are investing in Ethereum (as opposed to other altcoins). I've come to the conclusion that there are two major reasons: 1) Momentum. Ethereum is (by many measures) the top performing alt coin. It's the most likely to be accepted on random websites, companies are investing in it and it looks like it has interesting potential. People see that and jump on, hoping the momentum will continue. 2) Stability. Crypto-nerds like you and me look at DAO and shake our heads, "reverting transactions goes against the whole concept". But to investors it looks like stability, which is attractive to them. There is now the implication that the developers will step in and fix any major mistakes. It's not just ill-defined smart contracts, theoretically the developers could intervene in cases of stolen ETH from wallets of major exchanges, or anything really which could threaten the stability of the currency as a whole.
- kbody 9y ago
  I doubt any sane investor would think like point (1). I would follow ETH only because it's backed by the original developers. The reversion happened only because member(s) of Ethereum Foundation personally invested in DAO, so they easily could and did push hard at the root (devs). Even with all that, there's no certainty that another big mistake will be reverted by devs' will or even be technically possible having to deal with Turing completeness and zk-SNARKs "soon (TM)".
  - bhaak 9y ago
    > I would follow ETH only because it's backed by the original developers. The reversion happened only because member(s) of Ethereum Foundation personally invested in DAO, so they easily could and did push hard at the root (devs). The much bigger problem was that they didn't want anybody to control 14% of all ETH with the switch of PoS on the horizon. This was IMO the most pressing issue. That people got their ETH back (well, those who didn't panic sell) was a nice side-effect which convinced people to follow the ETH chain. > Even with all that, there's no certainty that another big mistake will be reverted by devs' will or even be technically possible having to deal with Turing completeness and zk-SNARKs "soon (TM)". Yeah, only because of some quirks on how TheDAO is implemented, it could be resolved that way. In slightly different circumstances, a fix won't be possible.
  - kordless 9y ago
    No sane investor is going to invest in Ethereum because that's not how Ethereum or its derivatives raise capital. The way they raise capital is by taking individual's existing irrational trust (fiat) and exchanging it for what appears to be rational computationally driven trust. Except nobody is using that computed trust for anything worthwhile (a use-case), but then they (the Ethereum fans) all spout that its "killer use-case" is trusted transactions. This is, at best, a chicken and the egg problem, given trust is built over time by most cultures and people don't trust things they don't understand, even if those things are rational. Saying it's rational doesn't convince the group aggregate mentality (the thing that defines a killer use-case) so we sit here as individuals speculating about how great is is and they (the Ethereum group aggregate) sit here trying to convince us how great it is. By actual use adoption standards, used by VC firms to establish value, it has none.
tgsovlerkhgsel 9y ago
It already has a killer use case: Cheap, fast transactions. Regular, boring, "dumb" transactions like in Bitcoin, but with an average of seconds instead of 10+ minutes to first confirmation, much lower fees, no congestion, and no civil war. Given that there is little hope for a quick resolution of the block size civil war in Bitcoin, I'm not surprised that people are switching to alternatives.
- geoah 9y ago
  > and no civil war erm. ETH vs ETC anyone?
  - 6nf 9y ago
    That one is over now, ETH won.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 9y ago
    That's the thing - as far as I can see, there was a disagreement, they forked, both forks peacefully coexist and hold significant value (ETC is worth more today than it was before the fork). There is no civil war with DDoS attacks, mud-slinging, exploiting vulnerabilities in clients to crash the clients of the 'wrong' side, not even a "majority hash power kills weaker chain".
    - kbody 9y ago
      There's not much code difference for now (when/if ETH pushes the PoS Casper change that'll change). As for civil war, see a complaint[1] of an ETH developer to SEC for an Ethereum Classic Trust. I don't follow enough for other example, but I doubt there's no hostility. [1]: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2017-06/nysearca201706-149765.htm https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2017-06/nysearca201...
- kordless 9y ago
  Features are not use cases, contrary to popular belief. A killer use case is where everyone uses the technology, not where the technology serves a use for all people. Speculation on the value of Ethereum is irrational, at best, even if it has a feature people think others will use in the future.

kbody 9y ago

At the moment their use-case is "selling blockchain" to enterprise. Plus ease of creating even more altcoins to ICO so some people can make quick money without any real product. It's even more unforunate that there are people from Ethereum Foundation training people just to make succesful ICOs (see the recent Gnosis debacle), but that's the price of having a wild west so innovation can grow, it attracts "sketchy" characters which unfortunatelly distract from real world breakthroughs. I'm just glad that we still have a lot of genuine people focusing on work that will push the cryptocurrency world forward.

phire 9y ago

I spent the weekend researching Ethereum and speculating on why people are investing in Ethereum (as opposed to other altcoins). I've come to the conclusion that there are two major reasons: 1) Momentum. Ethereum is (by many measures) the top performing alt coin. It's the most likely to be accepted on random websites, companies are investing in it and it looks like it has interesting potential. People see that and jump on, hoping the momentum will continue. 2) Stability. Crypto-nerds like you and me look at DAO and shake our heads, "reverting transactions goes against the whole concept". But to investors it looks like stability, which is attractive to them. There is now the implication that the developers will step in and fix any major mistakes. It's not just ill-defined smart contracts, theoretically the developers could intervene in cases of stolen ETH from wallets of major exchanges, or anything really which could threaten the stability of the currency as a whole.

kbody 9y ago
I doubt any sane investor would think like point (1). I would follow ETH only because it's backed by the original developers. The reversion happened only because member(s) of Ethereum Foundation personally invested in DAO, so they easily could and did push hard at the root (devs). Even with all that, there's no certainty that another big mistake will be reverted by devs' will or even be technically possible having to deal with Turing completeness and zk-SNARKs "soon (TM)".
- bhaak 9y ago
  > I would follow ETH only because it's backed by the original developers. The reversion happened only because member(s) of Ethereum Foundation personally invested in DAO, so they easily could and did push hard at the root (devs). The much bigger problem was that they didn't want anybody to control 14% of all ETH with the switch of PoS on the horizon. This was IMO the most pressing issue. That people got their ETH back (well, those who didn't panic sell) was a nice side-effect which convinced people to follow the ETH chain. > Even with all that, there's no certainty that another big mistake will be reverted by devs' will or even be technically possible having to deal with Turing completeness and zk-SNARKs "soon (TM)". Yeah, only because of some quirks on how TheDAO is implemented, it could be resolved that way. In slightly different circumstances, a fix won't be possible.
- kordless 9y ago
  No sane investor is going to invest in Ethereum because that's not how Ethereum or its derivatives raise capital. The way they raise capital is by taking individual's existing irrational trust (fiat) and exchanging it for what appears to be rational computationally driven trust. Except nobody is using that computed trust for anything worthwhile (a use-case), but then they (the Ethereum fans) all spout that its "killer use-case" is trusted transactions. This is, at best, a chicken and the egg problem, given trust is built over time by most cultures and people don't trust things they don't understand, even if those things are rational. Saying it's rational doesn't convince the group aggregate mentality (the thing that defines a killer use-case) so we sit here as individuals speculating about how great is is and they (the Ethereum group aggregate) sit here trying to convince us how great it is. By actual use adoption standards, used by VC firms to establish value, it has none.

tgsovlerkhgsel 9y ago

It already has a killer use case: Cheap, fast transactions. Regular, boring, "dumb" transactions like in Bitcoin, but with an average of seconds instead of 10+ minutes to first confirmation, much lower fees, no congestion, and no civil war. Given that there is little hope for a quick resolution of the block size civil war in Bitcoin, I'm not surprised that people are switching to alternatives.

geoah 9y ago
> and no civil war erm. ETH vs ETC anyone?
- 6nf 9y ago
  That one is over now, ETH won.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 9y ago
  That's the thing - as far as I can see, there was a disagreement, they forked, both forks peacefully coexist and hold significant value (ETC is worth more today than it was before the fork). There is no civil war with DDoS attacks, mud-slinging, exploiting vulnerabilities in clients to crash the clients of the 'wrong' side, not even a "majority hash power kills weaker chain".
  - kbody 9y ago
    There's not much code difference for now (when/if ETH pushes the PoS Casper change that'll change). As for civil war, see a complaint[1] of an ETH developer to SEC for an Ethereum Classic Trust. I don't follow enough for other example, but I doubt there's no hostility. [1]: https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2017-06/nysearca201706-149765.htm https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-nysearca-2017-06/nysearca201...
kordless 9y ago
Features are not use cases, contrary to popular belief. A killer use case is where everyone uses the technology, not where the technology serves a use for all people. Speculation on the value of Ethereum is irrational, at best, even if it has a feature people think others will use in the future.