Etherium. What's next?

[NextGenCrypto]

I'm not interested in entangling myself any further with you by taking part in some facile betting game.  It would be nothing but a waste of my time.

Well, if you're so confident that "something" would be some BTC.  But it sounds to me like you're a pussy and have no faith to back up your shit talk.

[Rofo]

What's next?

1-6 months: Ethereum enjoys its rightful spotlight, lots of lower lows and lots of higher highs (maybe to both, hurray trading), a few extra releases, bug fixes - and dangerous bugs leading to losses, maybe even a GUI wallet. Lots of world-travelling, grand speeches of decentralizing the world and much slapping on backs. Ethereum continues to be marketed as the 'future of finance'.

6-12 months: A disagreement or two over direction or development, a number of Ethereum employees ramp up their 'contractual' and 'non-official' development and advisory aids to private and public forks, a number under NDA that we never hear about. A group of increasingly vocal 'heads' worry more about Ethereum not being able to compete and meet regulatory and banking requirements (cue Ripple) and the drastic changes that will have to come about in order to appease the real financial system. This is exacerbated by the platform being riddled with pyramid schemes and illegal gambling, tarnishing its image. Ethereum continues to be marketed as the 'future of finance'.

12-18 months: Interest in Ethereum is waning, despite a number of great releases, new GUI wallet. Consistent news of Ethereum forks, distributed ledgers and private blockchains (the ones Vitalik is currently buttering you up for) is worrying investors. Many people are concerned that the volume does not match the 4000-6000+ BTC/day of it's prime-time days. The ask the question, 'is Ethereum the future of finance?'. The team seem to be quieter, questions about money and how it was spent. Are there growing conflicts of interest? Perhaps Ethereum gets lucky and gains further funding from 'investors' (hopefully not for an 'undisclosed amount of *new* ETH to be released to new 'shareholders'). Ethereum continues to be marketed as the 'future of finance'.

18-24 months: Fiat burnt through like a hot knife through Butter, future funding is looking bleak. Despite a great platform there are 100+ ETH forks with newer and shinier 'features', offering greater pumps and greater profit potential, and the cryptocurrency world is hearing too much news about new shiny competitors released by private and financial institutions. Not a single ETH sits in the hands of the original institutional investors or company itself. One by one the employees have given a polite and gracious exit speech to continue their passion for development elsewhere - 'my time here was wonderful, Ethereum has a great future and we learnt a lot. We have driven success and innovation. YOU made Ethereum what it is but it is time for me to move on, etc. etc.'. They are hired by private and public competitors to work on new platforms (of which they have privately advised on for the past 12 months). These competitors, 'Open', 'Lightning', 'Medici', etc. etc. are marketed as the 'future of finance', and the cycle repeats itself.

24+ months: ?

Too cynical? Happy to eat my words if this does not come about. Wouldn't take much to halve that time-frame either.

[Life_time_student]

I think Ethereum has much greater potential than Bitcoin in terms of sheer utility and market capitalization. With this disproportionate reward comes extraordinary risk.
Ethereum tries to solves a larger set of problems than Bitcoin and hence has greater utility. Ethereum is a platform and ether is the currency based on this platform. Since Ethereum is a platform, new applications and currencies can be built on top of it. New currencies can be built on Bitcoin as well, but ethereum was built with the intent of being an almost like an operating system of sorts.
Before starting to invest in any cryptocurrency read and study about cryptocurrencies. In any case, do not invest more than you are willing to lose.

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