[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[puck2]

Vitalik is a 19 y.o. child - IQ is irrelevant here, he can be gamed very easily...

Bill Gates founded Micro$oft at 20. Say what you will about Microsoft and its collusion with power structures... Investing on day 1 might have been a good  move,  had you had the opportunity to do so... Which of the frontrunners in this space...Etherium, Mastercoin, NXT, Invictus... which are currency, smart property solutions, and which are distributed OS?

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[klee]

Vitalik is a 19 y.o. child - IQ is irrelevant here, he can be gamed very easily...

Bill Gates founded Micro$oft at 20. Say what you will about Microsoft and its collusion with power structures... Investing on day 1 might have been a good  move,  had you had the opportunity to do so... Which of the frontrunners in this space...Etherium, Mastercoin, NXT, Invictus... which are currency, smart property solutions, and which are distributed OS?

I have invested in all of them and I will invest in Ethereum too, only difference is I know I invest to Google or Microsoft here...

No anarcho/will change the world illusions!

[Netnox]

I think eth developers have been brainwashed by goldman sachs in believing they are going to change the world

[_ingsoc]

I think eth developers have been brainwashed by goldman sachs in believing they are going to change the world

I feel bad for Charles. Guy mentions that someone who worked for Goldman Sachs in the past has interest in the project and a new Internet conspiracy theory is born. If Goldman Sachs is secretly engineering a plot to troll everyone on the Internet, they'd be smart enough to not get Charles to announce it in a YouTube video. Besides, if you knew how deeply embedded those corporations are in Bitcoin, you'd burn your hard drive to a crisp in a bonfire. Keep on derpin'!

[KoinMaster]

I think eth developers have been brainwashed by goldman sachs in believing they are going to change the world

I feel bad for Charles. Guy mentions that someone who worked for Goldman Sachs in the past has interest in the project and a new Internet conspiracy theory is born. If Goldman Sachs is secretly engineering a plot to troll everyone on the Internet, they'd be smart enough to not get Charles to announce it in a YouTube video. Besides, if you knew how deeply embedded those corporations are in Bitcoin, you'd burn your hard drive to a crisp in a bonfire. Keep on derpin'!

At 8:12 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FDvzj8YX4 ) in their introductory video the guy says: "we have....people who work for GS" (in present tense). You keep talking about people in the project who worked(in past tense) for GS . I know you may not like it but what you are asserting is simply not true.

[_ingsoc]

At 8:12 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FDvzj8YX4 ) in their introductory video the guy says: "we have....people who work for GS" (in present tense). You keep talking about people in the project who worked(in past tense) for GS . I know you may not like it but what you are asserting is simply not true.

When I listen to it, I hear "worked". I think it's a bit stupid going crazy about this, but it's the latest fixation. I guess we'll find out what the big GS plot is soon enough.

[KoinMaster]

At 8:12 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FDvzj8YX4 ) in their introductory video the guy says: "we have....people who work for GS" (in present tense). You keep talking about people in the project who worked(in past tense) for GS . I know you may not like it but what you are asserting is simply not true.

When I listen to it, I hear "worked". I think it's a bit stupid going crazy about this, but it's the latest fixation. I guess we'll find out what the big GS plot is soon enough.

I'm sorry but turn on the captions (speech recognition - cc button right below under the video) and you'll see that he says "work".... You might want to back down now....

[klee]

One after the other (Mike Hearn, Vitalik etc) the Bitcoin cartelists join the state, what a surprise!
They need to make real money their big BTC portfolios and SR was never an option for them, go figure..

Miners, early adopters and big investors - the three big cartels in Bitcoin world.

[_ingsoc]

I'm sorry but turn on the captions (speech recognition - cc button right below under the video) and you'll see that he says "work".... You might want to back down now....

Now hold on just a minute! You mean to tell me you'll trust YouTube to tell you what's what? YouTube is owned by Google... What if Google is setting you up to make you think Goldman Sachs is trying to control the future of cryptocurrency? I think we're stumbling onto the biggest conspiracy theory in history...

[garicup]

I had a longer reply written up...but you know what it slowly became an angry post so I'll start simple...

I read your whitepaper, I've followed the news, I planned on investing...

So someone please explain to me, why a startup with no demo, beta, product, requires 30 million dollars (30000 btc) and 50% of the currency?

Its a currency, not a product, but sure...lets call it a product. Google didn't ask you for 30 million dollars and say you can only use our search engine 50% of the time or you only get every other result for your searches?

...30000 btc which can be ALOT more than 30 million dollars even by the time they launch (if we're following the overall trend) AND 50% of all coins owned?

Common people...

The money is for devs and the team?

Well this is my informal application....I'm a soft eng.... I'd like to become an insta millionaire please? even before we have a product.

Guys we're NOT doing this for the profit we just believe so much in what we're making. ( I hope I get hired)

[KoinMaster]

I'm sorry but turn on the captions (speech recognition - cc button right below under the video) and you'll see that he says "work".... You might want to back down now....

Now hold on just a minute! You mean to tell me you'll trust YouTube to tell you what's what? YouTube is owned by Google... What if Google is setting you up to make you think Goldman Sachs is trying to control the future of cryptocurrency? I think we're stumbling onto the biggest conspiracy theory in history...

You've gotta be kidding me... Then let the community decide if he uses present or past tense. They now know where to look for it.

[turtoro]

Antonopoulos seems to be pushing ethereum. Although the project's stated goals is what he has been advocating for a while and in that sense this is not a surprise, I wonder what his opinions on the ipo structure is.

[td services]

Great project, lets wait for the actual IPO prospect and see exactly what is offered. But defiantly needed in some form!

The IPO prospectus?  Are you kidding me??  This is not a registered security and they have not filed the proper paperwork with SEC or any agency.  The prospectus will not be worth the ink on paper its printed on.  The prospectus they provide not be reviewed by the SEC, it will read like a marketing brochure.

You can take you SEC paperwork, roll it up, tape a string to the end of it, and use it as a tampon.

[td services]

They are NXTers. And low tier to boot.  They are followers; you can't expect them to question authority.
I for one thank you for wording my doubts.

30,000 BTC or 300 BTC, does not matter - there is no wrong question when you're asking other people's money.
but if you're dealing with 30,000 BTC, no stone should be left unturned within legal and contractual framework.

Actually, most Ether followers hate Nxt.  Nxt had an IPO of 21 BTC (1 BTC was from the founder).  The creator (BCNext) didn't allow anyone to invest more than 1BTC.  Most people were skeptical, called it a scam, so they didn't invest and he launched Nxt.  Then everyone screamed that the distribution was unfair and they didn't have enough time to invest.  Personally, I don't like large public IPO's for crypto's, it's lame, if it's POW, it should be launched for free and mined.  POS is tricky, because it has to be launched all at once, I don't think any POS will have a small IPO after Nxt.  Regardless, I'll avoid Ether, it's going to be killed by greed.

Vitalik hates NXT - nothing ever mentioned by him or his magazine about it. He pretends as if it non exists!
Go figure...
 

When I asked when was the deadline to invest in NXT while it was still open, it was suddenly closed without any advance notice, and I was not allowed to invest in it. The deadline was not clear in the announcement, but most people, including myself, thought it was January 3, 2014. The genesis block was not created yet. It is very clear to me that they did not want any further dilution of existing investment, though no one will admit this. If there was some technical reason for ending the pre-sale early without advance notice, they could have just said something to the effect of "We are closing the sale now, so if you want to send in your Bitcoin you need to do so within the next X hours." They did allow another coin in which was sent while I was waiting for an answer. A week later, NXT was being sold at a 4762% markup over the presale price.

The presale of Ethereum, like that of Mastercoin, is very well defined with a clearly defined period of investment, and in the case of Ethereum, a clearly defined limit on total investment. NXT, on the other hand, was arbitrarily closed at the convenience of the founder with no advance warning, and not everyone who was interested was allowed to invest.

[td services]

Great project, lets wait for the actual IPO prospect and see exactly what is offered. But defiantly needed in some form!

The IPO prospectus?  Are you kidding me??  This is not a registered security and they have not filed the proper paperwork with SEC or any agency.  The prospectus will not be worth the ink on paper its printed on.  The prospectus they provide not be reviewed by the SEC, it will read like a marketing brochure.

You can take you SEC paperwork, roll it up, tape a string to the end of it, and use it as a tampon.

ROFLMAO!       ...I can't believe you guys haven't ignored that fool yet...

He's too much fun to ignore. Besides, maybe he'll help reduce the dilution in Ethereum by scaring off a few people off.

[CycleSurfer]

It could be Goldman Sachs plot trying to control the future of the crypto-currency world....

Ha ha!  Priceless....

[td services]

When I asked when was the deadline to invest in NXT while it was still open, it was suddenly closed without any advance notice, and I was not allowed to invest in it. The deadline was not clear in the announcement, but most people, including myself, thought it was January 3, 2014. The genesis block was not created yet. It is very clear to me that they did not want any further dilution of existing investment, though no one will admit this. If there was some technical reason for ending the pre-sale early without advance notice, they could have just said something to the effect of "We are closing the sale now, so if you want to send in your Bitcoin you need to do so within the next X hours." They did allow another coin in which was sent while I was waiting for an answer. A week later, NXT was being sold at a 4762% markup over the presale price.

The presale of Ethereum, like that of Mastercoin, is very well defined with a clearly defined period of investment, and in the case of Ethereum, a clearly defined limit on total investment. NXT, on the other hand, was arbitrarily closed at the convenience of the founder with no advance warning, and not everyone who was interested was allowed to invest.

There you go again...    

You know very well that the ONLY reason you were not allowed to participate early is because the Genesis Block had been generated.

So... why do you keep going back as if it has not been explained to you?  Also, why do you keep throwing that 4762% figure around and not the actual rate of NXT/BTC 0.000001?

Genesis block was still under construction the next day according to posts in NXT thread. Indeterminate when it was started, but if the coin that went in while I was waiting for an answer was included, then mine could have been as well.

Again, the math: presale price = 21 BTC/1,000,000,000 NXT = 0.000000021
                       price when first offered in NXT sale thread = 1,000,000 NXT/BTC = .000001

                      .000001/.000000021 = 47.62 = 4762% increase in price

[extee]

They are NXTers. And low tier to boot.  They are followers; you can't expect them to question authority.
I for one thank you for wording my doubts.

30,000 BTC or 300 BTC, does not matter - there is no wrong question when you're asking other people's money.
but if you're dealing with 30,000 BTC, no stone should be left unturned within legal and contractual framework.

Actually, most Ether followers hate Nxt.  Nxt had an IPO of 21 BTC (1 BTC was from the founder).  The creator (BCNext) didn't allow anyone to invest more than 1BTC.  Most people were skeptical, called it a scam, so they didn't invest and he launched Nxt.  Then everyone screamed that the distribution was unfair and they didn't have enough time to invest.  Personally, I don't like large public IPO's for crypto's, it's lame, if it's POW, it should be launched for free and mined.  POS is tricky, because it has to be launched all at once, I don't think any POS will have a small IPO after Nxt.  Regardless, I'll avoid Ether, it's going to be killed by greed.

Vitalik hates NXT - nothing ever mentioned by him or his magazine about it. He pretends as if it non exists!
Go figure...
 

When I asked when was the deadline to invest in NXT while it was still open, it was suddenly closed without any advance notice, and I was not allowed to invest in it. The deadline was not clear in the announcement,

Bcnext asked for 21 btc for the lot and he got the 21 btc and consequently closed the IPO. if he had carried on selling nxt coins even past the 21 btc goal he would have screwed the ones who had invested thinking the 21 btc would buy the whole pie. for example if someone had invested 1btc thinking he would get around 450k of nxt....selling nxt even past 21 btc it would have screwed that investor as his share would be much less than what he had agreed into.
having said that me too i prefer an IPO which is open from day A to day B , with no cap and and which gives everyone time. but that also means it's an investment where you don't actually know how much % of the total thing you are buying as it will all depend on how many invest etc.

[CycleSurfer]

I'm a very procedural programmer, so I am having trouble wrapping my head around your contracts system because it seems to be very abstract.

Can you please explain in more detail (preferably with an example) of how to make a useful contract in more of a real world scenario? Since it obviously can't do anything useful inside the ethereum network without also communicating outside of the network?

If it snows more than 2 inches on thursday or Friday, buy two lift tickets for Saturday at the ski resort.

If my favorite sports team wins the wednesday game, buy 2 tickets in Section C rows 10-16 for the friday game.

If a samsung galaxy tab 2 is offered at ebay for < $x, buy it. 

It would definitely help if the Ethereum folks could present a real-life example of how this will work.  They are speaking too much in hypothetical and theoretical concepts.  As if trying to be-all and end-all in developing the platform/infrastructure/scripting/etc. for crypto-currency 2.0 when there hasn't been any proof-of-concept that can be shown off.  To me, all their pitches are in the ethereal world.

In the above examples, I think these are conditional orders and not contracts.  A contract is between two entities or people -- i.e. an agreement.  For example, a futures contract for soybeans/oil/gold/etc. traded on exchanges such as CME/CBOE is a standard contract that can be traded.  It's terms are known beforehand because they are standardized -- fixed amount per contract, fixed delivery amount, fixed periodic delivery date, etc.

I believe this is what they mean by contract.  And what they are trying to do is to remove the middle-men (e.g. CME, CBOE) with a decentralized approach.  But I'm not 100% sure because of they give no concrete examples -- i.e. in the intro video.

I suggest they crank out a proof-of-concept example/prototype or at least state the first application they want to implement once a good chunk of Ethereum is completed.  Much easier for folks to wrap their minds around a real example rather than via concepts that seem extremely difficult (in my mind) to integrate.

[aaron-lebo]

no demo, beta, product

There is a significant amount of code out there, they already are working on implementations in several languages.

https://github.com/ethereum

I don't know where Ethereum will go, but this is not just a whitepaper and it is not just vaporware.