Ethereum: 2nd gen cryptocurrency with contract programming, "dagger" hashing

[tacotime]

There was no [ANN] for this, so I figured I'd throw it up for you guys.

As with the other "2nd gens," this is not a fork but rather a complete rewrite of all the foundational code.  It does however use some commonalities, for instance the C++ implementation includes usage of leveldb and boost.

http://ethereum.org/

Whitepaper
Source code repository
Forums

Features:
- Novel "memory-hard" hashing algorithm specification
- Use of GHOST blocktrees instead of a traditional blockchain for PoW data propagation
- Use of Patricia trees in block data structures
- Transactions which contain loop-enabled programmable instructions for the creation of novel derivatives and functions within the blocktree; these are deemed "contracts"
- New fees algorithm which adjusts based on several different parameters
- New difficulty adjustment algorithm
- Data in objects is encoded in recursive length prefix (RLP) notation
- Crowdfunding model

The author is Vitalik Buterin, among others.

Vitalik and co., contact me if you plan to make an official ANN here and I'll close this thread.

Please note:
This is not MC2 and I am not involved in its development, but I am closely watching this to see where it goes!

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[tk808]

Interesting project. Glad you are supplying the information before an IPO. Gives you a lot of credibility

[neuroMode]

This is the true revolutionary second generation in cryptocurrencies.  I encourage everyone to read the white paper.

Posted From bitcointalk.org Android App

[tacotime]

Interesting project. Glad you are supplying the information before an IPO. Gives you a lot of credibility

Just to make it clear, I'm not involved in the development of this project -- just forwarding the information to you guys in case you wanted to get in on the IPO.  They're technically a competitor, but I don't want to look at this field as something in which we're working against each other.  Rather, I see all cryptocurrency developers as working with each other to generate a financial system for the benefit of the future.

[tacotime]

i cannot understand if it will be mineable..

Yes, it is mineable.  The focus of the hashing algorithm was on memory hardness, so I suspect CPU or GPU mining.

[Ursium]

Seems the Ethereum forums went down which is a shame, hopefully it's temporary because we had a nice crowd there. I guess they are maybe trying to keep it fairly under wraps until the Miami conference.

And yes Ethereum is indeed mind-bogglingly awesome, FellowTraveller (author of Open Transactions) had this to say on Reddit: "The most innovative blockchain-based cryptocurrency since Bitcoin itself, and the only one that I would bother acquiring units of."

[arcke]

The sites front page now has a countdown running: http://ethereum.org/

11 days 22 hours

[tacotime]

The sites front page now has a countdown running: http://ethereum.org/

11 days 22 hours

It's like it's counting down to the miami bitcoin conference or something

[erre]

   Ether will be sold in a Mastercoin-style fundraiser at the price of 1 ether for 0.0001 BTC. Suppose that X ether gets collected in this way.
    0.25X ether will be given to the founders.
    0.25X ether will be given to the Ethereum organization as a reserve pool to pay expenses in ETH such as ETH salaries or bounties for those developers who want part or all of their compensation to be in this form
    0.5X ether will be mined per year forever after that point (ie. permanent linear inflation)

 

[Ursium]

   Ether will be sold in a Mastercoin-style fundraiser at the price of 1 ether for 0.0001 BTC. Suppose that X ether gets collected in this way.
    0.25X ether will be given to the founders.
    0.25X ether will be given to the Ethereum organization as a reserve pool to pay expenses in ETH such as ETH salaries or bounties for those developers who want part or all of their compensation to be in this form
    0.5X ether will be mined per year forever after that point (ie. permanent linear inflation)

 

Yes but - there's dilution baked in, and the founder's shares are timelocked for 12 months before they can spend it (think of it as vesting).

From Vitalik's Reddit account: "The units will be in a timelock contract for at least one year, so they will be at most 1/8 when they actually become spendable. Just from a Zipf's Law perspective, I think it's likely that a single person will put in at least 8% of the total investment into the fundraiser, so the largest ether holder will likely not be a founder. Also, the big difference from Bitcoin (and especially the 100% premined/fundraised Ripple and Mastercoin) is that, once again, the currency is linear-inflationary, so the percentages will go down over time. I think that's the main moral objection people have with wealth inequality in existing cryptocurrencies; that the Winklevosses have not just 1%, but 1% of all that will ever exist. With Ethereum we don't have that."

[FreddyFender]

...

This is not MC2 and I am not involved in its development, but I am closely watching this to see where it goes!

...

I am glad we have the giant distraction of altcoins a'mundo. This is the one to watch... It goes back to simple protocols and a wishlist of many great features. (I hope we can code the superstructure and basic apps before everyone else figures what this "alt" coin is.)
For everyone who felt like they missed out on bitcoin's run - get ready, go!
PS. I think I'm going to relearn assembly language and get back into python/go...

[defaced]

This is a very interesting concept and I'll be keeping my eye on it.

[Manwe]

Can it be mined with GPU?

[bitwho]

more info needed

[tacotime]

...

This is not MC2 and I am not involved in its development, but I am closely watching this to see where it goes!

...

I am glad we have the giant distraction of altcoins a'mundo. This is the one to watch... It goes back to simple protocols and a wishlist of many great features. (I hope we can code the superstructure and basic apps before everyone else figures what this "alt" coin is.)
For everyone who felt like they missed out on bitcoin's run - get ready, go!
PS. I think I'm going to relearn assembly language and get back into python/go...

Hi.  I put in the disclaimer because someone in the first post seemed to think I was involved and it's typical for devs/crew themselves to make the ANN threads.  I don't really want people hassling me w/r/t this alt chain either.

[tacotime]

Can it be mined with GPU?

Probably, the memory hard algorithms tend to favour whatever has the most memory bandwidth.

[Manwe]

OK, so if I am interested on it, what to do now?

[jimhsu]

Interesting project with a novel algorithm. From what I understand, the algorithm (Dagger) is memory-hard not necessarily in bandwidth, but in space; using something like a GPU (with many threads) would benefit most from having lots of system memory:

This algorithm provides a proof of work mining function with memory hardness properties that are not ideal, but that are nevertheless a massive improvement over anything available previously. It takes 512 MB to evaluate, 112 KB memory and 4078 hashes to verify, and even the tinest time-memory tradeoff is not worthwhile to implement because of the bottom-level branching adjustment. These parameters allow Dagger to be much more daring in its memory requirements than Primecoin or scrypt, asking for 512 MB of RAM for a single thread. Because the primary determinant of hardness is memory, and not computation, specialized hardware has only a tiny advantage; even an optimal Dagger mining ASIC would have little to offer over a hobbyist purchasing hundreds of gigabytes of memory cards off the shelf and plugging them into a medium-power GPU. And even in such an equilibrium, mining with ordinary CPUs will likely continue to be practical.

512MB per thread .. wow.

[organizer]

This does look promising... here's an article I found:

http://fusion.net/modern_life/story/ethereum-bitcoin-currency-created-19-year-372034

[tacotime]

OK, so if I am interested on it, what to do now?

Register for the mailing list on the website or go the the Miami Bitcoin conference I assume, the group hasn't been putting out a lot of information (most of this was dug up from reddit or via Google).

I would speculate from the at least 3-5 people currently hacking on GitHub (and the rumoured current staffing of 5-20 people), that they already have a massive amount of funding running into the millions of dollars.