[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[Come-from-Beyond]

Ethereum is 100% open source. If the community gets angry at the way we handle the funds, they can release a fork and delete whatever portion of the issuance they don't like out of existence. We are thus very aware that we have to tread carefully here.

What stops copycats from doing the same ruining investments of the good guys?

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[Come-from-Beyond]

I'm afraid that doesn't answer my question though, hopefully this will clarify my concern. I assume a script will stop dead if you run out of fees, but does that mean you have to massively overpay your fees to ensure complete execution? The direct consequence of including a turing complete scripting language is you can writes scripts which you *cannot* know ahead of time how long they will execute for, and consequently, you cannot know ahead of time how much it will cost in fees. If, on the other hand, you write scripts which you *can* know their execution length ahead of time, you may as well not have used a turing complete language to begin with!

I personally think the scripting language would have probably been better off with a "for each" like construct, and restricting JMP to forward jumps only. Since you can design your "for each" to be reasonable *prior* to execution (though obviously you could still construct a program which you can't reason about completely, it reigns in the potential for infinite loops if you implement it right).

In addition to this question:

I'd like to know how blocks will be "orphaned". Will scripts from such blocks be "rolled back"?

[Red- Beard]

Is this going to be Scrypt (GPU) or CPU only mining

I think this is covered in Ethereum.org/ethereum.html

It should be minable by cpu and gpu -- For Dagger, the optimal core:memory ratio will be 1:512MB, so I could see people mining on both.  I'm interested to see how cellphones and lower-powered cpus do in this environment.

Oh how I wish we could access testnet.  

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Edit:

We will switch our PoW from Dagger to a hybrid PoW/PoS system to be developed via a bountied competition conducted by our university partners and open to the general community for participation. The terms will be announced in late february including judges, specifications and the university partners.

So they're not using sha256 or scrypt, they were planning to use Dagger, but now they're talking about a hybrid.  So I'm not sure if we'll start with dagger and switch later, or if the network doesn't go live until after that's all sorted out.  I assumed the network would be live in a week, but maybe not?

[mmitech]

I am seeing many differences, and some similarities. Can someone compare/contrast Ethereum with Ripple?

I don't know if I take your post as a troll or you are being serious.....mmm I don't really know how you came up with that ? how they are even remotely similar ?

 

[msin]

Looks like a well organized IPO, which kind of worries me.

[tucenaber]

I have only skimmed the whitepaper but I cannot find any mention of DOS attacks. That is strange since the scripting language is intended to be Turing complete. The major reason for Bitcoin's scripting language not even allowing loops are the risk of DOS:ing nodes with expensive scripts. What are your solution for this?

[mmitech]

I am seeing many differences, and some similarities. Can someone compare/contrast Ethereum with Ripple?

I don't know if I take your post as a troll or you are being serious.....mmm I don't really know how you came up with that ? how they are even remotely similar ?

 

Well, for one, that the network has its own coin to use for internals, and that it is at least partly premined. Or do I have that wrong? Ripple my come to wish it is Ethereum, and it might even spur Ripple development. But I am no fan of Ripple.

the only difference between ripple and any other shit scam coin out there is that ripple is centralized, BTW ripple is not premined because there is no mining involved, they simply created coins out of thin air same as your local currency, think of ripple as central bank... same shit other fancy form....


Edit: I would invest in the worst altcoin out there before considering ripple...

[Patel]

What prevents Bitcoin developers from adding a Turing-complete scripting language to the Bitcoin protocol?

[justusranvier]

What prevents Bitcoin developers from adding a Turing-complete scripting language to the Bitcoin protocol?

Nothing, really.

It's just some development time and a protocol version bump away.

[digitalmagus]

Hi Ethereum Team,

I have a few questions:

Q1: VALUE OF A ETH: What gives ETH value? Especially if you say it is not a coin, but rather a platform? Would I be correct in making the following analogy: ETH is like an OS (platform) connected to a token ring network with an ever increasing number of workstations (end users), where the ETHer's are basically like tokens on the network that exist to service the system. To use the system to for instance operate a contract, you need to have a token. You can thus only use the system by using tokens, which means you have to acquire them, and thus that's where their value will come from.

Q2: DAO's?!? I haven't been able to wrap my head around DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). To me an organization implies having people to do work and provide services. Even systems that are mostly automated like craigslist, facebook, reddit, wikipedia, still require people to do work that computers can't. The Ethereum video even talks about political parties as becoming DAO's. These are organizations that are in fact people (and not computer) centric. So how can an Ethereum software contract replace an entire political party? Unless the contract has some advanced AI, I don't understand how it can read bills and vote on issues at a level equal to human understanding and morality (yes, I know politicians and morality). Clearly, I'm not understanding what is meant by DAO. Is there somewhere where I can read more about this? Are there any functional and useful real-world examples of DOAs right now that I can read about? If not, what are some hypothetical ones and how might they function, and what service(s) would they provide that remove the human factor? This concept requires a lot more explanation. Far too abstract for my tiny IQ. Thanks.

Q3: Blockchain Scalability : My understanding is that when some of the Bitcoin core devs learned that MasterCoin intended to store all of the world's possible transactions onto the bitcoin blockchain, they nearly had a brain hemmorage - because the blockchain was not designed to handle that much data. Ethereum claims the ability to do even far more than bitcoin resulting in a blockchain that will be N times (100,000... 10 million?) times bigger. Who/what will secure/audit those... the miners? I'd like to learn more about how Ethereum envisions the growth of its blockchain(s), and how in the world it will be scalable.

Q4: Wookiedoes ?! True or False? In another thread somebody said the ETHer's will be named wookiedooes (sp?), I hope that was just a joke and it's not real. Nobody mainstream is going to take seriously a coin/platform named wookiedoo. It's bad enough they laughed at bitcoin for years, and it had a great name... imagine the laughter on CNN when they mention wookiedoos. They can't have a serious conversation on bitcoin, nevermind 'wookidooes'. "Economists" will be cracking jokes on air instead of having any serious discussions. Please hire a legit marketing person if wookiedoes are for real.

Q5:  Real-Time Investment Disclosure: Are you going to provide a public disclosure in real time (or at least updated daily) through the fundraising process of how many people (we don't need their names) invested how much BTC? Is there going to be an 'exodus' BTC address we can simply track on blockchain.info for example?

Q6: Max cap per investor? Have you considered placing a cap on the maximum investment any 1 individual can make? What's to prevent somebody from investing $1 (or 10) Million worth in BTC and owning an excessive % of the system? This would be looked at like a very heavy pre-mine by many.


Thanks,

[coinrevo]

What prevents Bitcoin developers from adding a Turing-complete scripting language to the Bitcoin protocol?

security reasons. its impossible to do safely. without inputs its completely worthless anyway.

[digitalmagus]

Commentary on  the Economic Model:

IMHO, the brainiac eclectic Ethereum team is missing an economist (or two - ideally from different economic schools of thought). The vast majority of countries have now regulated Bitcoin as a commodity because it fails the test of being a currency. The number one reason (aside from the fact they can't control it via their central banksters) is because bitcoin lacks "price stability". Let me put that in upper case, because it seems to escape the minds of every crypto coin developer I've seen to date...

*** For a monetary unit to be a globally accepted currency it must have PRICE STABILITY!  ***

This is not a government mandate, but rather a mandate of people all around the world for centuries. The minute a currency fluctuates wildly, people stop using it. Whether to hoard it (deflationary currencies) or to get rid of it ASAP (inflationary ones).
In order to attain price stability, you must have very low inflation or very low deflation, with 0% being ideal (Keynesians would argue that 2% inflation is ideal). From that perspective, Ethereum's philosophical design appears to be on target... except the details matter.

The inflationary design of Ethereum imagines that it will be more fair if it targets 0% inflation.  Unfortunately, you can't target 0% inflation, when your protocol is completely disconnected from a wide range of real world dynamics such as production capacities and efficiencies, resource availability and overall costs of living to name a few. It is academically erroneous to claim to target 0% inflation, when what you mean is targeting 0% dilution after a certain time period - that is unfortunately not the same as 0% inflation. Because your coin will lack Price Stability, it will immediately not be considered a potential global currency. Because your coin will not be a currency, but rather another commodity like bitcoin (albeit with different characteristics), it will always be traded and valued against a real accepted global currency such as the USD, and thus, even if you design an eventual 0% dilution target into it, simple supply/demand will actually determine it's real world value in a foreign currency, and thus you will have inflation or deflation regardless of how much effort you placed into Ethereum's inflationary design code.  I should also add that talking about Ethereum in your whitepaper and saying that it is inflationary like bitcoin is highly confusing, since bitcoin is predominately deflationary. Some word clean up is required there to get your meaning across.

To be clear, I'm not pro USD, and despise various aspects of it, but one thing is certain - on a day to day basis, consumers have price stability - despite the fact that over much larger periods of time (i.e. 100 years) it looses significant (98%) purchasing power... but that's by design (2%/yr inflation), not accident; and the result is *practical* price stability that can be used to conduct Commerce and operate businesses (i.e. pay employees static salaries each month, pay suppliers the same price for goods with the possibility of only 1 or 2 yearly adjustments)etc.

Lastly, the irony is not lost on me… you put brain power towards achieving 0% ‘inflation’, but then turn around and call it a platform and not a currency. So which one is it supposed to be? ;-)

[tk808]

So 30,000,000 - 60,000,000 Eth will be created if you reach the hard cap of 30,000 BTC.

1) How many eth will ever be created?

2) How many eth will be mined/created by the end of the first year cycle?

Gives details on what the supply of eth will look like.


Seems no one on the eth team wants to answer, this is very important for investors.

[Anotheranonlol]

1) How many eth will be created for the IPO?

3) How many eth will be mined/created by the end of the first year cycle?

2) How many eth will ever be created?


Seems no one on the eth team wants to answer, this is very important for investors.

all already answered

[tk808]

1) How many eth will be created for the IPO?

3) How many eth will be mined/created by the end of the first year cycle?

2) How many eth will ever be created?


Seems no one on the eth team wants to answer, this is very important for investors.

all already answered

Where? nothing mentioned in the initial post. I reflected my post to match what will be generated for the ipo

[Junkey]

1) How many eth will be created for the IPO?

Based on this quote from OP "There will be a hard cap of 30,000 bitcoins that if reached will immediately end the fundraiser"
They said they were selling 1 ETH for 0.001 btc.

Math

30,000 x 1000 = 30,000,000 Million ETH for the IPO.

Does that sound right?

[btcdrak]

Vitalik,

If this is Turning complete, what is to stop someone either writing a malicious script or accidentally writing an invalid script, both of which could run an infinite loop for example. As far as I was aware, Bitcoin was deliberately written not to be Turning complete on purpose.

[tk808]

1) How many eth will be created for the IPO?

Based on this quote from OP "There will be a hard cap of 30,000 bitcoins that if reached will immediately end the fundraiser"
They said they were selling 1 ETH for 0.001 btc.

Math

30,000 x 1000 = 30,000,000 Million ETH for the IPO.

Does that sound right?

I already figured that out.

Ok, 30,000,000-60mil for IPO.



That is not the totaly supply of eth, that's just the initial.

An initial investment will just degrade over a period of time, as its mined to death, instead of grow. We'll see, could be potentially huge or fail entirely.

[JTB800]

Well, for one, that the network has its own coin to use for internals, and that it is at least partly premined. Or do I have that wrong? Ripple my come to wish it is Ethereum, and it might even spur Ripple development. But I am no fan of Ripple.

the only difference between ripple and any other shit scam coin out there is that ripple is centralized, BTW ripple is not premined because there is no mining involved, they simply created coins out of thin air same as your local currency, think of ripple as central bank... same shit other fancy form....


Edit: I would invest in the worst altcoin out there before considering ripple...

Umm...I hate to burst your bubble, but all of these coins are created out of thin air. Premined is just another way to put it. Ripple is not really a central bank, but close enough for this discussion. Yes, Ripple is a corporate coin (for the most part) but that doesn't address chodpaba'a question.

The answer is yes, Ethereum hopes to have a platform just like Ripple (and others) are working on. Ethereum is hoping that they will get help from you and me to hire people to work on that idea. Ripple gave away a huge chunk of coins to attract interest and is still giving them away. If it is a success, then they will most definitely make a ton of money.

You may very well invest in any old altcoin before Ripple, but let's not pretend it's because Ethereum or any other coin is doing their thing for any different reason than they are.

[Anduck]

^That's why I'm liking this project.  The people behind it seem to have enough power to be able to pull the necessary strings to achieve success

So you like corrupted politicians etc too?