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

[poornamelessme]

Whenever they do this, I hope they give enough time beforehand in case we need to get btc from coinbase (or wherever). I am not sure if I'll invest or not, but it'll be annoying if I decide to take part, then coinbase holds up my coins for a week+, and then the 1st week bonus is over. They really should announce the sale a month in advance, with a set date ... that way, everyone can make an informed decision and get any funds moved over in time. So in other words, it's better to start this in April than a week or so from now.

[koby]

How much Can I earn if I will buy 2,000 Ethereum? I want to make at least 2 million

[Ursium]

Thanks for the reply.

So what will be the " fixed percentage of what was raised in the ether sale." ?  An estimate is fine.

I guess what I am trying to figure out is what would be the better way to go, build a mining rig, or invest in the IPO the same amount that I would spend on the rig.

Fair questions, the previous number we used was 0.4x of what was raised going to miners. Say that represents 100,000 ether (making numbers up for the sake of example here), then 100,000 ether will be mine the first year. 100,000 (the same number) will be mined the second year. The 3rd, 4th, 5th... etc same thing. Hence, decreasing inflation.

As for 'what is the better way to go', well, I don't think anyone can tell, including us, because Ether is subject the same market forces as anything else, and what mining resources you have are unique to you.

[Ursium]

How much Can I earn if I will buy 2,000 Ethereum? I want to make at least 2 million

I wouldn't recommend investing anything anywhere for speculative purposes. Please reconsider as speculation is incredibly dangerous, and unwise. I would rather if you read a little bit more as to what we are trying to achieve, and if you still think it's a good idea, purchase only what you can afford to lose. This is true for any investment.

[blueangel01]

In my opinion you will not get rich quick with the ethereum. Because the popularity is high and the risk is low. The return will not be as high as buying LTC last year. I think ethereum will be like Googol... long term investment. At least this IPO is not a scam.

Speculation is very risky, but after the world war 2, the speculators made the most profit post war.

[ciscokid]

Thank you for the reply. Some more questions...

1- What exactly is the need for ether? Could the system, run without it? How exactly does it support the system? And are individual computers in the p2p network actually assisting in the " processing work" in any way?

2- What is preventing someone from making a clone should ether become too expensive?

I know you can't clone the dev team, but if ether becomes too expensive then you can bet there will be a cheaper alternative available right? The language of the clone would then be compatible with any new layers/plugins being built on the ethereum protocol and they would essentially offer the same experience. Correct? Is there anything in place to help minimize the risk of this? 


2a- Regarding the above question, would this mean a strong increase in price would actually hurt ethereum, thus making huge price gains not a likely scenario? Because it would be too expensive to use? Or can the ether cost to the system (or whatever it cost to use a service) be changed on the fly? If so, would that be done automatically?


3- Is there any reason why you guys can't patent the technology but still keep it open source? To prevent copycats?

4- When you use ether to "pay" for a service, where does that ether go?

5- Is there something wrong with your webpage, http://www.ursium.com  It wont load....



Sorry for the newb questions, but I am pretty new to this all.

[ciscokid]

How much Can I earn if I will buy 2,000 Ethereum? I want to make at least 2 million

lol, obviously trolling...

[Ursium]

Thank you for the reply. Some more questions...
1- What exactly is the need for ether? Could the system, run without it? How exactly does it support the system? And are individual computers in the p2p network actually assisting in the " processing work" in any way?
2- What is preventing someone from making a clone should ether become too expensive?
I know you can't clone the dev team, but if ether becomes too expensive then you can bet there will be a cheaper alternative available right? The language of the clone would then be compatible with any new layers/plugins being built on the ethereum protocol and they would essentially offer the same experience. Correct? Is there anything in place to help minimize the risk of this? 
2a- Regarding the above question, would this mean a strong increase in price would actually hurt ethereum, thus making huge price gains not a likely scenario? Because it would be too expensive to use? Or can the ether cost to the system (or whatever it cost to use a service) be changed on the fly? If so, would that be done automatically?
3- Is there any reason why you guys can't patent the technology but still keep it open source? To prevent copycats?
4- When you use ether to "pay" for a service, where does that ether go?
5- Is there something wrong with your webpage, http://www.ursium.com  It wont load....
Sorry for the newb questions, but I am pretty new to this all.

1 - If there was no Ether, then people could write contracts that run infinite loops. Having a cryptofuel prevents them from doing so. There are other reasons (rewarding miners, the need to have transactions to trigger contracts, etc).
2a - Nothing prevents anyone from forking Ethereum at anytime - all code is open sourced wall to wall. I don't think forking to a 'cheaper' Ethereum would work for that specific purpose though - the 'clone', even if maintained regularly, would be subject to the same market forces.
2b - How the computing fees are processed (ie, what is the base fee, do they fluctuate, would they be voted on or arbitrary, etc) is still being worked on. We have economists looking at the question and building models.
3. I don't think we want to prevent copycats using patents. We want to prevent copycats by being the best . Also it keeps the whole team on its toes and honest. I quite like that idea
4. To the contract providing the service. Contracts have balances.
5. Sorry, my personal webpage needs a bit of work, I've been focused on Ethereum in the last month I'll try to fix later on, thanks for the heads up!

[ciscokid]

Thanks again for your time, you have cleared-up many things for me. I am excited for this project.

[naaktslak]

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/196/ether-sale-faq-live-updates

Ether sale in 2-6 weeks?

[BittBurger]

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/196/ether-sale-faq-live-updates

Ether sale in 2-6 weeks?

Yep.  That was the time estimate on Feb 1 also.  :-/

[rdnkjdi]

From the outside the hubaloo over this has died down quite a bit (fine with me) - but I was just wondering.  How many man hours do you think are going into this each week?

[majik]

I think the best strategy for investing in Ethereum is a 50:50 split.   Invest only half of whatever you were going to invest in the premine and use the other half to buy Eth when mining begins.  No one knows but it's likely the price of ether will drop when miners begin selling their mined ether.  This strategy also helps the X factor to be a more reasonable number for inflation rate in subsequent years.

[charleshoskinson]

From the outside the hubaloo over this has died down quite a bit (fine with me) - but I was just wondering.  How many man hours do you think are going into this each week?

100s of man hours. I physically moved to Switzerland and have been traveling around europe. We are rapidly scaling up.

[blueangel01]

I think the best strategy for investing in Ethereum is a 50:50 split.   Invest only half of whatever you were going to invest in the premine and use the other half to buy Eth when mining begins.  No one knows but it's likely the price of ether will drop when miners begin selling their mined ether.  This strategy also helps the X factor to be a more reasonable number for inflation rate in subsequent years.

I think your strategy is good. I will invest 100% at premine and then manage my winners when it hit the exchange. Will buy again if the price is extremely low.

[charleshoskinson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMBtKMZYdN8

[Come-from-Beyond]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMBtKMZYdN8

I like the video but I'm becoming a little bit upset. No a reply to my question in this Official QA thread...

[rdnkjdi]

From the outside the hubaloo over this has died down quite a bit (fine with me) - but I was just wondering.  How many man hours do you think are going into this each week?

100s of man hours. I physically moved to Switzerland and have been traveling around europe. We are rapidly scaling up.

Awesome!

[naaktslak]

http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/196/ether-sale-faq-live-updates

Ether sale in 2-6 weeks?

Yep.  That was the time estimate on Feb 1 also.  :-/

'date of this post: March 7th'

[ciscokid]

Few more questions.

1- Will any of the IPO bitcoin be used to fund personal expenses like food/travel/accommodations?

2- Are we going to get a breakdown of where exactly the funds go?

3- If underfunded, we will all get refunds correct?

4- If ethereum "fails" for any reason after launch, and Vitalik decides to scrap the idea and do something else, will the investors get stake in whatever new project Vitalik takes on?

5- There seems to be a fair amount of risk involved here. Why is it that early investors are only getting 2K ether for 1 BTC? How exactly was this number arrived at? It seems very inflated for an IPO considering it is still a brand new tech that needs to be created, could very well fail, be copied, not have enough interest to see a return on the investment etc etc.

5a. Why not reward the early investors more for taking on huge risk? 10,000 ether per 1 BTC seems fair considering the risk involved.

6- Theoretically will the cost of using Ether cause the price to always remain low? Because people would not use it if it's too expensive right?