16 ms·

Master Card, Cisco, and Scotiabank Join the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance

448 points by 52-6F-62 9y ago

33W 9y ago
I see the mastercard logo, but not included in the list.
- tyrust 9y ago
  See this reddit comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/enterprise_ethereum_alliance_becomes_worlds/dke47x0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/enterprise...): >AK on behalf of EEA here. Mastercard is indeed a new member of EEA. They asked not to be in the press release document but approved being on the EEA official website. They may be doing their own communications on this.
45h34jh53k4j 9y ago
If you are into the EEA, you should check it out its cousin, the Monero Enterprise Alliance: https://mea.business/ https://mea.business/
- 086421357909764 9y ago
  I've heard great things about their fungability.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- wmf 9y ago
  I find the backstory pretty funny (because I didn't lose money, of course): One of the leaders of Monero decided to red-team his own community. http://bitsonline.com/fluffypony-speaks-troll-monero-market/ http://bitsonline.com/fluffypony-speaks-troll-monero-market/
- OJFord 9y ago
  Slightly off-topic: it's a pretty unfortunate acronym, also standing for European Economic Area.
52-6F-62 9y ago
I heard the head of R&D (of Scotiabank) talk at a conference a little over a month ago and at the time he made it seem like Scotiabank had experimented with existing cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech and were disatisfied and thought it would be some time before the technology was approachable for their bank. I guess they were just playing coy.
- sputknick 9y ago
  Or, that statement is true, but the genuinely want to explore blockchain technology and thought joining the EEA would be the best way to do that.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    Quite possible. They've definitely obfuscated their hand. Their R&D department is respectable, I have to say, so I'm sure whatever approach they're taking is measured. Seeing as the EEA is primarily a group to coordinate research and development on this implementation of blockchain tech, it makes sense to join even as an investigation into it.
- mbloom1915 9y ago
  I too saw that guy speak and spoke to him before he went on. Oddly dismissive of all things crypto/blockchains....
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    At BigDataTO/AIToronto? There was a lot of positivity toward blockchain tech on whole. My favourite was Dr. Dan McGillivray (Associate, Yeates School of Graduate Studies)[0] dept discussing Toronto's [and Brooklyn's] microgrid projects. I really enjoyed Suhail's[1] talk. He came from engineering as I recall, so as a lead he was very in tune with the technicals. He was also very cautious. I don't think he was too down on blockchain tech as a potential solution for certain problems (otherwise why bother experimenting), but he was very clear about their sentiment toward existing cryptocurrencies. However, I'm starting to think maybe he was referring more to Bitcoin because of the selection of his audience -- which was largely bankers and other corporate non-technicals receiving an introduction to new tech. But overall the sentiment seemed to lean toward positivity, even if it was not directed at a singular implementation. [0] https://www.canadianinstitute.com/ontario-power-277w15-tor/speakers/dan-mcgillivray-b-a-m-sc-ph-d/ https://www.canadianinstitute.com/ontario-power-277w15-tor/s... [1] https://twitter.com/suhailshergill?lang=en https://twitter.com/suhailshergill?lang=en [1] https://github.com/suhailshergill https://github.com/suhailshergill
lpasselin 9y ago
What are the advantages Ethereum has over Bitcoin, except faster transactions?
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  More capable embedded code that can implement interesting criteria to be enforced on transactions.
  - benmowa 9y ago
    I'm just learning but are there any real world examples of this yet? any idea what % of transactions utilize this today?
    - tyrust 9y ago
      >I'm just learning but are there any real world examples of this yet? Yes. The whitepaper lists many potential applications [0]. Some interesting ones today include issuing tokens for crowdsales ("ICO"s), gambling applications (FunFair), distributed computing (Golem), peer-to-peer payments and distributed apps (Status). There are many more that I am not familiar with. >any idea what % of transactions utilize this today? https://etherscan.io/accounts/c https://etherscan.io/accounts/c lists all smart contracts along with the amount of ETH they hold and the number of transactions that have called them. This doesn't completely answer your question, sorry. [0] - https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper#applications https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper#applicatio...
    - skulquake 9y ago
      Your probably looking for some working examples of dApps (decentralized apps). Install MetaMask for Chrome and visit one of these sites: http://etheroll.com http://etheroll.com, http://etherdelta.github.io http://etherdelta.github.io, and http://oasisdex.com http://oasisdex.com are all working examples of smart contracts at work.
  - metroidfan832 9y ago
    That is a disadvantage. You can shoot yourself in the foot with real money.
Torai 9y ago
> The EEA describes itself as a standards group designed to help enterprises build their own interoperable technology, mostly using private versions of the ethereum blockchain. Ether price soaring right now, but isn't Master Card's bussiness direct competition of the public Ethereum blockchain as a payment system?
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  They were reportedly doing research about two months ago into using Ripple as a cross border payment solution.[0] Circle is using Ethereum presently for cross-border payments. It might be that they're investigating Ethereum for a similar purpose. [0] edited for link: http://www.amis.org.mx/amis/img/convenciones/2017/PDF/Plenarias/dia2/1_Antonio_Alejo_KPMG.pdf http://www.amis.org.mx/amis/img/convenciones/2017/PDF/Plenar...
- wuliwong 9y ago
  I have always thought that but it just crossed my mind that credit cards are basically just terrible loans. You could still give out loans in cryptocurrencies. Maybe Master Card could just switch if a particular crypto currency gained wide adoption. They could start issuing new cards with some sort of technology that allowed for cryptocurrency transactions at businesses. Or maybe they can use existing card tech, I really don't know anything about that.
  - SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
    What makes them terrible loans? Also, much of the benefit of credit cards is from the fraud protection and mediation that companies provide -- it's not so much that they're loaning me $X00, but that they're covering the transaction details against fraudulent use and provide a dispute mechanism if don't feel the merchant has lived up to their offer post payment. I find it much more likely that MC is trying to be the MC of cryptocurrencies -- eg, by packaging up a USB dongle that automates transactions using "secure" means, which they then insure against abuse. From that perspective, ETH makes a reasonable platform.
    - 9y ago
jdlyga 9y ago
It's too bad that Etherium prices are down so much right now from a few weeks ago.
- hackbinary 9y ago
  Does that make it a good time to buy?
  - andrey-g 9y ago
    yes
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - drcode 9y ago
    It certainly makes "yesterday" a good day to buy.
- nxsynonym 9y ago
  It's only bad if you bought in at the peak expecting it to keep climbing. ETH price fluctuates wildly. The latest dip had no real connection to any news, all speculation. My advice: If you believe in the tech, buy in. If you are looking for a get-rich-quick investment, be prepared to lose a ton of money.
  - loceng 9y ago
    The only tech you need to technically believe in is that blockchain could be used as a currency - which it already does act as, and then it is a matter of adoption.
    - PeterisP 9y ago
      Which blockchain? In the long run, most likely a blockchain would be used as a currency and it will have a quite large market cap, and the others will be near zero.
Veelox 9y ago
It seems like Ethereum is getting a lot more industry support than Bitcoin ever did. If Ethereum continues it looks like it could kill off Bitcon, the looming possibility of a hard fork might be contributing make that happen really soon.
- jerguismi 9y ago
  Is this industry support, or more collaborative research project like R3? I have talked to some bank representatives, and while they have been testing ethereum technology, they do it on their private chains on their private networks. No word of production use. In general banks seem to budget a lot of funds towards various r&d activity, on which majority of stuff never ends up anywhere.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    It's industry support for this particular implementation of blockchain tech, which seems to have a validating effect on the larger community surrounding it. There have been talks/speculation about interaction between the public chain and private chains in an analog to internet/intranet relationships -- that is, being of a common protocol.
    - jerguismi 9y ago
      The question is, do they use or plan to use this technology in production? I very much doubt that, at least anytime soon. However great opportunity to pump the price :)
      - 52-6F-62 9y ago
        I suppose it depends on whether or not their work with other members of the EEA produces anything viable. If not, c'est la vie. It's a step in that direction, though. I think it's definitely a plus to have industry-experienced groups participating in looking into whether or not the tech is worthwhile. (It's kind of the Jobs-mind to the Wozniaks who dominate the space presently)
CalChris 9y ago
I suppose the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance should be contrasted with IBM and friends Hyperledger. These are a couple of well backed consortia which from 30,000 feet are similar. https://www.hyperledger.org/ https://www.hyperledger.org/
- 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
  What exactly is hyperledger solving?
  - jcousins 9y ago
    From what I have seen and read, they aren't solving problems that haven't already been solved, merely attempting to improve the security and efficiency of a solution. One example they have touted is their work with Maersk on tracking shipping containers and their contents in a tamper-proof fashion as well as providing a way to interact with that data. Will any of this really result in greater efficiency, interoperability and savings? Time will tell.
iosDrone 9y ago
To the moon!
- icemelt8 9y ago
  lambo
Asdfbla 9y ago
Always surprises me a bit because it seems to me like those large corporate players don't necessarily need all the features offered by Ethereum (or Bitcoin), especially proof-of-work, since there's enough non-adversarial cooperation between them that a simple distributed ledger with traditional (efficient) consensus mechanisms would suffice for most of their applications. They wouldn't have to deal with the drawbacks of Ethereum's very strict threat model. I'm curious what applications they have in mind, or if they maybe just participate to get in on the hype and explore their options.
- lifeisstillgood 9y ago
  >> maybe just participate to get in on the hype and explore their options. Yes. Or rather a small group in the company, that is trying to get political advantage, improve its profile, or simply impress the boss' boss, put together a convincing internal reason to join the alliance, and with high enough backing it becomes real. Something like that project was undoubtedly tried in every major bank and finance house - the few that got through shows that the internal decision making at those other places is actually working quite well :-)
- PretzelPirate 9y ago
  Those companies are using Ethereum without PoW in their private networks. They plug in a different consensus model.
  - kaoD 9y ago
    Are they? I know it's possible but I can't think of a single use where traditional software and/or contracts are more convenient. What does Ethereum with no PoW bring to the table?
    - homero 9y ago
      Centralization which is what they want
    - craigc 9y ago
spocklivelong 9y ago
I'm really surprised at seeing Govt. of Andhra Pradesh here. Curious how they got here in the first place.
- Angostura 9y ago
  Microlending applications?
otto_ortega 9y ago
Based on this, it seems to me that financial corporations didn't want to take the risk of decentralized crypto-currencies making them obsolete, so they decided to create their own crypto-currency, one they can control...
- komaromy 9y ago
  Regardless of your opinions about Ethereum, its origins were decidedly non-corporate.
  - avaer 9y ago
    According to Wikipedia it was started as, and at, a Swiss corporation, followed by raising a crowd investment. So it was a funded corporation before it was a cryptocurrency.
    - jacoblambda 9y ago
      however that swiss corporation is Ethereum Switzerland GmbH which kinda exists for the sole purpose of making Ethereum
      - cc438 9y ago
        It exists for the sole purpose of benefiting its investors and whoever may be behind any investment fronts used to push that currency. I wonder who they might be?
        writtles 9y ago
        The Ethereum crowd sale participants?
  - colordrops 9y ago
    That is the opposite of the truth.
cmurf 9y ago
Andhra Pradesh, one of the four who have joined this alliance in the announcement, is a state of India. Visakhapatnam is its largest city, with just about 50 million people, more than the state of California.
- dx034 9y ago
  And it's great to see that they're interested in the technology. Blockchain could be a great way for governments to keep track of data in a transparent way and could potentially be implemented much cheaper than current database solutions.
wideem 9y ago
Ethereum as a currency will never go mainstream with a price swings like this
- companyhen 9y ago
  It's still very young, and I think there may be multiple dApps built with eth that will be used in real life in the next 5 years.
  - smnplk 9y ago
    maybe, but hundreds will just sit there without gas :)
- Voloskaya 9y ago
  Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is not about the currency, so I fail to see how this is relevant.
- julian_1 9y ago
  There are various price-stable currency projects hosted on the eth/evm, backed by uncorrelated off-chain and on-chain collateral.
- flashmob 9y ago
  Unlike bitcoin which was originally intended to be used by the consumer for paying for real-world things, ETH is mostly intended to be used for paying for 'gas' in order to execute code in the virtual machine. The good thing is that gas and ETH have been decoupled, which means that the gas prices are always constant, and what you pay per transaction tends to get automatically adjusted based on the price of Ether, so transaction costs don't fluctuate as much. What you're probably interested in are "Stable Coins", crypto that is pegged to a fiat currency such as the USD or EUR. It may be possible that stable coins may be developed to run on top of Ethereum as smart contracts. One interesting project under development is Maker Dao, see https://makerdao.com/ https://makerdao.com/
- dx034 9y ago
  No crypto-currency will be mainstream because payment verification takes longer. Credit cards can now confirm a payment in less than a second with contactless payments. Where those technologies will rather be used is in the background. Storing those payments or access to details across companies could be done more efficiently than currently.
abrkn 9y ago
At this time, there are 78 comments to this post, none of them addressing technical concerns. Quite unusual for HN. I've devoted my life to cryptocurrency since 2011 and still question whether or not this system even makes sense. It seems too expensive with the technology we have today. Once privacy, such as zk-SNARK, is added, it becomes unreasonable. Perhaps this is what a bubble looks like. I wasn't there for the dotcom boom. Loss of critical thinking.
- vm 9y ago
  Really intrigued by your comment! Could you elaborate on what drives the high cost? Or what would need to change for this to viable?
  - Jessica- 9y ago
    Annie replied I didn't even know that any one able to earn $8091 in four weeks on the computer ====http://cutt.us/7N2sG http://cutt.us/7N2sG
  - hudon 9y ago
    Decentralized validation and ordering of transactions is expensive. In Bitcoin, it requires: 1. Miners to validate 1MB of transactions every 10 minutes 2. Users to be able to confirm that the entire chain of transactions was properly validated by the miners Some ways to make #1 more efficient make #2 more difficult, so they are somewhat at odds with each other. For now, we're looking at a write throughput of between 1tps to 20tps for Bitcoin and Ethereum. If you don't care about #2, then you don't need the mining model anymore, or even a blockchain. You can just put all your transactions in MySQL, Cassandra, R3 Corda or whatever and you can subsequently crank up your transaction throughput. You can get >10,000tps with MySQL.
- keyle 9y ago
  It'd be great if you could expand on that. Why doesn't it make sense, why is it too expensive, why unreasonable?
  - 9y ago
dpc_pw 9y ago
How pointless. The whole point of Bitcoin was to have uncensorable, decentralized asset that can be used to exchange value without any trust etc. That is the only reason we endure this utterly shitty and inefficient blockchain thing, and we exchange money for this otherwise pointless online points. I have no problem with ETH as cryptocurrency / smart contract platform. But this whole Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is just one big BS. Etherum community is trying to pump ETH value by associating with brand names, and corporations are trying to pump their stock value by presenting themselves as innovative. BS - empty words and marketing gimmicks. Just read through that page. Just watch Blockchain vs. Bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEOKDVXlUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEOKDVXlUo
- subway 9y ago
  Enterprise Ethereum has almost nothing to do with Ethereum the public blockchain, or crypto-currency. Ethereum based blockchains (that is based on Ethereum the software, not the canonical global instance of that software) provide an ability to create an auditable log of events. Those events might be "who accessed my credit card account and when" or "who requested access to my health records and when". These chains can exist entirely independently of of the global "Ethereum" chain, and can operate entirely without the concept of a crypto-currency (aside from using it as a scheduling mechanism within your blockchain cluster). People need to stop getting hung up the cryptocurrency aspect of blockchains.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    I agree. Also, the EEA is more of an R&D coordination group than anything else. It's to see if there really is something there, and these companies have joined up their R&D departments and innovation labs to do so. They have a lot of industry pull, especially together -- so if there is something viable that comes out of it, most [North American/Asian at least] people can expect it to impact the way they do things, or the way the tools they use operate.
  - hudon 9y ago
    > Ethereum based blockchains provide an ability to create an auditable log of events If all they want is a log of events, why not use a tried and true database whose performance is more well understood? MySQL, Cassandra, whatever. You can add the ability to audit the tables by signing data updates with public key crypto.
Animats 9y ago
Where are the press releases from Master Card, Cisco, and Scotiabank about this? Press releases of "big company partners with little company", coming from the little company, are always suspicious. It may just mean "they signed up for our mailing list".
- QML 9y ago
  Seems like they're doing a separate press release. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/comment/dke47x0 https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/comment/dk...
Abishek_Muthian 9y ago
Title didn't mention the significant partner showcased in the website - 'Andhra Pradesh Government'. The first state govt (India) outside the US to join the alliance. AP was recently divided into separate state (Telengana) and lost it's capital (Hyderabad- home to top IT MNC's) to it. They are actively investing in Fintech, including a new institute for blockchain - http://www.apeita.in/blockchain/ http://www.apeita.in/blockchain/
evanvanness 9y ago
If you'd like an easy way to keep up to date on Ethereum: http://www.weekinethereum.com http://www.weekinethereum.com
whazor 9y ago
Ethereum itself can be used as a financial language, which can be quite revolutionary for the banking industry. Instead of using the proof of work consensus, banks could have their own consensus method. Which does allow for the order of scale that the real world needs.
ComodoHacker 9y ago
No mention of Master Card. Mods please edit the title.

448 points by 52-6F-62 9y ago

33W 9y ago

I see the mastercard logo, but not included in the list.

tyrust 9y ago
See this reddit comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/enterprise_ethereum_alliance_becomes_worlds/dke47x0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/enterprise...): >AK on behalf of EEA here. Mastercard is indeed a new member of EEA. They asked not to be in the press release document but approved being on the EEA official website. They may be doing their own communications on this.

45h34jh53k4j 9y ago

If you are into the EEA, you should check it out its cousin, the Monero Enterprise Alliance: https://mea.business/ https://mea.business/

086421357909764 9y ago
I've heard great things about their fungability.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
wmf 9y ago
I find the backstory pretty funny (because I didn't lose money, of course): One of the leaders of Monero decided to red-team his own community. http://bitsonline.com/fluffypony-speaks-troll-monero-market/ http://bitsonline.com/fluffypony-speaks-troll-monero-market/
OJFord 9y ago
Slightly off-topic: it's a pretty unfortunate acronym, also standing for European Economic Area.

52-6F-62 9y ago

I heard the head of R&D (of Scotiabank) talk at a conference a little over a month ago and at the time he made it seem like Scotiabank had experimented with existing cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech and were disatisfied and thought it would be some time before the technology was approachable for their bank. I guess they were just playing coy.

sputknick 9y ago
Or, that statement is true, but the genuinely want to explore blockchain technology and thought joining the EEA would be the best way to do that.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Quite possible. They've definitely obfuscated their hand. Their R&D department is respectable, I have to say, so I'm sure whatever approach they're taking is measured. Seeing as the EEA is primarily a group to coordinate research and development on this implementation of blockchain tech, it makes sense to join even as an investigation into it.
mbloom1915 9y ago
I too saw that guy speak and spoke to him before he went on. Oddly dismissive of all things crypto/blockchains....
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  At BigDataTO/AIToronto? There was a lot of positivity toward blockchain tech on whole. My favourite was Dr. Dan McGillivray (Associate, Yeates School of Graduate Studies)[0] dept discussing Toronto's [and Brooklyn's] microgrid projects. I really enjoyed Suhail's[1] talk. He came from engineering as I recall, so as a lead he was very in tune with the technicals. He was also very cautious. I don't think he was too down on blockchain tech as a potential solution for certain problems (otherwise why bother experimenting), but he was very clear about their sentiment toward existing cryptocurrencies. However, I'm starting to think maybe he was referring more to Bitcoin because of the selection of his audience -- which was largely bankers and other corporate non-technicals receiving an introduction to new tech. But overall the sentiment seemed to lean toward positivity, even if it was not directed at a singular implementation. [0] https://www.canadianinstitute.com/ontario-power-277w15-tor/speakers/dan-mcgillivray-b-a-m-sc-ph-d/ https://www.canadianinstitute.com/ontario-power-277w15-tor/s... [1] https://twitter.com/suhailshergill?lang=en https://twitter.com/suhailshergill?lang=en [1] https://github.com/suhailshergill https://github.com/suhailshergill

lpasselin 9y ago

What are the advantages Ethereum has over Bitcoin, except faster transactions?

JoshTriplett 9y ago
More capable embedded code that can implement interesting criteria to be enforced on transactions.
- benmowa 9y ago
  I'm just learning but are there any real world examples of this yet? any idea what % of transactions utilize this today?
  - tyrust 9y ago
    >I'm just learning but are there any real world examples of this yet? Yes. The whitepaper lists many potential applications [0]. Some interesting ones today include issuing tokens for crowdsales ("ICO"s), gambling applications (FunFair), distributed computing (Golem), peer-to-peer payments and distributed apps (Status). There are many more that I am not familiar with. >any idea what % of transactions utilize this today? https://etherscan.io/accounts/c https://etherscan.io/accounts/c lists all smart contracts along with the amount of ETH they hold and the number of transactions that have called them. This doesn't completely answer your question, sorry. [0] - https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper#applications https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper#applicatio...
  - skulquake 9y ago
    Your probably looking for some working examples of dApps (decentralized apps). Install MetaMask for Chrome and visit one of these sites: http://etheroll.com http://etheroll.com, http://etherdelta.github.io http://etherdelta.github.io, and http://oasisdex.com http://oasisdex.com are all working examples of smart contracts at work.
- metroidfan832 9y ago
  That is a disadvantage. You can shoot yourself in the foot with real money.

Torai 9y ago

> The EEA describes itself as a standards group designed to help enterprises build their own interoperable technology, mostly using private versions of the ethereum blockchain. Ether price soaring right now, but isn't Master Card's bussiness direct competition of the public Ethereum blockchain as a payment system?

52-6F-62 9y ago
They were reportedly doing research about two months ago into using Ripple as a cross border payment solution.[0] Circle is using Ethereum presently for cross-border payments. It might be that they're investigating Ethereum for a similar purpose. [0] edited for link: http://www.amis.org.mx/amis/img/convenciones/2017/PDF/Plenarias/dia2/1_Antonio_Alejo_KPMG.pdf http://www.amis.org.mx/amis/img/convenciones/2017/PDF/Plenar...
wuliwong 9y ago
I have always thought that but it just crossed my mind that credit cards are basically just terrible loans. You could still give out loans in cryptocurrencies. Maybe Master Card could just switch if a particular crypto currency gained wide adoption. They could start issuing new cards with some sort of technology that allowed for cryptocurrency transactions at businesses. Or maybe they can use existing card tech, I really don't know anything about that.
- SomeStupidPoint 9y ago
  What makes them terrible loans? Also, much of the benefit of credit cards is from the fraud protection and mediation that companies provide -- it's not so much that they're loaning me $X00, but that they're covering the transaction details against fraudulent use and provide a dispute mechanism if don't feel the merchant has lived up to their offer post payment. I find it much more likely that MC is trying to be the MC of cryptocurrencies -- eg, by packaging up a USB dongle that automates transactions using "secure" means, which they then insure against abuse. From that perspective, ETH makes a reasonable platform.
  - 9y ago

jdlyga 9y ago

It's too bad that Etherium prices are down so much right now from a few weeks ago.

hackbinary 9y ago
Does that make it a good time to buy?
- andrey-g 9y ago
  yes
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- drcode 9y ago
  It certainly makes "yesterday" a good day to buy.
nxsynonym 9y ago
It's only bad if you bought in at the peak expecting it to keep climbing. ETH price fluctuates wildly. The latest dip had no real connection to any news, all speculation. My advice: If you believe in the tech, buy in. If you are looking for a get-rich-quick investment, be prepared to lose a ton of money.
- loceng 9y ago
  The only tech you need to technically believe in is that blockchain could be used as a currency - which it already does act as, and then it is a matter of adoption.
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    Which blockchain? In the long run, most likely a blockchain would be used as a currency and it will have a quite large market cap, and the others will be near zero.

Veelox 9y ago

It seems like Ethereum is getting a lot more industry support than Bitcoin ever did. If Ethereum continues it looks like it could kill off Bitcon, the looming possibility of a hard fork might be contributing make that happen really soon.

jerguismi 9y ago
Is this industry support, or more collaborative research project like R3? I have talked to some bank representatives, and while they have been testing ethereum technology, they do it on their private chains on their private networks. No word of production use. In general banks seem to budget a lot of funds towards various r&d activity, on which majority of stuff never ends up anywhere.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  It's industry support for this particular implementation of blockchain tech, which seems to have a validating effect on the larger community surrounding it. There have been talks/speculation about interaction between the public chain and private chains in an analog to internet/intranet relationships -- that is, being of a common protocol.
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    The question is, do they use or plan to use this technology in production? I very much doubt that, at least anytime soon. However great opportunity to pump the price :)
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      I suppose it depends on whether or not their work with other members of the EEA produces anything viable. If not, c'est la vie. It's a step in that direction, though. I think it's definitely a plus to have industry-experienced groups participating in looking into whether or not the tech is worthwhile. (It's kind of the Jobs-mind to the Wozniaks who dominate the space presently)

CalChris 9y ago

I suppose the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance should be contrasted with IBM and friends Hyperledger. These are a couple of well backed consortia which from 30,000 feet are similar. https://www.hyperledger.org/ https://www.hyperledger.org/

2_listerine_pls 9y ago
What exactly is hyperledger solving?
- jcousins 9y ago
  From what I have seen and read, they aren't solving problems that haven't already been solved, merely attempting to improve the security and efficiency of a solution. One example they have touted is their work with Maersk on tracking shipping containers and their contents in a tamper-proof fashion as well as providing a way to interact with that data. Will any of this really result in greater efficiency, interoperability and savings? Time will tell.

iosDrone 9y ago

To the moon!

icemelt8 9y ago
lambo

Asdfbla 9y ago

Always surprises me a bit because it seems to me like those large corporate players don't necessarily need all the features offered by Ethereum (or Bitcoin), especially proof-of-work, since there's enough non-adversarial cooperation between them that a simple distributed ledger with traditional (efficient) consensus mechanisms would suffice for most of their applications. They wouldn't have to deal with the drawbacks of Ethereum's very strict threat model. I'm curious what applications they have in mind, or if they maybe just participate to get in on the hype and explore their options.

lifeisstillgood 9y ago
>> maybe just participate to get in on the hype and explore their options. Yes. Or rather a small group in the company, that is trying to get political advantage, improve its profile, or simply impress the boss' boss, put together a convincing internal reason to join the alliance, and with high enough backing it becomes real. Something like that project was undoubtedly tried in every major bank and finance house - the few that got through shows that the internal decision making at those other places is actually working quite well :-)
PretzelPirate 9y ago
Those companies are using Ethereum without PoW in their private networks. They plug in a different consensus model.
- kaoD 9y ago
  Are they? I know it's possible but I can't think of a single use where traditional software and/or contracts are more convenient. What does Ethereum with no PoW bring to the table?
  - homero 9y ago
    Centralization which is what they want
  - craigc 9y ago

spocklivelong 9y ago

I'm really surprised at seeing Govt. of Andhra Pradesh here. Curious how they got here in the first place.

Angostura 9y ago
Microlending applications?

otto_ortega 9y ago

Based on this, it seems to me that financial corporations didn't want to take the risk of decentralized crypto-currencies making them obsolete, so they decided to create their own crypto-currency, one they can control...

komaromy 9y ago
Regardless of your opinions about Ethereum, its origins were decidedly non-corporate.
- avaer 9y ago
  According to Wikipedia it was started as, and at, a Swiss corporation, followed by raising a crowd investment. So it was a funded corporation before it was a cryptocurrency.
  - jacoblambda 9y ago
    however that swiss corporation is Ethereum Switzerland GmbH which kinda exists for the sole purpose of making Ethereum
    - cc438 9y ago
      It exists for the sole purpose of benefiting its investors and whoever may be behind any investment fronts used to push that currency. I wonder who they might be?
      - writtles 9y ago
        The Ethereum crowd sale participants?
- colordrops 9y ago
  That is the opposite of the truth.

cmurf 9y ago

Andhra Pradesh, one of the four who have joined this alliance in the announcement, is a state of India. Visakhapatnam is its largest city, with just about 50 million people, more than the state of California.

dx034 9y ago
And it's great to see that they're interested in the technology. Blockchain could be a great way for governments to keep track of data in a transparent way and could potentially be implemented much cheaper than current database solutions.

wideem 9y ago

Ethereum as a currency will never go mainstream with a price swings like this

companyhen 9y ago
It's still very young, and I think there may be multiple dApps built with eth that will be used in real life in the next 5 years.
- smnplk 9y ago
  maybe, but hundreds will just sit there without gas :)
Voloskaya 9y ago
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is not about the currency, so I fail to see how this is relevant.
julian_1 9y ago
There are various price-stable currency projects hosted on the eth/evm, backed by uncorrelated off-chain and on-chain collateral.
flashmob 9y ago
Unlike bitcoin which was originally intended to be used by the consumer for paying for real-world things, ETH is mostly intended to be used for paying for 'gas' in order to execute code in the virtual machine. The good thing is that gas and ETH have been decoupled, which means that the gas prices are always constant, and what you pay per transaction tends to get automatically adjusted based on the price of Ether, so transaction costs don't fluctuate as much. What you're probably interested in are "Stable Coins", crypto that is pegged to a fiat currency such as the USD or EUR. It may be possible that stable coins may be developed to run on top of Ethereum as smart contracts. One interesting project under development is Maker Dao, see https://makerdao.com/ https://makerdao.com/
dx034 9y ago
No crypto-currency will be mainstream because payment verification takes longer. Credit cards can now confirm a payment in less than a second with contactless payments. Where those technologies will rather be used is in the background. Storing those payments or access to details across companies could be done more efficiently than currently.

abrkn 9y ago

At this time, there are 78 comments to this post, none of them addressing technical concerns. Quite unusual for HN. I've devoted my life to cryptocurrency since 2011 and still question whether or not this system even makes sense. It seems too expensive with the technology we have today. Once privacy, such as zk-SNARK, is added, it becomes unreasonable. Perhaps this is what a bubble looks like. I wasn't there for the dotcom boom. Loss of critical thinking.

vm 9y ago
Really intrigued by your comment! Could you elaborate on what drives the high cost? Or what would need to change for this to viable?
- Jessica- 9y ago
  Annie replied I didn't even know that any one able to earn $8091 in four weeks on the computer ====http://cutt.us/7N2sG http://cutt.us/7N2sG
- hudon 9y ago
  Decentralized validation and ordering of transactions is expensive. In Bitcoin, it requires: 1. Miners to validate 1MB of transactions every 10 minutes 2. Users to be able to confirm that the entire chain of transactions was properly validated by the miners Some ways to make #1 more efficient make #2 more difficult, so they are somewhat at odds with each other. For now, we're looking at a write throughput of between 1tps to 20tps for Bitcoin and Ethereum. If you don't care about #2, then you don't need the mining model anymore, or even a blockchain. You can just put all your transactions in MySQL, Cassandra, R3 Corda or whatever and you can subsequently crank up your transaction throughput. You can get >10,000tps with MySQL.
keyle 9y ago
It'd be great if you could expand on that. Why doesn't it make sense, why is it too expensive, why unreasonable?
- 9y ago

dpc_pw 9y ago

How pointless. The whole point of Bitcoin was to have uncensorable, decentralized asset that can be used to exchange value without any trust etc. That is the only reason we endure this utterly shitty and inefficient blockchain thing, and we exchange money for this otherwise pointless online points. I have no problem with ETH as cryptocurrency / smart contract platform. But this whole Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is just one big BS. Etherum community is trying to pump ETH value by associating with brand names, and corporations are trying to pump their stock value by presenting themselves as innovative. BS - empty words and marketing gimmicks. Just read through that page. Just watch Blockchain vs. Bullshit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEOKDVXlUo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMEOKDVXlUo

subway 9y ago
Enterprise Ethereum has almost nothing to do with Ethereum the public blockchain, or crypto-currency. Ethereum based blockchains (that is based on Ethereum the software, not the canonical global instance of that software) provide an ability to create an auditable log of events. Those events might be "who accessed my credit card account and when" or "who requested access to my health records and when". These chains can exist entirely independently of of the global "Ethereum" chain, and can operate entirely without the concept of a crypto-currency (aside from using it as a scheduling mechanism within your blockchain cluster). People need to stop getting hung up the cryptocurrency aspect of blockchains.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  I agree. Also, the EEA is more of an R&D coordination group than anything else. It's to see if there really is something there, and these companies have joined up their R&D departments and innovation labs to do so. They have a lot of industry pull, especially together -- so if there is something viable that comes out of it, most [North American/Asian at least] people can expect it to impact the way they do things, or the way the tools they use operate.
- hudon 9y ago
  > Ethereum based blockchains provide an ability to create an auditable log of events If all they want is a log of events, why not use a tried and true database whose performance is more well understood? MySQL, Cassandra, whatever. You can add the ability to audit the tables by signing data updates with public key crypto.

Animats 9y ago

Where are the press releases from Master Card, Cisco, and Scotiabank about this? Press releases of "big company partners with little company", coming from the little company, are always suspicious. It may just mean "they signed up for our mailing list".

QML 9y ago
Seems like they're doing a separate press release. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/comment/dke47x0 https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6o2o3d/comment/dk...

Abishek_Muthian 9y ago

Title didn't mention the significant partner showcased in the website - 'Andhra Pradesh Government'. The first state govt (India) outside the US to join the alliance. AP was recently divided into separate state (Telengana) and lost it's capital (Hyderabad- home to top IT MNC's) to it. They are actively investing in Fintech, including a new institute for blockchain - http://www.apeita.in/blockchain/ http://www.apeita.in/blockchain/

evanvanness 9y ago

If you'd like an easy way to keep up to date on Ethereum: http://www.weekinethereum.com http://www.weekinethereum.com

whazor 9y ago

Ethereum itself can be used as a financial language, which can be quite revolutionary for the banking industry. Instead of using the proof of work consensus, banks could have their own consensus method. Which does allow for the order of scale that the real world needs.

ComodoHacker 9y ago

No mention of Master Card. Mods please edit the title.