19 ms·

What Is Ethereum?

837 points by songzme 9y ago

peternicky 9y ago
Is the content on this website supposed to change based on the target audience selected in the dropdown? If so, it is broken on mobile safari.
cslewis 9y ago
Few weeks ago I decided to spend a weekend to try to understand Ethereum. I found the whitepaper to be pretty instructive (it even helped me cement my understanding of bitcoin). Here is an annotated version of the whitepaper by vitalik: http://fermatslibrary.com/s/ethereum-a-next-generation-smart-contract-and-decentralized-application-platform http://fermatslibrary.com/s/ethereum-a-next-generation-smart...
- revelation 9y ago
  This is drivel. Protocols and decentralized applications around decentralized file storage, decentralized computation and decentralized prediction markets, among dozens of other such concepts, have the potential to substantially increase the efficiency of the computational industry, and provide a massive boost to other peer-to-peer protocols by adding for the first time an economic layer
  - DennisP 9y ago
    File storage: Swarm, and several other file storage protocols getting integrated with Ethereum. Computation: pretty much the whole point of the Ethereum VM, plus there are a couple projects that put proofs on the blockchain of larger computations than the blockchain can handle. Prediction markets: Gnosis and Augur Efficiency: at least developer efficiency, in my experience Economic layer: because you have reliable currencies on the network, both ETH and roll-your-own. It might sound like buzzwords but at this point it's all real code.
    - Retra 9y ago
      Does that real code actually increase computational efficiency, or does only merely have the potential to do so? Real code that doesn't provide the stated advantages doesn't mean much, right?
      - okabat 9y ago
        I'm in to prediction markets, but both Augur and Gnosis look like vaporware. Almost no volume on Augur and many poorly defined events to wager on (cost of having user generated content). Gnosis just looks like a fancy landing page and attempt to fundraise via ICO. I have long-term hopes that decentralized currencies let us build some interesting products, but there's massive volatility against fiat when holding crypto, which makes it hard most people to want to use these auxiliary services
      - DennisP 9y ago
        It'd definitely not computational efficiency. Vitalik has repeatedly pointed out that the total computation available on this network of thousands of computers is less than that of a first-generation smartphone. But it doesn't say "computational efficiency." It's talking about efficiency of the industry, which is a completely different thing. As a developer, I have various ideas for startups that would handle money. The easiest way to implement them is to build on Ethereum.
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    It's not necessarily drivel, it's just an unfounded assertion.
  - thatswrong0 9y ago
    It's a bit silly to dismiss the whole thing because the cofounder is trying a little too hard to sell the technology.. it certainly doesn't mean the technological aspect of the paper is "drivel"
    - revelation 9y ago
      This is Sokal level writing. If this was a random person trying his hand at a writing class, whatever, but this is the guy writing the code behind your crypto coin.
      - Breefield 9y ago
        I wasn't aware of Sokal. I'm going to include this concept on the "scammer" page.
      - gfody 9y ago
        Literally everything I read about Ethereum that's written by Vitalik stinks of something I haven't been able to put my finger on. "Sokal-ish" nails it exactly. The writing is never straight-forward, and always appeals to mainstream idealogical preconceptions. It's liberally salted with economical-jibberish-nonsense that sounds good as well. I believe blockchain technology is important and I think Ethereum is a strong contribution in its own right. But the more I read of Vitalik's Sokal-style writing the more I wish he would stop and let others handle it because he is making it sound like he's going to scam the shit out of everybody.
        zodiac 9y ago
        Really? I think Vitalik writes with a lot more precision than most in the space. E.g. https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/08/16/secret-sharing-erasure-coding-guide-aspiring-dropbox-decentralizer/ https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/08/16/secret-sharing-erasure-...
        BaronSamedi 9y ago
        When reading anything about Ethereum, the problem I've encountered is that the authors describe the supposed potential of the technology but never practical use cases. They never talk about successful, working applications. The question for Ethereum, like any technology, is what real-world problem is it uniquely suited to solve? Personally, I don't think Ethereum will ever live up to the hype surrounding it because its founders have promised more than it can deliver.
  - ChrisClark 9y ago
    At least each example in that sentence there already has one or more teams implementing it and actual working code you can run on top of Ethereum.
- joe_the_user 9y ago
  Interesting; The document mentions creating a crop-insurance application that would depend on a weather feed. The problem is if the weather feed isn't something that's uniformly secureable the result could be bad given that the insurance application would take action automatically and no appeal to any higher authority concerning the fraud would be possible - without a "fork" as happened earlier. Hack an insecure feed, an insecure site or whatever and viola, free money. And this seems like a problem any interface with the "real world" would face. The idea of automatically occurring, no-appeal financial transactions sounds but I would claim it's always going to be problematic - only a fool or a crook would put their money in this kind of system and the crook only puts in enough money to remove the money of the fool. The ideal of say, money, is it belongs to you, where you is a broad but understandable concept. Something that belong to "whoever has X, Y, Z pieces of information about you" may sound great until someone beside you gets that information and there is no recourse. Indeed, the person who had the information "did nothing wrong" if the account really, really did belong to "whoever has this information" rather than belonging to you.
  - RexetBlell 9y ago
    The weather feed can provided by several oracles, and the contract can take the median value. You could program whatever logic you want into the insurance. For example, some kind of dispute resolution system that appeals to a higher authority. How do insurance companies deal with this problem today? Why do you trust the insurance company not to lie and say that the weather was fine? Whatever that mechanism is, it can be programmed into a smart contract.
    - rspeer 9y ago
      > How do insurance companies deal with this problem today? The legal system. It can put people in jail for fraud if necessary. Do you really want "smart" "contracts" to have the power to put people in jail? Really?
      - oh_sigh 9y ago
        A smart contract wouldn't put someone in jail(how often does that directly result from a contract dispute anyway?)...a lawsuit would he how someone resolves the issue if that remedy is available and necessary
prodtorok 9y ago
How important is the adoption of Solidity for Ethereum's success?
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  I've been reading a lot about Ethereum, and I am really interested in blockchain tech -- but I also wonder about this. I am really curious as to whether it would be possible to develop new languages for the handling of smart contracts, or if it is possible to develop smart contracts (using a library or other resource) with existing, popular languages like c++, python, or javascript. I know web3 is already quite accessible and while I haven't looked at the source, it seems relatively easy to work with. But the core language for smart contracts... I think Eth would benefit from some flexibility on the development end. Or maybe I just don't know enough. Anyway, I think that would be a big leap.
  - RexetBlell 9y ago
    I know that Consensys (who is looking to hire hundreds of engineers https://consensys.net/open-positions/ https://consensys.net/open-positions/) is working on a special smart contract language that would be easy for lawyers to learn. The language compiles into EVM bytecode.
  - DennisP 9y ago
    There are several languages that compile to the EVM. Also there's a somewhat speculative project to transition to a restricted version of WASM, which would let languages like C and Rust be compiled into smart contracts on Ethereum.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      Interesting. All I knew of previously was Solidity, and it seemed... practical but limited. That said, I haven't done a deep dive yet. Thanks
- Breefield 9y ago
  I made this website. I don't know the answer to your question. If you cruise down to "The Solc Compiler" on this page https://www.ethereum.org/greeter#cleaning-up-after-yourself https://www.ethereum.org/greeter#cleaning-up-after-yourself, it seems you could potentially use other compilers to generate a Application Binary Interface.
jamisteven 9y ago
Can't trust ethereum or bitcoin for the same reason we can't trust the fed and their "quantitive easing": 1. It's way complicated 2. It's fiat 3. Nobody understand who really is in control of its value
- mac01021 9y ago
  What's wrong with fiat currency?
  - jamisteven 9y ago
    I think you meant to write intelligence and not ignorance.
  - jamisteven 9y ago
    Is this a serious question
    - rspeer 9y ago
      Yes. Can you answer it? Assume I'm neither a libertarian nor an anarchist.
      - ytNumbers 9y ago
        During the past decade, the Federal Reserve has created 4 trillion dollars out of thin air in an attempt to prop up the economy. The Fed seems hesitant to unwind that as it carries the risk of harming the economy. Fiat money can always be created out of thin air, and it seems to be proving difficult for those in power to resist that temptation. https://www.thestreet.com/story/14181100/1/the-fed-normalizes-money-printing-marking-the-dollar-s-eventual-demise.html https://www.thestreet.com/story/14181100/1/the-fed-normalize...
        albertgoeswoof 9y ago
        But why is that bad?
wildchild 9y ago
Scam and snake oil.
notadoc 9y ago
Are we at the "mania" stage of cryptocurrency interest yet?
- QML 9y ago
  Pretty sure the majority of people don't know about cryptocurrency yet. On the other hand, less than 1% of Americans were invested in the stock market preceding the Great Depression..
- booleandilemma 9y ago
  Not until we have cryptocurrency bootcamps and people pursuing degrees in cryptofinance.
  - craigc 9y ago
    Or job postings asking for a minimum of 5 or 10 years of experience working with Solidity and Ethereum
    - reinhardt1053 9y ago
      https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Visa/743999653819682-blockchain-engineer?src=JB-10081 https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Visa/743999653819682-blockc...
      - JetSpiegel 9y ago
        Visa? Hedging their bets, it seems. Or one of those projects to put undesirables on.
  - ajdlinux 9y ago
    Alas... https://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/ https://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/
    - booleandilemma 9y ago
      Wow it's further along than I thought!
dmead 9y ago
Sounds terrible.
dialupmodem 9y ago
So tired of seeing blockchain, machine learning, and JS in hte news. Things like Ethereum and even Bitcoin are 100% hype, "what if", and are nothing more than dreams. Last century gave us things like the personal computer, the internet, and so on. What about this one? Fancier webpages? Selfies? Tweets? All of this blockchain and cryptocurrency and JS hype is tiresome to see. What happened to making real stuff that works and solves real problems?
- AVTizzle 9y ago
  Lots of hype, for sure, but this criticism is too hard for what is still a still nascent frontier technology. The innovations you listed in "last century"- PC, internet, etc - both went through their fringe, hobbyists-and-nerds-only phases, during which their future value to society was totally unclear and uncertain. Only in hindsight are these technologies impacts obvious. While I couldn't agree more about the fact that there's ridiculous hype and (most annoyingly) greedy speculation in crypto, I for one am hugely excited and optimistic about the potential society-changing implications of the this tech.
- harryh 9y ago
  Well, we got ubiquitous mobile computing this century. That's been working out pretty well so far. Cloud computing is pretty great too.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ernesto95 9y ago
  If your comparing centuries you probably should give this one a bit more time, I mean we're in our second decade...
- allsunny 9y ago
  and get off my lawn! :-)
SilasX 9y ago
This doesn't seem to do it for me. The multiple explanations it offers are all either: 1) Extremely vague and handwavy, or 2) Links to extremely long documents. Neither one is an explanation, something that hits the key points and gives you enough to know what to ask to get greater detail. Edit: toned down criticism.
- Breefield 9y ago
  Be my guest: http://github.com/Breefield/whatthefuckisethereum http://github.com/Breefield/whatthefuckisethereum It's supposed to be a combination of layman information, reference material, and humor, I agree some of the content was rushed.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    As soon as I understand ethereum, I will!
    - Breefield 9y ago
      Shoot! Explainer site missed the target. I wrote the "average person" page to be quite high level. Unfortunately the "nerdy" page became a little too nerdy. I should work on an "I'm a software developer who wants an intermediate technical understanding" or something like this.
      - pcthrowaway 9y ago
        I'm still learning what the fuck ethereum is, but it seems like it could have some revolutionary implications for the political process, am I right? Maybe add an "Explain it like I'm a nerdy politician" (and also an "Explain it like I'm a nanny-state politician" for the politicians more interested in regulating it and protecting the children, than leveraging it)
      - chuckdries 9y ago
        Me and all my coworkers are in this boat and would greatly appreciate a "I'm a software developer who wants an intermediate technical understanding" page!
mikenew 9y ago
There's one point in particular that took me a while to grasp: while you can write code that runs on the Ethereum network, every single node has to process that code. So if, for example, you had a big 3d animation sequence that you wanted to have rendered, you would not just send that code off to the network to be processed. You would have to pay to have every single person on the network process that job for you, and it would be so big the network wouldn't even accept it. Rather, you would create a simple contract that says "if you render this animation for me and prove that you did it right, I'll pay you X amount of Ether". Someone would take the job and the Ethereum network would process your contract and handle the payment. You would end up paying that person to do work for you, and you'd pay the network (using something called gas) to process the contract. You could use Ethereum to create all kinds of interesting contracts for financial purposes, voting systems, insurance, or whatever else. But it's not some giant compute cluster that will run some big program for you.
- bsmithers 9y ago
  Thanks. In your example, how could one hope to prove they had rendered the animation correctly? Presumably each node must be able to verify the correctness of this in order to process the contract?
  - mikenew 9y ago
    I think that's still an open problem. You could render a few random tiles from a few frames to build some confidence in the result. You could also build a reputation system, also running on ethereum, to establish who is trustworthy.
- ChrisClark 9y ago
  Definitely a very constrained system to write in. For anyone who loves to write compact optimized code though, Solidity is very fun to write. Squeezing out every last little bit of gas. With the Viper language in development being even more low level there could be a good market for developers who can create solid contracts. VISA recently posted a job opening looking for a Solidity developer. I think with how rare those developers are, you would be in a really great place to negotiate your salary.
aqsheehy 9y ago
A framework for creating ponzis
- blunte 9y ago
  I'm sure you're only partly joking, but sadly it does seem to be one of the biggest first uses. Oh and lotteries - those are popular. On the other hand, people will continue to run ponzi schemes as long as there are greedy/ignorant people to attract, so it might as well be done all visibly. At least then the guy running the ponzi can't just tell everyone "sorry, feds raided the bank, all the money is gone" when he actually just moved it offshore.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Cthulhu_ 9y ago
    Instead they can just go "sorry, my site / wallet was hacked, all the money is gone"
Frogolocalypse 9y ago
The problem with ether isn't the tech of contracts but the implementation of the network. There are very concerning scalability issues that have not only not been addressed, but who's 'plan' for resolution are either untried systems in development (sharding) or have significant architectural issues (proof-of-stake) that very smart people think will never be resolved. I hope they overcome these obstacles, but the jury is still well and truly out.
joeyspn 9y ago
Ethereum has had a good start being the first mover in smart contracts, but EOS is coming and the value proposition is much more solid... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUZWZj1pu94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUZWZj1pu94 Blockchain tech is evolving...
- Jabanga 9y ago
  EOS doesn't currently exist. It makes a lot of strong claims, and has delivered none of them yet.
  - joeyspn 9y ago
    Larimer has delivered them already in his previous projects: BitShares and Steemit. That's more proven track record than what Ethereum had in early 2014, and that didn't stop people from supporting the idea. I for instance have been a strong supporter of Ethereum since day 0, but now I feel EOS (with DPoS and Graphene) is the next step in blockchain tech.
    - Jabanga 9y ago
      Ethereum had no "solid" value proposition in 2014, and EOS doesn't have one now. You're overstating its proven value. We can share our opinions on the respective projects, but that's different from a demonstrable value proposition.
      - joeyspn 9y ago
        You should check the definition of value proposition. [0] Ethereum had one: "a cryptocurrency with a programming language beyond opcodes" EOS value proposition is: "a platform for building DApps beyond PoW (using DPoS) and industry-ready TPS (with Graphene[1])". Both DPoS and Graphene are inventions of Larimer. For many this is enough, and that reflects why it's already a top 15 crypto. [0] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueproposition.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueproposition.asp [1] http://docs.bitshares.org/ http://docs.bitshares.org/
skrowl 9y ago
Wow, I actually own some ETH on coinbase and had no idea it was more than just a competing crypto currency.
amadeuspzs 9y ago
Hats off to attempting to explain a deeply technical topic to a variety of audiences, acknowledging different learner needs. A lot of posters here would probably benefit from taking a humanistic approach to explaining what they do to non-hacker news readers!
ksikka 9y ago
What is Ethereum _useful_ for? When would I need it? Why is AWS (et al) not sufficient?
- turblety 9y ago
  Decentralization and auditing. If you put some code on AWS there are two potential issues. Firstly you don't know if AWS has actually run your code. They could potentially replace your code with their own modified version which does something malicious (like add a bias). For example in a voting system, code could be modified to ignore X percentage of unfavourable votes, or change unfavourable votes to a more favourable candidate. Secondly I don't know what your code on AWS does. This isn't great for financial and voting systems that should be audit able. With Ethereum you can view the code for a contract to validate it does not "cheat". You can also trust the contract was executed correctly because the miners have validated it and added it to the block chain.
  - ksikka 9y ago
    Thank you.
- jacoblambda 9y ago
  well, not specifically ethereum but stuff like siacoin provide cheaper options than AWS and while I personally cannot attest to the performance, they seem to be interesting alternatives.[1] In the case of siacoin, at face value it seems to be significantly cheaper than AWS or Google Cloud for providing bulk cloud storage. [1] http://sia.tech/ http://sia.tech/
  - hanklazard 9y ago
    Even more exciting for me is IPFS and Filecoin. Seems like this pairing could allow for a truly decentralized Internet. Ycombinator had one of the founders / lead programmers on the podcast in the last few weeks and I highly recommend it!
  - Itsdijital 9y ago
cm2187 9y ago
Another cryptocurrency? This is becoming a hyper inflation of crypto currencies...
whitelable 9y ago
Here is the problem with ethereum business model. All new token created by ethereum are whitelable tokens. Each ico token brings new investors to own ethereum boosting its price. These new whitelable tokens are the. Exchanged for ethereum to provide funding. Each new project raises funds and lists it's token on an exchange. This boosts the value of the white lable token at a multiple of the amount raises in ethereum. Now companies need to spend money on there projects have to sell ethereum to fund there projects. This selling of ether raised by ico is at a multiple of the original amount raises in ether from new investors introduced to ico investing. This means mass e inflation on value will collapse as up funded projects sell their ether for operating funds. Can anyone explain how this voodoo economics can work for investors as a whole?
whitelable 9y ago
Here is the problem with ethereum business model. All new token created by ethereum are whitelable tokens. Each ico token brings new investors to own ethereum boosting its price. These new whitelable tokens are the. Exchanged for ethereum to provide funding. Each new project raises funds and lists it's token on an exchange. This boosts the value of the white lable token at a multiple of the amount raises in ethereum. Now companies need to spend money on there projects have to sell ethereum to fund there projects. This selling of ether raised by ico is at a multiple of the original amount raised in ether from new investors introduced to ico investing. This means mass e inflation on value will collapse as up funded projects sell their ether for operating funds. Can anyone explain how this voodoo economics can work for investors as a whole?
thinbeige 9y ago
Nice thread but the issue I always have with all discussions around cryptocurrencies is: I never know if the person who just worshipped or criticized a specific currency has a vested interest. Somebody who sits on billions of ETH will write totally different tham someboy who is shorting/margin trading ETH.
- eyezick 9y ago
  A good litmus test is the level of technical depth of discussion, it's very easy to discuss hypothetical achievements at a high-level of any cryptoasset, but to be able to get into the details demonstrates knowledge beyond any regular trader as well as provides possibly objective reasons to be argued with.
  - thinbeige 9y ago
    Good point. There is one guy in he thread who doubts that ETH will scale. He stays quite meta but sounds credible because he gives one or two good reasons. Still it's hard to judge if it's just a claim or is it substantial, is it crucial for the success anyway? This whole cryptothing feels like gambling, 'put all your money on red, red will win..'
    - Taek 9y ago
      The state of the art for theoretical blockchains is that, to maintain security, you need every single node to process every single transaction. No proposed solution to fix this can maintain anywhere near the same level of security, and while we are making progress on that issue, I think it's still pretty far away.
qbaqbaqba 9y ago
Another cryptocurrency based scam?
moomin 9y ago
I'm being sniffy here, and the technical achievement of Ethereum is considerable, but were I talking about a general contract computing platform, I'd want one where I could demonstrate the assertions the code makes. And that basically means a dependently typed functional programming language. I'd start with Idris, but even that might need strengthening before DAO-style issues were hard to find.
- DennisP 9y ago
  Here's a masters thesis by someone who made Idris compile to the Ethereum virtual machine. https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/234939/234939.pdf https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/234939...
  - moomin 9y ago
    That's cool (Idris seems to have an infinitely pluggable back end), but it's not the same thing. You can code in a higher-level language, but you can't inspect another program's guarantees and you can't safely use them within your own system.
kensai 9y ago
I love that the article ends in this line: "Support this website! Send ETH to: 0x1c4d1804AD9d47de0D4209882843998E03E30dF9"
- Mooty 9y ago
  I was curious so I checked, actually two persons gave him some food : https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c4d1804ad9d47de0d4209882843998e03e30df9 https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c4d1804ad9d47de0d42098828439... ~ 40$
sitepodmatt 9y ago
The best way to think of ethereum is bitcoin with more flexibility, and its immutability define by owners* tolerance for loss. When vladmir and slock.it lose money they just roll it back. * owners being the slack group with 90% of the mining power. There exists shitcoins with more credibility than ethereum
- RexetBlell 9y ago
  Can we please stop bringing up slock.it and the DAO fork. It was more than a year ago and it's time to move on.
  - sitepodmatt 9y ago
    Why? It is quite defining. I would judge a bank on how it behaved 12 months ago, or 24 months, or 10 years ago. if(lapsed > months(12)) { forget; } errr no..
thenerdfiles 9y ago
The protocol is not distributed, the application state is, as a shared memory system. It's fundamentally incompatible with hosting the web, for instance, since hypermedia is supposed to be the engine of application state as the web is fundamentally a distributed hypermedia application.
pimeys 9y ago
What is the best place to have discussions about Ethereum? I tried to follow the Reddit group, but I don't really need all the hype. I just need information and opinions on writing contracts and developing applications that use Ethereum network. I'm also very interested in the psychological side of trading and different trading strategies. No fuzz, just reasonable discussion.
- abrkn 9y ago
  Slack channels are widely used by developers in the cryptocurrency space. I also recommend trying to find local meetups.
- DennisP 9y ago
  For dev, there's /r/ethdev and various channels at https://gitter.im/ethereum https://gitter.im/ethereum, along with https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/ https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/. There are some attempts at serious trading subreddits, but so far nothing that seems that informative to me.
ruiquelhas 9y ago
Don't need a whole website to tell me it is just a vehicle for fraudulent securities.
amygdyl 9y ago
Can anyone help me with a reference for any study that has been published on the status of research for the conditions of successful crypto currency launches? Or a serious reputable journal reviewing the literature comprehensively? If I'm unable to find filling for the gaps in the study I seek, I'm inclined to think that I have a good chance of being able to work towards a (sincerely and despite being tempted by the ad rates) non spammy simple site to collate the references, this summer. So if you have any suggestions for the effort I will with about 70% probability undertake, I'd be happy to hear from you as well.
runeks 9y ago
Ethereum is very simple in essence: it's a Turing-complete version of Bitcoin. The way you transfer a bitcoin from one person to another is by creating a Bitcoin transaction that contains an input script that fulfills an in-blockchain output script with which a number of bitcoins are associated. The output script may say "provide a public key that hashes to <some_hash> and a signature, over a transaction (which sends the bitcoins to a new output script) that redeems this output, that verifies against this public key". Bitcoins script language -- conditions be fulfilled to transfer tokens associated with one output script to a new output script -- is not Turing-complete, which means it's limited in how complex a condition can be set up for redemption. Ethereum's script language is Turing complete, allowing arbitrarily complex conditions for fulfilling an output script (which allows you to transfer coins/tokens from that output script to a new one).
- Taek 9y ago
  Worth adding perhaps that Bitcoin is intentionally not Turing complete, as the complexity opens up a very big space for vulnerabilities. And indeed, we see a lot of those in ethereum contacts.
  - UncleMeat 9y ago
    Yup. Why people would want turing complete contracts is completely beyond me. There is a reason why we use heavily restricted computational systems for high integrity systems. Until somebody is doing some sort of model checking on my smart contract you can count me out.
  - runeks 9y ago
    The DAO failed because of a lack of strong typing in the contract language, not because of Turing completeness. The main problem with a Turing-complete contract language is that it becomes impossible to statically verify runtime properties, so a node can't know how long it will take to verify a transaction it receives. This opens up for denial-of-service attacks, e.g. embedding a transaction with an infinite loop in a block in the blockchain.
    - 9y ago
myautsai 9y ago
Ethereum is an awesome idea, but before any practical Ether application booms, it's more like a bubble. If you're interested in why there's also a token named "Ethereum Classic(ETC)", you can search "DAO" on Google to explore more about why the first largest Ethereum application DAO was failed and why this leads to the hard fork(ETH => ETC, ETH) of Ethereum. As far as decentralized storage is concerned, there's production-already a blockchain-based product named Sia (http://sia.tech/ http://sia.tech/ ), but Swarm (which is a similar thing based on Ethereum) is still in very early stage.
myautsai 9y ago
Ethereum is an awesome idea, but before any practical Ether application booms, it's more like a bubble. If you're interested in why there's also a token named "Ethereum Classic(ETC)", you can search "DAO" on Google to explore more about why the first largest Ethereum application DAO was failed and why this leads to the hard fork(ETH => ETC, ETH) of Ethereum. As far as decentralized storage is concerned, there's production-already a blockchain-based product named Sia (http://sia.tech/ http://sia.tech/ ), but Swarm (which is a similar thing based on Ethereum) is still in very early stage.
myautsai 9y ago
Ethereum is an awesome idea, but before any practical Ether application booms, it's more like a bubble. If you're interested in why there's also a token named "Ethereum Classic(ETC)", you can search "DAO" on Google to explore more about why the first largest Ethereum application DAO was failed and why this leads to the hard fork(ETH => ETC, ETH) of Ethereum. As far as decentralized storage is concerned, there's production-already a blockchain-based product named Sia (http://sia.tech/ http://sia.tech/ ), but Swarm (which is a similar thing based on Ethereum) is still in very early stage.
aphextron 9y ago
I'm still confused. Is this anything beyond another opt-in botnet at it's core?
retox 9y ago
An establishment backed control job.
ourmandave 9y ago
Wouldn't whatthefuckisethereum.edu make more sense for an educational site?
- vultour 9y ago
  .edu addresses are restricted to educational institutions in the US afaik.
Temasik 9y ago
Ethereum is not immutable centralized and full of bugs Good luck in the long run
trumpisyourdad 9y ago
it's trash. lolcrpyton00bz.
trumpisyourdad 9y ago
it's trash. plain and simple.
danra 9y ago
The time estimate listed for an in-depth reading of the Yellow Paper (54 minutes) is... optimistic.
flaviuspopan 9y ago
Yo songzme, I have to thank you for throwing this up because as a result, I've since stumbled on 3Blue1Brown and his awesome video on crypto and math in general. You linked his video the same day he posted it, and I couldn't have been happier to find something that explained it in laymen terms so well. I've been meaning to solidify my understanding for friends and family, so thanks for sharing! Cheers mate.
- dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
  Link?
  - metasyn 9y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4
djhworld 9y ago
What are people using Ethereum for though. Outside of trading it between each other based on price speculation, is there a real world thing that isn't a prototype that people are using as part of the smart contract system?
ojr 9y ago
I don't believe all ICOs are illegal ICO tokens are digital commodities/assets that are more similar to app credits or in-app mobile purchases than securities. Unlike with Ethereum apps/dapps, you can't trade traditional app credits/in-app purchases on an exchange but imagine if there were farmville ERC-20 tokens a few years backs, people will buy thousands off speculation alone, it'll be interesting to see how the SEC will regulate this
dewyatt 9y ago
I know I'll get hate for not commenting on the actual content of this article, but...why is this only taking up 1/3rd of my horizontal screen space? Perhaps all that space could be used to show the images alongside the text? > here’s what we’ll talk about: (with links if you want to jump to a specific section). Holy smokes, it's got links! Good thing he pointed it out to me since I never could have figured that out by the visual indicators that every web browser adds to links.

837 points by songzme 9y ago

Is the content on this website supposed to change based on the target audience selected in the dropdown? If so, it is broken on mobile safari.

cslewis 9y ago

Few weeks ago I decided to spend a weekend to try to understand Ethereum. I found the whitepaper to be pretty instructive (it even helped me cement my understanding of bitcoin). Here is an annotated version of the whitepaper by vitalik: http://fermatslibrary.com/s/ethereum-a-next-generation-smart-contract-and-decentralized-application-platform http://fermatslibrary.com/s/ethereum-a-next-generation-smart...

revelation 9y ago
This is drivel. Protocols and decentralized applications around decentralized file storage, decentralized computation and decentralized prediction markets, among dozens of other such concepts, have the potential to substantially increase the efficiency of the computational industry, and provide a massive boost to other peer-to-peer protocols by adding for the first time an economic layer
- DennisP 9y ago
  File storage: Swarm, and several other file storage protocols getting integrated with Ethereum. Computation: pretty much the whole point of the Ethereum VM, plus there are a couple projects that put proofs on the blockchain of larger computations than the blockchain can handle. Prediction markets: Gnosis and Augur Efficiency: at least developer efficiency, in my experience Economic layer: because you have reliable currencies on the network, both ETH and roll-your-own. It might sound like buzzwords but at this point it's all real code.
  - Retra 9y ago
    Does that real code actually increase computational efficiency, or does only merely have the potential to do so? Real code that doesn't provide the stated advantages doesn't mean much, right?
    - okabat 9y ago
      I'm in to prediction markets, but both Augur and Gnosis look like vaporware. Almost no volume on Augur and many poorly defined events to wager on (cost of having user generated content). Gnosis just looks like a fancy landing page and attempt to fundraise via ICO. I have long-term hopes that decentralized currencies let us build some interesting products, but there's massive volatility against fiat when holding crypto, which makes it hard most people to want to use these auxiliary services
    - DennisP 9y ago
      It'd definitely not computational efficiency. Vitalik has repeatedly pointed out that the total computation available on this network of thousands of computers is less than that of a first-generation smartphone. But it doesn't say "computational efficiency." It's talking about efficiency of the industry, which is a completely different thing. As a developer, I have various ideas for startups that would handle money. The easiest way to implement them is to build on Ethereum.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  It's not necessarily drivel, it's just an unfounded assertion.
- thatswrong0 9y ago
  It's a bit silly to dismiss the whole thing because the cofounder is trying a little too hard to sell the technology.. it certainly doesn't mean the technological aspect of the paper is "drivel"
  - revelation 9y ago
    This is Sokal level writing. If this was a random person trying his hand at a writing class, whatever, but this is the guy writing the code behind your crypto coin.
    - Breefield 9y ago
      I wasn't aware of Sokal. I'm going to include this concept on the "scammer" page.
    - gfody 9y ago
      Literally everything I read about Ethereum that's written by Vitalik stinks of something I haven't been able to put my finger on. "Sokal-ish" nails it exactly. The writing is never straight-forward, and always appeals to mainstream idealogical preconceptions. It's liberally salted with economical-jibberish-nonsense that sounds good as well. I believe blockchain technology is important and I think Ethereum is a strong contribution in its own right. But the more I read of Vitalik's Sokal-style writing the more I wish he would stop and let others handle it because he is making it sound like he's going to scam the shit out of everybody.
      - zodiac 9y ago
        Really? I think Vitalik writes with a lot more precision than most in the space. E.g. https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/08/16/secret-sharing-erasure-coding-guide-aspiring-dropbox-decentralizer/ https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/08/16/secret-sharing-erasure-...
      - BaronSamedi 9y ago
        When reading anything about Ethereum, the problem I've encountered is that the authors describe the supposed potential of the technology but never practical use cases. They never talk about successful, working applications. The question for Ethereum, like any technology, is what real-world problem is it uniquely suited to solve? Personally, I don't think Ethereum will ever live up to the hype surrounding it because its founders have promised more than it can deliver.
- ChrisClark 9y ago
  At least each example in that sentence there already has one or more teams implementing it and actual working code you can run on top of Ethereum.
joe_the_user 9y ago
Interesting; The document mentions creating a crop-insurance application that would depend on a weather feed. The problem is if the weather feed isn't something that's uniformly secureable the result could be bad given that the insurance application would take action automatically and no appeal to any higher authority concerning the fraud would be possible - without a "fork" as happened earlier. Hack an insecure feed, an insecure site or whatever and viola, free money. And this seems like a problem any interface with the "real world" would face. The idea of automatically occurring, no-appeal financial transactions sounds but I would claim it's always going to be problematic - only a fool or a crook would put their money in this kind of system and the crook only puts in enough money to remove the money of the fool. The ideal of say, money, is it belongs to you, where you is a broad but understandable concept. Something that belong to "whoever has X, Y, Z pieces of information about you" may sound great until someone beside you gets that information and there is no recourse. Indeed, the person who had the information "did nothing wrong" if the account really, really did belong to "whoever has this information" rather than belonging to you.
- RexetBlell 9y ago
  The weather feed can provided by several oracles, and the contract can take the median value. You could program whatever logic you want into the insurance. For example, some kind of dispute resolution system that appeals to a higher authority. How do insurance companies deal with this problem today? Why do you trust the insurance company not to lie and say that the weather was fine? Whatever that mechanism is, it can be programmed into a smart contract.
  - rspeer 9y ago
    > How do insurance companies deal with this problem today? The legal system. It can put people in jail for fraud if necessary. Do you really want "smart" "contracts" to have the power to put people in jail? Really?
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      A smart contract wouldn't put someone in jail(how often does that directly result from a contract dispute anyway?)...a lawsuit would he how someone resolves the issue if that remedy is available and necessary

prodtorok 9y ago

How important is the adoption of Solidity for Ethereum's success?

52-6F-62 9y ago
I've been reading a lot about Ethereum, and I am really interested in blockchain tech -- but I also wonder about this. I am really curious as to whether it would be possible to develop new languages for the handling of smart contracts, or if it is possible to develop smart contracts (using a library or other resource) with existing, popular languages like c++, python, or javascript. I know web3 is already quite accessible and while I haven't looked at the source, it seems relatively easy to work with. But the core language for smart contracts... I think Eth would benefit from some flexibility on the development end. Or maybe I just don't know enough. Anyway, I think that would be a big leap.
- RexetBlell 9y ago
  I know that Consensys (who is looking to hire hundreds of engineers https://consensys.net/open-positions/ https://consensys.net/open-positions/) is working on a special smart contract language that would be easy for lawyers to learn. The language compiles into EVM bytecode.
- DennisP 9y ago
  There are several languages that compile to the EVM. Also there's a somewhat speculative project to transition to a restricted version of WASM, which would let languages like C and Rust be compiled into smart contracts on Ethereum.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    Interesting. All I knew of previously was Solidity, and it seemed... practical but limited. That said, I haven't done a deep dive yet. Thanks
Breefield 9y ago
I made this website. I don't know the answer to your question. If you cruise down to "The Solc Compiler" on this page https://www.ethereum.org/greeter#cleaning-up-after-yourself https://www.ethereum.org/greeter#cleaning-up-after-yourself, it seems you could potentially use other compilers to generate a Application Binary Interface.

jamisteven 9y ago

Can't trust ethereum or bitcoin for the same reason we can't trust the fed and their "quantitive easing": 1. It's way complicated 2. It's fiat 3. Nobody understand who really is in control of its value

mac01021 9y ago
What's wrong with fiat currency?
- jamisteven 9y ago
  I think you meant to write intelligence and not ignorance.
- jamisteven 9y ago
  Is this a serious question
  - rspeer 9y ago
    Yes. Can you answer it? Assume I'm neither a libertarian nor an anarchist.
    - ytNumbers 9y ago
      During the past decade, the Federal Reserve has created 4 trillion dollars out of thin air in an attempt to prop up the economy. The Fed seems hesitant to unwind that as it carries the risk of harming the economy. Fiat money can always be created out of thin air, and it seems to be proving difficult for those in power to resist that temptation. https://www.thestreet.com/story/14181100/1/the-fed-normalizes-money-printing-marking-the-dollar-s-eventual-demise.html https://www.thestreet.com/story/14181100/1/the-fed-normalize...
      - albertgoeswoof 9y ago
        But why is that bad?

wildchild 9y ago

Scam and snake oil.

notadoc 9y ago

Are we at the "mania" stage of cryptocurrency interest yet?

QML 9y ago
Pretty sure the majority of people don't know about cryptocurrency yet. On the other hand, less than 1% of Americans were invested in the stock market preceding the Great Depression..
booleandilemma 9y ago
Not until we have cryptocurrency bootcamps and people pursuing degrees in cryptofinance.
- craigc 9y ago
  Or job postings asking for a minimum of 5 or 10 years of experience working with Solidity and Ethereum
  - reinhardt1053 9y ago
    https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Visa/743999653819682-blockchain-engineer?src=JB-10081 https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Visa/743999653819682-blockc...
    - JetSpiegel 9y ago
      Visa? Hedging their bets, it seems. Or one of those projects to put undesirables on.
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  Alas... https://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/ https://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/
  - booleandilemma 9y ago
    Wow it's further along than I thought!

dmead 9y ago

Sounds terrible.

dialupmodem 9y ago

So tired of seeing blockchain, machine learning, and JS in hte news. Things like Ethereum and even Bitcoin are 100% hype, "what if", and are nothing more than dreams. Last century gave us things like the personal computer, the internet, and so on. What about this one? Fancier webpages? Selfies? Tweets? All of this blockchain and cryptocurrency and JS hype is tiresome to see. What happened to making real stuff that works and solves real problems?

AVTizzle 9y ago
Lots of hype, for sure, but this criticism is too hard for what is still a still nascent frontier technology. The innovations you listed in "last century"- PC, internet, etc - both went through their fringe, hobbyists-and-nerds-only phases, during which their future value to society was totally unclear and uncertain. Only in hindsight are these technologies impacts obvious. While I couldn't agree more about the fact that there's ridiculous hype and (most annoyingly) greedy speculation in crypto, I for one am hugely excited and optimistic about the potential society-changing implications of the this tech.
harryh 9y ago
Well, we got ubiquitous mobile computing this century. That's been working out pretty well so far. Cloud computing is pretty great too.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ernesto95 9y ago
If your comparing centuries you probably should give this one a bit more time, I mean we're in our second decade...
allsunny 9y ago
and get off my lawn! :-)

SilasX 9y ago

This doesn't seem to do it for me. The multiple explanations it offers are all either: 1) Extremely vague and handwavy, or 2) Links to extremely long documents. Neither one is an explanation, something that hits the key points and gives you enough to know what to ask to get greater detail. Edit: toned down criticism.

Breefield 9y ago
Be my guest: http://github.com/Breefield/whatthefuckisethereum http://github.com/Breefield/whatthefuckisethereum It's supposed to be a combination of layman information, reference material, and humor, I agree some of the content was rushed.
- SilasX 9y ago
  As soon as I understand ethereum, I will!
  - Breefield 9y ago
    Shoot! Explainer site missed the target. I wrote the "average person" page to be quite high level. Unfortunately the "nerdy" page became a little too nerdy. I should work on an "I'm a software developer who wants an intermediate technical understanding" or something like this.
    - pcthrowaway 9y ago
      I'm still learning what the fuck ethereum is, but it seems like it could have some revolutionary implications for the political process, am I right? Maybe add an "Explain it like I'm a nerdy politician" (and also an "Explain it like I'm a nanny-state politician" for the politicians more interested in regulating it and protecting the children, than leveraging it)
    - chuckdries 9y ago
      Me and all my coworkers are in this boat and would greatly appreciate a "I'm a software developer who wants an intermediate technical understanding" page!

mikenew 9y ago

There's one point in particular that took me a while to grasp: while you can write code that runs on the Ethereum network, every single node has to process that code. So if, for example, you had a big 3d animation sequence that you wanted to have rendered, you would not just send that code off to the network to be processed. You would have to pay to have every single person on the network process that job for you, and it would be so big the network wouldn't even accept it. Rather, you would create a simple contract that says "if you render this animation for me and prove that you did it right, I'll pay you X amount of Ether". Someone would take the job and the Ethereum network would process your contract and handle the payment. You would end up paying that person to do work for you, and you'd pay the network (using something called gas) to process the contract. You could use Ethereum to create all kinds of interesting contracts for financial purposes, voting systems, insurance, or whatever else. But it's not some giant compute cluster that will run some big program for you.

bsmithers 9y ago
Thanks. In your example, how could one hope to prove they had rendered the animation correctly? Presumably each node must be able to verify the correctness of this in order to process the contract?
- mikenew 9y ago
  I think that's still an open problem. You could render a few random tiles from a few frames to build some confidence in the result. You could also build a reputation system, also running on ethereum, to establish who is trustworthy.
ChrisClark 9y ago
Definitely a very constrained system to write in. For anyone who loves to write compact optimized code though, Solidity is very fun to write. Squeezing out every last little bit of gas. With the Viper language in development being even more low level there could be a good market for developers who can create solid contracts. VISA recently posted a job opening looking for a Solidity developer. I think with how rare those developers are, you would be in a really great place to negotiate your salary.

aqsheehy 9y ago

A framework for creating ponzis

blunte 9y ago
I'm sure you're only partly joking, but sadly it does seem to be one of the biggest first uses. Oh and lotteries - those are popular. On the other hand, people will continue to run ponzi schemes as long as there are greedy/ignorant people to attract, so it might as well be done all visibly. At least then the guy running the ponzi can't just tell everyone "sorry, feds raided the bank, all the money is gone" when he actually just moved it offshore.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Instead they can just go "sorry, my site / wallet was hacked, all the money is gone"

Frogolocalypse 9y ago

The problem with ether isn't the tech of contracts but the implementation of the network. There are very concerning scalability issues that have not only not been addressed, but who's 'plan' for resolution are either untried systems in development (sharding) or have significant architectural issues (proof-of-stake) that very smart people think will never be resolved. I hope they overcome these obstacles, but the jury is still well and truly out.

joeyspn 9y ago

Ethereum has had a good start being the first mover in smart contracts, but EOS is coming and the value proposition is much more solid... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUZWZj1pu94 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUZWZj1pu94 Blockchain tech is evolving...

Jabanga 9y ago
EOS doesn't currently exist. It makes a lot of strong claims, and has delivered none of them yet.
- joeyspn 9y ago
  Larimer has delivered them already in his previous projects: BitShares and Steemit. That's more proven track record than what Ethereum had in early 2014, and that didn't stop people from supporting the idea. I for instance have been a strong supporter of Ethereum since day 0, but now I feel EOS (with DPoS and Graphene) is the next step in blockchain tech.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    Ethereum had no "solid" value proposition in 2014, and EOS doesn't have one now. You're overstating its proven value. We can share our opinions on the respective projects, but that's different from a demonstrable value proposition.
    - joeyspn 9y ago
      You should check the definition of value proposition. [0] Ethereum had one: "a cryptocurrency with a programming language beyond opcodes" EOS value proposition is: "a platform for building DApps beyond PoW (using DPoS) and industry-ready TPS (with Graphene[1])". Both DPoS and Graphene are inventions of Larimer. For many this is enough, and that reflects why it's already a top 15 crypto. [0] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueproposition.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueproposition.asp [1] http://docs.bitshares.org/ http://docs.bitshares.org/

skrowl 9y ago

Wow, I actually own some ETH on coinbase and had no idea it was more than just a competing crypto currency.

amadeuspzs 9y ago

Hats off to attempting to explain a deeply technical topic to a variety of audiences, acknowledging different learner needs. A lot of posters here would probably benefit from taking a humanistic approach to explaining what they do to non-hacker news readers!

ksikka 9y ago

What is Ethereum _useful_ for? When would I need it? Why is AWS (et al) not sufficient?

turblety 9y ago
Decentralization and auditing. If you put some code on AWS there are two potential issues. Firstly you don't know if AWS has actually run your code. They could potentially replace your code with their own modified version which does something malicious (like add a bias). For example in a voting system, code could be modified to ignore X percentage of unfavourable votes, or change unfavourable votes to a more favourable candidate. Secondly I don't know what your code on AWS does. This isn't great for financial and voting systems that should be audit able. With Ethereum you can view the code for a contract to validate it does not "cheat". You can also trust the contract was executed correctly because the miners have validated it and added it to the block chain.
- ksikka 9y ago
  Thank you.
jacoblambda 9y ago
well, not specifically ethereum but stuff like siacoin provide cheaper options than AWS and while I personally cannot attest to the performance, they seem to be interesting alternatives.[1] In the case of siacoin, at face value it seems to be significantly cheaper than AWS or Google Cloud for providing bulk cloud storage. [1] http://sia.tech/ http://sia.tech/
- hanklazard 9y ago
  Even more exciting for me is IPFS and Filecoin. Seems like this pairing could allow for a truly decentralized Internet. Ycombinator had one of the founders / lead programmers on the podcast in the last few weeks and I highly recommend it!
- Itsdijital 9y ago

cm2187 9y ago

Another cryptocurrency? This is becoming a hyper inflation of crypto currencies...

whitelable 9y ago

Here is the problem with ethereum business model. All new token created by ethereum are whitelable tokens. Each ico token brings new investors to own ethereum boosting its price. These new whitelable tokens are the. Exchanged for ethereum to provide funding. Each new project raises funds and lists it's token on an exchange. This boosts the value of the white lable token at a multiple of the amount raises in ethereum. Now companies need to spend money on there projects have to sell ethereum to fund there projects. This selling of ether raised by ico is at a multiple of the original amount raises in ether from new investors introduced to ico investing. This means mass e inflation on value will collapse as up funded projects sell their ether for operating funds. Can anyone explain how this voodoo economics can work for investors as a whole?

whitelable 9y ago

Here is the problem with ethereum business model. All new token created by ethereum are whitelable tokens. Each ico token brings new investors to own ethereum boosting its price. These new whitelable tokens are the. Exchanged for ethereum to provide funding. Each new project raises funds and lists it's token on an exchange. This boosts the value of the white lable token at a multiple of the amount raises in ethereum. Now companies need to spend money on there projects have to sell ethereum to fund there projects. This selling of ether raised by ico is at a multiple of the original amount raised in ether from new investors introduced to ico investing. This means mass e inflation on value will collapse as up funded projects sell their ether for operating funds. Can anyone explain how this voodoo economics can work for investors as a whole?

thinbeige 9y ago

Nice thread but the issue I always have with all discussions around cryptocurrencies is: I never know if the person who just worshipped or criticized a specific currency has a vested interest. Somebody who sits on billions of ETH will write totally different tham someboy who is shorting/margin trading ETH.

eyezick 9y ago
A good litmus test is the level of technical depth of discussion, it's very easy to discuss hypothetical achievements at a high-level of any cryptoasset, but to be able to get into the details demonstrates knowledge beyond any regular trader as well as provides possibly objective reasons to be argued with.
- thinbeige 9y ago
  Good point. There is one guy in he thread who doubts that ETH will scale. He stays quite meta but sounds credible because he gives one or two good reasons. Still it's hard to judge if it's just a claim or is it substantial, is it crucial for the success anyway? This whole cryptothing feels like gambling, 'put all your money on red, red will win..'
  - Taek 9y ago
    The state of the art for theoretical blockchains is that, to maintain security, you need every single node to process every single transaction. No proposed solution to fix this can maintain anywhere near the same level of security, and while we are making progress on that issue, I think it's still pretty far away.

qbaqbaqba 9y ago

Another cryptocurrency based scam?

moomin 9y ago

I'm being sniffy here, and the technical achievement of Ethereum is considerable, but were I talking about a general contract computing platform, I'd want one where I could demonstrate the assertions the code makes. And that basically means a dependently typed functional programming language. I'd start with Idris, but even that might need strengthening before DAO-style issues were hard to find.

DennisP 9y ago
Here's a masters thesis by someone who made Idris compile to the Ethereum virtual machine. https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/234939/234939.pdf https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/234939...
- moomin 9y ago
  That's cool (Idris seems to have an infinitely pluggable back end), but it's not the same thing. You can code in a higher-level language, but you can't inspect another program's guarantees and you can't safely use them within your own system.

kensai 9y ago

I love that the article ends in this line: "Support this website! Send ETH to: 0x1c4d1804AD9d47de0D4209882843998E03E30dF9"

Mooty 9y ago
I was curious so I checked, actually two persons gave him some food : https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c4d1804ad9d47de0d4209882843998e03e30df9 https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c4d1804ad9d47de0d42098828439... ~ 40$

sitepodmatt 9y ago

The best way to think of ethereum is bitcoin with more flexibility, and its immutability define by owners* tolerance for loss. When vladmir and slock.it lose money they just roll it back. * owners being the slack group with 90% of the mining power. There exists shitcoins with more credibility than ethereum

RexetBlell 9y ago
Can we please stop bringing up slock.it and the DAO fork. It was more than a year ago and it's time to move on.
- sitepodmatt 9y ago
  Why? It is quite defining. I would judge a bank on how it behaved 12 months ago, or 24 months, or 10 years ago. if(lapsed > months(12)) { forget; } errr no..

thenerdfiles 9y ago

The protocol is not distributed, the application state is, as a shared memory system. It's fundamentally incompatible with hosting the web, for instance, since hypermedia is supposed to be the engine of application state as the web is fundamentally a distributed hypermedia application.

pimeys 9y ago

What is the best place to have discussions about Ethereum? I tried to follow the Reddit group, but I don't really need all the hype. I just need information and opinions on writing contracts and developing applications that use Ethereum network. I'm also very interested in the psychological side of trading and different trading strategies. No fuzz, just reasonable discussion.

abrkn 9y ago
Slack channels are widely used by developers in the cryptocurrency space. I also recommend trying to find local meetups.
DennisP 9y ago
For dev, there's /r/ethdev and various channels at https://gitter.im/ethereum https://gitter.im/ethereum, along with https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/ https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/. There are some attempts at serious trading subreddits, but so far nothing that seems that informative to me.

ruiquelhas 9y ago

Don't need a whole website to tell me it is just a vehicle for fraudulent securities.

amygdyl 9y ago

Can anyone help me with a reference for any study that has been published on the status of research for the conditions of successful crypto currency launches? Or a serious reputable journal reviewing the literature comprehensively? If I'm unable to find filling for the gaps in the study I seek, I'm inclined to think that I have a good chance of being able to work towards a (sincerely and despite being tempted by the ad rates) non spammy simple site to collate the references, this summer. So if you have any suggestions for the effort I will with about 70% probability undertake, I'd be happy to hear from you as well.

runeks 9y ago

Ethereum is very simple in essence: it's a Turing-complete version of Bitcoin. The way you transfer a bitcoin from one person to another is by creating a Bitcoin transaction that contains an input script that fulfills an in-blockchain output script with which a number of bitcoins are associated. The output script may say "provide a public key that hashes to <some_hash> and a signature, over a transaction (which sends the bitcoins to a new output script) that redeems this output, that verifies against this public key". Bitcoins script language -- conditions be fulfilled to transfer tokens associated with one output script to a new output script -- is not Turing-complete, which means it's limited in how complex a condition can be set up for redemption. Ethereum's script language is Turing complete, allowing arbitrarily complex conditions for fulfilling an output script (which allows you to transfer coins/tokens from that output script to a new one).

Taek 9y ago
Worth adding perhaps that Bitcoin is intentionally not Turing complete, as the complexity opens up a very big space for vulnerabilities. And indeed, we see a lot of those in ethereum contacts.
- UncleMeat 9y ago
  Yup. Why people would want turing complete contracts is completely beyond me. There is a reason why we use heavily restricted computational systems for high integrity systems. Until somebody is doing some sort of model checking on my smart contract you can count me out.
- runeks 9y ago
  The DAO failed because of a lack of strong typing in the contract language, not because of Turing completeness. The main problem with a Turing-complete contract language is that it becomes impossible to statically verify runtime properties, so a node can't know how long it will take to verify a transaction it receives. This opens up for denial-of-service attacks, e.g. embedding a transaction with an infinite loop in a block in the blockchain.
  - 9y ago

myautsai 9y ago

Ethereum is an awesome idea, but before any practical Ether application booms, it's more like a bubble. If you're interested in why there's also a token named "Ethereum Classic(ETC)", you can search "DAO" on Google to explore more about why the first largest Ethereum application DAO was failed and why this leads to the hard fork(ETH => ETC, ETH) of Ethereum. As far as decentralized storage is concerned, there's production-already a blockchain-based product named Sia (http://sia.tech/ http://sia.tech/ ), but Swarm (which is a similar thing based on Ethereum) is still in very early stage.

myautsai 9y ago

aphextron 9y ago

I'm still confused. Is this anything beyond another opt-in botnet at it's core?

retox 9y ago

An establishment backed control job.

ourmandave 9y ago

Wouldn't whatthefuckisethereum.edu make more sense for an educational site?

vultour 9y ago
.edu addresses are restricted to educational institutions in the US afaik.

Temasik 9y ago

Ethereum is not immutable centralized and full of bugs Good luck in the long run

trumpisyourdad 9y ago

it's trash. lolcrpyton00bz.

trumpisyourdad 9y ago

it's trash. plain and simple.

danra 9y ago

The time estimate listed for an in-depth reading of the Yellow Paper (54 minutes) is... optimistic.

flaviuspopan 9y ago

Yo songzme, I have to thank you for throwing this up because as a result, I've since stumbled on 3Blue1Brown and his awesome video on crypto and math in general. You linked his video the same day he posted it, and I couldn't have been happier to find something that explained it in laymen terms so well. I've been meaning to solidify my understanding for friends and family, so thanks for sharing! Cheers mate.

dahoramanodoceu 9y ago
Link?
- metasyn 9y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBC-nXj3Ng4

djhworld 9y ago

What are people using Ethereum for though. Outside of trading it between each other based on price speculation, is there a real world thing that isn't a prototype that people are using as part of the smart contract system?

ojr 9y ago

I don't believe all ICOs are illegal ICO tokens are digital commodities/assets that are more similar to app credits or in-app mobile purchases than securities. Unlike with Ethereum apps/dapps, you can't trade traditional app credits/in-app purchases on an exchange but imagine if there were farmville ERC-20 tokens a few years backs, people will buy thousands off speculation alone, it'll be interesting to see how the SEC will regulate this

dewyatt 9y ago

I know I'll get hate for not commenting on the actual content of this article, but...why is this only taking up 1/3rd of my horizontal screen space? Perhaps all that space could be used to show the images alongside the text? > here’s what we’ll talk about: (with links if you want to jump to a specific section). Holy smokes, it's got links! Good thing he pointed it out to me since I never could have figured that out by the visual indicators that every web browser adds to links.