[ANN] Ethereum: Welcome to the Beginning

[Ursium]

Yep, no more questions will be answered in an unmoderated thread, better to address questions in an "OP-moderated" thread.

These thread was unmoderated and I've seen NO trolling nor abuse, just both critics and supporters. Why a moderated thread?

You have to be kidding.
It became completely unreadable, we even received blackmail messages telling us the trolling will only stop if we sent money.

[Bitnicity]

a fair suggestion, why don't you change the project name, Ethereum is just don't-know-what-the-heck-it-means to mainstream and barely anyone could spell it correctly when they first hear it, change to something more intuitive, like Bitcoin. Name is critical for any project or IPO to scale and succeed as every VC or sponsor will tell you, just look at how successfully Bitcoin is, an underestimated attribute is that an average Joe would understand what it means by looking at the name itself, honestly, change it for the sake of living up the cryto 2.0 expectation.

[pocesar]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

[lemfuture]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

good to know!

[Bitnicity]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

good to know!

well, latin is cool but it's a dead language and typically you only see pharma companies or hedge funds use these type of naming system, coz they want to shut publicity or enhance uniqueness  (like for medicines ) , which i believe it's not what "Ethereum" is about; at the end of the day, etheruem (damn, i couldn't spell it right each time i type it) is a "consumer product", only an "Apple" like name will get you home run, you know what i mean.

[surfer43]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

good to know!

well, latin is cool but it's a dead language and typically you only see pharma companies or hedge funds use these type of naming system, coz they want to shut publicity or enhance uniqueness  (like for medicines ) , which i believe it's not what "Ethereum" is about; at the end of the day, etheruem (damn, i couldn't spell it right each time i type it) is a "consumer product", only an "Apple" like name will get you home run, you know what i mean.

Let's call it "Mellon"!

[DaFockBro]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

good to know!

well, latin is cool but it's a dead language and typically you only see pharma companies or hedge funds use these type of naming system, coz they want to shut publicity or enhance uniqueness  (like for medicines ) , which i believe it's not what "Ethereum" is about; at the end of the day, etheruem (damn, i couldn't spell it right each time i type it) is a "consumer product", only an "Apple" like name will get you home run, you know what i mean.

Let's call it "Mellon"!

Can we rename it Titty Sandwich please?


On a serious note.  Am I correct in thinking that the inflation will be distributed to holders?  This is where the Proof-of-Stake part comes in?

[xibeijan]

Inflation!?  Got a link?

[DaFockBro]

Inflation!?  Got a link?

I was reading through the summary of all the questions answered during the ethereum ask-me-anything on reddit yesterday:
http://pastebin.com/b9M8gwZx

Q: What is the most common misconception/myth about the ethereum project that you've seen so far?

1. Ethereum is not your personal decentralized Amazon EC2 instance. You will not be able to run anything on top of Ethereum that you cannot run on a smartphone from 1999.

2. The inflation rate is 0.4x the amount released in the presale per year, not 40% per year. That is, we'll have 1.5x after 0 years, 1.9x after 1 year, 2.3x after 2 years ... 401.5x after 1000 years, 401.9x after 1001 years, etc.

Q: The inflation in the product seems too high at 0.4X. Are there any plans to reduce this.

A: It depends upon other factors as well including what is done with fees, the fee structure, how people use ether, etc. We are building a lot of models, but I know that we are going to change the inflation weight.

{Charles}

Q: in the white paper it says, "0.4X ether will be mined per year forever after that point". Won't this create a massively inflating currency after the currency adoption peaks? Assuming Ether is widely used globally at some point and growth in adoption of ether is far less than 40%, won't a 40% annual currency volume increase be a problem?

A: .4X of the initial fundraiser. It will be increased by the same fixed number of eth each year, which will be a lower % of total eth in circulation each year.

A: Here's a handy graph - https://i.imgur.com/of1zoPC.png?1

I'm assuming this inflation they're discussing will be distributed through Proof-of-work/Proof-of-stake hybrid?

If so, I don't see how it's a bad thing.  If I hold Ether in my wallet, my ether stash will grow through Proof-of-stake, right?

[ThomasX]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

LOL seriously? 

"Ethereum" comes from Blizzard Inc, World Of Warcraft.

http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=Ethereum

I honestly don't take anything that just picks a random name from a World of Warcraft game any serious. Didn't even have the creative energy to make their own unique name huh? Had to "borrow" it from a game. 

And almost 40% pre-mine goes straight to devs? This is just another freakin' "DevCoin". Same shit, different package + some scripting language built into it. God-syndrome infected Greed Extravagante Deluxe. (As in, "I'm the dev, and all your money are belong to me(TM).")

I'm not even going to touch the mountain of technical problems and security-loopholes regarding the built-in scripting engine inside ethereum-coin will create at all. I'll leave that to the miners who experience it first-hand. Good luck. 

[Alphi]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

LOL seriously?  

"Ethereum" comes from Blizzard Inc, World Of Warcraft.

http://www.wowhead.com/search?q=Ethereum

I honestly don't take anything that just picks a random name from a World of Warcraft game any serious. Didn't even have the creative energy to make their own unique name huh? Had to "borrow" it from a game.  

And almost 40% pre-mine goes straight to devs? This is just another freakin' "DevCoin". Same shit, different package + some scripting language built into it. God-syndrome infected Greed Extravagante Deluxe. (As in, "I'm the dev, and all your money are belong to me(TM).")

I'm not even going to touch the mountain of technical problems and security-loopholes regarding the built-in scripting engine inside ethereum-coin will create at all. I'll leave that to the miners who experience it first-hand. Good luck.  

did it ever occur to you that WOW may have gotten their Ethereum from latin? I suppose you think WOW invented the idea of GOLD pieces too...
people who think Ethereum is such a sucky name probably are too young to remember this networking technology we used to have called Ethernet... oh wait.. its still there.. under all that TCPIP, WWW and LAN jargon...

as for mining... I'm happy to oblige.. just waiting for release so I can set my rigs onto it..

[bitcoin-world.de]

When does mining start ?

[Ursium]

This is an interesting project.
I setup an eth server on a VPS and it is running fine. The windows eth application works well too.

There seems to be a problem with the windows alethzero.exe. When trying to run it, I get an error saying that libwinpthread-1.dll is missing.

Searching google did not show an answer on how to fix it.

A new windows build will be on the code.ethereum.org site tonight 2300 GMT at most. Cheers!

[ReCat]

Will there be exchange sites for the testnet?

[sakkosekk]

the name Ethereum makes sense. Comes from latin Aether, Aetherum is just the "plural" of Aether, that means "heaven", "air", "sky", so it means, "many skies"... that's all Ethereum is about, endless possibilities, like many horizons, without a "set in stone" begin and end.

good to know!

well, latin is cool but it's a dead language and typically you only see pharma companies or hedge funds use these type of naming system, coz they want to shut publicity or enhance uniqueness  (like for medicines ) , which i believe it's not what "Ethereum" is about; at the end of the day, etheruem (damn, i couldn't spell it right each time i type it) is a "consumer product", only an "Apple" like name will get you home run, you know what i mean.

Ethrum or Etherum is easier for the masses.

[Ursium]

Will there be exchange sites for the testnet?

I do not know for sure, but of course it's very likely, close to certain in fact, that the community will attempt to build decentralized exchanges at the earliest opportunity, including on the testnet.

[FandangledGizmo]

Is this the Ethereum gameplan?

Hypothetical scenario

Right now in the US they are busy struggling with how best to regulate crypto-currencies.

These are the potential conclusions I think they will draw...

1. It is too hard to try to regulate the hundreds of crypto-currencies that are out there.
2. Banking compliance is a serious business and issuing bit-licenses and trying to monitor hundreds of new untrusted exchanges is not feasible.
3. Crypto-currencies have deflationary tendencies which run counter to most existing currencies.

The potential solution...

1. It might be possible to regulate 1 base crypto-currency on which other things can be built.
2. Only large existing retail/investment banks with sufficient experience in banking compliance can be trusted as exchanges.
3. A reasonably inflationary crypto-currency would be ideal.

How does Ethereum stack up?

1. Yes Ethereum could be the base crypto, lots of things can be built on top of it, but link back to it when you need to transfer out to fiat.
2. Large existing banks might already have an interest in Ethereum, there is a very large pre-mine, where is it going?
3. Ethereum is very inflationary.

Result...

'They' will decide Ethereum gives consumers the benefits of crypto-currencies while giving the regulators the ability to regulate it and  ensure there are as few bad actors as possible.

They will make it legal for on-line retailers to accept Ethereum as payment and they will make legal Ethereum to fiat exchanges, administered by large existing banks.
However moving to fiat or making online purchases with any other crypto-currency will be illegal.   

Some investment banks are incredibly powerful and influential with large global footprints, they will be able to help ensure this model is also adopted in many other countries. This could make Ethereum insurmountable

______________________________

This is only a hypothetical, but I came up with it because I thought the pre-mine and inflationary model was unattractive.
There's also not a lot of reason why people wouldn't fork Ethereum and create their own competing models with more attractive parameters. (less inflationary and no pre-mine.)

However Ethereum's inflationary model & large pre-mine (Which goes to?) would be appealing to TPTB.
By influencing regulations and laws in favour of Ethereum they could also ensure no competing models could threaten it.

Using this hypothesis, the way Ethereum is being approached starts to make a lot of sense.

Thoughts?

[titan20]

Is this the Ethereum gameplan?

Hypothetical scenario

Right now in the US they are busy struggling with how best to regulate crypto-currencies.

These are the potential conclusions I think they will draw...

1. It is too hard to try to regulate the hundreds of crypto-currencies that are out there.
2. Banking compliance is a serious business and issuing bit-licenses and trying to monitor hundreds of new untrusted exchanges is not feasible.
3. Crypto-currencies have deflationary tendencies which run counter to most existing currencies.

The potential solution...

1. It might be possible to regulate 1 base crypto-currency on which other things can be built.
2. Only large existing retail/investment banks with sufficient experience in banking compliance can be trusted as exchanges.
3. A reasonably inflationary crypto-currency would be ideal.

How does Ethereum stack up?

1. Yes Ethereum could be the base crypto, lots of things can be built on top of it, but link back to it when you need to transfer out to fiat.
2. Large existing banks might already have an interest in Ethereum, there is a very large pre-mine, where is it going?
3. Ethereum is very inflationary.

Result...

'They' will decide Ethereum gives consumers the benefits of crypto-currencies while giving the regulators the ability to regulate it and  ensure there are as few bad actors as possible.

They will make it legal for on-line retailers to accept Ethereum as payment and they will make legal Ethereum to fiat exchanges, administered by large existing banks.
However moving to fiat or making online purchases with any other crypto-currency will be illegal.   

Some investment banks are incredibly powerful and influential with large global footprints, they will be able to help ensure this model is also adopted in many other countries. This could make Ethereum insurmountable

______________________________

This is only a hypothetical, but I came up with it because I thought the pre-mine and inflationary model was unattractive.
There's also not a lot of reason why people wouldn't fork Ethereum and create their own competing models with more attractive parameters. (less inflationary and no pre-mine.)

However Ethereum's inflationary model & large pre-mine (Which goes to?) would be appealing to TPTB.
By influencing regulations and laws in favour of Ethereum they could also ensure no competing models could threaten it.

Using this hypothesis, the way Ethereum is being approached starts to make a lot of sense.

Thoughts?

This is very hypothetical. Cryptocurrencies are a thread for the banking sector and their earning model (fractional banking and interest). You are right that they are very powerful and will influence lawmaking. 'They' will decide on it if it is a benefit for them, not for the consumer. So in my opinion cryptocurrencies have a long way to go. But i believe that the governments that embrace new technology will win and governments that make beneficial new technology illegal will lose.

[AltcoinBull]

INVEST IN ETHEREUM NOW!

Ethereum is now available for 1000 ETH/ 1 BTC. Once ETH is launched by the developers, withdrawals become available.

Peercover.com (right side tab - Simple Gateway)!

https://i.imgur.com/Q3pu73g.png

[wing_hk]

Oh I thought the public fundraising has begun  However I will just buy ETH from official channel.