**** Official Ethereum QA thread ****

[Vitalik Buterin]

Thanks for the clarification about the fees, I get it know.

Do you still plan to lock in initial investors for at least 1 year and prevent them to sell more than 1/3 per year? If so what's the purpose of doing that? Is it not inconsistent with inflating the money supply in order to divest initial investors?

Initial investors are not locked in. Only people benefitting from the first part of the premine (ie. "us") are affected by any lockin.

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[charleshoskinson]

Does this mean ether 2.0 and ether 3.0 or will there only be 1 currency across the platforms?

Similar to Intel with a tick tock style, we'd like to have a process to seed the cryptocurrency research group for a period of time (say 3 years) and then release all innovations in a 2.0, 3.0, 4.0... chain. The idea would be a soft fork from one to the other that honors all positions. Think of it like windows without ever having to pay for an upgrade. You can choose to stay on one chain or migrate to the new one. We'll engage the community at a later date for suggestions about what the best approach is for this process. Some suggest a PoB system whereas others suggest a rollover. Clearly some economic modeling needs to be done, but once proven, it would be quite nice to use on bitcoin itself.

We know who Charles Hoskinson is. Who is Ursium?

Our future director of communications.

[Ursium]

We know who Charles Hoskinson is. Who is Ursium?

http://j.mp/stual
I organized the first meetup: www.meetup.com/ethereum/

[BldSwtTrs]

Does this mean ether 2.0 and ether 3.0 or will there only be 1 currency across the platforms?

Similar to Intel with a tick tock style, we'd like to have a process to seed the cryptocurrency research group for a period of time (say 3 years) and then release all innovations in a 2.0, 3.0, 4.0... chain. The idea would be a soft fork from one to the other that honors all positions. Think of it like windows without ever having to pay for an upgrade. You can choose to stay on one chain or migrate to the new one. We'll engage the community at a later date for suggestions about what the best approach is for this process. Some suggest a PoB system whereas others suggest a rollover. Clearly some economic modeling needs to be done, but once proven, it would be quite nice to use on bitcoin itself.

Does that means that the same ether will be usable in ethereum 1.0, 2.0, 3.0... or you'll need to have "ether 2" to use ethereum 2.0?
And will some "ether 2" be create when ethereum 2.0 will start?

[charleshoskinson]

Do that means that the same ether will be usable in ethereum 1.0, 2.0, 3.0... or you'll need to have "ether 2" to use ethereum 2.0?

Yes this is the goal. To ensure ether compatibility, regardless of chain version.  

And will some "ether 2" be create when ethereum 2.0 will start?

Deeper versions like 4.0 and 5.0 a decade away may require this mechanic to restore the endowment; however with the fundraiser we are planning and the premine structure, Ethereum should be paid in full for a long time. My hope is that eventually the applications in the ecosystem will simply cover the cost of future development after they are well established, but this is hard to guarantee thus you have to plan ahead. 

[charleshoskinson]

Please forgive if this is a silly question, but I complied eth, executed it and it's not doing much. I strace()'d it and it does nanosleep():
nanosleep({0, 100000000}, NULL)         = 0

Does ./eth need to connect up to another public existing node? Do public nodes exist? How to bootstrap it?

Ask your question here: http://forum.ethereum.org/categories/code-and-builds

[minefish]

don't feel that models around inflation, PoS/PoW are set in stone!

My question is if you guys are willing to reconsider a PoW approach?

In the contemporary age where environmental policies are being implemented and respected around the globe, with a clear focus on sustainability, durability and eco-friendliness, to me this feels like a step backwards instead of forward.

Is it possible that a same level of functionality and security can be reached without using the PoW but a (more eco-friendly) alternative?

[charleshoskinson]

My question is if you guys are willing to reconsider a PoW approach?

In the contemporary age where environmental policies are being implemented and respected around the globe, with a clear focus on sustainability, durability and eco-friendliness, to me this feels like a step backwards instead of forward.

Is it possible that a same level of functionality and security can be reached without using the PoW but a (more eco-friendly) alternative?

There has been a lot of discussion about what to replace dagger with. We love PoW as a distribution mechanism. There are other mechanisms for security that fare well. Also if one can find ways to enable socially beneficial PoW, then this would be the optimal solution. There is a proposal for refined ether, but nothing is yet set is stone. The process we will use is as follows:

• Fix distribution goals and economic parameters
• Decide on the proper level of security the network requires for population
• Discuss integration of consensus mechanisms into the network (necessary for DAOs)
• Hold a NIST AES style contest in academia to produce a hybrid PoW/PoS replacement for slasher
• Test winner and integrate into Ethereum

[kvb]

Charles,

Can you confirm the estimate for the main net launch to Q3-Q4, 2014?

Thank you.

[charleshoskinson]

Charles,

Can you confirm the estimate for the main net launch to Q3-Q4, 2014?

Thank you.

I'm pushing us into SCRUM and really hammering down the development process. Once we have those operations where they need to be, we will have significantly better predictivity in our development flow. This said, we have a checklist that needs to be resolved prior to the value chain being launched. That will be the ultimate guide for when things get launched. Q3-Q4 seem reasonable, but cannot be committed to until a later date.

[_ingsoc]

Has there been any thought about equitable mining opportunity? Some people live in areas where electricity is extremely expensive relative to others, which obviously makes distributed mining among interested parties difficult. Part of the appeal of a CPU-friendly mining algorithm is that cloud mining becomes possible for people who are limited in this way. I'm wondering whether Ethereum envisions building partnerships with mining providers that can provide people with mining services in areas where electricity is inexpensive (in the event that a GPU mining algorithm becomes more preferable, thus ruling out traditional cloud mining)?

[td services]

Charles,

Can you confirm the estimate for the main net launch to Q3-Q4, 2014?

Thank you.

I'm pushing us into SCRUM and really hammering down the development process. Once we have those operations where they need to be, we will have significantly better predictivity in our development flow. This said, we have a checklist that needs to be resolved prior to the value chain being launched. That will be the ultimate guide for when things get launched. Q3-Q4 seem reasonable, but cannot be committed to until a later date.

Do you have any recommendations for SCRUM and online collaboration tools for doing crypto projects?

[kvb]

Charles,

Can you confirm the estimate for the main net launch to Q3-Q4, 2014?

Thank you.

I'm pushing us into SCRUM and really hammering down the development process. Once we have those operations where they need to be, we will have significantly better predictivity in our development flow. This said, we have a checklist that needs to be resolved prior to the value chain being launched. That will be the ultimate guide for when things get launched. Q3-Q4 seem reasonable, but cannot be committed to until a later date.

I understand. This means that real ether mining and the ability to trade/sell ether by investors of original IPO will only be available at this time frame or later (depending on the development progress).

I want to say that I'm enthusiastic about ethereum and will surely contribute to the development and success of this great idea and system. But as a potential big investor for ethereum I have the following questions/remarks:

At first I was under the impression that the main net will be launched in a couple of months, I planned to invest 100x. After reading and digging more into the matter now, and this is not due to your fault or any mistake it went down to 1x-10x. I'll explain why. 8-11+ month down the road is a hugely immense amount of time in the crypto world as you know. The price of BTC can probably be x5-10 that it's current price in end of 2014. Taking this reality into consideration and the fact that etherium is in it's infancy and early planning stage right now (which is good and I support your recent move to delay IPO and development refinements and not rushing), many of the risks are unknown. I'm afraid that current/former IPO model unless changed significantly to reflect this reality has the probability to become something similar to the ASIC issues encountered in 2012-13. This in turn can make many investors upset. I'll explain why.

Many ASIC manufacturers took pre-orders in BTC when the price was very low for a promise of delivery of yet in development complex tech. When there were delays because of the complexity of the issues, the investors took a deep hit and many lost the appreciation in price of BTC, making their investment depreciate while the manufacturers of ASICS enjoyed the undue appreciation from investors money.

This practice of taking investors money and holding to it, while not delivering the tech and making further delays is questionable. After the manufacturers took the BTC the time pressure became on investors, because manufacturers already took an upfront payment for the full amount of the work and could afford themselves in expense of investors to simply relax and watch "their" money appreciate while not stressing themselves. In my view this practice is highly unethical.

While I'm not suggesting this will be the case with etherium. I see the idea, your team and the spirit in very positive way. However, if the cap of original IPO will remain the same at 30K BTC, then potentially than will amount if price of btc is x5-10, to a whooping $150M-$300M. Considering the fact that Vitalik said on Reddit that you currently don't have plans beyond 10M USD, the other money will simply be sitting in the wallet and appreciating. Making this a similar case to the above.

I suggest to split the IPO to couple of rounds of fundraising attached to major milestones of the project until the main net goes live. This way I and other investors have the opportunity to invest additional sums as the work progresses, while still enjoying the appreciation in BTC and have access to more mature information about the progress of the project to make more informed decisions while investing.

I believe the project will receive all the funding it needs to succeed and you to do the work and still have the motive to continue. Being payed upfront the whole salary makes it less motivating to do the work in the best way possible and this is not good for anyone.

I apologize for the essay, but this is a make or break issue for me.

[ddink7]

Team:

1) It is my understanding that you are working on a way to prevent whales from dominating the IPO. Is it too early to ask for any initial ideas as to how that may be accomplished and/or how to prevent Sybil attacks?

2) The Bitcoin blockchain is becoming so large as to be unwieldy and difficult for new users to download (it too me four straight days!). The white paper hinted that Ethereum has made progress toward solving that problem, but the language was highly technical and I didn't understand it all. So this is a two-fold question: have y'all solved the blockchain size problem or made significant strides towards it, and can you explain in layman's terms how you have done so?

3) Much has been written on the issue of Turing-completeness and malware/hostile behavior. Other than the extensive security testing that you are planning, how will you address this issue? With Ethereum potentially creating an extremely valuable ecosystem, even a small vulnerability could be devastating.

[charleshoskinson]

This practice of taking investors money and holding to it, while not delivering the tech and making further delays is questionable. After the manufacturers took the BTC the time pressure became on investors, because manufacturers already took an upfront payment for the full amount of the work and could afford themselves in expense of investors to simply relax and watch "their" money appreciate while not stressing themselves. In my view this practice is highly unethical.

I agree with you completely and as a person who preordered a butterfly labs miner I understand this concern. Ethereum is a massively interactive and rapidly evolving project. You should factor the appreciation of bitcoin into your investment model; however, the goal here is to build a long term ecosystem, not make you 150x in the short term. You have to ask a question, Do you want to own an asset at a 35 million dollar market cap with lots of growth potential or an asset at the 10 billion dollar market cap with lots of growth potential? The former has a lot of room for rapid growth, the latter has to necessarily slow down. UX, scalability issues and also long adoption arc will retard the growth of bitcoin. Getting to 100 billion is going to be a lot harder than getting to 10 billion in my opinion. For us to grow the same amount is a lower barrier.  

Also in terms of things like miners, the VP is front loaded. You miners doesn't magically grow in value over time. It is a depreciating asset like most preordered products. Ether has to either die fast or grow fast.

[tifozi]

2) The Bitcoin blockchain is becoming so large as to be unwieldy and difficult for new users to download (it too me four straight days!).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0

[kvb]

I agree with you completely and as a person who preordered a butterfly labs miner I understand this concern. Ethereum is a massively interactive and rapidly evolving project. You should factor the appreciation of bitcoin into your investment model; however, the goal here is to build a long term ecosystem, not make you 150x in the short term. You have to ask a question, Do you want to own an asset at a 35 million dollar market cap with lots of growth potential or an asset at the 10 billion dollar market cap with lots of growth potential?

Phrasing the question like that, the answer is no brainer. But factoring the risk factor in, the picture looks different. The two are not comparable, bitcoin is already established, proven and enjoying the benefit of a sound adoption curve and non rushed development prior to release. The ethereum now, while has great potential is only an idea starting to materialize, it still has a long way to go and prove itself.

By factoring bitcoin appreciation I will have to limit my exposure to 10%max considering the current IPO model of take it or leave it early on. This taking into consideration the many unknowns at this stage. Example: the mining algorithm. When pressed against the wall I tend to minimize my risks if I have lack of knowledge base to a proper decision making.

Why is it not possible to split the IPO to 3 stages with each 10K BTC cap? First 2000ETH/btc, 2nd 1500ETH/btc, 3rd 1000ETH/btc?
I'm willing to give more money to the project, this way it seems more fair and balanced.

The former has a lot of room for rapid growth, the latter has to necessarily slow down. UX, scalability issues and also long adoption arc will retard the growth of bitcoin. Getting to 100 billion is going to be a lot harder than getting to 10 billion in my opinion. For us to grow the same amount is a lower barrier.

Or rapid decline, depends on security and developers performance. I agree completely on the rest.

Also in terms of things like miners, the VP is front loaded. You miners doesn't magically grow in value over time. It is a depreciating asset like most preordered products. Ether has to either die fast or grow fast.

I haven't mined 1 coin. After consideration I decided to invest the money directly to BTC and LTC and spare myself the hassle. Looking retrospectively it was the right decision for me.

I'm not an expert on mining but regarding the mining algorithm, can you guarantee that you will program it properly in order to avoid the daily mine/dump miners pushing the price down once the mining starts? Considering the current inflationary model will the miners be able to effectively mine in a more profitable manner ether then other alt coins and sell them at the price lower than initial IPO price per ether?

If the mining will be done exclusively on CPU and not GPU then I can somehow see how this could work otherwise if it's less profitable why should anyone mine it, except for ideological reasons?

[ddink7]

One more question. I'm currently watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw27x_xAPmI#t=7 and Vitalik mentions that you all are exploring the possibility of not allowing U.S. investors! (For legal reasons.) How big of a likelihood is this?

(His exact quote, began at 31:20, was: ""Depending on what legal advice we get, we may or may not decide to block U.S. investors.")

[BldSwtTrs]

Will BTC be usable inside the Ethereum blockchain?

[charleshoskinson]

One more question. I'm currently watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw27x_xAPmI#t=7 and Vitalik mentions that you all are exploring the possibility of not allowing U.S. investors! (For legal reasons.) How big of a likelihood is this?

(His exact quote, began at 31:20, was: ""Depending on what legal advice we get, we may or may not decide to block U.S. investors.")

I've been working with lawyers from three different countries and this is a difficult issue because no government has taken the necessary regulatory steps to clearly define Bitcoin as an asset. Also crowdfunding laws are still immature as its a recent development invoked by technology. We hope to include US Citizens in the ether sale (I'm from the United States myself and I'd like to invest 50 percent of my net wealth into this project), but ultimately this has to be decided by our analysis of the legal landscape.

Our goal is to ship Ethereum with a strong ecosystem in as many markets as possible. Therefore, if we can't accept US purchases, then we will build out a lot of infrastructure there alongside hire as many US personnel as possible to ensure ether still gets distributed in that market.

Will BTC be usable inside the Ethereum blockchain?

Our chain is Bitcoin aware and will be able to communicate with the Bitcoin blockchain via the data layer's APIs through the reference client, but more generally this is possible for all blockchains. One can also deploy an SPV client via the contract system. The issue isn't ethereum --> blockchain it's actually the other way around. Bitcoin is blind and deaf in this respect.

Why is it not possible to split the IPO to 3 stages with each 10K BTC cap? First 2000ETH/btc, 2nd 1500ETH/btc, 3rd 1000ETH/btc?
I'm willing to give more money to the project, this way it seems more fair and balanced.

Higher risk of hard forks damaging returns to early investors. One and done with an endowment.

Do you have any recommendations for SCRUM and online collaboration tools for doing crypto projects?

First, here is why SCRUM is awesome http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0llRltyFM and here is the tool we are using: http://www.scrumdo.com/

These are solid reads http://it-ebooks.info/book/494/, http://it-ebooks.info/book/2803/