Bitcoin Forum

First thing you notice when looking at the Ethereum website now, is that the team has ballooned to the size of a small town.  I was expecting to see 2-8 guys working on this thing max.  When you're dealing with this massive number of people, it's obviously no longer an open source p2p currency project, but an actual corporation looking to make mega bucks.  Yes, I understand the product may have some innovations (which Counterparty, NXT, and others are also doing similar things), but this is kind of an insult to the Satoshi legacy turning his original invention into a giant, corporate money grab.

I'm not really sure what their current funding plan is, but the previous one seemed to involve an IPO for enormous, windfall profits, combined with an enormous developer share to go along with that.  They probably would have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, while also controlling something like 10-25% of the equity/money supply as posted in the following thread:

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/11/founders-and-issuance


Now it seems like they're running into legal issues and may have to cancel IPO release for the United States.  All it takes is one look at Buterin to tell the guy was too young to know what the hell he was getting into.  He could have kept this thing with 2-8 people, issued themselves reasonable, time released equity shares, as proof of concept for how their invention is supposed to work, and just be done with it.  Now this thing is an out of control bus headed straight into the SEC + the front page of Hazaard's scam warning section.

https://i.imgur.com/lyDxi3s.png

Interesting take, thank you.

You can always issue at different country. With inter nationality and flexibility of altcoins it is easy to work and execute projects from all over the world. Not to mention, base on name, this project is already multicultural so I guess it shouldn't be a problem. State regulations are problem that most of initiatives encounter at some point. And to be honest, especially when it comes to common law country like USA, it is best to just stay away.

Yeah, part of me says the size and scope of Etherium could spell trouble for crypto in the U.S., but another part of me says I better invest some money before this shit goes mainstream.  8)

why get small money from getting a handful of cryptophiles to pay for your idea, when you can get mega-millions from wall street venture capitalists to pay for your idea

seems legit

I watched the video and they said "Turing Complete" 3 times in seven minutes...

My intuition tells me that this is a corporate+geek pre-mine IPO scam...

Buterin knows his tech stuff, but he's in over his head: the blockchain is not that cool of an innovation.

This planned grand architecture will do roughly what GNU Hurd has done - NADA.

Old post with now relevant topic

here is my post from another topic:

Ethereum is out now.
I wanted to "invest", the idea is good... but now, after I learned more...

I just looked at their website they already "raised" about 3000 bitcoins... The odd thing is from what I learned is that there is no cap on number of coins and the future coins coming to the market just a percentage of "presale", which makes me think of a very strange strategy...
as many people invest the less value of each coin will have...

Their prelaunch is actually will dictate next years number of coins, so if there will be 1.000.000 coins mined next year or 300.000.000 coins is simply dictated by their prelaunch... And such a difference in number of next year(s) mined coins will have an impact on coins value for sure... Apparently, more people invest in ethereum the lower value of each coin will have... What the hell??

Does anyone remember what was the ratio of ether to BTC in the failed IPO.

Now it is 2 000 ether for 1 BTC.

Just curious  :)

It appears they settled on the fixed percentages a long time ago.  the difference in 1 million coins released an 100,000 coins mined the following year is the same as 1 coin released and .1 mined the following.  your saying the more people want to buy gold the lower its price? its interesting concept.  I dont see how more excitement and a large ipo could ever lead to a lower price in the future.  if it fails horribly the price would be low anyways ;)

10 000 (before jan. 18) and 1000 (jan25).

Wow and now its only 2k per BTC, I wonder how they arrived at this new ratio.

It is arbitrary and doesn't really affect anything in an economic sense.

I'm astonished people are worried about this.

Biggest scam in Human History.

What a ridiculous post. Surely the more people working on it the more decentralised and open source it is?

Well...he has his point. The trouble with a huge IPO or pre-sale is that it brings demand forward in time, from the future to the present.

It's similar to the paradox of contrarianism: investments are most risky, bear-market wise, when a large majority is bullish on it. Here's what resolves the paradox [a resolution that some might well peg as yet another intervention from Captain Obvious ;) ]: people, preponderantly, are bullish about assets they've already bought. If almost everyone is bullish, and the aforementioned is the primary reason, who's left to buy? Where's the future demand that will put the price up?

In the case of Etherium, they've snagged a huge amount of demand already - leaving the question, who's left to support the price once it trades?

Case in point: Maidsafe.

The trouble with a huge IPO or pre-sale is the fact it's being conducted in a lawless wild west free market saturated with scammers and thieves.

and if that is not the no. 1 concern for people then your all brain damaged big time.

this isn't the New York Stock exchange with regulators and laws and protection mechanisms in place..
instead we're in a scene we're your free to pull any kind of scam you want and it's even encouraged !
..just so long as *some of the participants make *some money then ANYTHING is fair game.

this is wrong .

and Crypto-Excuses™ and verbal gymnastics run rampant just as Hitler did stuffing millions of Jews in a gas chamber !
Nothing changes.. BAD behavior.. justified.

crowd fund and angel invest my ass IPO douche bags !

in altcoin histroy maybe. far from biggest scam in human history though  ;D

I'm actually on the fence with this one. I was thinking about buying 200 ether for 0.1 BTC, but I've already girded myself to see it as a spend. Not an "investment," a spend - just like I'd spend $60-$70 for a gadget on eBay. The value I'd get from it, like a gadget, would come with what use I could squeeze out of it.

That's why I was thinking of throwing 0.1 BTC into the pre-sale. Just so I'd have 200 to play around with once the Etherium system is up and running next year.

But part of me says I should be buying more NFD...that's a price of being a dev. Investing for essentially reputational reasons.

Preach it, bro.

When I saw the "founders" list and actually know some people on it...
It is loaded with people that bought the "founder" title by investing $100K or whatever...
People with close to zero technical skills, but with $$$.

This is all designed to FLIP to greedy MOOKS... and make 1000%...
Selling unregistered securities in this manner to the public is TOTALLY ILLEGAL in North America.

Stop bitching and moaning. Don't like idea? stay away... Like the idea and want to support the development? help...

It is as simple as that. We're all grown ups here (I suppose?) to know where you can put your money and what you can afford to lose...

I'm giving away some btc and don't give a f*ck if I lose them... this is how I see it.

A fool and his bitcoin are soon parted... this is how I see it.   :o

Yeah it's a ponzi scheme ran by a few wealthy investors, your point?

eMunie came before Ethereum and IIRC they were able to get like $1 million pre-IPO from a bunch of suckers.  We don't know how much pre-IPO was invested into Ethereum but I assume it's millions.  The current IPO is likely just pre-IPO investors transferring their funds over in internal buying.

People are simply exchanging their thoughts which is perfectly normal and beneficial for everybody as one cannot digest all the variety of possibilities on his own. Sharing of ideas will help many people to make objective decisions. Don't like the idea? Stay away.

Not exactly
You are missing one point.
Gold already has a market and demand for it (it exists, its proven, and everyone on the earth wants it). Gold has value today and will have tomorrow.

On other hand they created (wait... they want to create) something that MAYBE will have a value. See the difference?
First they need to deliver the product, second they need to make you, me and everyone else to have a desire to buy more and more ethers..

Another thing, presale or IPO are usually used to make some money that will help "company" or project grow.
In their case it is not capped(!) they are ready to take as much as we can give them, even if they dont need it....

Another aspect to consider - presale or IPO usually(!) benefit those who risk their money before everyone else with reward for the risk they take. Here, again, it is questionable, are you sure that next year there will be enough demand to reward risk of your investment today?

Keeps happening regularly, you can see by the number people crying after all those IPOs. Even for legitimate IPOs they don't do a proper research. Like the Maidsafe one it was clear it was a form of cashing out of Mastercoin holders, but yet they all flocked to pour their Bitcoins in.

The blockchain is the most efficient and transparent regulator in the world. It is regulating this crowdsale. If there's any impropriety we'll all know. Your post is nonsense. 

So far it looks like the Ethereum pre-sale has raised 6300 BTC or nearly US$ 4 million - so there is every expectation that they will reach their $30 million target in the time-frame they set up.

If this happens it will become the largest ever Crypto-IPO and the Ethereum team will have their work cut out dealing with the influx of cash after striving for so long on very little.

Good luck to them for pulling off what is a very ambitious scheme - they have done their homework and attracted a lot of confidence that they can succeed.

We need these kind of initiatives in the crypto-world as they stabilize and strengthen the whole eco-system.

It is too easy to call these initiatives scams - I think there is far more at stake than that.

The blockchain has NOTHING to do with IPO being an extremely easy method of committing fraud and gaining an infinite amount of premine + profit at the same time.

Example:

1)  I create a coin, protocol, whatever jibberish you want to call it called "etherealcrap".

2)  I offer 50% of the coin as IPO

3)  I create 10 separate BTC wallets and put 1 BTC in all of them and send it in to the IPO address.

4)  Since there was a total of 20 BTC sent in for the IPO all together, and I was responsible for half of it, I get 1/2 of the IPO premine for free because all BTC I spent returns to me anyway.

5)  Net profit for me is half of the premine + 10 BTC, and I spent nothing.

Horseshit. Your private BTC would end up with the rest of the development funds that must be used on that and that alone. Everyone will be watching to make sure this is the case. If there is misappropriation of funds, action can be taken.

Like everyone else, you are rewarded with shares from the IPO for your BTC investment.

Nobody gets anything for free.

Says who?  There's no law requiring this.  The user agreement says they don't even have to deliver a product at all and can take the money and buy crack rocks with it if they want.

https://i.imgur.com/QXJJIvX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/v5akv2M.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/rfY5YnG.jpg

big IPO  :D

Yes there is. From the website and all that is advertised it is quite clear the Ethereum board have entered into a contract with their investors. They can't just cut and run. Keep clutching at those straws.

I have to say, I think the Blockchain is great and all and it's no doubt fantastic for recording Bticoin transaction and potentially for indelibly recording other things as well but I think some of the claims and aspirations seem to be overblown and heading into hyperbole. "Unbreakable contracts"? "enforced by the blockchain"? Sorry, no. Once you step out into the real world, any contract can be broken simply by walking away and enforcement is done by men with guns. Possibly this is just not communicating the message properly but I suspect there's not a small amount of disingenuity in there also.

"Unbreakable contracts"? "enforced by the blockchain"?

If someone walks away from a contract it's usually the courts who have to deal with it, not the blockchain.

You misinterpreted me. The blockchain ensures transparency and public auditability during a crypto IPO. It is the courts that enforces the contract between the Ethereum foundation and its investors. This has nothing to do with the blockchain. I never claimed otherwise.

the mind your own business retort is a fail and.. childish to boot !

too many people minded their own business before and it cost the lives if Millions of Jews !

i am REALLY getting sick and fucking tired of you greedy corrupt mouthy scammers leaking verbal diarrhea out of your dick holster's !

for now on i am going to copy and paste this below and jam it down your stupid mouthy throats every time i hear the cliche'd Crypto-Retort "Mind your own business"

read morons..

https://blockchain.info/address/36PrZ1KHYMpqSyAQXSG8VwbUiq2EogxLo2

all the btc raised are still there it seems.

http://etherscripter.com/what_is_ethereum.html

Yes that's when Ethereum is launched and people use it. And their claims are correct. I was merely talking about the IPO, which is different, as the contract cannot be enforced by the bitcoin blockchain. It can be only regulated and audited.

So now that I know what you were referring to, I say you are wrong. Every contract on the Ethereum blockchain (or bitcoin blockchain) can be enforced by the blockchain itself. If you have read that page, I struggle to see how you can't grasp that. Men with guns aren't required. There is no ambiguity in blockchain contracts.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA
are you fking serious?

you clearly have to do more research in "history" if you really think this is the biggest scam! the biggest scam in history is the fucking FED

Are you talking about those regulations that helped us avoid the 2008 market crash! or the MF global scandal??

yes.. lets bring natzis into the mix! you sir are a supreme idiot.

DUDE.. EXACTLY!!!

I don't think you fully understand how this will work! I'll make it very simple!
i'll write a contract with you, a bet lets say, that the seahawks will win the superbowl again!
If you participate in this contract, then you will send .5 BTC or 1000 Ethers or 200000000000 derp coins to the blockchain and so will I. The program/code will figure out who won by communicating to the internet, and BAM! the winner will will receive those coins to their address! simple as that! see how that works? no guns, no men, no bukkake!

keep calling it a "alt-coin"
lol

Just a small tune up... You send 0.5 bitcoin or 20000 ether if it will be next year, all the rest is correct...

^^ could you elaborate?

I don't see at all how this is any good for investors. If one is paying for this imagining he is doing it for the greater good and changing the world then thats fine. But I bet most are investing hoping for a huge profit.

This is one IPO which in its original avatar raised a lot of flags in my head. I will just wait for a competent group (like the XCP guys) to fork it.

Any coin can be forked. That's not a valid argument specific to Ethereum.

Investing in Ethereum is a good for its investors because if it works, it will likely swallow up every coin out there - including bitcoin. Why? Because it is a far more powerful proposition than anything else that exists right now.

"0.5 BTC or 1000 Ethers" - Its in today's "rates"!
But as far as the number of total "ether" coins is not caped, so in the next 4 years the number of ethers will be doubled (26% each year) and considering that bitcoin in the next 4 years will rise... lets say 5 times... you need 10 times more demand for ether coins in the next 4 years to keep ratio 1 BTC/2000 ethers....

Considering that their target to raise $30mln USD, there will be about 100.000.000 ethers coming out next 4 years. What happens if bitcoin raises 20 times during these 4 years? What kind of demand they need to create to keep ratio higher from current 1 BTC 2000 ethers?
Am I missing something?

It appears that the supply of coin is controlled by developers. Should demand go up, what stop them from creating more?

It is not controlled by the developers.

The IPO thing they are doing right now. Where is the ether coming from?

Did they say how many they are going to create?

The IPO is for a fixed amount of days. The amount of Ether created is exactly equal to the amount demanded by investors. Its market cap will be what the market decides. The Ethereum developers have zero say in this.  

Good luck to the investors then.

they are not 'investors' - they are buyers of a product. It was made very clear by the ethereum-guys that no gains should be expected.


the thing that hurts is: the btc you throw at them will probably be worth 3 times what they are now by the time ethereum is MAYBE released.
If i was a buyer of ethereum i would not expect to get more btc back. If you bought eth with the goal of making more btc then i have bad news for you.

no, didn't buy eth so i can make btc. Bough some (SOME, didn't sell the goat to buy btc) to help support a project that i believe can help out humanity.

If i lose that money, it's fine! I pretened I played a poker game and lost! I don't invest what i can't lose.

I disagree. BTC is just a means to get ether. Better count your ROI in terms of USD or XAU.

Proof?

I raised plausibility questions some time ago and nobody has answered them yet. It seems you can explain what the main technical benefit of Ethereum is.

Time to be scared if you are on the IPO.

What if bitcoin really is just an experiment?  Success/gains in the experiment afforded you the key or opportunity to buy Ether.

Its nice to dream isn't it?   8)

Whether we are talking bitcoin, Nxt or Ethereum, if a contract involves external information or requires external action, then it cannot be enforced in a trustless manner by the network.  The majority of contracts that would be useful to me involve external information or action, so something like Gavin's Oracle idea is more appealing than something like Nxt or Ethereum.  

For example, it would be useful to write unbreakable contacts based on the market price of bitcoin, but this is not possible to do in a trustless way on any platform.  

 

no, it won't. You didn't read the disclaimer. It'll collapse if the token becomes too expensive.

TOS:
"19.15 Risk of Rapid Adoption and Insufficiency of Computational Application Processing Power on the Ethereum Network

If the Ethereum Platform is rapidly adopted, the demand for transaction processing and distributed application computations could rise dramatically and at a pace that exceeds the rate with which ETH miners can bring online additional mining power. Under such a scenario, the entire Ethereum Platform could become destabilized, due to the increased cost of running distributed applications. In turn, this could dampen interest in the Ethereum Project and ETH.

Insufficiency of computational resources and an associated rise in the price of ETH could result in businesses being unable to acquire scarce computational resources to run their distributed applications. This would represent revenue losses to businesses or worst case, cause businesses to cease operations because such operations have become uneconomical due to distortions in the crypto-economy."

you guys don't even read this stuff! If it is too expensive it'll be unusable. If you want to go to the moon stick to bitcoin, very simple. Ether is just a freakin' experiment. Have fun betatesting and reporting bugs.

Of course it is just an experiment! just like bitcoin... lol

I supported bitcoin when it was a joke (and a libertarian dream), and turned out pretty well... Why shouldn't I support ethereum when it is a joke (and a libertarian dream)? For some of us it is not about the money, it is about supporting the evolution of blockchain technologies.

Thaaaank you. The fucked up part is that these comments are from so called crypto fans. Lol

All i know is that they are working hard on all angles on this.

https://github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum/releases

The main benefit? It extends blockchain technology to a whole raft of different use cases. The possibilities are endless.

I have read it. This problem applies to bitcoin and every other coin. A coins use value is only as good as its network allows.

The Ethereum people have been very careful with the words the use not to raise the ire of regulators. The fact remains that somebody who buys Ether today is investing in its future and is thus an investor.

Who ever has invested in it should be looking to get out of it as soon as its profitable as there has been a lot of discussion about the issues with this alt coin otherwise they are going to get burned and lose a lot of money.

For anyone who would like to read a bit more about this cons of this project see here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=707237.new#new

Actually, I think they're more worried about lawsuits. In the regular ol' business world, that's why organizations lawyer up. Classic case in point: insurance companies. :D

I don't like how they are selling Ether for BTC when there's no Ether blockchain or coins.  Lots of hype around this "platform", same goes for Storj, lots of show with little being delivered.  Right now, all these are just sleight of hand tricks to crowdfund without calling it crowdfunding.

Hey, give me a bunch of BTC because I just made a slick video about how I'm going to disrupt conventional application delivery!

Ugh...

Too much hype for my tastes. Where's the developers? Where's the news articles?

It all sounds good on paper, but if nobody knows about it, and nobody will use it, your Ether is worth pennies. Perhaps you should speak to some actual developers and find out what they think of Ether, rather than assume developers are somehow going to appear out of thin air to use the platform.

As I've said before, Ethereum is a product that sounds good to investors. Use your damn head.

I think valuation is the main issue here

All the current "IPO's" seem to be offering nothing but promises. Buying them is a big gamble and I almost took the risk, but decided it was placing to much trust in just a promise they would produce something great.

You are just trolling... there's a working testnet and there are hundreds of devs with awesome projects that are impossible to implement with a blockchain 1.0 tech like bitcoin.

Same risk as any other IPO, imho.  The difference is the reward is far less.  Ethereum at $10 to $30 million starting capitalization can only go up so much unless some miracle happens.  Litecoin has been the only alternate coin so far to hit a valuation in the 300 million range.

 Ethereum has too much bad PR go big.  Once people realize there's a Goldman Sachs' connection (the people responsible for the 2008 crisis) and it's a premine to make a few greedy rich people people even richer, it's over.

    In contrast, there's tons of alternates out there which start at $50K to $500K capitalization and have potential to hit $50 million (100x to 1000x return on investment).

That's all a fundraising round ever offers. It's up to people to decide whether to take a punt or not. With the people and vision behind Ethereum, I am very much interested in taking a punt.

Silly analogy mate. The potential of litecoin doesn't even scratch the surface of Ethereum's.

Interesting to see the distribution of future Ethereums:
https://blockchain.info/taint/36PrZ1KHYMpqSyAQXSG8VwbUiq2EogxLo2

Hate to hijack this thread......but NXT.
Not sponsored by corporate thieves or incompetents, fully open source, up and running right now, capable of implementing pretty much anything Ethereum will be able to do.

Why throw your money at Goldman Sachs for vaporware and a promise when you could get in on a working system right now?

Sheesh, NXT has already placed 2 NXT based assets in the Coinmarketcap top 40 right now......and theres a lot more amazing stuff to come.

Is NXT support and capable to perform smart contracts?

Nope, not yet, but smart contracts are in the pipeline.......probably be up and running on NXT before Ethereum launches.
https://nxtforum.org/smart-contracts/

And while you're there, take a look at the rest of NXTs feature set.....

IMHO: if (big if) Ethereum can deliver on everything they promise, Eth will be technically superior to NXT.
But we are a very long way from seeing any code from Ethereum, even if they can deliver.
I think this is going to work out like VHS vs Betamax: the superior tech will lose out to ease of use, market position, availability and lower entry costs......

Well, that's not quit the case as there are lot of codes available from Ethereum at their github repository, I have just compiled their cpp-ethereum project which is a quite impressive piece of proof of concept software. Having said that Ethereum is not as innovative as I thought it will be. Even Buterin says or admit that Ethereum like Bitcoin with a built in scripting language. Knowing that Bitcoin can execute scripts the innovation is not a massive breakthrough.

I think you are absolutely right, we don't know whether the completed Ethereum solution will work and when that will be. NXT is definitely have a better position in the race. NXT is at least on the market with a proven and stable software.

Comparing Ethereum with NXT is like comparing a nice car (NXT) with its production and assembly line (Ethereum).

I agree, although of course you already know that I pretty much have to. As a co-dev of NFD, I'm pretty much in the tank for the Nxt tech - as you well know, Mr. EvilCoin.  ;)

But I am on solid ground here. I was excited by Etherium when they first announced it. But as winter melted into spring, I got the idea that they were bogged down into committee-speed slogging. That only further increased my confidence in Nxt and the Nxt system.

With its new schedule, Etherium is running the risk of becoming a much-better-publicized version of (trivia alert) eMunie. By the time Etherium gets off the ground, it'll have not only one competitive tech but two: the Nxt system and the NEM system.

For all I know, it might have at least three competitive techs. We might end up seeing eMunie after all, and one of those snazzy IPOs might bear competitive fruit by the opening winter of 2015.

So that's why I'm in the tank for the Nxt system - specifically, for NFD (http://www.nfdcoin.com/). To be honest, as a dev I actually have a moral obligation to be biased in NFD (http://www.nfdcoin.com/)'s favour.   

Nope, there's nothing that Eth is slated to do that can't be implemented in the NXT eco-system.
When NXT releases Monetary System, NXT becomes the factory......a better comparison would be that NXT is Lego and Eth is a 3d printer.

https://www.ethereum.org/
https://nxtforum.org/index.php
I've just spent a few minutes checking out Ethereums site.....apart from the money slurping machine at the front door, it reads like an extract from NXTs technical discussion section.

No, I grasp the concept. What is covered with these "contracts" however, is a small subset of useful contract types. It's a good concept as far as it goes but I smell hype.

Terrible example, even for what you are trying to illustrate.

I'm not going to crap all over Etherium as I think it sound like it could have some quite interesting applications. I just think some of its shortcomings are being quietly ignored.

"Could have some interesting applications". That's the equivalent of saying the www could have some interesting applications back in 1993.

What's wrong with that example as well? It makes perfect sense.

Small subset? Any type of financial or reputational contract can be governed by it. Any type of decentralised version of any web application that now exists can be run on it without a middleman enforcing the contract. The set of contracts is endless! 

My favourite part in this post.

Counterparty does this already right now

Great analogy

Let me doubt abuot your statement, sir

How much money has it slurped now?

Maybe you need to study set theory. Integers are also endless but do not cover all use cases for numbers.

How do you cover a contract for product delivery in the future for a payment up-front? How do you cover an employment contract where payments are ongoing? It seems that the contracts that can be covered with Etherium are time-order sensitive. Which is fine but like I say, hype. And you guys failure to qualify your statements and/or hedge only adds to that perception.

And your example is poor more for its category (gambling) which is probably not what anyone seriously needing to be concerned about contracts will be concerned about. Talk to me of building roads or inventory fulfillment, not the 3:30 at Epsom.

9,471.85518446 BTC (https://blockchain.info/address/36PrZ1KHYMpqSyAQXSG8VwbUiq2EogxLo2) at the moment.

Which makes the company currently worth $5,544,000 USD.

Ridiculous.

Why is it ridiculous?

Will you pay 5m USD for buying thin air?

 ::)

There are obviously some whales willing to bet on new concept. Nxt and Maidsafe did pretty well compare to other alt coins.

Thin air, backed by Goldman Sachs. That makes it totally trustworthy....... ::)

Whatever happened to the idea that crypto would liberate us from the greed and incompetence of Wall St?

How is Goldman Sachs backing it?

Goldman Sachs isn't backing it but its a psychological condition these people have.

Just like when someone gets mugged or something and then they are too afraid to go out, or can not relax around strangers, their mind has been changed , they have be traumatized. they become irrational .

Same exact thing here, they hear Goldman Sachs and instead of thinking logically about it, they just start throwing their own shit screaming "Goldman Sachs!! Goldman Sachs!!!"

Because of the mistrust this institute has created. you are now getting people who instead of just seeing it and thinking "yeah they are a piece of shit"  and that's it.  they become irrational and concocted wild stories about stuff without any proof....just a paranoid delusional feeling brought on by the betrayal of such a huge institution

Why invest in any idea ever then? Let's just leave the world the way it is. Let's not kickstart probable solutions to various problems. Who cares about progress?

I just took the time to do some research, and the GS connection is clear, 2 of the core devs being ex-GS employees. If I was a full-on conspiracy theorist, that would be enough to start me foaming at the mouth.

As it is, since GS was/is one of the main players in the total clusterfuck/theft that is the current global financial crisis, there is just no way in Hell that I would trust Ethereum as far as I could throw it.

Eth may well be 'clean', might even be a success, but no matter how much I love some profit, they aren't getting my BTC.
(Better call Vitalik, let him know his salaries gonna be late)

To value a start-up company at over 5 million USD? I shouldn't even have to answer that question. So a company that isn't making any money is now worth over 5 million. How long, if at all, do you think it will take for your stake to be worth anything? For it to double, the company, once it goes live, would have to make 5 million on top of that, and that's assuming 100% of their earnings will go into the value of Ether, which it certainly won't.

Just think about it and you'll see how overly-inflated the evaluation is.

That's prolly an understatement. Eth will prolly be worth 10mill or more by the time the IPO is done. and then 10 mill will have to be made for a 100% profit

Well...I think it's more like the surmises that people out of the loop have to rely on to make sense of the insider part of the world. If you don't have the inside dope, but you need a definite conclusion, you do have to fly by the seat of your surmise. It's unavoidable, really.

...saith the formerly-overworked data-entry guy...

You don't have to trust it. It's an open source decentralised application. What has the background of people working on it got to do with anything? I've lots of friends who worked in banks. So what? Seriously the arguments I'm hearing here are so stupid. This forum used to be a place where I would be enlightened and enthralled. Those days appear to be gone.

When you consider its potential, $5m is pennies. A tiny figure. $5m is nothing these days anyway. We're talking about a global platform here. Banks do billions worth of business on a daily basis. If you're building something that requires a huge amount of talent and time, millions are required. Simple as that.

Well said, Marcelus.

As long as the people who are buying Ethers are doing so in a spirit of assisting in the launch of what can be a truly revolutionary idea and not just speculating on the price, then that is sufficient justification for the effort.

The advent of BTC makes it easy for funds to flow quickly and in an unimpeded way from many individuals to a common entity.

The $6m or so is really very small in this context compared with what the Ethereum team are setting out to achieve.

Do not forget that they plan to open-source their code so that the crypto-community worldwide will stand to benefit from their work.

"Open source" or "planning to be open source" ?
Seems to be some confusion, anyone with a definitive answer?

Open source will mean that Eth will get cloned inside 2 seconds of release, which may not sit well with the guys who ponied up $5 million so far, but is a lot more in line with the ideals (such as they are) of the crypto scene.

Open source. Yes it may be cloned. The Ethereum guys mention this in their lengthy message to all would-be buyers. The lay all their cards on the table. People are free to choose whether to invest or not. Wherein lies the problem with this? Can I not like this project and invest in it without having to listen to a whole lot of nonsense based on nothing but conjecture here? I believe that a fork probably won't be successful because of the talent behind Ethereum and its branding/mindshare. Of course we could end up with another Mastercoin/Counterparty situation. Anything is a possibility. That's why investments are always risks. I wish to take a risk on this because it's the first big leap since bitcoin itself. What it could be is mind-blowing.

@ Marcelus: chill yr boots, mate.
I have a personal distrust of the current financial system, and I'm not amazingly happy to see yet another hyped up IPO, but I'm not condemning Ethereum.
It is a good idea, but from my point of view not such a quantum leap forward, seeing as NXT has been opening up the second generation crypto-currency feature set for several months now. However, Eth will be able to offer a complete scripting language, which will be a useful addition to NXTs modular approach.
So: good idea, yes, mindblowing, not really.

And again from my experience with NXT: if Eth is truly open-source, it will get cloned. Mercilessly and immediately, so you should be prepared for that. Hopefully, as with NXT, the momentum will remain with Eth itself, and not be siphoned off by cloners.

I'm sorry, but potential doesn't put food on the table. Every altcoin ever developed ever had "potential". Banks do billions, yet if nobody knows about, or uses Etherium, that's what it'll be worth in the end. Pennies.

It's all hype. Where are the businesses coming out to back Etherium? It all sounds good on paper, but that's it. Big promises, and little evidence. Which makes it any different to any other IPO how, exactly?

Every idea in its infancy is just hype. Every business idea is just a promise. This phenomenon is not unique to crypto! To build anything costs money. That's why capital is raised. That's why investors exist. It's not any different to any other IPO. Nor should it be. There's absolutely nothing wrong with raising capital to build something that could make a difference to the world. How is this so hard to grasp?

I'm not saying these are unique concepts, which is precisely why I suggest people invest with their heads and not their hearts. Ask the tough questions before risking everything for potentially nothing.

Too riski of a investment imo

Biggest scam in 2014.

One of the few bits of sense I've seen on this thread.

I am investing with my head. I've been going to Ethereum meetups in London for months. I've seen the test net in action. It looks more like OSX than the basic clients that exist for the various protocols now. It's going to add a useability that allows non-technical people to use it. I've also seen what the various people in the team have achieved in the past. They've assembled talent that surpasses any other team out there. But first and foremost, he concept the goal, is miles ahead of anything else. That's why I, with my head, not my heart, am going balls deep on this.

The people shouting scam are basing their accusations on frivolous claims and are quite likely trolling as the they have interests in competing protocols.

Well, it looks like Peter Thiel fancies the idea... That is an uber-hint that only blind people fail to see.

If you don't like it, clone it and run your crowdfunding campaign. If it is *that* easy, what are you waiting for? You could launch your dogethereum and we can all laught at it...  ;D

Anyone that invested in this is going to have a long time to be nervous about it as it seems the IPO is extended for a long time until people will see good results. Im still deciding about investing at least 0.1 or so just in case I can get some BTC off it, but as long as long term goes im not sure.

I've invested some btc's and I'm chilled as f*ck. In my mind I've given them away to a promising project because I want to see a team pushing the boundaries of crypto development. If I lose them, I'm perfectly fine... because I can afford to lose that money. If you can't, or don't believe in the project, then it is better to stay away...

It reminds me of bitcoin in 2012, and how everybody was telling me "you're nuts for putting money in this nerd circus"...

I don't trust Ethereum.

+ All of the features they are promising are already out in the market right now. I don't know why the world needs Ethereum. Neeextt.

I neither said it was easy, and nor did I express any desire to launch my own fork of Ether. Save your confidence for when the IPO ends and Ether is fully up and running.

I'm on the sidelines for this one. Coins like NXT seem to be a much safer bet right now...they've been live since december/january

Yeah...plus the fudsters doing their gleeful dance after BTC touched $2 at the opening of '12. It's so much like gold in that way: if you buy in at the point of maximum fud during a solidly established bull trend, you make out damned well. The only trouble with this approach is that you become habituated to seeing fudsters as nothing more than wrong-way-Corrigan klutzes, which means you'll likely go down with the bagholders when the real blow-off bubble is followed by the real carnage. "The stopped clock is still right twice a day."

But for Bitcoin, the above is only long-term bull-session talk. I don't expect a real all-out BTC bubble to blow up, implode and visit carnage all over the land until the close of this decade. Not until then: it's still way too early. Right now, MSM coverage of Bitcoin is well laced with fud. I won't get really worried until MSM - real MSM - coverage is all hypey. With the implication that "Bitcoin Has Arrived!!!" 

Keeping with the indirectly-related-to-Etherium theme, I just saw a Maidsafe chart. It was strikingly like Facebook's after FB's IPO. Downturn making IPOers feel like bagholders, followed by an upturn that rewarded the IPO investors who HODLed through. I have a hintie-hunch that ethers will play the same overture.

(Damn, I wished I had bought FB when it was $25...) 

Out of interest, what is "balls deep" for you ?

Less that 1 BTC ?
1-10 BTC ?
10's f BTCs ?
100's of BTC's ?

Or, if you like you can express it as percentage of holding.

The thing is, I, like you, have followed the Etherium concept and believe it to be very promising, so I'm throwing a couple of BTC at it to have a "horse in the race". However, I don't beleive in going "balls deep" because:

[1] - the price could plummet as soon as it goes on the market, there is so much speculation involved and so much Ether about with nowhere near the utility value to justify it yet

[2] - if the price doesn't plummet and rises, at least we'll be along for the ride in some capacity

You can't safely go "balls deep" in anything until it's been trading for a while and you can confidently anticipate revaluations based on BOTH fundamentals and trading history. So the optimal approach is, stick a small amount in now as insurance, then trade it confidently once it's launched.

That way you won't miss any boats and you also won't loose your shirt.

However much it is, it sounds like he has put all his eggs in one basket, which is a big gamble to take.

Does anyone know if you can purchase ether from the same BTC address?  I'm thinking of buying some more.

I think this resumes all the talk about investing or not, we gamble everyday, in minor or major scale, so take this as a bet, invest what you can afford to lose only and stop looking for the opposite side of the project.
for me the odds of this being successful are high, at leas they have made a very detailed explanation of their project with proofs, not only bullshit promises like most ipos outhere. Anyway im not seeing to be all in on this, that would be very stupid.

Every coin is relatively pegged to bitcoin. If there's a bubble all their values will go up.

LOL this was an entire year ago.... Did they ever actually release anything to the public or is it still just all talk?

The released some source code. It's pretty exciting.

However they're out of money now... so I have no idea what the next step is. I'm more interested in seeing the new ethereum clones coming out. I think it'll be the new altcoin thing. No more bitcoin clones, only ethereum clones.

They released a command line based wallet that lacks a large amount of the promised functionality. If they can't make any more money fast then development stops. They call the advanced wallet they have promised serenity. It's not clear yet if they can afford to keep developing until it's completed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/39ujsp/founder_salaries/

[–]luvasugirls 6 points 1 month ago
Hey vbuterin. Just curious, do you think there is enough funding to get to serenity? That's my only concern. If there is, I really wouldn't care how much you get paid.

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[–]vbuterin?THÐ?V - Vitalik Buterin 11 points 1 month ago
Depends entirely on the ether price. At the optimistic 1 ETH = $1.5 value that others have been throwing around, there is more than enough; at 1 ETH = $0.1, no.

They released a fully working PoC version to the public prior to fundraising over a year ago.

Since then - there have been nine new PoC releases across three different clients adding features / refactoring code.  The latest stress test handled roughly 10X bitcoin transaction volume.  The network is going live for the developers & the GUI's (which include a web browser & javascript language for Eth development) aren't "officially supported" (some people are using them anyway) until the Homestead release.

one word HYPE!
it will die out after the hype, just like aurora or paycoin. ethorieum is a shit name, hard to understand, waste of time and useless piece of scam.
i know most people would think this is there last chance to strike rich in crypto, know this, the world don't work your way. remember it.

Yea so without getting technical.  IBM didn't fork any of those coins.  Nick Szabo didn't tweet about any of those a half a dozen times.  Peter Theil wasn't interested in those coins.

Ethereum can stay worth $0.30 for all I care (or $0.15 if you wanna use BTC ratios) and still work fine (it won't).  But comparing it to Paycoin or Aura is laughable.  Aura was a copy.  Paycoin was a string of outright lies from a known scammer.

Ethereum was far beyond what either of those projects ever even tried before it raised a dime.

why would there be anything to worry about in the future of crypto over anything related to ethereum?

ethereum as future of cryptos goes is irrelevant.

Thanks for the input

oh the irony of crypto development needing fiat   :-\

smart move on their part going on a half ass release.

they are looking to liquidate their ether in order to raise funding since they are running out and also they want everyone else to hopefully build on top of their platform for free.

so you gotta have the hype and marketing going. good job btw! if they didn't no one would care not even trolling threads like this.

People who hijacked this thread totally want to buy into Ethereum cheap. It is so visible, it makes me smile. Atleast you know who are buyers of your ETH :D

No, we really could care less. Look at BTS right now. ETH is currently the 3rd largest crowdsourced projected ever developed, raising over $18 million, and they still need more money, to work on something that hasn't been released as a working version after over 1.5 years of talk and promises???

The moment ETH hits the exchange, its price will plummet. That's the way it always goes. At the rate its been going, I don't mind waiting a whole nother year before I drop a dime into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8zYSYrUAKo

https://poloniex.com/exchange#btc_eth :)

Trading won't start for another day yet. Poloniex posted this message an hour or two ago, although there's no mention of it on the Ethereum market page itself. They put it in the little list of announcements on the right hand side where people might miss it.

Ethereum deposits are delayed 24 hrs from 2015-08-07 03:50 UTC per dev request. The developers may rollback the chain up to 24 hours in case of an issue. As a result, the developers asked all exchanges to wait 5760 confirms (24 hours) to credit ETH deposits in case the chain is rolled back.Posted by OldManKidd at 2015-08-07 05:32:22

Well guys, don't say I didn't warn you.  From the charts, it looks like they used IPO funds to pump and dump their own product unless Wolong wants to come along and take credit for it.

GRUDDAMNIT.. You DID WARN US!!

..

I am a little shocked that they sold all their ETH though... surely their BTC holdings were enough, or should have been.

Now they have no incentive to see this thing through to the end.. That's the only valid point of a 'pre-mine' (whatever vitalik calls it), to keep the main devs interested. But now they have no ETH, they have no incentive to stay at the party.

Also - roughly 10-20million ETH ? was dumped by them at the beginning.. How much BTC was that ? Where has that gone ?

Without that seriously massive dump early on, who knows where the price would be now..