They don't care what it is.  They put their money in simply because they thought they would be able to later sell it for more.

It's called the Greater Fool Theory.

I don't think ETH bagholders ought to start licking each others' popsicles just yet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4rv6k5/ethereum_reaches_unanimous_agreement_to_hardfork/

It's not a done deal until it's a done deal.  Best of luck...but I will watch this one with no skin in the game. 

Raves

Specifically designed to purchase MDMA, glow-in-the-dark necklaces, and shitty house music mp3 files.

Powerful perspectives.  Great article!

Hope you didn't sell at 20K sats.  The goal is to sell HIGH, not at the lowest possible point.

Sitting at 28K sats right now. 

If you're thinking about panic selling, it's always worth considering your exit point.

I think the hacker stole by deception and that is certainly theft.

My problem isn't collusion per se, but collusion at the behest of the Foundation.  I don't think anybody believes their motives are as pure as the driven snow. 

Brilliant!!!!

Thanks for the article and thank you even more for the discussion!  Wish I had a little more time for it right now, because it's clear that you have some excellent thoughts on it all!

Wow!  Welcome! 

I think I understand your point about the precedent.  You're right...there probably isn't any MORE reason now than there was before for any government or corporation to fork/roll back/control the blockchain.  And I'm sure that Apple with $160 billion in cash or Microsoft with $85 billion in cash have recognized that they COULD easily do whatever they want to do. 

I still have some concern about how the Foundation has taken the lead on it, though.  What happens if VB gets busted with a yacht full of hookers and cocaine?  Would the DEA be able to put enough pressure on him PERSONALLY to get him to get the miners to collude?  Maybe that wouldn't have nefarious purposes...but what if his parents/girlfriend/boyfriend/CHILD got kidnapped?  Would kidnappers pressure him to exercise his leadership in a truly nefarious way?  You could ask for $1 million to return a person.  Or you could make  20x that by shorting and forcing one man to exercise a power he has that he probably shouldn't have.

Satoshi NEVER had that individual cult-of-personality or power.  Maybe that's why he/she has been anonymous the whole time. 

One doesn't even have to read past the first three sentences to know that this guy is clearly talking his book.  He owns DAO and also has a couple of other Ethereum-supported projects. 

It's a well-written piece.  He makes some strong arguments.  He does a good job refuting some of the counter-arguments to a hard fork.  But I think his fundamental argument that it would be MORE valuable is completely unsupported.  Truth is, nobody knows the impact of the loss of trust caused by the sloppy work upfront and the efficacy of the attacks that inhibit the soft fork.  What will the next attack be?  Where will it come from?  Will they roll everything back AGAIN to thwart it? 

His argument that it somehow IMPROVES mainstream perception of Ethereum is, well, not actually an argument.  It's an anecdote followed by an opinion.  I happen to have the opposite opinion. 

Finally, he doesn't address my main concern, which is the precedent of colluding with miners to do the bidding of the Foundation.  This is NOT GOOD for a lot of reasons.  One of those reasons is the precedent it sets of collusion.  What happens if a government wants to intervene and threaten the miners to fork because they THINK there is a homeland security issue?  What happens if they want to roll back just because they feel people aren't paying capital gains taxes?  What happens if MegaCorp sees that they could easily afford the required bribes to do whatever it is that THEY want?  ETH is roughly a billion in market cap.  Apple has $160 billion on hand an Microsoft has $85 billion. 

ETH isn't too big to fail.  On the contrary, it's too small to save. 

One of the best articles I've seen on this fiasco.

I'm not a holder of ETH or DAO, so I have no financial interest either way.  My concern is the precedent this sets in all of crypto.  What's next?  Will some government intervene under the guise of freezing transactions so that alleged terrorists can't benefit?  Will some mega-company or bank pay bounties to win a 51% plurality of miners in order to control and centralize a blockchain?  It's a horrible, horrible precedent for many reasons for ALL of crypto. 

It's possible that it would be better for everybody for ETH to disappear.  That might be better than saving a very flawed system.

At a market cap of almost $1 billion, Ethereum is priced for near-perfection in execution.

But it ain't executing perfectly AT ALL.

If the Ethereum devs aren't invested in DAO, if the Foundation isn't invested, you can bet your last BTC that these guys, as curators, convinced whales to invest.  Either way, it certainly appears as though VB is acting in his financial best interests to soft-fork, hard-fork, or do whatever he can do to protect his money or his whales' money.

It's truly disgusting.  

Nooooo shit.

LOL @ blatant manipulation!

Just to clarify, I did not invest/speculate in that garbage.  I wish that the shitstains who are overseeing that mess would handle this honorably, because it reflects on all crypto.  About $1.25 billion in total market cap shaved off in the last 24 hours. 

But reversed to WHAT?  What ETH/DAO price?  Does it depend on when you bought it?  Or does it revert to some price at some arbitrary time before they realized what was going on?

Well, not to pad your already-I'm-sure-massive ego, but whenever somebody turns sloppy code around on itself in order to raise awareness of a crypto scam, I am curious about whether or not you showed up for your 9 to 5 that day or if maybe you called in sick.

Wonder if he's been...busy?

That would be interesting to note, wouldn't it?  

Obviously, Vitalik was aware of what was happening long before any of us were aware: http://pastebin.com/aMKwQcHR

Did he sell his DAO at the then-market value?  

If you sold yours in the panic when it was down 45%, did you exit the contract?  Does that count as your "payback"?

Will you simply get back exactly what you paid in BTC, whatever that was?  Sounds like a NIGHTMARE to administer.

[4:15:37 AM] Mathias: Guys, I understand the stress you are all in at the moment.
But please keep the big picture in mind :
What we are facing is a crappy smart contract, and careless investors. This is their risk of investing without proper due diligence.
Don't risk the reputation of Ethereum as an independent, decentralized platform because of it by taking hasty measures like hard forks or roll  backs .

When I say "diversify", I am not talking about various cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin may seem "safe" right now, but thousands of hodlers of BTC in Mt. Gox would be happy to explain otherwise.