[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[ThePatient]

Awesome! Really good news.

Now if we can just get a dev in here answering some of the questions posted..

Also, I'm really looking forward to seeing vitalik's presentation video. I wonder when it will be up. I'm surprised it isn't already, tbh. I would have figured someone with a smartphone would have uploaded to youtube.

[1714236266]

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[1714236266]

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[_ingsoc]

Hope not.... For Vitalik is his reputation and future in the crypto-currency world at stake. He won't dare to risk such an uproar from the community again, IMO....

Maybe you're right. It becomes very difficult to please everyone when you have a long-term perspective.

[turtoro]

Awesome! Really good news.

Now if we can just get a dev in here answering some of the questions posted..

Also, I'm really looking forward to seeing vitalik's presentation video. I wonder when it will be up. I'm surprised it isn't already, tbh. I would have figured someone with a smartphone would have uploaded to youtube.

Vitaly has been posting on reddit

[Vitalik Buterin]

Conference, Alpha Testnet and Fundraiser Updates

January 29, 2014 - By Team

Ethereum received an incredible response at the Miami Bitcoin Conference. We traveled there anticipating many technical questions as well as a philosophical discussion about the purpose of Ethereum; however, the overwhelming amount of interest and enthusiasm for the project was much larger than we had anticipated. Vitalik’s presentation was met with both a standing ovation and a question queue that took hours to address.

Because we intend on providing an equal opportunity to all those who want to be involved, and are reviewing the relevant logistical and regulatory issues for a fundraiser of this scale, we have decided to postpone the Feb 1 launch of the fundraiser. We will make the announcement of the new fundraiser launch date on our official website: Ethereum.org.

The Ethereum project is also excited to announce the alpha release of the open source testnet client to the community at the beginning of February. This will give people an opportunity to get involved with the project and experiment with Ethereum scripts and contracts, and gain a better understanding of the technical properties of the Ethereum platform. Launching the testnet at this date will give those interested in the fundraiser a chance to better understand what the Ethereum project is about before participating.

The testnet will include full support for sending and receiving transactions, the initial version of the scripting language as described in our whitepaper, and may or may not include mining. This will also be the first major cryptocurrency project to have two official clients released at the same time, with one written in C++ and the other in Go; a Python client is also in the works. A compiler from the Ethereum CLL to Ethereum script will be released very soon.

A note on security

The fundraiser will NOT be launching on February 1st and any attempt to collect funds at this time should be considered a scam. There have been some scams in the forums thus please use caution and only consider information posted on Ethereum.org to be legitimate. It is important to reinforce to all that only information released and posted at Ethereum.org should be trusted as many are likely to impersonate us.

[1krona]

Can someone post straightforward pro's and con's of Ethereum against Bitcoin & NXT.

If you're using technical terminology, please try and explain in layman's terms.

I would really appreciate that, thanks!

[puck2]

Can someone post straightforward pro's and con's of Ethereum against Bitcoin & NXT.

If you're using technical terminology, please try and explain in layman's terms.

I would really appreciate that, thanks!

Bitcoin... Really just a currency/commodity and proof of concept of distributed ledger. Lots of electricity to maintain security.

NXT... 100% distributed already to early adopters... 100% Proof-of-stake... Promises additional features in protocol

Ethereum... a full development platform that doesn't exist yet and has been delayed indefinitely

If you're interested in Ethereum, you may be curious about Mastercoin, which is a development layer built atop Bitcoin.

[KoinMaster]

Conference, Alpha Testnet and Fundraiser Updates

January 29, 2014 - By Team

Ethereum received an incredible response at the Miami Bitcoin Conference. We traveled there anticipating many technical questions as well as a philosophical discussion about the purpose of Ethereum; however, the overwhelming amount of interest and enthusiasm for the project was much larger than we had anticipated. Vitalik’s presentation was met with both a standing ovation and a question queue that took hours to address.

Because we intend on providing an equal opportunity to all those who want to be involved, and are reviewing the relevant logistical and regulatory issues for a fundraiser of this scale, we have decided to postpone the Feb 1 launch of the fundraiser. We will make the announcement of the new fundraiser launch date on our official website: Ethereum.org.

The Ethereum project is also excited to announce the alpha release of the open source testnet client to the community at the beginning of February. This will give people an opportunity to get involved with the project and experiment with Ethereum scripts and contracts, and gain a better understanding of the technical properties of the Ethereum platform. Launching the testnet at this date will give those interested in the fundraiser a chance to better understand what the Ethereum project is about before participating.

The testnet will include full support for sending and receiving transactions, the initial version of the scripting language as described in our whitepaper, and may or may not include mining. This will also be the first major cryptocurrency project to have two official clients released at the same time, with one written in C++ and the other in Go; a Python client is also in the works. A compiler from the Ethereum CLL to Ethereum script will be released very soon.

A note on security

The fundraiser will NOT be launching on February 1st and any attempt to collect funds at this time should be considered a scam. There have been some scams in the forums thus please use caution and only consider information posted on Ethereum.org to be legitimate. It is important to reinforce to all that only information released and posted at Ethereum.org should be trusted as many are likely to impersonate us.

Hi Vitalik, community questions remain unanswered?....

[_ingsoc]

Conference, Alpha Testnet and Fundraiser Updates

January 29, 2014 - By Team

Ethereum received an incredible response at the Miami Bitcoin Conference. We traveled there anticipating many technical questions as well as a philosophical discussion about the purpose of Ethereum; however, the overwhelming amount of interest and enthusiasm for the project was much larger than we had anticipated. Vitalik’s presentation was met with both a standing ovation and a question queue that took hours to address.

Because we intend on providing an equal opportunity to all those who want to be involved, and are reviewing the relevant logistical and regulatory issues for a fundraiser of this scale, we have decided to postpone the Feb 1 launch of the fundraiser. We will make the announcement of the new fundraiser launch date on our official website: Ethereum.org.

The Ethereum project is also excited to announce the alpha release of the open source testnet client to the community at the beginning of February. This will give people an opportunity to get involved with the project and experiment with Ethereum scripts and contracts, and gain a better understanding of the technical properties of the Ethereum platform. Launching the testnet at this date will give those interested in the fundraiser a chance to better understand what the Ethereum project is about before participating.

The testnet will include full support for sending and receiving transactions, the initial version of the scripting language as described in our whitepaper, and may or may not include mining. This will also be the first major cryptocurrency project to have two official clients released at the same time, with one written in C++ and the other in Go; a Python client is also in the works. A compiler from the Ethereum CLL to Ethereum script will be released very soon.

A note on security

The fundraiser will NOT be launching on February 1st and any attempt to collect funds at this time should be considered a scam. There have been some scams in the forums thus please use caution and only consider information posted on Ethereum.org to be legitimate. It is important to reinforce to all that only information released and posted at Ethereum.org should be trusted as many are likely to impersonate us.

Thank you for posting that here as well, in case people miss it. We've maintained a list of community questions in post #634. Is it possible to get some direct answers on these at one point? I think it covers most of the concerns people have here.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Can someone post straightforward pro's and con's of Ethereum against Bitcoin & NXT.

If you're using technical terminology, please try and explain in layman's terms.

I would really appreciate that, thanks!

I can compare only Nxt and Ethereum:

1. Nxt is simple (for casual programmers), Ethereum is hardcore (for hardcore programmers). I think most of coders will choose Nxt if noone creates a simple Ethereum Contract Creation Kit.
2. Nxt can process 1000s transactions per second (coz of absence of scripts and Transparent Forging), Ethereum can't process too many transactions but they r much richer. I think these platforms would go on par if Nxt didn't have Transparent Forging. With TF Nxt will win.
3. Nxt has fixed supply of coins, Ethereum will be inflationary for a long period of time. Ordinary people prefer non-inflationary currencies.
4. Nxt is 100% PoS, Ethereum is PoW + PoS, so the latter is not so "green".

These r just a few points that came to my mind.

[charleshoskinson]

Thank you for posting that here as well, in case people miss it. We've maintained a list of community questions in post #634. Is it possible to get some direct answers on these at one point? I think it covers most of the concerns people have here.

We've done two things. First, we have hired a director of communications to help address as many questions as possible and he will be coming online as soon as possible (most likely Friday). Second, we are going to hold some form of AMA and build a complete FAQ.

Vitalik and I will also be trying to do some sort of regular Q&A session to fully address everyone's concerns. I'm really sorry for the delays in communication. Most of the team was in Miami and we were hit so hard down there with work it was nearly impossible to regularly check things here.

The best part about the bitcoin community is that they are very smart and have great ideas. I really do value a lot of the feedback we've received here and I make a promise we'll answer as much as we can as soon as we can. This said, it will take some time as the queue is really long, but hopefully we can at least address a lot of the core questions within the next week or so.

We are also releasing the centralized proof of concept testnet on Feb 1st and making an announcement about how we plan to better engage the cryptocurrency community on Feb. 20th or so. Please check out the code, look at the protocol specs, the high level language and the compiler we have, and write some contracts. Costa and co are building a full clearinghouse on top of the testnet.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your enormous patience and I look forward to hearing from you all soon.  

[_ingsoc]

I can compare only Nxt and Ethereum:

1. Nxt is simple (for casual programmers), Ethereum is hardcore (for hardcore programmers). I think most of coders will choose Nxt if noone creates a simple Ethereum Contract Creation Kit.
2. Nxt can process 1000s transactions per second (coz of absence of scripts and Transparent Forging), Ethereum can't process too many transactions but they r much richer. I think these platforms would go on par if Nxt didn't have Transparent Forging. With TF Nxt will win.
3. Nxt has fixed supply of coins, Ethereum will be inflationary for a long period of time. Ordinary people prefer non-inflationary currencies.
4. Nxt is 100% PoS, Ethereum is PoW + PoS, so the latter is not so "green".

These r just a few points that came to my mind.

Please stop trying to talk up Nxt at every opportunity in this thread. You forgot to mention Nxt is vulnerable to nothing-at-stake attacks, poorly implemented in Java (known for security!), you can't store anything in an offline wallet, and the currency is owned by 71 people who sell it to everyone else. Just get real if you want to talk things up.

[_ingsoc]

We've done two things. First, we have hired a director of communications to help address as many questions as possible and he will be coming online as soon as possible (most likely Friday). Second, we are going to hold some form of AMA and build a complete FAQ.

Vitalik and I will also be trying to do some sort of regular Q&A session to fully address everyone's concerns. I'm really sorry for the delays in communication. Most of the team was in Miami and we were hit so hard down there with work it was nearly impossible to regularly check things here.

The best part about the bitcoin community is that they are very smart and have great ideas. I really do value a lot of the feedback we've received here and I make a promise we'll answer as much as we can as soon as we can. This said, it will take some time as the queue is really long, but hopefully we can at least address a lot of the core questions within the next week or so.

We are also releasing the centralized proof of concept testnet on Feb 1st and making an announcement about how we plan to better engage the cryptocurrency community on Feb. 20th or so. Please check out the code, look at the protocol specs, the high level language and the compiler we have, and write some contracts. Costa and co are building a full clearinghouse on top of the testnet.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your enormous patience and I look forward to hearing from you all soon.  

Realised I pushed your post onto the previous page without much visibility. Is there any word on what's going on with the fundraiser? Even just a ballpark date range if you can't comment on terms just yet.

[1krona]

Can someone post straightforward pro's and con's of Ethereum against Bitcoin & NXT.

If you're using technical terminology, please try and explain in layman's terms.

I would really appreciate that, thanks!

I can compare only Nxt and Ethereum:

1. Nxt is simple (for casual programmers), Ethereum is hardcore (for hardcore programmers). I think most of coders will choose Nxt if noone creates a simple Ethereum Contract Creation Kit.
2. Nxt can process 1000s transactions per second (coz of absence of scripts and Transparent Forging), Ethereum can't process too many transactions but they r much richer. I think these platforms would go on par if Nxt didn't have Transparent Forging. With TF Nxt will win.
3. Nxt has fixed supply of coins, Ethereum will be inflationary for a long period of time. Ordinary people prefer non-inflationary currencies.
4. Nxt is 100% PoS, Ethereum is PoW + PoS, so the latter is not so "green".

These r just a few points that came to my mind.

Alright, that cleared some things up!

Will Ethereum ever be able to process more transactions, and what do you mean with that they are richer?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it!

[KoinMaster]

Thank you for posting that here as well, in case people miss it. We've maintained a list of community questions in post #634. Is it possible to get some direct answers on these at one point? I think it covers most of the concerns people have here.

We've done two things. First, we have hired a director of communications to help address as many questions as possible and he will be coming online as soon as possible (most likely Friday). Second, we are going to hold some form of AMA and build a complete FAQ.

Vitalik and I will also be trying to do some sort of regular Q&A session to fully address everyone's concerns. I'm really sorry for the delays in communication. Most of the team was in Miami and we were hit so hard down there with work it was nearly impossible to regularly check things here.

The best part about the bitcoin community is that they are very smart and have great ideas. I really do value a lot of the feedback we've received here and I make a promise we'll answer as much as we can as soon as we can. This said, it will take some time as the queue is really long, but hopefully we can at least address a lot of the core questions within the next week or so.

We are also releasing the centralized proof of concept testnet on Feb 1st and making an announcement about how we plan to better engage the cryptocurrency community on Feb. 20th or so. Please check out the code, look at the protocol specs, the high level language and the compiler we have, and write some contracts. Costa and co are building a full clearinghouse on top of the testnet.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your enormous patience and I look forward to hearing from you all soon.  

That's different Charles, I'm looking forward to seeing your responses! I even plan to invest in Ethereum, if our questions will be addressed openly and honestly and if the IPO/lauch/inflationary conditions will be changed to more fair terms for us investors.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Please stop trying to talk up Nxt at every opportunity in this thread. You forgot to mention Nxt is vulnerable to nothing-at-stake attacks, poorly implemented in Java (known for security!), you can't store anything in an offline wallet, and the currency is owned by 71 people who sell it to everyone else. Just get real if you want to talk things up.

Right. And I forgot to mention that Satoshi alone owns 2M BTC, Bitcoin's carbon footprint is the same as London's one, and that PoW is the only way to prove anything.

Please, stop bothering me with ur troll sentences.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Will Ethereum ever be able to process more transactions, and what do you mean with that they are richer?

Yes, Ethereum will be able to process more transactions. Moore's law says that.
Ethereum has Turing-complete language and u can code anything using this language. In Nxt u r limited to what Nxt core devs allow u to do.

[1krona]

Please stop trying to talk up Nxt at every opportunity in this thread. You forgot to mention Nxt is vulnerable to nothing-at-stake attacks, poorly implemented in Java (known for security!), you can't store anything in an offline wallet, and the currency is owned by 71 people who sell it to everyone else. Just get real if you want to talk things up.

Right. And I forgot to mention that Satoshi alone owns 2M BTC, Bitcoin's carbon footprint is the same as London's one, and that PoW is the only way to prove anything.

Please, stop bothering me with ur troll sentences.

I actually love NXT of what I've seen so far and I can only say congrats to those 71 early investors, I wish I was one of them.

[charleshoskinson]

That's different Charles, I'm looking forward to seeing your responses! I even plan to invest in Ethereum, if our questions will be addressed openly and honestly and if the IPO/lauch/inflationary conditions will be changed to more fair terms for us investors.

I will try as hard as I can. Ethereum is not for everyone, but I think it brings both a wonderful set of innovations to this space and also a very attract value proposition to speculators. I hope you can enjoy one or both. Ultimately, we will be spending a lot of time communication our goals, vision and the core aspects of Ethereum to as many people as possible. The difficulty is that our infrastructure wasn't setup to receive 1,000s of emails, over a hundred pages of forum threads and all the other communications within a two week spread.

We were even in Wired http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/ethereum/. I make a promise that we will work harder and hopefully get everything sorted out in a few weeks max. As for the fundraiser, innovation requires fuel and thus we'll make sure we get to it as soon as we can as well. Our goal is to be as fair and equitable as possible.

[Vitalik Buterin]

As for PoW/PoS, we are agile, we can use hybrid PoS/PoW if we want.

Our prototype PoS algorithm, while not perfect, is one of the few that is immune to nothing-at-stake and computation/stake tradeoff attacks:

http://blog.ethereum.org/?p=39/slasher-a-punitive-proof-of-stake-algorithm

Also, Ethereum script may be "hardcore", but the CLL is not; it's basically stripped-down Python. We'll release a CLL -> Ethereum script compiler soon, watch out for that.

[_ingsoc]

Right. And I forgot to mention that Satoshi alone owns 2M BTC, Bitcoin's carbon footprint is the same as London's one, and that PoW is the only way to prove anything.

Please, stop bothering me with ur troll sentences.

Half this thread was hijacked by Nxt zealots. If I instigated this argument and someone just wanted some answers, then I'm sorry. It would just be nice to actually to talk about Nxt honestly for once. People don't understand the criticism of it, and the serious issues it has. But this is not the thread for it, so I'll can it.