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

[runeks]

I'd like to get a response by the developers on this as well.

Doing relative price-fixing of fees leads to undesirable properties of this cryptosystem. If, for example, someone invents an ASIC that is able to extremely efficiently execute some types of operations, there will be no incentive to deploy it since relative fees are fixed. If a certain operation can be done much more efficiently than others, its fee should not depend on how efficiently the other operations can be done.

Miners should be able to - like with Bitcoin - state which fees are acceptable to them, and incorporate transactions in to the chain if the fee is acceptable to them.

This inventivizes the creation of dedicated hardware that optimize the execution of certain OP-codes.

Dear Ethereum developers,
may i ask why you are fixing fee ratios instead of allowing the market to adjust them in the future?
Isn't it the same as trying to fix prices in a centrally planned economy?
What will happen if for a certain "x", DATAFEE will be too low (below real market value) and NEWCONTRACTFEE will be too high at the same time?
Don't you run the risk that some very good applications will not be built or run properly, while others "bad" applications will because of this?

Ethereum fees:

TXFEE (100x) - fee for sending a transaction
    NEWCONTRACTFEE (100x) - fee for creating a new contract, not including the memory fee for each item in script code
    STEPFEE (1x) - fee for every computational step after than first sixteen in contract execution
    STORAGEFEE (5x) - per-byte fee for adding to contract storage. The storage fee is the only fee that is not paid to a miner, and is refunded when storage used by a contract is reduced or removed.
    DATAFEE (20x) - fee for accessing or setting a contract's memory from inside that contract
    EXTROFEE (40x) - fee for accessing memory from another contract inside a contract
    CRYPTOFEE (20x) - fee for using any of the cryptographic operations

One novel innovation in Ethereum is that the fees will be inversely proportional to the square root of the difficulty; that is, x = floor(10^21 / floor(difficulty ^ 0.5)).
  

[ddink7]

So in short you will be buying Wookiedoo

That's like saying that buy buying bitcoin you are actually buying satoshis, or that by buying dollars you are actually buying cents. Technically true =)

The founders can reduce your share (which you paid already for), only by "investing" in their own company. This is absurd.

Couldn't that happen with any corporation? I mean, was there a law that said Schmidt and Page couldn't invest in their own IPO...or at least shortly thereafter?

Are they still going to lock investors' coins for a year or it was reconsidered?

To my knowledge, nobody ever said that investors' coins were going to be locked. Only FOUNDERS' coins will be locked (Vitalik's, Charles', etc.).

What! 1000 ether for 1BTC?
I will never buy it.

What's the difference between a corporation issuing 1,000 shares at $10 each, or 100 shares at $100 each? In the end, the valuation is the same.

this absurd and complex IPO for a locked inflationary currency
the maker is in high school

I think the word you are looking for is "college." And weren't Page and Brin both 23 when they began Google? Wasn't Zuckerberg 20 when he launched Facebook? Wasn't Gates 20 when he founded Microsoft? Jobs was 21 when he founded Apple, and Wozniak was 26. Is it only "old people" who can change the world?

[swansong]

why it is hard to find any info about how many ethereum will there be?

[tacotime]

this absurd and complex IPO for a locked inflationary currency
the maker is in high school

Borderline fud...  Vitalik dropped out of the University of Waterloo to pursue cryptocurrency

[tacotime]

why it is hard to find any info about how many ethereum will there be?

Because the amount of ETH is based on the amount of BTC people initially invest

[flug]

The whole announcement thing was BS and it seems like this 19 year old doesn't really know which directions he's going.  Is it POW or is it POS?   

This is exactly the open minded, flexible attitude that makes me want to invest in Ethereum.

[msin]

crowd funding starts in seven days according to new countdown on website, so I guess some selected people will get 2x coins this week, rest got to wait.

Well that sounds unfair, so I guess it isn't technically an IPO if only a few people can buy

[nightengale]

crowd funding starts in seven days according to new countdown on website, so I guess some selected people will get 2x coins this week, rest got to wait.

Well that sounds unfair, so I guess it isn't technically an IPO if only a few people can buy

It was my understanding that anyone could take advantage of the 2000 per BTC rate, is that not the case?

[ddink7]

crowd funding starts in seven days according to new countdown on website, so I guess some selected people will get 2x coins this week, rest got to wait.

Well that sounds unfair, so I guess it isn't technically an IPO if only a few people can buy

It was my understanding that anyone could take advantage of the 2000 per BTC rate, is that not the case?

AFAIK the minimum investment is 0.1 BTC and anybody with at least that much BTC is free to invest. I haven't seen any restrictions at all, other than a) the deadline is March 31, and b) no more than 30,000 BTC may be invested. So I guess if a few huge whales invest in the first hour of the IPO they could shut it down early by fulfilling the capital requirements, but otherwise the opportunity is open to anybody who wants to take advantage of it.

[nightengale]

crowd funding starts in seven days according to new countdown on website, so I guess some selected people will get 2x coins this week, rest got to wait.

Well that sounds unfair, so I guess it isn't technically an IPO if only a few people can buy

It was my understanding that anyone could take advantage of the 2000 per BTC rate, is that not the case?

AFAIK the minimum investment is 0.1 BTC and anybody with at least that much BTC is free to invest. I haven't seen any restrictions at all, other than a) the deadline is March 31, and b) no more than 30,000 BTC may be invested. So I guess if a few huge whales invest in the first hour of the IPO they could shut it down early by fulfilling the capital requirements, but otherwise the opportunity is open to anybody who wants to take advantage of it.

Invictus is doing things a little differently with their Angel Shares initiative. Certain number of shares are released each day and donators for that day are rewarded proportionally. Hopefully the whale thing doesn't happen with Etherium. There will be an outcry if it does.

[kendle]

Well this is depressing news.  I was really looking forward to this coin.

Back to mining pump and dumps.

[ZeroTheGreat]

Limited resources = electricity gets more expensive = mining isn't as profitable = fewer miners waste electricity mining.

I'm afraid it's can't work like that. It's looks kinda "black hole": new BTCs could be sold only at price that cover up bills (hardware+electricity) for proditable mining, as long as demand exists (Bitcoin have benefits vs other payment systerms), price'll grow. How much % of miners doing non-profitable mining, just for ideals? I'm sure it's a low % of hashpower (and maybe a low % of people as well).

So there'll be no reasonable equilibrium in foreseeble future, we've miners wanna do profitable business and arms race. Take creation of ASICs as proof. Idealists'd be still mining at CPUs.

Personally I see no bright future for PoW and looking into other PoX. Maybe PoS'll win, maybe other Proof-of'll do.

[ZeroTheGreat]

WTF start in 7 days?? why?

Breaking deadlines always bad sign.

[superresistant]

this absurd and complex IPO for a locked inflationary currency
the maker is in high school

Borderline fud...  Vitalik dropped out of the University of Waterloo to pursue cryptocurrency

I didn't know that but my point was : the only thing people and media will talk about is the young age of the creator as the main characteristic of this crypto.

So I was saying, apart from that, what do we have here ?

EDIT :

DAC/smart contracts system will soon be released in Nxt and probably other crypto. What will be left for Ethereum ?

If I am asking all these questions, it is because I was really enthusiastic a the start and wanted to invest but like every investment you need to know exactly what you give your money for. Everyone should do the same.

[ddink7]

WTF start in 7 days?? why?

Breaking deadlines always bad sign.

What deadlines were broken? The ethereum.org webpage originally had a countdown timer with no indication as to what that timer actually meant.

[rdnkjdi]

http://www.ursium.com/ethereum-white-paper-updated/

Important update on numbers.

1000 ether for 1BTC?  Lame

I thought the IPO price was going to be $0.08 USD per ether?

It doesn't matter whether the Ethereum people make it 10000 BTC per ETH or

If it doesn't matter then why did they increase the price from $0.08 to $0.82 ?

-B-0

+1  You guys keep saying ETH per BTC doesn't matter.  Then why are you changing it from the initial whitepaper #'s?  It matters when we are talking about fees and it matters when we are talking about mining vs IPO purchase.  The whole announcement thing was BS and it seems like this 19 year old doesn't really know which directions he's going.  Is it POW or is it POS?   

It's not cool to keep dragging the man's age into the discussion. If you think he is too young and unpredictable then the best course of action is to stay away from this project. Also he is but one among 4 officially stated founders and perhaps one among a larger group of developers involved in this project...

Yeah ... I have something to say to this.  19 years old is PERFECT for this project.  I'm 28.  In this ever more rapidly evolving world it is going to take some one who's mind hasn't been polluted with the traditional way of doing things to have a nimble enough thought process to pull something like this off.  There are ever larger generation gaps in shorter periods of time - there are at least two between his and my age.

Reading over his few posts they are well synthesized.  Understanding him taking real world concepts and incorporating them into technology.  Vs just getting lost in "what we can do"

I am not a low level developer.  More of a business \ scripting dabbler.  But in my experience it is rare to have somebody apply as many real world concepts to a project as what I've seen him write about AND be a genuis.  He is bucking some of the cryptocurrency tradition in favor of other traditional business / economical concepts - it's a rare mixture of both.

[bumblebee101]

This IPO thing is too complex. I once read if you can't understand an investment, don't invest in it. For that reason, I'm out.

[jubalix]

sooo etherum, how will it not bloat itself out of existence?

[jubalix]

the second issue is the same  I raised for mastercoin and no one has given an answer

say everything about etherium is true, what is the advantages of owning 1 or 100 if what I am getting is access to a bundle of programable switches.

A clone will just come out with all the switches available for any fraction of a coin, or is near free. For example I don't pay much for the bundle of switches that is javascript to make my gmail function

[CoinHeavy]

I am most interested in the syntax of the Ethereum scripting language.  The capacity to write cryptofinance scripts/programs/contracts is the real value proposition here.  The success of Ethereum will lie primarily with its adoption by programmers and the writers of such code and the resulting community's ability to compete with other, similar ventures.

Vitalik is a genius.  If you are considering backing Ethereum as an investor or a developer and you have not already done so, consider reading some of his articles for Bitcoin Magazine: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/author/vitalik-buterin/

He is impressively articulate and eloquent for a writer of any age, let alone a young man who is 19 years of age.

Hopefully, in the near future we will learn more about the nuts and bolts of the operation so that a broader-based community effort to build supporting infrastructures can begin.