4 ms·

Ethereum. Funfair is also looking good.

nwah1 9y ago
Ethereum is not an ICO, it is a cryptocurrency and a platform, and it hosts approximately zero useful software services. Nobody is eagerly awaiting new features of some blockchain app they use, which makes their life better in any way. They are looking at the price charts.
- charlesdm 9y ago
  Not an ICO in the traditional sense perhaps. There's plenty of useful stuff being built upon Ethereum. The platform itself is also still in development and improving with every update. People need to give projects more than 5 minutes to succeed. Not that I disagree however plenty of money will be lost on useless projects. But that's just the nature of the game (excluding any obvious scams). Plenty (nearly all) of venture capital money is wasted as well.
  - eugeniub 9y ago
    4+ years since Ethereum was proposed is a lifetime in internet years.
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Proposed != ready to be used in a production environment. Ethereum itself isn't even finished yet, how do you expect all the software running on it to be finished? Elon Musk has proposed proper mass production of Tesla cars years ago..
  - root_axis 9y ago
    > There's plenty of useful stuff being built upon Ethereum. Can you give an example please? So far, the only useful function I've seen for any blockchain token is its use as a stand-in for fiat money (e.g. blackmarket commerce), and bitcoin already has that covered. The usual go-to for Ethereum are smart-contracts, but I've never heard of a useful one, or even an idea for a useful one (that doesn't ignore realities that make it useless in practice).
    - charlesdm 9y ago
      Land registry systems, voting systems, asset transfer and settlement systems, tokenisation of (certain) assets (e.g. music IP, royalty flows), etc etc Essentially anything where trust and/or potential corruption might be an issue.
      - root_axis 9y ago
        I've heard all these suggestions before and never had a practical example detailed to me. > Land registry systems This won't work. In most places a centralized system works fine, but in places where corruption is an issue the blockchain system is still useless because corrupt officials will just disregard whatever the blockchain says or use coercion to force you to give up the private keys. There are also many other impracticalities that preclude its use such as situation where keys are lost or stolen. What happens when the owner of the keys dies and the keys cannot be found? What happens when the state needs to force transfer of ownership from an unwilling party to another based on a judgement of the courts? Ultimately, the government is the final arbiter on any question of land ownership rights and any system that does not give the government overriding control of land ownership registrations is untenable. Of course, if the government has overriding control of the system, a blockchain is pointless. > voting systems This does not solve any problems that aren't already solved using a centralized system that employs cryptographic signatures. If we can trust a message signed by a citizen's private key, then all we need is a signed message with their vote; adding in a blockchain serves only to introduce needless complexity and resource waste. > asset transfer and settlement systems This is a solved problem. Asset transfer works fine today and actually functions better in a centralized system where the institutions can safeguard assets from unacceptable failure scenarios such as having hundreds of millions of dollars irrevocably wiped out or stolen. > tokenisation of (certain) assets (e.g. music IP, royalty flows), Pointless. Copyright violators will just ignore the blockchain and if you have to petition the government to enforce a copyright claim that lives on the blockchain then there's no benefit to using one since this already happens now with a centralized database of copyright claims. "Tokenization" of things like music IP is especially absurd considering the intractable layers of ambiguity in determining which aspects of a complex artistic work fall under the copyright. There isn't even a meaningful way to map ownership of a specific piece of art to a copyright holder's private key since artistic expression is not measured in discrete streams of bytes which can appear digitally distinct while looking or sounding practically identical. Blockchains just don't solve any of these problems.
- nosuchthing 9y ago
  Ethereum had a presale of "premined" ether, with the maximum price of a presale ether costing about $0.50 USD: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/4522/what-was-the-approximate-cost-of-1-eth-during-pre-launch-aug-2014/4530 https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/4522/what-was-t... 22 July to 5 August 2014: 2000 ETH = 1 BTC = 572-632 USD 6 August to 2 September 2014: 1999-1337 ETH = 1 BTC = 592-471 USD Ethereum launch in review: - Investment Prospectus: https://github.com/ethereum/www/blob/master-postsale/src/extras/pdfs/TermsAndConditionsOfTheEthereumGenesisSale.pdf https://github.com/ethereum/www/blob/master-postsale/src/ext... - Premine Part I: Anyone can buy ETH in exchange for BTC for the next 42 days - Premine Part II: On top of Premine Part I, +10% of the total ETH allocated during Premine Part I will be distributed to "early contributors" - Premine Part III: On top of Premine Part I and Premine Part II, +10% of the total ETH allocated during Premine Part I will be distributed to the Ethereum Foundation - The supply of ETH is uncapped and inflationary at a rate of +25% per year - The premine is being conducted by "EthSuisse", a Swiss entity which will be prompty dissolved after the premining period ends. The Ethereum team makes no guarantee that development of Ethereum will continue after the dissolution of "EthSuisse" - Regardless of how many BTCs are raised during the premine period, ~4000 BTC is explicitly reserved to pay for "Expenses incurred prior to and related to Genesis Sale". Translation: they are pocketing the first 4000-5000 BTC > The Ethereum Platform is being developed primarily by a volunteer contributor team - many of whom will be receiving gifts of ETH in acknowledgement of their dedication - and will continue to be developed on a volunteer basis by some developers as well as under a more formalized contracting or employment relationship for other developers. The group of developers and other personnel that is now, or will be, employed by, or contracted with, Ethereum Switzerland GmbH ("EthSuisse") is termed the "Ethereum Team." EthSuisse will be liquidated shortly after creation of genesis block, and EthSuisse anticipates (but does not guarantee) that after it is dissolved the Ethereum Platform will continue to be developed by persons and entities who support Ethereum, including both volunteers and developers who are paid by nonprofit entities interested in supporting the Ethereum Platform. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8072340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8072340 A presale hodler with 39,300 premined ETH caused the flash crash this last summer: http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-flash-crash-explained-gdax-2017-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-flash-crash-explaine... https://etherscan.io/address/0x7d551397f79a2988b064afd0efebee802c7721bc https://etherscan.io/address/0x7d551397f79a2988b064afd0efebe...
- xorcist 9y ago
  How was it not an ICO? It was premined, it had a board of advisors, and a tiered structure with early bird discount. It's not well defined what is an ICO and what is not, but this had all the elements of the modern ICOs. Perhaps not surprising that it has found its use in the whole ICO phenomenon then.

Ethereum is not an ICO, it is a cryptocurrency and a platform, and it hosts approximately zero useful software services. Nobody is eagerly awaiting new features of some blockchain app they use, which makes their life better in any way. They are looking at the price charts.

charlesdm 9y ago
Not an ICO in the traditional sense perhaps. There's plenty of useful stuff being built upon Ethereum. The platform itself is also still in development and improving with every update. People need to give projects more than 5 minutes to succeed. Not that I disagree however plenty of money will be lost on useless projects. But that's just the nature of the game (excluding any obvious scams). Plenty (nearly all) of venture capital money is wasted as well.
- eugeniub 9y ago
  4+ years since Ethereum was proposed is a lifetime in internet years.
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Proposed != ready to be used in a production environment. Ethereum itself isn't even finished yet, how do you expect all the software running on it to be finished? Elon Musk has proposed proper mass production of Tesla cars years ago..
- root_axis 9y ago
  > There's plenty of useful stuff being built upon Ethereum. Can you give an example please? So far, the only useful function I've seen for any blockchain token is its use as a stand-in for fiat money (e.g. blackmarket commerce), and bitcoin already has that covered. The usual go-to for Ethereum are smart-contracts, but I've never heard of a useful one, or even an idea for a useful one (that doesn't ignore realities that make it useless in practice).
  - charlesdm 9y ago
    Land registry systems, voting systems, asset transfer and settlement systems, tokenisation of (certain) assets (e.g. music IP, royalty flows), etc etc Essentially anything where trust and/or potential corruption might be an issue.
    - root_axis 9y ago
      I've heard all these suggestions before and never had a practical example detailed to me. > Land registry systems This won't work. In most places a centralized system works fine, but in places where corruption is an issue the blockchain system is still useless because corrupt officials will just disregard whatever the blockchain says or use coercion to force you to give up the private keys. There are also many other impracticalities that preclude its use such as situation where keys are lost or stolen. What happens when the owner of the keys dies and the keys cannot be found? What happens when the state needs to force transfer of ownership from an unwilling party to another based on a judgement of the courts? Ultimately, the government is the final arbiter on any question of land ownership rights and any system that does not give the government overriding control of land ownership registrations is untenable. Of course, if the government has overriding control of the system, a blockchain is pointless. > voting systems This does not solve any problems that aren't already solved using a centralized system that employs cryptographic signatures. If we can trust a message signed by a citizen's private key, then all we need is a signed message with their vote; adding in a blockchain serves only to introduce needless complexity and resource waste. > asset transfer and settlement systems This is a solved problem. Asset transfer works fine today and actually functions better in a centralized system where the institutions can safeguard assets from unacceptable failure scenarios such as having hundreds of millions of dollars irrevocably wiped out or stolen. > tokenisation of (certain) assets (e.g. music IP, royalty flows), Pointless. Copyright violators will just ignore the blockchain and if you have to petition the government to enforce a copyright claim that lives on the blockchain then there's no benefit to using one since this already happens now with a centralized database of copyright claims. "Tokenization" of things like music IP is especially absurd considering the intractable layers of ambiguity in determining which aspects of a complex artistic work fall under the copyright. There isn't even a meaningful way to map ownership of a specific piece of art to a copyright holder's private key since artistic expression is not measured in discrete streams of bytes which can appear digitally distinct while looking or sounding practically identical. Blockchains just don't solve any of these problems.
nosuchthing 9y ago
Ethereum had a presale of "premined" ether, with the maximum price of a presale ether costing about $0.50 USD: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/4522/what-was-the-approximate-cost-of-1-eth-during-pre-launch-aug-2014/4530 https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/4522/what-was-t... 22 July to 5 August 2014: 2000 ETH = 1 BTC = 572-632 USD 6 August to 2 September 2014: 1999-1337 ETH = 1 BTC = 592-471 USD Ethereum launch in review: - Investment Prospectus: https://github.com/ethereum/www/blob/master-postsale/src/extras/pdfs/TermsAndConditionsOfTheEthereumGenesisSale.pdf https://github.com/ethereum/www/blob/master-postsale/src/ext... - Premine Part I: Anyone can buy ETH in exchange for BTC for the next 42 days - Premine Part II: On top of Premine Part I, +10% of the total ETH allocated during Premine Part I will be distributed to "early contributors" - Premine Part III: On top of Premine Part I and Premine Part II, +10% of the total ETH allocated during Premine Part I will be distributed to the Ethereum Foundation - The supply of ETH is uncapped and inflationary at a rate of +25% per year - The premine is being conducted by "EthSuisse", a Swiss entity which will be prompty dissolved after the premining period ends. The Ethereum team makes no guarantee that development of Ethereum will continue after the dissolution of "EthSuisse" - Regardless of how many BTCs are raised during the premine period, ~4000 BTC is explicitly reserved to pay for "Expenses incurred prior to and related to Genesis Sale". Translation: they are pocketing the first 4000-5000 BTC > The Ethereum Platform is being developed primarily by a volunteer contributor team - many of whom will be receiving gifts of ETH in acknowledgement of their dedication - and will continue to be developed on a volunteer basis by some developers as well as under a more formalized contracting or employment relationship for other developers. The group of developers and other personnel that is now, or will be, employed by, or contracted with, Ethereum Switzerland GmbH ("EthSuisse") is termed the "Ethereum Team." EthSuisse will be liquidated shortly after creation of genesis block, and EthSuisse anticipates (but does not guarantee) that after it is dissolved the Ethereum Platform will continue to be developed by persons and entities who support Ethereum, including both volunteers and developers who are paid by nonprofit entities interested in supporting the Ethereum Platform. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8072340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8072340 A presale hodler with 39,300 premined ETH caused the flash crash this last summer: http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-flash-crash-explained-gdax-2017-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-flash-crash-explaine... https://etherscan.io/address/0x7d551397f79a2988b064afd0efebee802c7721bc https://etherscan.io/address/0x7d551397f79a2988b064afd0efebe...
xorcist 9y ago
How was it not an ICO? It was premined, it had a board of advisors, and a tiered structure with early bird discount. It's not well defined what is an ICO and what is not, but this had all the elements of the modern ICOs. Perhaps not surprising that it has found its use in the whole ICO phenomenon then.