Sounds like this project is already in its deaththrows. Leaked Skype chat has dev saying they're hears away from finished but will run out of money in 7 months.
I read thru the chat (it's been out for quite a while now) and my take away from it was a bit different.
If ethteam gets to Serenity before running out of bitcoin (not going to speculate on likelyhood of that here) - the foundation will be generating apx 1.4 mil ethers a year if they stake them. At Serenity with the live network up and running, the security audits behind them, the logic code mostly done, the PoW & PoS developed the $ load goes from
initial startup costs
marketing
development
building three separate clients from scratch that support touring
security auditing
two new consensus algo's
to
scaling & speed improvements
support / bugfixing
(bitcoin has how many full time devs?) if you're able to cut current costs down to whatever is supported from staking then you are fine.
The project will just scale down to 5 devs & a PR person (if ether is worth .30 - more if it's more. Less if it's less)
What did NXT start with - 40 pre-investors? Ethereum has thousands ...
How many applications were developed in NXT pre-launch? Ethereum has dozens.
There is a lot of space between "We are gonna wipe out litecoin on day one u guyz!!!" to "Dead on Arrival" It is neither & has produced code & attracted enough attention OUTSIDE of this altcoin speculation forum (something that no other altcoin has done to the same degree) that most are oblivious to that it will have it's shot over the next 12 to 18 months.
It has raised eyebrows of IBM, banks who are interested in moving to a ledger system and more. Funding Ethereum (or figuring out a way to keep them / project alive & intact with consensus) will be their cheapest route to continue ongoing development they may want to tap into in the future.
