Why is Ether so popular, despite its infinite supply?

[biggbox]

Can someone educate me the deep interest with Ether? I understand that it has an infinite supply but the supply is controlled based on rising difficulty. One advantage of Ether is its use for smart contracts, and usage ensures demand which could cause prices to rise.

But Bitcoins have a finite supply (unless the code changes) and its first mover advantage allows it to gain proper market share and ensure its demand, and with its limited supply, theoretically, prices should go up. However, if users were to hoard Bitcoins and there is no usage (delayed expenditure) which leads to low-demand, Bitcoins will devalue.

I'm confused. Resident economists, please enlighten me.

[Bitcoinpro]

Because it's a Ponzi they generate a lot of cash for scammers

the investors don't visit Bitcoin talk so have no clue they are being fleeced

[biggbox]

Because it's a Ponzi they generate a lot of cash for scammers

the investors don't visit Bitcoin talk so have no clue they are being fleeced

Hmm. But why is Ether a ponzi?

[magemist]

Because it's a Ponzi they generate a lot of cash for scammers

the investors don't visit Bitcoin talk so have no clue they are being fleeced

Hmm. But why is Ether a ponzi?

She is just spreading harm to the forum with these one liner statements if you haven't noticed in the last few days. Someone missed taking their meds lately 

I always thought it wasn't a coin at all but a container for other alt coins.

[thejaytiesto]

Ether is popular because a lot of people don't understand the big question marks that this technology has. I remember once upon a time, how NXT was "taking over" with their revolutionary PoS and their decentralized exchanges and all that cool looking wallets. This is the same all over again. A lot of people and hype involved, sooner or later it will correct where it belongs, but it may still pump a lot higher, so maybe it's a good idea to take a position to short the thing and get some BTC out of it.

[ebliever]

Check out this Coindesk article to understand why some people are bullish on Ethereum:

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-co-founder-ethereum-blow-past-bitcoin/

Basically, "anything bitcoin can do, ethereum can do better." Bitcoin has the first mover advantage, but that can eventually evaporate if it is less functional/capable than other cryptos.

[biggbox]

Any other altcoins that were endorsed by prominent organisations such as Microsoft? Is Ether the only altcoin that managed to do it? IBM and Microsoft endorsed it.

[~Bitcoin~]

Affter the price rise you can see a good charm in face of vitalik after selling his 25% of his holding to visit consensus and enjoy his stay. Smart contract have no real world use till now and all this DAO token overhype making eth to soar so much, but now before DAO launch to exchange eth already started bleeding.

[LiteCoinGuy]

before i buy something with an infinite supply, i would rather buy gold or a stock.

[Cuidler]

A lot of hype in Ether, but I see problem in terrible initial distribution where most coins which exist are from initial distribution which was used to fund development - but only those who really knew its not just scam to take Bitcoin and not deliver anything could expect to profit safely - so most non insiders just treated it as very likely scam, myselves included.

Do I buy Ether - definitively not. But I mine Ether with my GPU and sell for Bitcoin because it is so profitable to profit from this hype.

As I understand smart contract will be available in Bitcoin sidechains anyway and I preffer sound money like Bitcoin, so I dont see reason why in future people going to use altcoins and pay exchange fees converting between these coins when all they need is Bitcoin with sidechains with the same features and no exchange fees needed - but exchanges loves the fees from trading between coins, thus it does not surprise me Coinbase adding bunch of altcoins for trade - to profit from the hype as well.

[Kprawn]

It has one thing, Bitcoin needs... people who can hype the shit out of it to maximize profits, when they dump it. Ethereum started out as a brilliant idea to revolutionize the smart contract scene, and then people

got greedy, and they decided to market it as the solution for every problem out there... Now suddenly, it is better than Bitcoin and everything out there.   .... If it gets the right backing, it might just fly with

that idea... and you will see it as a viable competitor for Bitcoin. They have a good concept, but Bitcoin is still better...    

[crazyivan]

Gold s infinitive as well, at least in our lifetimes, yet, the price s stable and even going up. Why?

[bittrojan]

Can someone educate me the deep interest with Ether? I understand that it has an infinite supply but the supply is controlled based on rising difficulty. One advantage of Ether is its use for smart contracts, and usage ensures demand which could cause prices to rise.

But Bitcoins have a finite supply (unless the code changes) and its first mover advantage allows it to gain proper market share and ensure its demand, and with its limited supply, theoretically, prices should go up. However, if users were to hoard Bitcoins and there is no usage (delayed expenditure) which leads to low-demand, Bitcoins will devalue.

I'm confused. Resident economists, please enlighten me.

yes might its one of many reason why etherum so popular in this year,and etherum have good promotions,good price,and its price highest after bitcoin price,its why etherum so popular,i said its was queen of altcoin

[mayax]

because it's fast and the people wants a "normal" e-currency with instant transactions.

[Denker]

Scam, Ponzi, pyramid scheme, pump and dump, smart marketed shitcoin. Choose one of those notations and you're on the right path.
Many of the people, trading it know what will happen but they try to ride the wave as long as it lasts.
But get yourself out in time, otherwise you end pretty bad!

[biggbox]

Gold s infinitive as well, at least in our lifetimes, yet, the price s stable and even going up. Why?

Is gold infinite supply?

The supply of commodities such as crude oil is finite but it is dependent on oil producing countries how frequent they want to dig up this resource.

For ether, it is unlimited supply but the variable here is the difficulty which will make it harder to get it.

[biggbox]

To be honest, i think Ethereum will be another coin that will lost it's value soon.
Even though big companies such as Microsoft support Ethereum's development & there are many new revolutionary technology, it's not enough to stop bitcoin. In fact, almost no one use it as currency while some of bitcoin already use bitcoin as currency.

I bet Ethereum will dead eventually if no one use it as currency, no one accept it as payment or mass adoption never happened.

Ether is popular because a lot of people don't understand the big question marks that this technology has. I remember once upon a time, how NXT was "taking over" with their revolutionary PoS and their decentralized exchanges and all that cool looking wallets. This is the same all over again. A lot of people and hype involved, sooner or later it will correct where it belongs, but it may still pump a lot higher, so maybe it's a good idea to take a position to short the thing and get some BTC out of it.

But NXT never got picked up by prominent organisations. The issue with ether right now is the media hype around it, partly driven by DAO, and the smart contract status and tries to set itself different from Bitcoin.

The inventor of Ether is also known as a prodigy in Russia. And most importantly, Ether core team did not suffer the fragmentation and internal split that Bitcoin dev have. Internal core dispute leads to bad press.

[cjmoles]

I think that the Ethereum project is gaining so much attention because it was never meant to be a mechanism to store monetary wealth and never meant to be a bitcoin alternative.  The platform is attracting a large base of innovative developers due to its potential to support applications in a decentralized manner.  Decentralized applications running on a distributed ledger opens up possibilities only limited by our imaginations.    

EDIT: Whether or not it will succeed is another question....

[Decoded]

I think that the Ethereum project is gaining so much attention because it was never meant to be a mechanism to store monetary wealth and never meant to be a bitcoin alternative.  The platform is attracting a large base of innovative developers due to its potential to support applications in a decentralized manner.  Decentralized applications running on a distributed ledger opens up possibilities only limited by our imaginations.   

It was made to be both.

Think about it this way -

Bitcoin has miners. The miners have 1.2 Exahashes of cryptographic hashing power just sitting there, mining useless problems for bitcoin

Now think about ethereum. You are mining for ether, that's correct, but this mining power is going to be used. Be used to host and process problems for other people. Isn't that more practical and useful?

[odolvlobo]

Can someone educate me the deep interest with Ether? I understand that it has an infinite supply but the supply is controlled based on rising difficulty. One advantage of Ether is its use for smart contracts, and usage ensures demand which could cause prices to rise.

But Bitcoins have a finite supply (unless the code changes) and its first mover advantage allows it to gain proper market share and ensure its demand, and with its limited supply, theoretically, prices should go up. However, if users were to hoard Bitcoins and there is no usage (delayed expenditure) which leads to low-demand, Bitcoins will devalue.

I'm confused. Resident economists, please enlighten me.

Inflation is a more a problem for people that use a currency as a store of value than those who use it as a medium of exchange. I suspect that most people (except for the speculators) don't use ether as a store of value, so inflation is not a big deal.

Of course, speculators are interested because they are speculating that adoption will exceed the inflation rate for the time being.