Vitalik writes Dear John letter to the Ethereum community...

[JacksonBriggs]

This article has some mighty nice points made in it.

https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/09/28/the-evolution-of-ethereum/

Deez are muh favorites.

we suffered roughly $9m in lost potential capital , and a hiring schedule that was meant to last over three years ended up lasting a little under two (although bolstered by a “second wind” from our ETH holdings).

Or in other words, "our massive dump on polo"

Let us start off by providing an overview of the Foundation’s financial situation. Its current holdings are roughly:

200,000 CHF
1,800 BTC
2,700,000 ETH

translation, "we presold 60m eth and then front ran another 8m eth after it hit the exchanges"

And last but not least. My upmost favorite part of the Dear John Letter.

Up until fairly recently, almost all of the work that has been done on the Ethereum project has been done by subsidiaries of the foundation. In the future, however, although the foundation and its subsidiaries are going to continue to take on a strong and leading role, it will be the community that will gradually be the primary driver in making it succeed.

Because we made our money, peace bitches.

[JacksonBriggs]

get to work community....take us to the moon!

the denouement:

"The foundation and its subsidiaries alone simply do not have the manpower to push the entirety of this vision through to its ultimate completion, including proof-of-stake driven scalable blockchains, seamlessly integrated distributed hash tables, programming languages with formal verification systems backed by state-of-the-art theorem provers and dozens of categories of middleware"

to da moon community!

If only it were a community grass roots project like btc it might have some community enthusiasm to take it to the moon. However, its already made a couple folks filthy rich at the expense of said community they want to pick up the slack.

[bcdev]

Let us start off by providing an overview of the Foundation’s financial situation. Its current holdings are roughly:
200,000 CHF
1,800 BTC
2,700,000 ETH

That's $2,315,000 with today's prices, most of which is in ETH. Assuming that ETH price is stable, it'll last:

The foundation’s monthly expenditures are currently ~410,000 CHF and starting Oct 1 are projected to fall to 340,000 CHF; a mid-term goal has been placed of 200,000 – 250,000 CHF

Even with 200,000 CHF of monthly expenses the Ethereum Foundation will go bankrupt in 12 months if they don't have any monetization plans.

Do they have any monetization plan?

[JacksonBriggs]

That's $2,315,000 with today's prices, most of which is in ETH. Assuming that ETH price is stable, it'll last:

Like the $17m lasted?

[box0214]

its called smart marketing....

1. fund ethereum with your own BTC
2. work for ethereum for a large salary (150-200k).
3. Get money back
4. Market it as having raised the largest amount in crypto.
5. pay talented marketers big bucks to hype it.
6. gg...

smart and clever.

i still believe ethereum is good, but its original intention is not to compete with btc. its a platform, just like NXT.

its the applications that gets built on top of it that's whats going to be valuable.

[bcdev]

Like the $17m lasted?

Big chunk of the money was lost due to Bitcoin's loss in value. But yes, they are awful at managing money [compared to SuperNET and NXT].


Does Ethereum Foundation have any monetization plan? How much do they make in donations for example? Is it enough to keep development forward?

[Coinshot]

Let us start off by providing an overview of the Foundation’s financial situation. Its current holdings are roughly:

200,000 CHF
1,800 BTC
2,700,000 ETH

They need to show when they sold the 8m ETH. If they did it at the start while warning others against transferring that is a clear theft.

Does Ethereum Foundation have any monetization plan? How much do they make in donations for example? Is it enough to keep development forward?

Read the blog, Vitalik expects others to come with their own for profit ventures.

[worhiper_-_]

Fucking lol OP, you'd make good company with the paid shills in /r/buttcoin... 

Seriously though, don't you think that it's a little early to judge the innovation that could come out of ethereum? If years pass and there's no significant use cases or applications developed then you would be able to say that it was overvalued without having to be called a FUDster. But I think that this is unlikely.

[Hazard]

Anyone who didn't see this coming simply wasn't paying attention.

[JacksonBriggs]

its called smart marketing....

1. fund ethereum with your own BTC
2. work for ethereum for a large salary (150-200k).
3. Get money back
4. Market it as having raised the largest amount in crypto.
5. pay talented marketers big bucks to hype it.
6. gg...

smart and clever.

i still believe ethereum is good, but its original intention is not to compete with btc. its a platform, just like NXT.

its the applications that gets built on top of it that's whats going to be valuable.

So they moved on to Augur?

[Thenoticer]

It sounds to me like they just pulled a mastercoin. Now who is the counterparty of etherium

[Stephen Gornick]

Ethereum: Bitcoin Price Decline Created $9 Million Funding Shortfall

http://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-bitcoin-decline-9-million-funding-shortfall

[JacksonBriggs]

Ethereum: Bitcoin Price Decline Created $9 Million Funding Shortfall

http://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-bitcoin-decline-9-million-funding-shortfall

interesting article thanks for the share

[JacksonBriggs]

This just in guise The ETH presale was not an IPO.

Remember that the ether sale was not an IPO; it was a method of obtaining ether directly by sending bitcoins to an address independently of the foundation's ETH holdings;

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3mpq6b/new_ethereum_blog_post_from_vitalik_buterin_the/cvh15z9

This kid reminds me what it would be like if Jayden Smith had a cult.

"REPEAT AFTER ME. IT WAS NOT AN INITIAL PURCHASE OFFERING. YOU COULD ONLY INITIALLY PURCHASE ETH DURING THE OFFERING."

[DecentralizeEconomics]

[spartacusrex]

"REPEAT AFTER ME. IT WAS NOT AN INITIAL PURCHASE OFFERING. YOU COULD ONLY INITIALLY PURCHASE ETH DURING THE OFFERING."

LOL..

Jesus.. 31,000 BTC just doesn't seem to go very far now adays.. Makes me feel a little 'sick' actually.

Personally, I just don't think there is a large enough TECHNICAL Community who could take ethereum to this POS point Vitalik speaks of.. Sorry.

If they don't 'Finish' it.. whatever that means, someone else will start something new, learn from their MANY mistakes, and try again. (Less Feature Creep next time please..)

What I am curious about is this - they have already included the exponential POW algo that will make POW un-tenable in 12 months, this was to ensure there is a switch to POS, but now he is saying they won't be able to do this..

Will they remove that code ?

Or is there a gun to our heads with a clock tick-tocking away next to us.. 

[defaced]

"REPEAT AFTER ME. IT WAS NOT AN INITIAL PURCHASE OFFERING. YOU COULD ONLY INITIALLY PURCHASE ETH DURING THE OFFERING."

LOL..

Jesus.. 31,000 BTC just doesn't seem to go very far now adays.. Makes me feel a little 'sick' actually.

Personally, I just don't think there is a large enough TECHNICAL Community who could take ethereum to this POS point Vitalik speaks of.. Sorry.

If they don't 'Finish' it.. whatever that means, someone else will start something new, learn from their MANY mistakes, and try again. (Less Feature Creep next time please..)

What I am curious about is this - they have already included the exponential POW algo that will make POW un-tenable in 12 months, this was to ensure there is a switch to POS, but now he is saying they won't be able to do this..

Will they remove that code ?

Or is there a gun to our heads with a clock tick-tocking away next to us.. 

That is a very solid question. The exponential piece of the diff algo only makes the diff harder,and like you said, to help usher in PoS. We are taking that little bit of code out of EXP because its simply not needed and we are completely revamping that algo. Currently its a little, um.. binary. The new one however is a lot more functional.

[tokeweed]

Something akin to the start-up woes.  Read the blog.  It's good to express yourself and to keep it real but that blog didn't really give people confidence in Ethereum.  

Buterin, it's nice to have some of the load carried by the community but this is all you buddy boy.  You started this and you are going to finish it for better or worse.  That blog is showing that the pressure is taking a toll on you.  You are the leader, the Big Kahuna...  So don't show it.  Be strong, work hard and keep developing.  Things will fall into place and everything is going to be A-Ok.

Peace.

[spartacusrex]

..The exponential piece of the diff algo only makes the diff harder,and like you said, to help usher in PoS. We are taking that little bit of code out of EXP because its simply not needed and we are completely revamping that algo. Currently its a little, um.. binary. The new one however is a lot more functional.

HAHA! .. That was quick.

By EXP, I assume you're referring to 'Expanse' (EthereumXT) ?

And here I was thinking that..

Personally, I just don't think there is a large enough TECHNICAL Community who could take ethereum to this POS point Vitalik speaks of.. Sorry.

If they don't 'Finish' it.. whatever that means, someone else will start something new, learn from their MANY mistakes, and try again. (Less Feature Creep next time please..)

Good Luck Lads. (If you can keep your cash burn rate to less than $250,000 a month!? you should be ok..  )

..

Something akin to the start-up woes.  Read the blog.  It's good to express yourself and to keep it real but that blog didn't really give people confidence in Ethereum. 

Buterin, it's nice to have some of the load carried by the community but this is all you buddy.  You started this and you are going to finish it for better or worse.  That blog is showing that the pressure is taking a toll on you.  You are the leader, the Big Kahuna...  So don't show it.  Be strong, work hard and keep developing.  Things will fall into place and everything is going to be A-Ok.

Peace.

I'm with you tokeweed, but if you take 18mil from investors, and then fail to deliver.. well.. hmm.. It's funny how smart techie guys are always terrible with money.
 

[JacksonBriggs]

I'm with you tokeweed, but if you take 18mil from investors, and then fail to deliver.. well.. hmm.. It's funny how smart techie guys are always terrible with money.
 

conveniently terrible with money