[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[grizmoblust]

Hey, I don't really understand this, can someone explain it to me? Thanks a lot. It looks cool, but i'm not exactly sure what it is.

Polycentric law.

Welcome to Crypto-Anarchy. Enjoy your stay.

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[efarah2549]

Trying to wait patiently to get my hands on these, can't wait to be able to help a community grow from the beginning.  I just found out about bitcoin when Cody Wilson posted the Dark Wallet on Defense Distributed's Youtube.

[Anduck]

Congratulations! I've read the white paper (twice) and I am beginning to understand about 25% of it! Whenever I hear about protocols that support building custom currencies, I get all giddy.

The feeling I had when I first learnt about the MasterCoins project, or ColoredCoins or OpenTransactions or NXT has just been magnified even more by seeing what Ethereum is about to bring to the table.

I will be keeping a close on this one.

What happens to these MasterCoins, ColoredCoins, OpenTransactions or NXT projects?

[Ademan]

So there's a lot to read before asking a *completely* educated question about Ethereum, but hopefully I'm not jumping the gun too much...

Because Ethereum has a Turing complete scripting language, you cannot necessarily know how many cycles a script will take to execute, but Ethereum charges a fee based on how many cycles (past 16) that it takes your script to execute, how are you handling that?

[zerox102]

Congratulations! I've read the white paper (twice) and I am beginning to understand about 25% of it! Whenever I hear about protocols that support building custom currencies, I get all giddy.

The feeling I had when I first learnt about the MasterCoins project, or ColoredCoins or OpenTransactions or NXT has just been magnified even more by seeing what Ethereum is about to bring to the table.

I will be keeping a close on this one.

What happens to these MasterCoins, ColoredCoins, OpenTransactions or NXT projects?

Only time will tell who succeeds in the end, maybe more than one eh? This is the first time since Bitcoin i have seen something really disrupting being introduced to the community. I have confidence Vitalik will see this to completion.

[Anduck]

Congratulations! I've read the white paper (twice) and I am beginning to understand about 25% of it! Whenever I hear about protocols that support building custom currencies, I get all giddy.

The feeling I had when I first learnt about the MasterCoins project, or ColoredCoins or OpenTransactions or NXT has just been magnified even more by seeing what Ethereum is about to bring to the table.

I will be keeping a close on this one.

What happens to these MasterCoins, ColoredCoins, OpenTransactions or NXT projects?

Only time will tell who succeeds in the end, maybe more than one eh? This is the first time since Bitcoin i have seen something really disrupting being introduced to the community. I have confidence Vitalik will see this to completion.

Activity:0,

Well shilled, sir.

Bitcointalk already allows trust ratings selling/buying, account trading etc.. Just make 100 shills and hype&bump the hell up your own threads.

FYI There's nothing but promises- In all the listed alt cryptos too. Basicly what happened is that the author got money and you got nothing.

[tgerring]

So there's a lot to read before asking a *completely* educated question about Ethereum, but hopefully I'm not jumping the gun too much...

Because Ethereum has a Turing complete scripting language, you cannot necessarily know how many cycles a script will take to execute, but Ethereum charges a fee based on how many cycles (past 16) that it takes your script to execute, how are you handling that?

If the contract doesn't have enough funds to fully feed it, my understanding is that it will cease execution. After all, if you're a miner, why would you do work for no fee?

[MsCollec]

Interesting but I'm not comfortable locking down my investment for 1-3 years. The uncertainty about the future of Cryptography currency is too high making long term commitment risky

[coinrevo]

I think there have to be some ground rules. Raising money through the cryptocurrency community really sets a precedent. IANAL, but promising a billion dollar marketcap is dangerous. if you're moving several million dollars around, governments will notice. the idea that you can just put a website with a "prospectus" and have "audits" is... interesting. I would doubt that any Canadian court would consider a case where a cryptocurrency / DAC owner tries to get his rights enforced. so there is no court which would hear such a case, therefore there is no concept of "law" here. any promises should be in the software itself. fundraising clearly does not follow such a protocol. also I would very much doubt that Canadian law allows for private IPOs/crowdfunding, certainly if those funds come from outside the country. for example the US has recently adopted a crowdfunding law, which AngelList uses. but it has many restrictions and applies only for US residents (obviously). the idea that you can just move ahead and ignore all laws is... interesting. I personally doubt its in the interest of the community, but if people would want to invest their money like this, I guess its for the market to decide.

[Cruncher]

Some of you have said "but they get the bitcoins, and then they get a share of ether, too!" But you aren't reading their terms carefully enough--those bitcoins go to pay for development. They do not go into the pockets of the founders (other than inasmuch as they are paid salaries, as employees).

Who/what could stop them giving themselves a $20million annual salary for developing?

[BulletCoin]

Some of you have said "but they get the bitcoins, and then they get a share of ether, too!" But you aren't reading their terms carefully enough--those bitcoins go to pay for development. They do not go into the pockets of the founders (other than inasmuch as they are paid salaries, as employees).

Who/what could stop them giving themselves a $20million annual salary for developing?

They want to change the world as we know it and earn $20,000 million?

[Cruncher]

They want to change the world as we know it and earn $20,000 million?

First they want to earn $20mio.
Then they try to change the world.
If they fail, they still have $20mio consolation money.

[ddink7]

Who/what could stop them giving themselves a $20million annual salary for developing?

In theory, nothing. Like anything else in this world, it all comes down to trust. Do you think some of the most well-respected names in crypto are going to steal your money? Then don't invest. You could ask the same question about any real-world corporation...what's to stop them from stealing your investment and bailing? Sure, they might go to jail, but that didn't stop the execs at Enron...or WorldCom...or Tyco...

Interesting but I'm not comfortable locking down my investment for 1-3 years. The uncertainty about the future of Cryptography currency is too high making long term commitment risky.

According to the IPO information, only the FOUNDERS' investment will be locked down. Investors can sell any time they'd like, once the blockchain actually comes online.

[coinrevo]

In theory, nothing. Like anything else in this world, it all comes down to trust. Do you think some of the most well-respected names in crypto are going to steal your money? Then don't invest. You could ask the same question about any real-world corporation...what's to stop them from stealing your investment and bailing? Sure, they might go to jail, but that didn't stop the execs at Enron...or WorldCom...or Tyco...

According to the IPO information, only the FOUNDERS' investment will be locked down. Investors can sell any time they'd like, once the blockchain actually comes online.

This is not at all the same as a Canadian stock market IPO. Canadian law does not apply at all here. Stock offerings are extremely complicated. You usually have to pay investment bankers millions to do them for you. In the US you have to fill forms like S-1. Then a price for the IPO is set, by the market. You can't just go out and sell stock at any price you seem fit. And then you have to follow US Gaap Accounting, find a top accounting firm to do audits. I don't know about Canadian law, but it is roughly the same for any developed nation. In the US you can sell stock Over the counter, but even then you have to be SEC registered (roughly 200-500k$ per year to maintain such a listing). Trust is very non-linear. usually you find out about people when things go against you. if a lot of money is on the line, they use every weapon at their disposal. anyone who calls these processes that are currently going on "transparent" is living in a bubble. regulatory risk is extremely high.

[Cruncher]

Like anything else in this world, it all comes down to trust. Do you think some of the most well-respected names in crypto are going to steal your money? Then don't invest. You could ask the same question about any real-world corporation...what's to stop them from stealing your investment and bailing? Sure, they might go to jail, but that didn't stop the execs at Enron...or WorldCom...or Tyco...

I'm not accusing them of stealing.
They just cannot lose while all investors can.
If they succeed, maybe all involved parties win. If they fail, everybody - except the founders - loses. That's a pretty comfortable starting point for the founders. I don't know if it's the same with "real world" venture capital, but I guess "real world corporation" investors safeguard themselves somehow.

[ddink7]

I'm not accusing them of stealing.
They just cannot lose while all investors can.
If they succeed, maybe all involved parties win. If they fail, everybody - except the founders - loses.

OK, I see your point now. It may not be "fair," but I don't see why it would impact the success or failure of the company. Let's say they make millions if they fail...or hundreds of millions if the succeed. Maybe it's not fair, but the incentives are still there for them to do a good job.

[Red- Beard]

I thought Ethereum was launching tonight at midnight, did that change?

I read through this forum waiting for someone to ask, but never saw the question.  I'm starting to think I had my dates wrong.

[goshakkk]

Hi Vitalik, I've learned about the project yesterday and I'm already in love with the idea, can't wait to help you fund it.

I have looked at CLL wiki entry and a simple use case I have in mind (app for company shares), and I found it won't be possible to implement dividend sending, since there is no way to iterate over contract storage. I've uploaded a contract sketch to gist and you can see it here https://gist.github.com/goshakkk/c97a8aa330c1f0a2d34b

I don't really see an issue with allowing to iterate over contract storage, the contract would get charged for every computation step regardless. It might be a bit of an issue to keep all the keys and values in RAM on large data stores though... So it could maybe keep just keys in memory? Perhaps, instead of the way I propose (`contract.storage` acting like a dictionary), it could at least be possible to access storage keys with `contract.storage.keys`?

The workaround I see is to use `contract.storage[1001]` and store an array of shareholder addresses there and then iterate over it when invoked with pay a dividend command (it's possible to store arrays as values, right?), but it would use up precious contract storage space to store shareholder addressed in two places.

So... are you planning on adding some way to iterate over storage keys? It would be super cool to see it.

[ddink7]

I thought Ethereum was launching tonight at midnight, did that change?

I read through this forum waiting for someone to ask, but never saw the question.  I'm starting to think I had my dates wrong.

The ethereum website originally had a timer without any indication as to what the timer actually meant. Some people interpreted that timer as a deadline to begin the IPO, others as a deadline for the announcement to be made...etc.

[E.Sam]

I thought Ethereum was launching tonight at midnight, did that change?

I read through this forum waiting for someone to ask, but never saw the question.  I'm starting to think I had my dates wrong.

If you are talking about the IPO launch, then no.

• Ethereum will be made available for purchase on February 1st, 2014 at a price of 0.001 BTC for 1 Ether (base unit of the system)

At what time (please also state the timezone) will the IPO start on Feb 1st?

Good old 00:00 GMT

IPO countdown: