[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[CoinHeavy]

Registration for PoolEthereum.com is now open. 

Alpha testers will qualify for rewards like a fee free mining window and priority support.

Cloud mining services will be available prior to launch.

[_ingsoc]

Registration for PoolEthereum.com is now open. 

Alpha testers will qualify for rewards like a fee free mining window and priority support.

Cloud mining services will be available prior to launch.

Care to provide more information? Your website has no information and asks for an e-mail address.

[CoinHeavy]

Sure thing.  We plan to have testnet mining set up by the end of next week so that folks can begin verifying their mining systems.  Tutorials on compiling and running mining clients for all major operating systems will be provided.  Pool fees will be minimal to cover operations and are expected to be on the order of 1%.

Fully managed mining nodes will be available for monthly subscription.

Feel free to sign up on the mailing list at PoolEthereum.com to be notified as things proceed.

[romerun]

I say get rid of the premine altogether as it immediately dilutes investors Ether right from the start.

Raising money via an IPO AND 50% premine is what most people are complaining about...

There's been no good valid explanation for the 50% premine.

Actually there has been, if you read what Vitalik has posted and ignore the FUD.

The bitcoins go to developing the client, applications, and the entire ecosystem. Fifty percent of the premine goes to pay the founders (time locked) and fifty percent goes to endow an Ethereum foundation to maintain the code.

Look at XCP (which I've invested a small amount in): There is some serious concern in the community because nearly 2000 BTC have been burned, but only FIVE have been donated to developing the actual client. What if they don't manage to develop a nice, functional client with only four thousand bucks (5 BTC @ $800 each)? Then the $1.5 million in "investments" (burnt BTC) are lost.

So you have a dilemma. PoB eliminates the trust and fairness issue because the coins are destroyed and nobody gets them--and the result is that developers may not have enough money to actually finish the project. The IPO model requires trusting developers to handle funds (in this case, the invested BTC) but empowers them--through adequate funding--to create a viable ecosystem.

The point of ipo money does not go to dev is to show fairness. If a concept makes sense and it's fair, ppl will tend to contribute developing things, thereby seed money is not necessary. In contrast, if ethereum is actually good idea, but ipo/coin distribution is rigged, ppl might prefer to let the initial devs do all the work as they are paid to do which conflicts to their goal of making the platform that ppl want to build things on top of it.

Vitalik is one of those btc early folks, I doubt if he really needs this ipo money in exchange of fairness, but others in the team might just heard bitcoin in 2013, and convince him to take this route.

[gutshot5820]

Considering that Ethereum is getting more and more popular... I believe the investment cap of 30000 BTC should be killed.

30000 BTC is a lot of crypto anyway... if the IPO were to reach those levels... who cares if it goes even higher?

I laughed.  There is so much wrong in your post.

[Rampion]

I am newbie but realy interested in this project. I think that If they were expecting at least 500BTC from IPO and that would be enough for them, so  why it would'nt be enough if ppl invest more? I would suggest premine 500BTC worth ethers = 10000000*0,5 for ther expenses no matter how much total investment will be. Or at least their % share should gradualy decerase along with the increase of the overall amount of investment. It would encourage more investors and give bigger chance for project to be succesfull - everybody would be happy  

I say get rid of the premine altogether as it immediately dilutes investors Ether right from the start.

Raising money via an IPO AND 50% premine is what most people are complaining about...

There's been no good valid explanation for the 50% premine.

Yes, there is: greed.

Don't underestimate the power of that very reason.

I really do not like the "IPO" model - I wonder what Satoshi would think about that. We all know that if the technology is truly revolutionary and it sticks out, the founders will be greatly rewarded by being the very early adopters. This "IPO" thing is just a way to get rich quick while unloading the full risk on investors. Instead of working first and then harvest the fruits later, people prefers to gather the money first and then work - this model is spreading because people is realizing they can get away with it. A very "open source" model if you ask me.

The MSC "IPO" was quite a joke, with the founder "investing" on his project by sending +1,000 BTC to an address that he controlled himself.... It looks like Ethereum will take that model to a whole new level.

The saddest thing? You can bet they will raise thousands of BTC, which is a pity indeed, because it gives a strong incentive for people to replicate over and over this faulty model fueled by greed (both investor's and founder's greed), at least until the SEC steps in.

Friendly advice to the founders: the SEC will step in eventually, maybe not now but in a year or two, do not even dare to think this is play money and that you will get away unscattered by raising millions of $$ by selling unregulated securities.

[_ingsoc]

Yes, there is: greed.

Don't underestimate the power of that very reason.

I really do not like the "IPO" model - I wonder what Satoshi would think about that. We all know that if the technology is truly revolutionary and it sticks out, the founders will be greatly rewarded by being the very early adopters. This "IPO" thing is just a way to get rich quick while unloading the full risk on investors. Instead of working first and then harvest the fruits later, people prefers to gather the money first and then work - this model is spreading because people is realizing they can get away with it. A very "open source" model if you ask me.

The MSC "IPO" was quite a joke, with the founder "investing" on his project by sending +1,000 BTC to an address that he controlled himself.... It looks like Ethereum will take that model to a whole new level.

The saddest thing? You can bet they will raise thousands of BTC, which is a pity indeed, because it gives a strong incentive for people to replicate over and over this faulty model fueled by greed (both investor's and founder's greed), at least until the SEC steps in.

Friendly advice to the founders: the SEC will step in eventually, maybe not now but in a year or two, do not even dare to think this is play money and that you will get away unscattered by raising millions of $$ by selling unregulated securities.

While I appreciate what you're saying, and agree with some of it, you can't run to the SEC every time something happens you don't like. People really have become pathetic like that nowadays. Everyone wants to do everything and take no responsibility for the scenario where they just ended up making a bad call - plain and simple. You're not even buying any damn equity, so I don't know what the government is supposed to do (and whose government?).

In any case, I hope they can arrive at terms that the vocal majority here at least agrees with. As long as the terms are clear, and everyone understands what they're buying from the Ethereum folks, we can't cry if it doesn't work out - that's the risk involved in anything speculative, let alone cryptocurrency. Although, I do think the points on us carrying all the risk are very reasonable and need to be addressed.

[Rampion]

While I appreciate what you're saying, and agree with some of it, you can't run to the SEC every time something happens you don't like.

I agree completely, and I have no intention to "run" to the SEC. Furthermore, if I was 19 like Vitalik is, I'd probably decide to get rich first and then deal with the SEC or whatever. The sensible thing is to remember that that did not play very well for Charlie Shrem, but a handful of millions are well worth the risk for most youngesters.

Regarding the model: business is business, and the founders have found a huge business opportunity. They have realized people is demanding get rich quick schemes and is willing to throw their money to whoever comes up with the next thing that smells of innovation and triple digit % gains. You can see how colored coins get less attention than MSC... Why? The answer is very simple: greed. MSC is marketed as the "ultimate investment" (as Ethereal is), colored coins isn't.

In the world I come from, companies make IPO's when they already have a product that works. Before that, you have private investments, seed capital, whatever - but you do not go public.

What's happening is pure madness in my book. Profitable madness? Probably, but its unsustainable in the long term. I think the team behind Ethereal is very valid and that what they are proposing is a needed innovation, but I just cannot help disliking the funding model - it creates too many negative incentives.

[gambitx]

I"m just amazed how gutshot single handedly destroyed this IPO. How come Ethereum listened to him? I wasn't sure if i wanted to invest but maybe i would have

[pocesar]

Why doesn't Ethereum use Javascript for it's "high level language", since it's easy as hell to write and there are plenty of fast javascript parsers out there?

[Come-from-Beyond]

Why doesn't Ethereum use Javascript for it's "high level language", since it's easy as hell to write and there are plenty of fast javascript parsers out there?

Good question. I thought about it when saw Vitalik reply about Python. Also JS has more fans than Py.

[pocesar]

Why doesn't Ethereum use Javascript for it's "high level language", since it's easy as hell to write and there are plenty of fast javascript parsers out there?

Good question. I thought about it when saw Vitalik reply about Python. Also JS has more fans than Py.

plus it can be sent over the wire, "packed", "minified", eval'ed at will, etc... no idea why trying to reinvent the wheel

PS: I would greatly benefit from it, since JS is my main coding language

[_ingsoc]

I agree completely, and I have no intention to "run" to the SEC. Furthermore, if I was 19 like Vitalik is, I'd probably decide to get rich first and then deal with SEC or whatever. The sensible thing is to remember that that did not play very well for Charlie Shrem, but a handful of millions or well worth the risk for most youngesters.

I try really hard not to think about age. Of course you make some determination of a person based on their characteristics, and the thing about Vitalik from what we read in the media is that (a) he is onto something really cool, and (b) he's young. I just feel it's a bit unfair for people to have at it because Vitalik is relative young compared to most of us, and therefore is at a higher risk of doing something stupid. I'm not saying your thoughts went down that route, but I think it's interesting to point out the reasoning, which is something I've noticed people do when they talk about Vitalik and this project (I'm probably guilty of that too sometimes).

Regarding the model: business is business, and the founders have found a huge business opportunity. They have realized people is demanding get rich quick schemes and is willing to throw their money to whoever comes up with the next things that smells of innovation and triple digit % gains. You can see how colored coins get less attention than MSC... Why? The answer is very simple: greed. MSC is marketed as the "ultimate investment" (as Ethereal is), colored coins isn't.

I think Mastercoin is a nightmare of insanity to be quite frank. I don't mean that in a way to diss the project or anything like that, but I think how they did things was wildly unethical. To simply start taking people's money with no real plan, or no idea of who's going to work on your plan when you get it figured out, is in my book totally insane - perhaps even where all this craziness started. A white paper is not justification to start accepting money.

In the world I come from, companies make IPO's when they already have a product that works. Before that, you have private investments, seed capital, whatever - but you do not go public.

What's happening is pure madness in my book. Profitable madness? Probably, but its unsustainable in the long term.

Let me give you an example. Way before Mastercoin, a user on here by the name of tacotime posted his ideas in a conceptual white paper on this forum. I thought it was cool and he didn't sound like a jerk, so I started helping him out. We've had endless messages sent to us where people wanted to throw money at it and instead of taking people's money without a solid plan like a lot of projects on here, we decided against it. We're both in grad school, and it's only now that we have the chance to organise things in a way that will provide people with some form of assurance. And that's why you don't take money if you can't provide that.

To this day we haven't accepted a penny. Instead we focused on building relationships with interesting people and organisations and kept up to date with the ideas and trends in the field, with the hope that the project can end up giving people something they want to use. These little grassroots projects hardly get the attention the bigger ones do that cause the hysteria, but at the end of the day, I'm more interested in listening to the community (I do that even when I troll), and put something together through the people who want to use it. If that means it's small-scale and doesn't take over the world, then that's okay by me. Maybe that's idealistic and stupid, but I'm happy going down that road instead.

[_ingsoc]

I"m just amazed how gutshot single handedly destroyed this IPO. How come Ethereum listened to him? I wasn't sure if i wanted to invest but maybe i would have

Like a said, gutshot5820 is a creature of incomprehensible determination. He is a master ruseman, truly understands the power of fear, and in between all his mongering, he actually ends up making a good point here and there.

gutshot5820:

[_ingsoc]

plus it can be sent over the wire, "packed", "minified", eval'ed at will, etc... no idea why trying to reinvent the wheel

PS: I would greatly benefit from it, since JS is my main coding language

I think this mostly comes down to the fact that Java and its miscreants are the Devil.

[arcke]

plus it can be sent over the wire, "packed", "minified", eval'ed at will, etc... no idea why trying to reinvent the wheel

PS: I would greatly benefit from it, since JS is my main coding language

I think this mostly comes down to the fact that Java and its miscreants are the Devil.

And still anyone with the skills could implement a javascript client. If ethereum really breaks through there will be a lot of opportunity for new development. I think its a good thing to see there are already multiple prototype clients in multiple languages.

[LeoC]

Has anyone addressed the security of having a Turing complete foundation? Turing complete means that Ethereum contracts will likely be absolutely loaded with common and proprietary viruses, keyloggers, malware, adware, and a slew of other bad things. I am willing to bet my bank account that in a few short months people will be crying about how they got all their wallets/currency stolen, or their computers are now running slow, or how they blue screen every few minutes after a reboot.

If you want an example of how Turing complete works, load up a peer to peer sharing program and download a bunch of .MOV files and run them. I GUARANTEE that you will get a virus. That's because Quicktime movie files are Turing complete. This is why mkv, mpeg, mpg and avi, while not impervious, are much much safer to download. If you want to invest, mine, and run contracts at the risk of losing everything then go ahead. We will never know for sure how secure Ether is going to be until post release, so asking for money without proof of security is another red flag.

The idiotic devs still haven't addressed this. Instead opting to dismiss it entirely. This altcoin will go through 100 iterations before it's safe to invest a penny, if ever.

[lonsharim]

And still anyone with the skills could implement a javascript client. If ethereum really breaks through there will be a lot of opportunity for new development. I think its a good thing to see there are already multiple prototype clients in multiple languages.

They deliberately chose to develop multiple clients in multiple languages reasoning that a single client could be a point of failure i.e. if only one client was used and it faced problems/bugs in future it would effect everybody. In this scenario its impact would not be so utterly complete.

[_ingsoc]

They deliberately chose to develop multiple clients in multiple languages reasoning that a single client could be a point of failure i.e. if only one client was used and it faced problems/bugs in future it would effect everybody. In this scenario its impact would not be so utterly complete.

It also gets away from the monoculture, which I think is awesome if you can do it.

[lonsharim]

Has anyone addressed the security of having a Turing complete foundation? Turing complete means that Ethereum contracts will likely be absolutely loaded with common and proprietary viruses, keyloggers, malware, adware, and a slew of other bad things. I am willing to bet my bank account that in a few short months people will be crying about how they got all their wallets/currency stolen, or their computers are now running slow, or how they blue screen every few minutes after a reboot.

If you want an example of how Turing complete works, load up a peer to peer sharing program and download a bunch of .MOV files and run them. I GUARANTEE that you will get a virus. That's because Quicktime movie files are Turing complete. This is why mkv, mpeg, mpg and avi, while not impervious, are much much safer to download. If you want to invest, mine, and run contracts at the risk of losing everything then go ahead. We will never know for sure how secure Ether is going to be until post release, so asking for money without proof of security is another red flag.

The idiotic devs still haven't addressed this. Instead opting to dismiss it entirely. This altcoin will go through 100 iterations before it's safe to invest a penny, if ever.

LeoC = Fox and the 10 sour Bitcoins.

Even if you have a valid concern you have been exposed as an extortionist, one will always have to question your motive and bias.