[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[_ingsoc]

Hopefully, regulatory issues are being worked out as promised as it will be one less thing to worry about, but I still stand with what I wrote earlier regarding the investment structure of the deal.

So far judging from the responses on all Ethereum forums here is what I see.  Most of the people posting on this forum and almost all the people that were at the Miami Conference praising Ethereum are developers.  There is genuine potential for this platform to be groundbreaking if done right.  The devs that are shilling for the Ethereum to succeed have either been involved in pre-fund raising before and want to see this succeed for selfish reasons or they believe in Ethereum  and are planning to monetize this platform in the future and want to see Ethereum succeed for selfish reasons.

Then you have the other half of the devs that are not involved with the project, see there are too many risks involved and fearful of wall street taking over the crypto industry.

Where I feel there is a severe disconnect is that the majority of opinions on this forum, Reddit, etc.. are developers and they will constitute less that 1% of the total amount of investment capital that Ethereum is trying to raise.  

If you go to a Conference where the entire majority of reporters have a dev background, you are basically looking at the very definition of a biased opinion and reporting.  Just because a small group of technology advanced individuals are excited about the possibility of the tech, doesn't actually mean equate a great investment.

Then you have the 99% of the general crypto population that are only interested in making a quick profit on this coin.  They are not particularly interested in this new coin/platform and don't really care about the technology and only if there will be enough ROI to justify an initial investment into the pre-sale.  Initially, there was a lot of hype on this coin that drew a lot of interest, but crypto investors cannot be duped.  They realize they are not getting into this investment at the ground floor level and with the amount of money/bitcoin that Ethereum is trying to raise before launch, there will have to be 100 million dollar market cap for them to see a profit.  Long-term is the only reason to invest.  There are few pump and dump scenarios that will work with this investment structure that Ethereum is proposing because all the initial "pump" profit is being taken out of the market and into Ethereum's pocket right from the beginning.

Long term I see a lot of risks involved with pre-sale investment.
1/ There is risk of immediate loss of equity once it hits an exchange.
2/ There is risk of dilution
3/ There is risk of the company dissolving or bankrupting (however small)
4/  There is risk of this becoming vaporware
5/  There is risk that it will be forked and cloned
6/  There is risk that there will be too many security holes
7/  There is risk that a newer and better technology with greater funding and transparency will enter the market in due time
8/  There is risk that the altcoin (or platform if you want to call it that) crypto market will crash in a few years
9/   There is a risk (and I personally feel strongly about this) that the price will be considerably lower once it hits an exchange and falls to what the market feels is an appropriate price for the amount of risk and dilution involved with the project.

Of course, I could be wrong and Ethereum totally sells out and there will be another 100 million worth of btc bid aftermarket.  But do you really think that crypto investors are dying to jump in to give anyone 100 million on vaporware on a diluted investment? ALL you have to look at is the forum boards and ignore the developers who are shilling for the product to succeed.  There is a huge outcry against the current investment scheme.  Why are people so vehemently against Ethereum's structure?  Because they feel it has a possibility to be an asset to the bitcoin community but not the way its currently structured.  

So in final words, whether you believe in the tech or not, all you have to ask yourself is this.  Would I be better off investing in the pre-sale or should I invest aftermarket?

There is absolutely only ONE reason you should buy into the pre-sale, if you believe that it will be so much oversold and the market will not feel that it's diluted to the point where there is another huge group of buyers willing to take it off your hands and xxx times a return on your investment right from the beginning of launch.

Now I submit to you a few simple reasons why you should wait until aftermarket to buy-in.

1/  You NEGATE any risk mentioned earlier in the post and you only have to consider risk/reward.  If I buy in pre-sale what risk do I take vs the reward I will have for taking that risk.  Do you think there is greater chance that the market price will be higher than lower from the pre-sale price?  And to what degree do you need to see Ethereum trade at to make this pre-sale investment worth it for you.
2/  Time value - What could have I done with this money invested in Ethereum that will be locked up from pre-sale until launch on a legitimate market.  During those two or three months, you could have that money invested in Bitcoin (which has a lot less downside and at the current level has a good chance of increasing in value) or a dozen new altcoins that will be launching that as you can see we are in the midst of a crypto coin boom.  How much money will you have lost by freezing your money up in Ethereum, when it could be actively invested in other more profitable ventures where the initial investment is not severely diluted?
3/  During the time you buy into the pre-sale (several months) and the time you are able to trade your ETH on an exchange, I guarantee you there will several new teams announcing a new platform or coin that will get much better press with a better investment structure.  You take the risk of obsolescence even before the coin launches.
4/ By buying into the coin pre-sale and making it a success you encourage Wall Street to take over the crypto coin market and in the future you may see an environment where every new coin launch will be diluted and structured in a way that only Wall Street will increase their millions and the RISK will all be burdened by the crypto community.  Ethereum will set a new precedent and if you think this will not happen, think again.  Miners and crypto investors will be locked out of the early "pump" profits while Wall Street makes millions and we will take all the RISK. The early pre-sale investors will essentially be the bagholders.
5/ Here is the most important reason to wait until it hits an exchange to buy into Ethereum, you NEGATE all the risk I mentioned before and plus you do not enable this kind of launch in the future.  There is a good chance that you will be able to buy it lower than the offering price of approx a dollar an ETH. and if the price rises a bit, you can still buy in at the pre-sale price or a little bit higher.  The only reason you should be buying this pre-sale is if you believe that there is another 100 million waiting in line to buy ETH and there is no risk involved.  You have absolutely nothing to lose by waiting and a lot at stake by buying and enabling this type of coin pre-sale launch.

Now, over the next few days I imagine Ethereum will hire a Marketing PR, they will hype and pump the tech and coin and gloss it over to make it look like they invented the wheel.  They will cast out all the doubters and call them "FUD."  Vitalik will come online and answer questions about the tech.  But I say to you forget about all that.  Don't get caught up in the tech, we all  know the tech has the potential to be amazing.  Look at the investment structure.  Dont let Vitalik use excuses like this is the best way to avoid "whales" from taking over the market.  That is so naive.  Think!!! Regardless of the tech, is it more beneficial to me, considering risk vs reward, to buy pre-sale or buy aftermarket?

If you choose pre-sale, then good luck, all I'm asking you is to forget the tech and the chatter from the devs and focus on the pros and con of the investment only.  Live long and prosper!!

Instead of writing an essay, fix what you see is wrong with what they're doing in a bullet list. Nobody can dig into all of this text. I'm not saying that to mess with you, I want to see a better plan that can be digested.

[1713471360]

1713471360

[1713471360]

1713471360

[KoinMaster]

+1, if only everyone knew how much of the worlds software is Java.

Java 8 is great; Nxt's java code not so much nor the design of the Proof of Stake. They seem to have a very active community and thus it will likely get better quickly.

Thanks Charles for your answer. I personally find the idea behind Ethereum ingenius. I want to believe in it. Now I feel that we'll get answers to our concerns from the Ethereum team. I hope that Goldman Sachs is not involved. Without making a poll I suppose 80% of the forum members think that GS is responsible for lot of bad things in this world and we don't want a crpyto which GS has a finger in it.

We have two people on our team who started their financial careers- as many thousands have done- at Goldman Sachs. They have both since left and started other ventures. In both cases those were hedge funds. Joe retired and moved to Jamaica to be in the music industry and came out of retirement to join us. Costa went to university of Edinburgh to study LCS's relationship to finance for a PhD in Quantitative Finance. He is now running a hedge fund in Kyrgyzstan as well as building a full clearing house in etherscript.

We have no relationship with Goldman Sachs nor are they an investor. I wouldn't take their money if offered. I have great respect for their knowledge of the financial industry as well as quality of talent, but no respect for their business practices or questionable conduct.

Thanks Charles for this reply, the community has been waiting for this statement for almost a week now. No one questing the financial expertise of GS. The question is what are they using it for?

The answer: To control/screw/scam people, the market, the little guy, and also countries....

The best example is Greece. Goldman Sachs has been advising Greece to join the euro, despite the fact that they knew Greece was cooking its books/budget number. In fact GS helped Greece in cooking its budget and hide it's true national debt level. Then, after that country joined the Euro, they were secretly betting on its default.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-02-25-bernanke-fed-greece_N.htm

And this is only one evil deed from Goldman Sachs. There are hundreds of more.

Does the Ethereum Project really wants to be associated with such a parasitic entity?

These are the facts...

Will this information make a difference for you guys at Ethereum?

Only you could tell......

[PGPpfKkx]

i guess that in high tech societies common sense and primal instincts are pushed back with rationality and greed. I will just try to make things simpler.

Ethereum clock timer ticking -> pushed back
Ethereum IPO -> pushed back
Ethereum development after IPO -> ?

fill in the blank

[_ingsoc]

Thanks Charles for this reply, the community has been waiting for this statement for almost a week now. No one questing the financial expertise of GS. The question is what are they using it for?

The answer: To control/screw/scam people, the market, the little guy, and also countries....

The best example is Greece. Goldman Sachs has been advising Greece to join the euro, despite the fact that they knew Greece was cooking its books/budget number. In fact GS helped Greece in cooking its budget and hide it's true national debt level. Then, after that country joined the Euro, they were secretly betting on its default.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-02-25-bernanke-fed-greece_N.htm

And this is only one evil deed from Goldman Sachs. There are hundreds of more.

Does the Ethereum Project really wants to be associated with such a parasitic entity?

These are the facts...

Will this information make a difference for you guys at Ethereum?

Only you could tell......

How many times do they need to say there is no Goldman Sachs connection? 90+% of this forum would benefit greatly from taking comprehension classes. Every freakin' post has some tie to Goldman Sachs, when if you just read through the information and go back to the source you'd realise it's totally stupid.

[jsteelbeam]

All this discussion about Goldman Sachs is getting ridiculous.  Just because someone works/worked at Goldman Sachs as a programmer or analyst doesnt make them in charge of the company's policy.  Can anyone definitely prove that Satoshi Nakamoto wasnt a disgruntled Goldman Sachs programmer who became disillusioned and created Bitcoin in his spare time?  If he was a disgruntled Goldman Sachs programmer, does that invalidate the good that Bitcoin represents?

[_ingsoc]

i guess that in high tech societies common sense and primal instincts are pushed back with rationality and greed. I will just try to make things simpler.

Ethereum clock timer ticking -> pushed back
Ethereum IPO -> pushed back
Ethereum development after IPO -> ?

fill in the blank

Ethereum development: https://github.com/ethereum

Look at the Go Ethereum suite as an example. 229 commits to the Go code since 26 December 2013. And they're releasing in multiple languages.

[PGPpfKkx]

and in order to stop the mad hype about turing completeness for people that are not tech savvy i paste from wikipedia:

Most programming languages, conventional and unconventional, are Turing-complete. This includes:
All general-purpose languages in wide use.
Procedural programming languages such as C, Pascal.
Object-oriented languages such as Java, Smalltalk.
Multi-paradigm languages such as Ada, C++, Common Lisp, Object Pascal.

ok the project has nice features in theory but its not like the whole computer world will take a new direction from now on. just a good pitch.

[antanst]

Also, Ethereum script may be "hardcore", but the CLL is not; it's basically stripped-down Python.

Awesome. I love Python. Glad you didn't pick up any other language.

[_ingsoc]

and in order to stop the mad hype about turing completeness for people that are not tech savvy i paste from wikipedia:

Most programming languages, conventional and unconventional, are Turing-complete. This includes:
All general-purpose languages in wide use.
Procedural programming languages such as C, Pascal.
Object-oriented languages such as Java, Smalltalk.
Multi-paradigm languages such as Ada, C++, Common Lisp, Object Pascal.

ok the project has nice features in theory but its not like the whole computer world will take a new direction from now on. just a good pitch.

It's about what can be built with a language like that inside of the block chain. It's not about features.

[KeyserSozeMC]

Checked all available sources I could find about Ethereum.

To be honest, this seems really big. Like, BIG-BIG.

Got one thing in my mind. - Bitcoin killer-, mentioned in the media. Case of JP Morgan.



Regards,



@ThisWeeksCoin

[PGPpfKkx]

ok the project has nice features in theory but its not like the whole computer world will take a new direction from now on. just a good pitch.

It's about what can be built with a language like that inside of the block chain. It's not about features.

building a framework with a turing complete language in the blockchain is a feature of this project. are you trolling?

im just saying the Turing complete sounds much much more WOW than saying that there is a scriptable blockchain.

[xibeijan]

I am not convinced by this project.

A turing complete language for the script language sounds academic to me.  It would require a lot of limitations to make sure people are not putting malicious code into their transactions.


Also, if we decide it's worth the risk, where do we invest?

All I could find on the top of this thread is this

"Early investors for taking a great risk due to the uncertainty of investment will be rewarded by a bonus of 2*initial investment for the first week and then this bonus decays by 2 percent per day for the remainder of the fundraiser until it reaches a floor of the base exchange rate of 0.001 BTC per 1 Ether"

But now even that has been removed...

[lonsharim]

A turing complete language for the script language sounds academic to me.  It would require a lot of limitations to make sure people are not putting malicious code into their transactions.

Sure there would be limitations. It cannot work in any other way. I will assume this will have to run within some sort of sandbox. I speculate that apart from interacting with well defined objects within the platform it will be able to do little else.

Look at Javascript today, it runs in your browser with restrictions, i.e. it can do web related tasks but not others like creating files or accessing file systems. That is called a limitation. It is also constrained by scope, so cannot be privy to information between your browser and another site. That is also a limitation.

With a turing complete language you can expect such restrictions, without them you will have security nightmares, likely still have little loopholes that will have to be plugged along the way while the system itself matures.

[gutshot5820]

Hopefully, regulatory issues are being worked out as promised as it will be one less thing to worry about, but I still stand with what I wrote earlier regarding the investment structure of the deal.

So far judging from the responses on all Ethereum forums here is what I see.  Most of the people posting on this forum and almost all the people that were at the Miami Conference praising Ethereum are developers.  There is genuine potential for this platform to be groundbreaking if done right.  The devs that are shilling for the Ethereum to succeed have either been involved in pre-fund raising before and want to see this succeed for selfish reasons or they believe in Ethereum  and are planning to monetize this platform in the future and want to see Ethereum succeed for selfish reasons.

Then you have the other half of the devs that are not involved with the project, see there are too many risks involved and fearful of wall street taking over the crypto industry.

Where I feel there is a severe disconnect is that the majority of opinions on this forum, Reddit, etc.. are developers and they will constitute less that 1% of the total amount of investment capital that Ethereum is trying to raise.  

If you go to a Conference where the entire majority of reporters have a dev background, you are basically looking at the very definition of a biased opinion and reporting.  Just because a small group of technology advanced individuals are excited about the possibility of the tech, doesn't actually mean equate a great investment.

Then you have the 99% of the general crypto population that are only interested in making a quick profit on this coin.  They are not particularly interested in this new coin/platform and don't really care about the technology and only if there will be enough ROI to justify an initial investment into the pre-sale.  Initially, there was a lot of hype on this coin that drew a lot of interest, but crypto investors cannot be duped.  They realize they are not getting into this investment at the ground floor level and with the amount of money/bitcoin that Ethereum is trying to raise before launch, there will have to be 100 million dollar market cap for them to see a profit.  Long-term is the only reason to invest.  There are few pump and dump scenarios that will work with this investment structure that Ethereum is proposing because all the initial "pump" profit is being taken out of the market and into Ethereum's pocket right from the beginning.

Long term I see a lot of risks involved with pre-sale investment.
1/ There is risk of immediate loss of equity once it hits an exchange.
2/ There is risk of dilution
3/ There is risk of the company dissolving or bankrupting (however small)
4/  There is risk of this becoming vaporware
5/  There is risk that it will be forked and cloned
6/  There is risk that there will be too many security holes
7/  There is risk that a newer and better technology with greater funding and transparency will enter the market in due time
8/  There is risk that the altcoin (or platform if you want to call it that) crypto market will crash in a few years
9/   There is a risk (and I personally feel strongly about this) that the price will be considerably lower once it hits an exchange and falls to what the market feels is an appropriate price for the amount of risk and dilution involved with the project.

Of course, I could be wrong and Ethereum totally sells out and there will be another 100 million worth of btc bid aftermarket.  But do you really think that crypto investors are dying to jump in to give anyone 100 million on vaporware on a diluted investment? ALL you have to look at is the forum boards and ignore the developers who are shilling for the product to succeed.  There is a huge outcry against the current investment scheme.  Why are people so vehemently against Ethereum's structure?  Because they feel it has a possibility to be an asset to the bitcoin community but not the way its currently structured.  

So in final words, whether you believe in the tech or not, all you have to ask yourself is this.  Would I be better off investing in the pre-sale or should I invest aftermarket?

There is absolutely only ONE reason you should buy into the pre-sale, if you believe that it will be so much oversold and the market will not feel that it's diluted to the point where there is another huge group of buyers willing to take it off your hands and xxx times a return on your investment right from the beginning of launch.

Now I submit to you a few simple reasons why you should wait until aftermarket to buy-in.

1/  You NEGATE any risk mentioned earlier in the post and you only have to consider risk/reward.  If I buy in pre-sale what risk do I take vs the reward I will have for taking that risk.  Do you think there is greater chance that the market price will be higher than lower from the pre-sale price?  And to what degree do you need to see Ethereum trade at to make this pre-sale investment worth it for you.
2/  Time value - What could have I done with this money invested in Ethereum that will be locked up from pre-sale until launch on a legitimate market.  During those two or three months, you could have that money invested in Bitcoin (which has a lot less downside and at the current level has a good chance of increasing in value) or a dozen new altcoins that will be launching that as you can see we are in the midst of a crypto coin boom.  How much money will you have lost by freezing your money up in Ethereum, when it could be actively invested in other more profitable ventures where the initial investment is not severely diluted?
3/  During the time you buy into the pre-sale (several months) and the time you are able to trade your ETH on an exchange, I guarantee you there will several new teams announcing a new platform or coin that will get much better press with a better investment structure.  You take the risk of obsolescence even before the coin launches.
4/ By buying into the coin pre-sale and making it a success you encourage Wall Street to take over the crypto coin market and in the future you may see an environment where every new coin launch will be diluted and structured in a way that only Wall Street will increase their millions and the RISK will all be burdened by the crypto community.  Ethereum will set a new precedent and if you think this will not happen, think again.  Miners and crypto investors will be locked out of the early "pump" profits while Wall Street makes millions and we will take all the RISK. The early pre-sale investors will essentially be the bagholders.
5/ Here is the most important reason to wait until it hits an exchange to buy into Ethereum, you NEGATE all the risk I mentioned before and plus you do not enable this kind of launch in the future.  There is a good chance that you will be able to buy it lower than the offering price of approx a dollar an ETH. and if the price rises a bit, you can still buy in at the pre-sale price or a little bit higher.  The only reason you should be buying this pre-sale is if you believe that there is another 100 million waiting in line to buy ETH and there is no risk involved.  You have absolutely nothing to lose by waiting and a lot at stake by buying and enabling this type of coin pre-sale launch.

Now, over the next few days I imagine Ethereum will hire a Marketing PR, they will hype and pump the tech and coin and gloss it over to make it look like they invented the wheel.  They will cast out all the doubters and call them "FUD."  Vitalik will come online and answer questions about the tech.  But I say to you forget about all that.  Don't get caught up in the tech, we all  know the tech has the potential to be amazing.  Look at the investment structure.  Dont let Vitalik use excuses like this is the best way to avoid "whales" from taking over the market.  That is so naive.  Think!!! Regardless of the tech, is it more beneficial to me, considering risk vs reward, to buy pre-sale or buy aftermarket?

If you choose pre-sale, then good luck, all I'm asking you is to forget the tech and the chatter from the devs and focus on the pros and con of the investment only.  Live long and prosper!!

Instead of writing an essay, fix what you see is wrong with what they're doing in a bullet list. Nobody can dig into all of this text. I'm not saying that to mess with you, I want to see a better plan that can be digested.

I thought it was pretty obvious what I was suggesting.  Until there is a change in the investment structure, there is too much risk and not enough upside to compensate to justify a buy-in on the pre-sale.  In no way am I suggesting not to buy the pre-sale, just that there are many factors to consider and as of now it is heavily weighted towards waiting until Ethereum hits an exchange.  This current structure guarantees the founders immense wealth with no motivation to follow through properly and leaves the entire risk upon the shoulders of the Bitcoin Community.

That being said, I do recognize the potential for Ethereum to be a great success if not a game changer if done right.  You can support Ethereum and its objectives by buying the coins aftermarket and still support the platform and its primary goals.  My suggestion is to wait until after the launch and buy it on an exchange at a price the market will accept.  You can still support Ethereum and its objectives that way.  Nothing wrong with that.

They need to offer more ETH per bitcoin, lower the MAX to an acceptable level and therefore the pre-mine.  And lower their shares of the coin to a level that doesn't reflect a persona of greed. If they are right and follow through, they can still be multi-millionaires by changing the structure in a way that it is not overly diluted and fair and equitable to early investors.  The way is is structured now, they are punishing you for being an early adopter and instantly becoming wealthy without any risk at all.  

I feel that if you are going to ask the investment community to fund the entire project sight unseen, then there must be checks and balances of risk/reward for founders and early adopters.  This project is NOT a slam dunk, there is immense risk to go along with the rewards they are alluding to.  Therefore the founders must take some risk themselves and give opportunity for early adopters to gain reward.  ETH is not structured as a positive investment vehicle in its current form

If it changes to an acceptable level of risk, I will buy-in heavily also.  Right now, hell no.  Way too much risk and dilution and uncertainty to warrant a pre-sale buy-in at this time.  Let's see what they come up with based on all the feedback they have been getting.  If it tilts slighltly more in our favor, how can you complain if you were going to invest anyways?

[Herp]

This plan is at least 1 year away from coming to market while other 2.0s are already here almost. Mastercoin will launch a distributed exchange very soon, in testing phase atm. When that comes, the early adopter advantage will be too powerful for competition to easily overcome.

Also, keep in mind that protoshare devs warned against use of Turing and they've probably had their reasons. They saw all sorts of problems arousing from that. So probably getting such system right from scratch in 1 year is optimistic to say the least.

A bird in hand is worth 2 in the bush I'd say.

[kcirazy]

Since the fundraiser is now delayed and a testnet will be run first, the discussion about that seems to be unnecessary. So lets focus on the technical aspects and development for now.

[jsteelbeam]

Hopefully, regulatory issues are being worked out as promised as it will be one less thing to worry about, but I still stand with what I wrote earlier regarding the investment structure of the deal.

So far judging from the responses on all Ethereum forums here is what I see.  Most of the people posting on this forum and almost all the people that were at the Miami Conference praising Ethereum are developers.  There is genuine potential for this platform to be groundbreaking if done right.  The devs that are shilling for the Ethereum to succeed have either been involved in pre-fund raising before and want to see this succeed for selfish reasons or they believe in Ethereum  and are planning to monetize this platform in the future and want to see Ethereum succeed for selfish reasons.

Then you have the other half of the devs that are not involved with the project, see there are too many risks involved and fearful of wall street taking over the crypto industry.

Where I feel there is a severe disconnect is that the majority of opinions on this forum, Reddit, etc.. are developers and they will constitute less that 1% of the total amount of investment capital that Ethereum is trying to raise.  

If you go to a Conference where the entire majority of reporters have a dev background, you are basically looking at the very definition of a biased opinion and reporting.  Just because a small group of technology advanced individuals are excited about the possibility of the tech, doesn't actually mean equate a great investment.

Then you have the 99% of the general crypto population that are only interested in making a quick profit on this coin.  They are not particularly interested in this new coin/platform and don't really care about the technology and only if there will be enough ROI to justify an initial investment into the pre-sale.  Initially, there was a lot of hype on this coin that drew a lot of interest, but crypto investors cannot be duped.  They realize they are not getting into this investment at the ground floor level and with the amount of money/bitcoin that Ethereum is trying to raise before launch, there will have to be 100 million dollar market cap for them to see a profit.  Long-term is the only reason to invest.  There are few pump and dump scenarios that will work with this investment structure that Ethereum is proposing because all the initial "pump" profit is being taken out of the market and into Ethereum's pocket right from the beginning.

Long term I see a lot of risks involved with pre-sale investment.
1/ There is risk of immediate loss of equity once it hits an exchange.
2/ There is risk of dilution
3/ There is risk of the company dissolving or bankrupting (however small)
4/  There is risk of this becoming vaporware
5/  There is risk that it will be forked and cloned
6/  There is risk that there will be too many security holes
7/  There is risk that a newer and better technology with greater funding and transparency will enter the market in due time
8/  There is risk that the altcoin (or platform if you want to call it that) crypto market will crash in a few years
9/   There is a risk (and I personally feel strongly about this) that the price will be considerably lower once it hits an exchange and falls to what the market feels is an appropriate price for the amount of risk and dilution involved with the project.

Of course, I could be wrong and Ethereum totally sells out and there will be another 100 million worth of btc bid aftermarket.  But do you really think that crypto investors are dying to jump in to give anyone 100 million on vaporware on a diluted investment? ALL you have to look at is the forum boards and ignore the developers who are shilling for the product to succeed.  There is a huge outcry against the current investment scheme.  Why are people so vehemently against Ethereum's structure?  Because they feel it has a possibility to be an asset to the bitcoin community but not the way its currently structured.  

So in final words, whether you believe in the tech or not, all you have to ask yourself is this.  Would I be better off investing in the pre-sale or should I invest aftermarket?

There is absolutely only ONE reason you should buy into the pre-sale, if you believe that it will be so much oversold and the market will not feel that it's diluted to the point where there is another huge group of buyers willing to take it off your hands and xxx times a return on your investment right from the beginning of launch.

Now I submit to you a few simple reasons why you should wait until aftermarket to buy-in.

1/  You NEGATE any risk mentioned earlier in the post and you only have to consider risk/reward.  If I buy in pre-sale what risk do I take vs the reward I will have for taking that risk.  Do you think there is greater chance that the market price will be higher than lower from the pre-sale price?  And to what degree do you need to see Ethereum trade at to make this pre-sale investment worth it for you.
2/  Time value - What could have I done with this money invested in Ethereum that will be locked up from pre-sale until launch on a legitimate market.  During those two or three months, you could have that money invested in Bitcoin (which has a lot less downside and at the current level has a good chance of increasing in value) or a dozen new altcoins that will be launching that as you can see we are in the midst of a crypto coin boom.  How much money will you have lost by freezing your money up in Ethereum, when it could be actively invested in other more profitable ventures where the initial investment is not severely diluted?
3/  During the time you buy into the pre-sale (several months) and the time you are able to trade your ETH on an exchange, I guarantee you there will several new teams announcing a new platform or coin that will get much better press with a better investment structure.  You take the risk of obsolescence even before the coin launches.
4/ By buying into the coin pre-sale and making it a success you encourage Wall Street to take over the crypto coin market and in the future you may see an environment where every new coin launch will be diluted and structured in a way that only Wall Street will increase their millions and the RISK will all be burdened by the crypto community.  Ethereum will set a new precedent and if you think this will not happen, think again.  Miners and crypto investors will be locked out of the early "pump" profits while Wall Street makes millions and we will take all the RISK. The early pre-sale investors will essentially be the bagholders.
5/ Here is the most important reason to wait until it hits an exchange to buy into Ethereum, you NEGATE all the risk I mentioned before and plus you do not enable this kind of launch in the future.  There is a good chance that you will be able to buy it lower than the offering price of approx a dollar an ETH. and if the price rises a bit, you can still buy in at the pre-sale price or a little bit higher.  The only reason you should be buying this pre-sale is if you believe that there is another 100 million waiting in line to buy ETH and there is no risk involved.  You have absolutely nothing to lose by waiting and a lot at stake by buying and enabling this type of coin pre-sale launch.

Now, over the next few days I imagine Ethereum will hire a Marketing PR, they will hype and pump the tech and coin and gloss it over to make it look like they invented the wheel.  They will cast out all the doubters and call them "FUD."  Vitalik will come online and answer questions about the tech.  But I say to you forget about all that.  Don't get caught up in the tech, we all  know the tech has the potential to be amazing.  Look at the investment structure.  Dont let Vitalik use excuses like this is the best way to avoid "whales" from taking over the market.  That is so naive.  Think!!! Regardless of the tech, is it more beneficial to me, considering risk vs reward, to buy pre-sale or buy aftermarket?

If you choose pre-sale, then good luck, all I'm asking you is to forget the tech and the chatter from the devs and focus on the pros and con of the investment only.  Live long and prosper!!

Instead of writing an essay, fix what you see is wrong with what they're doing in a bullet list. Nobody can dig into all of this text. I'm not saying that to mess with you, I want to see a better plan that can be digested.

I thought it was pretty obvious what I was suggesting.  Until there is a change in the investment structure, there is too much risk and not enough upside to compensate to justify a buy-in on the pre-sale.  In no way am I suggesting not to buy the pre-sale, just that there are many factors to consider and as of now it is heavily weighted towards waiting until Ethereum hits an exchange.  This current structure guarantees the founders immense wealth with no motivation to follow through properly and leaves the entire risk upon the shoulders of the Bitcoin Community.

That being said, I do recognize the potential for Ethereum to be a great success if not a game changer if done right.  You can support Ethereum and its objectives by buying the coins aftermarket and still support the platform and its primary goals.  My suggestion is to wait until after the launch and buy it on an exchange at a price the market will accept.  You can still support Ethereum and its objectives that way.  Nothing wrong with that.

They need to offer more ETH per bitcoin, lower the MAX to an acceptable level and therefore the pre-mine.  And lower their shares of the coin to a level that doesn't reflect a persona of greed. If they are right and follow through, they can still be multi-millionaires by changing the structure in a way that it is not overly diluted and fair and equitable to early investors.  The way is is structured now, they are punishing you for being an early adopter and instantly becoming wealthy without any risk at all.  

I feel that if you are going to ask the investment community to fund the entire project sight unseen, then there must be checks and balances of risk/reward for founders and early adopters.  This project is NOT a slam dunk, there is immense risk to go along with the rewards they are alluding to.  Therefore the founders must take some risk themselves and give opportunity for early adopters to gain reward.  ETH is not structured as a positive investment vehicle in its current form

If it changes to an acceptable level of risk, I will buy-in heavily also.  Right now, hell no.  Way too much risk and dilution and uncertainty to warrant a pre-sale buy-in at this time.  Let's see what they come up with based on all the feedback they have been getting.  If it tilts slighltly more in our favor, how can you complain if you were going to invest anyways?

I actually appreciate this post.  For what it is worth, it allows me to understand and respect your point of view far better than your previous posts.

[dabosshun]

When will they release this coin? What does "Test Release" means?

[gutshot5820]

Lets put the fundraiser in simple terms that everyone can understand.  Everyone should agree agree that all investments should have a proper risk/reward ratio. This project itself has a lot of risk and potentially a lot of reward, so neither can outweigh the other.  Now lets look at this objectively from that perspective.

Ethereum project;
Risk = Very High
Reward = Very High

Founders;
Risk = 0%
Reward=100%

Early adopters;
Risk = 100%
Reward = ?

Put that on a graph.  Does that seem like a fair transaction to you?  

[_ingsoc]

They need to offer more ETH per bitcoin, lower the MAX to an acceptable level and therefore the pre-mine.  And lower their shares of the coin to a level that doesn't reflect a persona of greed. If they are right and follow through, they can still be multi-millionaires by changing the structure in a way that it is not overly diluted and fair and equitable to early investors.  The way is is structured now, they are punishing you for being an early adopter and instantly becoming wealthy without any risk at all.

Lets put the fundraiser in simple terms that everyone can understand.  Everyone should agree agree that all investments should have a proper risk/reward ratio. This project itself has a lot of risk and potentially a lot of reward, so neither can outweigh the other.  Now lets look at this objectively from that perspective.

Ethereum project;
Risk = Very High
Reward = Very High

Founders;
Risk = 0%
Reward=100%

Early adopters;
Risk = 100%
Reward = ?

Put that on a graph.  Does that seem like a fair transaction to you? 

I like you a lot more when you don't tell me to kill myself. I'm quoting you because this is the essence of what you've been getting at in all your ramblings, and I think these are fair concerns.