Is Ethereum a bubble?

[abs350]

See a vote on this one 

[tokeweed]

If I missed the run up, I wouldn't buy ETH unless there's upside momentum.

[bathrobehero]

I think it's a bubble, but it's safe to say there will be much bigger bubbles in the near future. And I don't even like Ethereum.

[CoinHoarder]

If I missed the run up, I wouldn't buy ETH unless there's upside momentum.

I missed it and I am not worried. I maintain the opinion it will come down eventually.

This kind of a pump always happen with new coins that are well hyped and have the innovation to back it up. It happened with Nxt, Bitshares, etc... (list a million coins here) ...

Also, other coins that already exist have similar technology (Crypti, Qora, etc... eventually RootStock)  and a fraction of the market cap... I think equilibrium will eventually be reached.

Neither Ethereum/Crypti/Quora have a killer app as of yet. I think at this point all have an equal chance to thrive if it lands one of the first (or one of the first few) killer apps.

Ethereum does have a better chance at a killer app, but a serious project might be able to make a more successful start up by developing on a less popular chain that is under priced (while investing in it at the same time.)

I think Ethereum is a good cryptocurrency to speculate in, but I think you kind of have to be a bit insane to be buying right now at these prices.

[owm123]

If top price of $2.5 is considered bubble, than yes. But, for me increase from 1 to 2 dollars is far from a bubble. Its just a pump.

[TPTB_need_war]

On any sufficient time horizon, it has to be a bubble that will crash to near 0 unless they solve the fundamental flaw of how to handle decentralization of a block chain given the Tragedy of the Commons which forces centralization due to asymmetry in block rewards per verification cost, or unless the verification cost is insignificant which isn't to be the case for arbitrarily long running scripts. And I assert this flaw can not be fixed. I have studied this and it is fundamental due to the CAP theorem that they can't use partitioning (shards) nor consensus-by-betting nor any of the other ideas proposed for Casper.

This would be true for any block chain that supports long-running programmable scripting with verification cost that is unbounded (and not assuredly insignificant). The Tragedy of the Commons even applies to Bitcoin and any PoW coin to a lesser extent because verification cost is much less.

I am not just interjecting technical fundamentals, I am also asserting speculative insight that a block chain which can't scale decentralized is not an innovation for anything (well an exception could be a centralized Zcash is still useful for provable anonymity). This doesn't speak about the short-term pump which is more of speculator sentiment and liquidity issue. I am speaking about "On any sufficient time horizon".

Note the viable solution for Ethereum may be to centralize only the verification, and keep the voting power decentralized. This is essentially what I am proposing for my PoW design.

[CoinHoarder]

If top price of $2.5 is considered bubble, than yes. But, for me increase from 1 to 2 dollars is far from a bubble. Its just a pump.

You shouldn't look at price, the market cap tells a better story.



How is it a buy right this moment? Everything resembles a large correction may occur.

[Spoetnik]

IPO ? ..i don't care .

[stoat]

If top price of $2.5 is considered bubble, than yes. But, for me increase from 1 to 2 dollars is far from a bubble. Its just a pump.

You shouldn't look at price, the market cap tells a better story.



How is it a buy right this moment? Everything resembles a large correction may occur.

That's what everyone was saying about bitcoin when it was $10.  Admittedly times are different, but ethereum is strong in many areas.  When you look down the list of "coins" and you know enough to know, where are you going to park your money? Dogecoin? Monero? Even bitcoin looks dodgy these days.  No,  ethereum is looking more and more like the futureproof safe bet.

[st0at]

ethereum is looking more and more like the futureproof safeinterlocking bet.

We passi0nately l0ve smokin' the ether br0. Remember last time in the back seat of y0ur Pint0. Cramped but feels s00 tight s00 g00d. Our futurepr00f reuni0n is appr0aching.

Damn the (PTB) facts. Buy the dips!

http://oi64.tinypic.com/aetf0k.jpg

[lumeire]

If top price of $2.5 is considered bubble, than yes. But, for me increase from 1 to 2 dollars is far from a bubble. Its just a pump.

You shouldn't look at price, the market cap tells a better story.



How is it a buy right this moment? Everything resembles a large correction may occur.

Well the marketcap doesn't exactly tell everything about it either. Only if you have some insider info can you be correct about when to buy, all others, just intelligent guesses.

But IMO you're right, really feels like not to buy atm.

[robelneo]

I don't think it is in my opinion this coin has a better future than all the other coins,I read they have been a lot of development on the ethereum and more are to come,I am looking it at it on coinmarketcap also and they seems a very stable currency,i am not yet mining it but had 3 faucets where I am getting my ethereum..

[bathrobehero]

That's what everyone was saying about bitcoin when it was $10.  Admittedly times are different, but ethereum is strong in many areas.  When you look down the list of "coins" and you know enough to know, where are you going to park your money? Dogecoin? Monero? Even bitcoin looks dodgy these days.  No,  ethereum is looking more and more like the futureproof safe bet.

Bitcoin was the first and that shit isn't going to happen anytime soon regardless of how many people trying to chase that gold rush.

And Ethereum is anything but futureproof. It's a super new and super hyped coin in its honey-moon stage. It's pure gambling at this point.

Dogecoin, Monero? You're not forced to pick shitty altcoins to sink your money into. And bitcoin is really not dodgy at all (to me at least); block halving is on the way and it continues to gain momentum everyday regardless of the unnecessary block size drama. Sure some alts are doing one or two things better than bitcoin but it's nowhere near enough to break out of bitcoin's shadow and I don't think any of the current alts will ever break out of it. And it's entirely possible we'll remember bitcoin being at $380 the same as we do now thinking about when it was $10.

[mathgal23]

People are betting on the potential on ETH right now not what it has yet delivered (or proven the ability to deliver).

[tokeweed]

Also its blockchain is a whopping 6GB running just for a few months.  This is a bit of a concern and its community shouldn't put this at arm's length.  They should at least start tackling the issue by taking time discussing it.

[bathrobehero]

Also its blockchain is a whopping 6GB running just for a few months.  This is a bit of a concern and its community shouldn't put this at arm's length.  They should at least start tackling the issue by taking time discussing it.

I synced geth yesterday from nothing and it only uses 800 MB for me. Fully synced and working.

Even if it was 6GB, I don't think that would be an issue. That's really nothing in 2016.

[tokeweed]

Also its blockchain is a whopping 6GB running just for a few months.  This is a bit of a concern and its community shouldn't put this at arm's length.  They should at least start tackling the issue by taking time discussing it.

I synced geth yesterday from nothing and it only uses 800 MB for me. Fully synced and working.

Even if it was 6GB, I don't think that would be an issue. That's really nothing in 2016.

?  Did you sync with the --fast option?  It's 6GB. 

Edit:  Anyway, it's nothing now, but the bloat will become exponential as the network's users increases.

Again, people shouldn't keep this at arm's length.  Imagine if it really does become the 'world computer' with a billion users, and billions of smart contracts, the blockchain would be too huge.

[bathrobehero]

Also its blockchain is a whopping 6GB running just for a few months.  This is a bit of a concern and its community shouldn't put this at arm's length.  They should at least start tackling the issue by taking time discussing it.

I synced geth yesterday from nothing and it only uses 800 MB for me. Fully synced and working.

Even if it was 6GB, I don't think that would be an issue. That's really nothing in 2016.

?  Did you sync with the --fast option?  It's 6GB.

Yes I did, I thought it was just an online bootstrap kind of thing.

[TPTB_need_war]

Again, people shouldn't keep this at arm's length.  Imagine if it really does become the 'world computer' with a billion users, and billions of smart contracts, the blockchain would be too huge.

There won't be any block chain that scales to the significant global usage where most users (and miners) run full nodes. Simply can't be done.

Centralization is required for scaling. The only solution I thought of is to control the centralized full nodes with decentralized power. Keep the mining power in the hands of the users.

[enet]

Again, people shouldn't keep this at arm's length.  Imagine if it really does become the 'world computer' with a billion users, and billions of smart contracts, the blockchain would be too huge.

There won't be any block chain that scales to the significant global usage where most users (and miners) run full nodes. Simply can't be done.

Centralization is required for scaling. The only solution I thought of is to control the centralized full nodes with decentralized power. Keep the mining power in the hands of the users.

Agreed. You need trust to scale. Mining = creating coins + verification. It would be better to talk about verifiers or auditors rather than miners.