Why Ethereum Is Outpacing Bitcoin (venturebeat.com)

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Why Ethereum Is Outpacing Bitcoin (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday June 12, 2017 @02:05PM from the eli5 dept.

Even as Bitcoin hits its all-time high, people's interest in other cryptocurrencies hasn't waned, especially Ethereum. But what makes Ethereum popular among some? From an article on VentureBeat: Despite its recent appreciation in value, as a technology, Bitcoin has stagnated over the last three years. Two rival factions have emerged with violently opposing views on what should be done to allow the Bitcoin network to handle more transactions than it can right now. While Bitcoin has been paralysed by indecision, Ethereum has raced ahead with technology that not only does everything Bitcoin can do faster, in higher volume, and at lower cost -- it does a lot more besides. [...] Bitcoin is really only useful as a store of value. Even then, its usefulness for actually transacting value is limited. In a world where people are used to online payments being confirmed instantly, Bitcoin transactions can take anywhere from tens of minutes to several hours, depending on how busy the network is. It's also expensive -- especially if you're only sending small amounts. The average transaction currently costs about $1.50. Ethereum, on the other hand, was never intended as a Bitcoin competitor. Ethereum is actually a platform for new kinds of decentralized (often financial) applications (dApps) that run on a peer-to-peer network of computers. These dApps are designed to disintermediate the kinds of relationships and transactions for which we have traditionally required things like banks, public registries, and the legal system. For technologists, this is exciting stuff, and a vibrant community of software developers has enthusiastically embraced it. Hundreds of projects, startups, and companies at every scale -- including the likes of Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung -- are building software using Ethereum.

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Answer: Marketing by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 14:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

Seriously, please stop the virtual currency spam.
Yes, I get it: 1% of /.ers had high end gaming rigs back when Bitcoin first started, so some old /.ers are Bitcoin Millionaires and want to dump their coins. But the other 99% of us aren't Bitcoin Millionaires, and we're getting really tired of this shit on the frontpage all the time.
#FuckThe21stCenturyTulipFarmers
1. Re: Answer: Marketing by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 16:16 · Score: 1
  
  Bitcoin and Ethereum are competitors, which invalidates your point. Logically Bitcoin millionaires would be against Ethereum, not advertising and promoting it as a replacement. Please change, or you will always be poor.
2. Re:Answer: Marketing by should_be_linear · 2017-06-12 19:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I get it: 1% of /.ers had high end gaming rigs back when Bitcoin first started
  So it is 1% against 99% all over again!
  
  --
  839*929
3. Re:Answer: Marketing by jandersen · 2017-06-12 22:25 · Score: 1
  
  That, and also: I see no reason why I would want my money transactions to be anonymous, which seems to be the only advantage of this. In fact, I want my payments to be visible, so I can prove that I made a payment, or on rare occasions, can reverse a payment if a service wasn't delivered.
4. Re:Answer: Marketing by GNious · 2017-06-12 22:38 · Score: 1
  
  Either I'm completely not understand the public-ledger part of bitcoin et al, or this isn't anonymous at all.
5. Re:Answer: Marketing by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2017-06-12 23:16 · Score: 1
  
  So you think that decentralized general computation as a means of payment for services on one side and as a means for achieving such computation without buying extra hardware on the other side isn't interesting for this site?
  
  --
  Ezekiel 23:20
6. Re: Answer: Marketing by mooterSkooter · 2017-06-12 23:35 · Score: 1
  
  Oh really? Damn, I thought I was clever for buying some, waiting for it to rise, cashing out my initial investment and still being left with a few btc. My bad, obviously an idiot.
7. Re: Answer: Marketing by mooterSkooter · 2017-06-12 23:36 · Score: 1
  
  Oh yes, I forgot about all the stuff I've bought along the way with it, mobile phone, graphics card, motherboard, cpu, memory...and loads of e-liquid etc.
  Yes, I'm an idiot.
8. Re:Answer: Marketing by supremebob · 2017-06-13 00:12 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure that some of the Ethereum miners are realizing that we're in a cryptocurrency bubble at this point, and that the value of their Internet funny money is about to crash. It makes sense for them to make one last big push to get give their get rich quick scheme some publicity in the tech blogs before unloading their holdings to the any new suckers who are reading them.
  Seriously, the cryptocurrency traders have been doing these pump and dump schemes with Bitcoin/Litecoin/Dogecoin/etc for years.
9. Re: Answer: Marketing by supremebob · 2017-06-13 00:26 · Score: 2
  
  At this point, Bitcoin is so difficult to mine that only people with "mining farms" with dedicated equipment and cheap electricity in China can make a profit at it.
  Ethereum is still relatively new, and can still be profitably mined with a gaming rig filled with high end AMD video cards. It makes sense the miners would switch over to the latest cryptocurrency that gives you the best profit.
  Back when I used to do mining, I went from Bitcoin to Litecoin to Feathercoin (remember that worthless crap?) because I could make a couple extra bucks a day mining it. I didn't give a damn what it was being used for, I just wanted to convert it all to Bitcoin as fast as I could so I could get gift cards with it.
  I got out of the mining game when the IRS stated that cryptocurrency mining was taxable income, because I didn't want to be bothered with the paperwork come tax time. My profit margins towards the end were razor thin anyway.
10. Re: Answer: Marketing by Applehu+Akbar · 2017-06-13 01:06 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Looks like somebody is salty they didn't buy any bitcoin back when it was worth $1. If it helps you get over your rage neither did I. I sure did buy a lot of Ethereum at $1 though ;-)
  Or they DID buy Bitcoin back when it was $1, but subsequently had their exchange hacked and drained.
11. Re:Answer: Marketing by vipw · 2017-06-13 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  It was either ignorance or irony. Either way, +1 Funny!
12. Re:Answer: Marketing by JesseMcDonald · 2017-06-13 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  In fact, I want my payments to be visible, so I can prove that I made a payment, or on rare occasions, can reverse a payment if a service wasn't delivered.
  You don't have to give up anonymity (or rather pseudonymity, as all the major cryptocurrencies use public keys as identifiers) in order to prove that a payment was made, as the blockchain clearly shows what payments were made to which addresses. Recommended best practice is to use a different receiving address for each order, so this will generally be sufficient. You will, of course, need to support the claim that the merchant requested payment to a particular address, since the request is not part of the blockchain. If you need to prove the funds were sent by you you can sign a statement with the private key used to send the payment, thus proving that you were the sender without ever revealing your true identity.
  As for reversible payments, while they have their uses, if you make it too easy to cancel payment then you penalize honest merchants. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It is relatively simple to achieve the buyer protection you desire through an appropriate escrow system built on top of an irreversible and pseudonymous payment protocol. On the other hand, implementing irreversible payments on top of a reversible protocol is a much more difficult task.
  
  --
  "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
13. Re:Answer: Marketing by micahraleigh · 2017-06-13 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  I don't understand why a tech news / forum site like this should exclude virtual currencies.
  
  Perhaps you think they're too ubiquitous to be considered news worthy now?
  
  My knee jerk reaction is to just assume you're evaluating this politically and want the government to stealth tax everyone with monetary policy where the government can control the currency.
Slashdot: PR flacks by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 14:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Can we stop reposting press releases verbatim? VentureBeat has been a shill site since its inception.
1. Re:Slashdot: PR flacks by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 15:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Someone at /. clearly has a lot of Ethereum coins and isn't happy about the price.
  Why do I keep seeing stories about Ethereum on Slashdot? Stop it already!
  https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=Ethereum
2. Re:Slashdot: PR flacks by NFN_NLN · 2017-06-12 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  Ethereum went from ~$10 to ~$400 in a year. That is a 40x increase and far greater than bitcoin.
3. Re:Slashdot: PR flacks by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 16:51 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Well, until they decide to arbitrarily roll back whatever transactions they feel like.
so many statements... by roman_mir · 2017-06-12 14:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

Despite its recent appreciation in value, as a technology,

Bitcoin has stagnated over the last three years.
- 3 years ago I think the price was about 640USD or so, today it's about 2640USD.

Bitcoin is really only useful as a store of value.
- value of what? Bitcoin cannot keep value, it can move by 20% up or down in a single day.

Even then, its usefulness for actually transacting value is limited.
- all speculative crypto-currencies are of limited value of transacting, as they appreciate they become more expensive to deal with and nobody actually wants them, people want to get some money that is more stable (even though AFAIC USD is inherently flawed and failing as money, it is still more stable in intraday trading so far, it doesn't jump up and down by 20% in a day)

Ethereum, on the other hand, was never intended as a Bitcoin competitor.
- of-course not. All crypto-currencies that are not backed by anything exist for the reason of creating inflation in the crypto-currency world (expansion of the money supply), the only real difference is who gets their hands on the newly created coins first. So people who are interested in mining Bitcoins but are too late in that game come up with a different currency of their own, then this repeats. Bitcoin itself may be limited in total number of coins that can be created but the supply of crypto-currencies in general is absolutely limitless. A new one can be started every day (or more often than that).

Hundreds of projects, startups, and companies at every scale -- including the likes of Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung -- are building software using Ethereum.
- until they all jump ship to another one.

--
You can't handle the truth.
1. Re:so many statements... by fustakrakich · 2017-06-12 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  Bitcoin cannot keep value, it can move by 20% up or down in a single day.
  Heh, so can gold, or any other commodity. Place yer bets...
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
2. Re:so many statements... by roman_mir · 2017-06-12 15:36 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  yet for thousands of years gold has proven itself to be valuable to people enough that it was used as money without any government decree and at the same time it is a useful, rare enough material, pliable, divisible, easily measurable by weight and purity, not poisonous, stable, not reactive, etc.
  Gold is the perfect money that people recognised and used as such. Bitcoins and other crypto-currencies may be used as money but again, should the demand for Bitcoin money disappear the value of Bitcoin is gone completely. You cannot use Bitcoin for anything at all except for being money, it has 0 intrinsic value (value outside of whatever value you assign to it as money).
  Gold is a metal, metals on this planet were always more or less valuable, how valuable this particular metal is in relation to other items depends on the situation.
  A file with some random numbers in it is only as valuable as the network that is willing to use it for its only purpose. Without the network in place, or with the network moving to a different crypto-currency standard Bitcoin in itself has 0 uses.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
3. Re:so many statements... by Orgasmatron · 2017-06-12 15:48 · Score: 1, Troll
  
  even though AFAIC USD is inherently flawed and failing as money, it is still more stable in intraday trading so far, it doesn't jump up and down by 20% in a day
  Then again, there was that one day when the dollar lost nearly 70% of its value.
  But that was an intentional act of government. Shifts in the value of bitcoin happen by market forces.
  The "price" of bitcoin is the result of people trying to buy and sell it. Naturally, the bigger the market, the less effect any one transaction has on the price. Dollar markets are gigantic, so the value doesn't move a whole lot from day to day. Bitcoin markets are small, just barely big enough to be considered small by the standards of financial professionals. A few million dollars can push the price around a fair bit. And because the markets are small, people don't have the capital to allocate to price points much beyond the expected range, so a breakout can overrun quite a bit before settling back down.
  In short, the swings in the price of bitcoin are the result of you being born when you were, and not because bitcoin has any sort of inherent instability. If you had been born a few decades later, either you'd see a much larger and more stable bitcoin market, or you'd only ever see the name in the history books.
  Ethereum seems to be different, by the way. I haven't been following it closely, but it isn't just another Dogecoin or other clone-of-bitcoin-with-different-magic like used to pop up so often. It is trying to do something completely different, and in my opinion, it is far too early to tell if it will succeed in doing so, or for that matter, if that different thing is a good idea or not. There have been problems encountered along the way, to be sure.
  How much of the interest in Ethereum is because it is special, and how much is because it is new(er) - I have no idea.
  
  --
  See that "Preview" button?
4. Re:so many statements... by roman_mir · 2017-06-12 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  Bitcoins today, dogecoins tomorrow, catcoins the day after, etc. The bandwagon will jump ship and move to another coin that promises *more* instability, not less. What is the use of bitcoins that are 'stable' in dollar value? There isn't any, people will dump those and will move to another crypto-currency not backed by anything else if that crypto-currency promises huge swings in prices that is basically gambling.
  Whenever you are born you will observe yet another (many) crypto-currency being used for the exact purpose that they are intended for, trying to make money on speculation. There is nothing wrong with any of that, however there won't be a crypto-currency that is not backed by anything else that will be both valuable and stable.
  It can be either valuable or stable but not both. If it is valuable, it will not be stable, if it is stable it will not be valuable. It is valuable as long as the instability allows for wild price swings.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
5. Re:so many statements... by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2017-06-12 16:16 · Score: 2
  
  In short, the swings in the price of bitcoin are the result of you being born when you were, and not because bitcoin has any sort of inherent instability. If you had been born a few decades later, either you'd see a much larger and more stable bitcoin market, or you'd only ever see the name in the history books.
  That right there is most certainly a "sort of inherent instability" -- the fact it is very easy to imagine the value of all bitcoin going to exactly zero in a manner that few other currencies do not suffer from, except for hollywood scenarios involving flesh-eating zombie hordes. It is easy to badmouth real currencies for being imperfect, because they are imperfect. But real currencies have the advantage of being tied to economies in a manner that gives them some significant degree of inherent stability. Bitcoin is untethered from everything in the universe except faddishness and a weaker-than-fiat promise of deflation, by design.
6. Re:so many statements... by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2017-06-12 16:22 · Score: 1
  
  A public blockchain that allows validation of transactions/contracts of all kinds is a very powerful concept that provides real value. The "money" aspect is likely to prove garbage, for basically the reasons that you state. Why be tied to someone crappy imaginary currency when I could (someday) use a blockchain kind of technology to move any kind of real money or bullion credit between accounts in a Swiss bank?
7. Re:so many statements... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 18:42 · Score: 1
  
  The origin of money, in Sumer, appears to have been virtual, as an expression of credit. Gold seems to have emerged as a way of trading with groups not linked into the Sumerian network of debt obligations, based on its desirability as something that was either pretty or scared, both based on it not tarnishing.
8. Re:so many statements... by phantomfive · 2017-06-12 18:51 · Score: 1
  
  yet for thousands of years gold has proven itself to be valuable to people enough that it was used as money without any government decree
  
  So were stones.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
9. Re:so many statements... by Applehu+Akbar · 2017-06-13 01:21 · Score: 1
  
  " Bitcoin itself may be limited in total number of coins that can be created but the supply of crypto-currencies in general is absolutely limitless. A new one can be started every day (or more often than that)."
  This is a key point. The last stage in any investment bubble is the appearance of me-too investments that are marketed as being available for people who missed out on buying South Sea tulip farm mortgages over the Internet on margin when the bubble started.
  Those investments have a history of crashing first because they are the newest, least tested and most subject to unforeseen flaws. This breaks investor confidence, causing a bailout run on the original investment - the Bitcoin in this case. And down it comes.
10. Re: so many statements... by Khyber · 2017-06-13 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  I've been on the jury for two cases involving ponzi schemes.
  A rose by any other name...
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
11. Re:so many statements... by roman_mir · 2017-06-13 07:49 · Score: 1
  
  Many people miss many things, however BTC is not based on anything even closely reminding of the Austrian model. Austrian model requires actual work to be done for money to be created, BTC is basically printed. BTC may have a hard limit on the total number of coins, however it can be further divided and each division can increase the total number of available coins (naming doesn't matter in this case, there is no physical difference between 1BTC and 0.00001BTC.
  Beside that many other crypto-currencies have been started since then and many more will be started, BTC does not exist in vacuum, BTC itself is just a subset of the infinite space of crypto-coins not backed by any physical manifestation, they are limitless.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
12. Re:so many statements... by Orgasmatron · 2017-06-13 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  Other than your irrational hatred, do you actually know anything about this topic at all? I only ask because you are making predictions about things that happened in the past, but you seem to be unaware that doomsday never came.
  There was a time several years ago when new crypto-coins were popping up nearly daily, and speculators were indeed driving the exchange prices of those coins up and down to fleece suckers. Dogecoin was one of those, but I haven't heard of any of those gaining any traction to speak of for several years now. What followed Dogecoin was not catcoin, but bitcoin. The trend has been towards more stability, not less. And towards older coins, not newer.
  If you are interested in an honest debate, I strongly urge you to consider formulating an opening argument that doesn't refute itself.
  
  --
  See that "Preview" button?
13. Re: so many statements... by Khyber · 2017-06-14 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  I've been thoroughly vetted by Voire Dire. You can fuck right off with your pathetic hatred of me because my life has consistently been better than yours.
  You're too much of a coward to even come to me and talk your shit. My info's public record, coward. Bring your bitch ass on.
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
14. Re:so many statements... by roman_mir · 2017-06-14 06:30 · Score: 1
  
  Show me where do you see any stability and I will show you lack of value. Dogecoin is not valuable but it is stable. Bitcoin is valuable but it is not stable. This is inherent in the virtual currency not backed by anything and it has nothing to do with any form of hatred, where did you read hatred?
  If a virtual currency becomes stable people leave it to move to another currency, thus the stable currency loses value because everybody wants to sell and buy something else that is more valuable and in the world of virtual currencies not backed by anything if something is more valuable people move in and out quite a bit and that currency cannot be stable.
  Bitcoin is not stable at all, how is it stable with wild swings of 20% or so in intraday trading? Maybe your definition of stability is something that moves by 20% a day but that's not my definition of stability.
  
  --
  You can't handle the truth.
Slashvertising by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 14:26 · Score: 1

Thank goodness we have the good people of slashdot and Venture Beat (TM) to alert us to these important investing opportunities! We should Act Now because Prices Will Surely Rise!
Ethereum mining by PFritz21 · 2017-06-12 14:38 · Score: 1

Isn't Ethereum something you mine for in Azeroth or something?
1. Re:Ethereum mining by Comrade+Ogilvy · 2017-06-12 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  Isn't that Unobtainium you are thinking of?
2. Re:Ethereum mining by sheramil · 2017-06-13 02:02 · Score: 1
  
  Isn't it that green liquid stuff from those Minecraft mods, that's made out of Eyes of Ender? No, wait, that's Enderium.
Drugs and illegal goods by somenickname · 2017-06-12 14:43 · Score: 2

It doesn't matter which one is technologically superior. The one that will become the most adopted is the one that is most widely accepted for the purchase of drugs and other illegal goods.
1. Re:Drugs and illegal goods by jpaine619 · 2017-06-12 14:56 · Score: 1
  
  Like the dollar? The dollar is the de facto currency of the world for drugs.
Re: Unbiased? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 14:59 · Score: 1

It's fucking great how many idiot internet nerds think they are discovering the pump and dump scam for the first time.
Re:ETH is better for ICO scams by borcharc · 2017-06-12 15:32 · Score: 1

https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/i-was-wrong-about-ethereum-804c9a906d36
Ethereum by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 16:06 · Score: 1

Thank you posting about Ethereum. Most news sites only talk about Bitcoin. As a nerd, I like hearing what's next and what tech works better.
Re: Answer: Russians by dknj · 2017-06-12 16:27 · Score: 3, Insightful

Never change, slashdot. Never change.
Buck Fifty? by mentil · 2017-06-12 16:32 · Score: 1

I can't believe the average Bitcoin transaction fee is (currently) $1.50. I swear I read a couple years ago it was a few satoshis (fractions of pennies). How did a decentralized system become more expensive than the credit-card oligopoly's processing fees? Epic fail, Bitcoin. I guess that explains why it wasn't being used for micropayments. I have a feeling this is like the real-estate market, where everyone wanted the prices to go up, and then people wonder why noone's buying homes anymore.

--
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
1. Re:Buck Fifty? by cheesybagel · 2017-06-12 17:39 · Score: 1
  
  Bitcoin is too effin' slow to be used for micropayments.
2. Re:Buck Fifty? by mwvdlee · 2017-06-12 19:28 · Score: 1
  
  As I understand it, the validation of transactions becomes increasingly more expensive with the number of transactions previously validated.
  
  --
  Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
3. Re:Buck Fifty? by 91degrees · 2017-06-12 20:01 · Score: 1
  
  I think it costs a fraction of a bitcoin. When they were worth a few cents, this transaction cost was negligible.
4. Re:Buck Fifty? by Kjella · 2017-06-12 20:20 · Score: 1
  
  As I understand it, the validation of transactions becomes increasingly more expensive with the number of transactions previously validated.
  Not previously validated, that would be silly. But there's issues with the number of concurrent transactions, the blockchain processes those with the greatest fee and you can only push through so many at a time. With the dollar value increasing the BTC values get smaller and the number of transactions bigger, but they don't manage to serve the "long tail". So the fee is kept high, maybe also from some self-serving interest but also to keep the number of transactions down to a manageable level. There are solutions proposed to increase the throughput, but they have to get almost everyone on board so there's no split in the blockchain.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
5. Re:Buck Fifty? by xororand · 2017-06-12 22:39 · Score: 1
  
  The high transaction fees could be solved but there is currently a deadlock within the Bitcoin community.
  Two feasible solutions are on the table, but there is no consensus:
  a) Increasing the block size, allows for more transactions to be processed within each 10 minute block. The downside is that the blockchain will grow at a multiple of the current rate. Generally favored by large miners. Decentralizes the network. Is only a short-term solution because it only scales linearly.
  b) SegWit & Lightning. As far as I understand it, Lightning is 2nd layer on top of the blockchain that allows for much faster and cheaper transactions.
  Other coins have already begun to adopt SegWit, most notably Litecoin, the early fork of Bitcoin.
6. Re:Buck Fifty? by mooterSkooter · 2017-06-12 23:45 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, the high fees of btc are a bitch at the moment. My personal (and slightly tin-foil-hat) belief is that it has been infiltrated by either people wanting to make money from side-chains OR people (read: government) who want to see it fail.
  A simple increase in the blocksize would fix the high fees instantly as more transactions could be handled in a single batch.
  Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on Bitcoin by any stretch, so please feel free to correct me...unless you're one of the two types of people mentioned.
Re: Answer: Russians by ArmoredDragon · 2017-06-12 16:46 · Score: 1

But since the KGB is gone, who will do the possible programming?
-99.75% inflation(deflation) by lindseyp · 2017-06-12 17:43 · Score: 1

And a 400x increase in less than two years.
A currency with a built-in effective inflation rate of negative 99.75% isn't useful as a currency at all.

--
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
1. Re:-99.75% inflation(deflation) by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-12 19:54 · Score: 1
  
  Yes but no but fiat currency is literally theft and unconstitutional.
  --
  urdacha
Re:Copy / paste much? by Hognoxious · 2017-06-12 20:01 · Score: 1

I'm not even sure "wane" is transitive. "Wax" can be.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We all want to know by Hognoxious · 2017-06-12 20:09 · Score: 2

Which one does Elon Musk prefer?
Or if he's busy bilking the taxpayer, umm I mean being entrepreneurial, then ask Bennett Haselton.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
1. Re:We all want to know by Hognoxious · 2017-06-13 06:25 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.latimes.com/busines...
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...
  P.S. Learn to use he shift key, motherfucker.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Answer: actually, lots of factors by jamesmartinluther · 2017-06-12 20:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

Disclosure: I am a contractor at the Ethereum Foundation. We have no marketing department and almost everyone there are researchers and developers.
Ethereum is simply growing. Who cares if it is outpacing Bitcoin? Bitcoin might be as big as it needs to be, and if not, more people will adopt it. Forget all of the hype, price discussions, its position vs. bitcoin or other technology. Just check out what it can do for you, either as a technologist or just someone using technology.
Basically, Ethereum offers a vast, shared memory and computation space, secured by cryptography and economics, and this enables smart contracts to run without interference or modification. There are clients enabling users to interact with Ethereum smart contracts, either on their phone or on their desktop. That is all functioning now, and busily powering and even funding dozens of startups.
Under active development by Foundation devs and the community are some new pieces: sharding, faster and cheaper transactions with state channels, off-blockchain file/data storage, real-time signaling, and a decentralized name service.
1. Re:Answer: actually, lots of factors by dada21 · 2017-06-12 23:47 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  This is a bit bullshittish.
  ETH and ethereum are two different things. ETH is a cryptocurrency traded that runs on ethereum.
  But saying "Big banks and entire countries are interested in ethereum" does not mean that they are interested in ETH, which people are investing in.
  A big bank can hard fork the ethereum protocol for their own internal needs and ETH will not be affected. It won't help ETH, it won't hurt ETH, it will be a second protocol fork used by the bank, or country, or private group for their own purposes.
  Don't assume that people interested in ethereum are also interested in buying or trading ETH.
2. Re:Answer: actually, lots of factors by tdc_vga · 2017-06-13 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  @jamesmartinluther
  Oddly enough, I posted an article last night detailing some thoughts that crossed my mind about potential legal issues looming for Ethereum ( https://www.linkedin.com/pulse... ) and I'd love to get some feedback from someone connected with Ethereum on how the issues are being address--if at all.
  I really don't see how Ethereum gets around their DAO issue when a legal challenge arises seeking a hard fork, it really seems like a sticking point to me.
  Best regards,
  Tyler
3. Re:Answer: actually, lots of factors by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-13 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  While Ethereum is a interesting concept with some good fundamentals to back it... Roughly 70% of ETH was minted in a pre-mine. What's the deal with that?
4. Re:Answer: actually, lots of factors by GNious · 2017-06-13 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  hmm... Now you're making me ponder if I should book someone to come on and talk Ethereum, incl "vs Bitcoin" ...
5. Re:Answer: actually, lots of factors by MMC+Monster · 2017-06-13 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  A big bank can hard fork the ethereum protocol for their own internal needs and ETH will not be affected.
  This is happening now (and has been happening for at least a year).
  A good friend of mine in Investment Banking is working on blockchain technology for their customers. The big thing (apparently) is to stop using the U. S. dollar as an intermediary for foreign exchange transactions and instead use a blockchain as an intermediary currency (if I understand things correctly).
  
  --
  Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
PreMine == Fake Market Cap by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-13 00:02 · Score: 3, Informative

Ethereum is getting a lot of attention because developers think they have a new language to code away every problem. Except, as we already saw with the hard fork and creation of Ethereum Classic, a turing complete language that is bound to *real value* is not safe.
This very important point aside, the devs pre-mined 12 million coins! There are 21 million bitcoins ever. From the start they printed over half of the tokens the bitcoin network has. Then, because actual circulation is low, we have tokens worth $100. Check it out.
https://etherscan.io/stat/supply
https://www.etherchain.org/tx/0x9c81f44c29ff0226f835cd0a8a2f2a7eca6db52a711f8211b566fd15d3e0e8d4
Genesis block makes up still the majority of the network, and they have printed 4.3 times as many tokens as bitcoin will ever have.
This is a straight Tulip pump built on a dangerous promise. We have already seen them roll back the chain once. This can and will happen again.
1. Re:PreMine == Fake Market Cap by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-13 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  Double check "There are 21 million bitcoins ever. " I think you have ETH and BTC confused.
2. Re: PreMine == Fake Market Cap by CGordy · 2017-06-14 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  They sold the pre mined coins off prior to launch to fund development. Hardly a scam, and everyone knew the distribution and what they were getting into.
Re: Answer: Russians by schleimkeim · 2017-06-13 00:19 · Score: 1

That has got to be the most I'll informed, paranoid and stupid statement I've heard.
I agree.

Keep believing mainstream media and a war will break out that will leave millions dead in hours because we are tired of the shit.
This one is about as ill informed, paranoid and stupid as the statement you criticized.
Re: Answer: Russians by kilfarsnar · 2017-06-13 01:17 · Score: 1

Vladimir Putin has installed Donald James TRUMP as a KGB puppet. TRUMP has been brazen enough to flaunt it by marrying Russians. Putin in recent days has decided to have an Etherium like cryptocurrency to take over the Russian Rooble. The next step in the process is likely to be TRUMP issuing a parallel cryptocurrency to replace the dollar and then merge with the Russian cryptocurrency. In this way the Dollar will die for the world currency and Russia will use its cyber warfare/tactics to undermine e-security of the USA and leave America in the dust.
Rooble? Seriously?
You're a Russian Rooble.

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"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Re: Answer: Russians by kilfarsnar · 2017-06-13 01:19 · Score: 1

What kind of fool do you take us for?
LOL, you really want to know?

--
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Where are the social justice warriors? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-06-13 01:44 · Score: 1

I am one of the 99% who did not get in on the bitcoin craze early on, so I am not a multi-millionaire. I think this is totally unfair. We need government to take away all that bitcoin from the 1% and re-distribute it to the rest of us! I'm sure that the only reason they are now rich is because of their "tech privilege" while the rest of us were using inferior desktops. Something must be done about this INJUSTICE.
Only if I did by sentiblue · 2017-06-13 03:12 · Score: 1

If I had spent only a few hundred dollars to buy bitcoins... I didn't even need to mine the damn coins, I would have been a millionaire right now LOL !!!
I'll stick with vaporium by Drunkulus · 2017-06-13 08:41 · Score: 1

I understand that ethereum has its fans, and rightly so. However, vaporium is much more widely accepted. Who wouldn't prefer being paid with vapor instead of ether?
Err what? by LordWabbit2 · 2017-06-14 22:24 · Score: 1

Hundreds of projects, startups, and companies at every scale -- including the likes of Intel, Microsoft, and Samsung -- are building software using Ethereum.
Citation needed

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There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.