Thank you guys for proof that Monero development process is fairly hot, but just not enlighted in pop manner
Indeed, how do you think guys, is Ethereum somewhat a competitor to Monero? Or is Ethereum much more a competitor to Bitcoin?
Does ethereum provide a means for private, untraceable, unlinkable transactions?
Does ethereum have a hardcoded mechanism for blocksize scalability?
Is ethereum even meant to be a currency?
I admit, I haven't researched ethereum that much, mainly because I believe I've already found the next generation cryptocurrency. From what I recall (I read about it late 2014), however, ethereum is really geared towards functioning as a smart contracts platform, and not necessarily as a currency / money system. Granted, cryptocurrencies can be built within ethereum, but they will be (presumably) limited by the architecture of the ethereum platform. Indeed, the ether "currency" is meant to function as fuel for the ethereum smart contracts, so there is some cost associated with using the platform, both to incentivize supporting the network and protecting against flood attacks. And I have yet to confirm, but I read somewhere that ethereum emission is infinite, so value storage may not be the goal of the platform.
Thus, my conclusion is that ethereum is more a "competitor" to bitcoin regarding bitcoin's non-money functionality. Which, frankly, I'm happy to see. Complex systems generally function better (and are more robust) when each of their components is autonomous and communicate with each other over common space, as opposed to complex systems where everything is... (gasp)... centralized. For instance, if the entirety of the new era's digital economy was to exist on the bitcoin blockchain, it would bloat the system and be generally unnecessary and potentially increase fragility. People would find it frustrating that their transactions take X longer because some entity is processing a bunch of contracts through the platform, for instance... and who wants to store a 100 gig blockchain, under the guise of securing their finances, when half of the blockchain are these contracts that have nothing to do with money?
I kind of view the emerging infrastructure as virtual entities. While they are decentralized, they are still "things". There exists the bitcoin network, and it is powerful and it functions as a very effective and secure money system / payments platform / public ledger. There exists the Monero network and it functions as a private payments platform / monetary system. And now there will be the ethereum network, and it will do its thing.
This "one platform over everything!" mentality is weird to me, considering the interoperability (is that a word?) of the extant internet infrastructure. All the bits and pieces of what we know as the internet work with each other and use each other. Granted, it might not be ideal, but, for one, its pragmatic. And secondly, its the way things have always been, with the internet and with nature. I'm pretty certain that some web service of the future will access decentralized platform A for this, decentralized platform B for that, and decentralized platform C for the other, and the end user will have no idea this is going on, much like the end user has no idea what the hell the http thing in the front of their URL means.
( Of course, the grain of salt is I'm just talking out my ass, and indeed one could venture down the philosophical nature of money... is money just a contract? )
