Web 3.0 (Ethereum) is happening, and most people have no idea what it even is.

[LVMont]

Interesting...
Congress To Force Citizens to Register Cash and Bitcoin, Violators Get 10 Years in Prison

 

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[LifeTransformer]

For any worried about the recent drops this week..
View attachment 15197

Elliott Wave Theory in 1 picture.

 

[Disciple96]

$13: Ether Prices Plunge in GDAX Exchange Flash Crash - CoinDesk

Anybody able to explain this article?

It looks like it may have restablized for now but, for instance let's say I had $10 of bitcoin/etherum, and then the prices crash... Is my $10 still worth $10 or much less? Just out of curiosity.... I can't ever see myself investing in cryptocurrencies outside of the platforms and technology themselves.

Of course, let's say I were to buy up some ether... Going back to "Unscripted "....

***Disclaimer*** I know that this is a highly speculative investment

But would the correct "strategy", as it were, be to sell all my ether when the price is high, then wait for the markets to "crash" and reinvest when the prices are low? For example... If I had invested in ether at $50 yesterday, and sold off for let's say $400, the idea is to wait until everyone else starts to panick and reinvest as close to the floor as I can?

 

[huntiii]

$13: Ether Prices Plunge in GDAX Exchange Flash Crash - CoinDesk

Anybody able to explain this article?

It looks like it may have restablized for now but, for instance let's say I had $10 of bitcoin/etherum, and then the prices crash... Is my $10 still worth $10 or much less? Just out of curiosity.... I can't ever see myself investing in cryptocurrencies outside of the platforms and technology themselves.

Its worth whatever the going rate is on the exchange it trades on at that moment. So for a moment, your ether would have been worth much less on the GDAX exchange. If you had a stop loss order you may have been stopped out. There have been a few flash crashes in the regular stock markets lately too. Rare, but it happens. Prices have come back up after the crash. If you put in some GTC (good til canceled) buy orders at low prices you may be able to snag a few of the crashee's.

 

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[ZeroTo100]

Remember - protect your portfolio! Rule #1 as an investor.

This Ethereum flash crash shows how cryptocurrency markets are super risky

OUCH!

 

[garyjsmith]

Just fought my way to the end of this ETH thread. My eyes feel like I was scanning a Jackson Pollock painting, looking for Waldo. Not to mention, I am no closer to understanding the tech

 

[amp0193]

Just fought my way to the end of this ETH thread. My eyes feel like I was scanning a Jackson Pollock painting, looking for Waldo. Not to mention, I am no closer to understanding the tech

Did you read the articles linked in here?

Several were really in depth, and really provided some clarity.


After reading this thread, and the articles, I went from knowing nothing to having a basic understanding of the tech and how it works.

 

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[garyjsmith]

I read the conversations to glean why people took their stance. My lack of understanding is solely on me

I'll be sure to come back when I can make time for comprehension

 

[Disciple96]

I read the conversations to glean why people took their stance. My lack of understanding is solely on me

I'll be sure to come back when I can make time for comprehension

They say if you can't explain something simply then you don't really understand it. So this is my attempt to explain it simply...
Which I'm sure means I don't fully understand.

Here goes:

Bitcoin and Ethereum are both crypto currencies. Bitcoin is generated by solving math problems on a PC, which has mostly been outsourced to large "mining" operations instead of the glory days when anybody with an NVIDIA card could mine BTC.

From what I gather, Ethereum works in a similar way... They are both crypto that are completely anonymous and able to be used for transactions, and "generated" by mining.. I'm actually not sure if Ether works this way, but if it does then it's probably not a tangible concept for Johnny Ordinary either.

The differences are key here are important as Bitcoin is, well, a coin... And Ether is more of a "smart contract".

Think of a contract that can be as simple or complex as it needs to be. You have it written to your ether system so that the process of a contract can be automated. There may even be an app for your phone that enables you to "write" some Ether contracts on-the-go.

The applications of this system in B2C markets are still somewhat hazy to me l ... But then again, B2C operates at a smaller magnitude anyways, and all the real value being exchanged right now on Ethereum contracts are in the B2B markets. So unless you're a consultant, it may have a high barrier to entry.

A practical B2C example might look like this:

If I was a lawyer, your retainer could be submitted virtually and it would automatically register you as one of my Ethereum clients, with your own set of tailored contracts designed to fit the needs you have (most importantly... programs that would start billing you as such)

I see a large opportunity for automated accounting operations as well.

Basically, that's the biggest thing here. Automated customizable smart contracts.

What's also important to note about this particular block-chain technology is that it's shared on a public ledger system... Unlike certain central banks. That's neither here nor there really, because neither are going away anytime soon (since banks are investing in Ethereum too)

Not only that, but it looks like we're seeing a wide spread adoption of Ethereum for a more stable "back-end" technology. This is what makes it seem particularly more promising than BTC, and that's besides the technology of the platform itself, which is easy to code on and definitely more flexible and thought-out than BTC.

 

[throttleforward]

To me, cryptocurriences tied to ICOs equal access. ICO-based currencies are tradeable access...think of it like a tradeable board seat.

Other than that, it's either a payment mechanism or arbitrage.

 

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[alwayshungryleh]

Just fought my way to the end of this ETH thread. My eyes feel like I was scanning a Jackson Pollock painting, looking for Waldo. Not to mention, I am no closer to understanding the tech

Let me try to give you my explanation. Rather from technology to applicable use (A to Z) I shall go from applicable use to technology (Z to A)
1. Stop thinking of Ethereum as a cryptocurrency. Forget about that for a moment.
2. Ethereum is more of a smart contract. A very potent weapon against middleman. Any kind of middleman. Especially middleman you can't trust. Lawyers. Retailers. Gambling House.
3. How does it fight middleman? The smart contract acts as the middleman. It receives and pays out money based on its program. The smart contract program is run on thousands of computers aka miners.
4. This "thousands of computers" come from individuals who contribute their computing power to run the smart contract program. In exchange, they get paid in Ethereum. You run your program on miner's computer, you gotta pay them money (ether).
5. So who writes the smart contracts? Programmers who is writing it for profit or not for profit.
6. How does the Programmers make money? I don't know. This is uncharted territory. It's like Facebook before it earned money. Possibly:
6a. ICO. Initial Coin Offering.
6b. Pay-per-use. Hardcode and obfuscate your ethereum address. Everytime someone use your contract, send a part of it to your eth address.
6c. Sell contracts. Write contracts and sell it to the big boys.

In the gambling house example, it disrupt the gaming industry by replacing the gambling house.
No more gambling house closing down mysteriously and running with your money.

Other notes:
1. The miners is also not controlled by anyone. And it is dispersed all around the world. Hence, no one controls it. We also sometimes call it the decentralized computer.
2. When you upload the smart contract, it is copied to all the computers. If someone tries to manipulate the code in one computer, all the others will know. Only way to manipulate is to control more than 51% computing power (I may be wrong here. Technical stuff that I'm not sure yet)

Anyway, its a potential ka-ching fastlane over here for developers who knows coding.

 

[MarekvBeek]

The most simple explenation is this:

Bitcoin was founded to be a decentralized money system.

The way it was build is that other computers has to verify the transaction when Johnny pays Alicia. And that Johnny has sufficient funds on his account to do this.

That is somehow different than a bank (a central system). Where the centralized database has to very this transaction.

The whole "decentralized system" is called blockchain. Which is a database system, operated by many computers who all has the exact same copy of the database.

If someone tries to manipulate or hack the database, other computers will not recognize this "hacked" database. So in essence it's unhackable. (It is, if more than 50% of the computers will recognize the "hacked" database)

Bitcoin's database (the blockchain) is just a public ledger.

Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, found out that you can use this database (the blockchain) for other purposes, like creating applications on top of this database.

So he went on to create an own version of this blockchain technology, called Ethereum.

And since other computers has to very every block... Again, it becomes almost unhackable.

What you can do with this technology is up to you.

Maybe create a new "decentralized" marketplace. Or a brokerage firm.

You can do this, without using any middlemen, since the system has to verify every "transaction".

From what I know now is that this Ethereum techonology comes ten years too early.

What you see now is all a big fat hype.

People see headlines like:

Ethereum was $8 at january this year and is up to $300 now.

And they think: "damn, that is more return I will ever get in my life. Got to hop on the train now before it is $6.000"

If you want to "invest", then do it at your own risk.

But if you want to build the future... create your own peace of technology or system that will benefit other people.

Good luck.

 

[masterneme]

I keep reading over and over again that Ethereum's real value is in the "platform" and in the "smart contracts". I'll say it again, you're deluding yourselves, Etherum's raise has come because it's extremely easy to mine using GPU's and people have been buying graphics cards in bulk, right now it's extremely hard to find AMD GPUs in stock because for the last months miners have been purchasing them all.

Miners don't give a damn about the potential of Ethereum (or any other blockchain technology) they just want to make money out of thin air and when mining stops being profitable they'll switch to the next big thing, which may very well be Monero or ZCash (they're already talking about which will be the next goldmine), or sell all their graphics cards, which is expected to be really soon because mining difficulty grows exponentially.

What are the benefits of using blockchain technologies? It's decentralized and safe, right?

Well, Ethereum was hacked and thousands of ETH were stolen, which is the reason why ETH and ETC are now different currencies. There's no certainty that this could happen again in the future, and then what, another hard fork?

And as I've said in my earlier posts, decentralized means shared, if you don't have enough nodes to share the entire blockchain it doesn't work or it works slowly. When miners stop making money with ETH they'll disappear and with them a huge chunk of the computational power.

Seriously, except for making easy money there is no reason why companies need any blockchain technology.

A Lamborghini, being a car, can be used to drive around the mountain. But why would you use a sports car when you can use a 4x4 vehicle specifically designed for that?

In other words, just because you can use Ethereum for some things it doesn't mean that you should. And we already have dedicated technology for those things that Ethereum is (supposedly) capable of.

I still have no idea why some are connecting blockchain technology with a supposed to come Web 3.0. If it's going to be a Web 3.0 it's going to be built on top of Web 2.0 standarized API technologies and languages and IPv6. If you need extra layers of security we already have very robust encryption systems and VPN services.

I've read that Ethereum would be great for cloud computing/hosting. Why would you use Ethereum for that when there already are specific dedicated and 100% proven technologies?

Just to be clear, if you're making money out of this I'm more than fine with that, I'm not against people making money out of thin air, I think it's pretty awesome in fact. I'm just trying to make you aware that Ethereum may very well burst in the future and go to hell and that blockchain technology may very well be just an overhyped piece of work that's irrelevant out of the context of cryptocurrencies. After all, we've had blockchains for almost a decade and there's no one out there using them outside of virtual money.

Now, back on the Web 3.0 thing, if I had to put my money on something it would be Virtual/Augmented Reality mixed with Web 2.0. I think V/AR are natural extensions of what we already have, the Internet is kind of a virtual world anyway but with HMDs we can create 3D virtual paralel worlds. Several developers are already speaking about the Metaverse and its posibilities.

Right now with your smartphone you can take pictures and make videos about the real world and share them with other people, a Web 3.0 would be similar but from something that's just digital content.

I can tell we're going in that direction because you see it all the time in every tech convention.

I wouldn't call it Web 3.0 though, but I'll leave it here for posterity and see what happens in a couple of years.

 

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[MarekvBeek]

Miners do give a damn about the potential. Because more awareness = more usage = more money for them.

If ETH it was just a moneysystem, then one day people will find out that it is just a fugazi.

If ETH is not profitable anymore, miners will go away.

Therefore the difficulty to "mine a block" will go down, so it will become more profitable again. (there is less competition)

That is something that will outbalance itself eventually.

I'm not saying this because I'm delusional. I say this because that is exactly what happend with bitcoin.

However, I do agree that this "bubble" will burst very very VERY soon.

But yeah, then it wil go up again, and down again. Until 1. people don't see the value in it anymore. Or 2. it becomes a real thing people can use in the near future.

What it will be... I have serieously no idea.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

A very potent weapon against middleman. Any kind of middleman. Especially middleman you can't trust. Lawyers. Retailers. Gambling House.

So who writes the smart contracts? Programmers

So instead of trusting some other middleman, I now have to trust a middleman programmer? A programmer who probably writes a code language few understand? Legit question, but how is this any different? Or is there some type of standardization in the contracts, say, like an MLS contract?

 

[BlokeInProgress]

I haven't dug deeply in this technology but I am going through some training about Blockchain. I'm still trying to understand the technology but so far, its an automation of a manual process (please correct me if I am wrong), contracts becomes "if-then-else" statements in programming terms.

Again, that was just my personal interpretation of the technology.

 

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[garyjsmith]

Thank you for the insight! I'm the guy who hates not knowing, especially if a new tech has potential (see my 3D printer in the corner over there? Eh, eh?)

So are people investing in cryptocurrency as if it were a stock? Or are they investing in GPUs so they can trade computing power for coins? If it's the latter, then I think I understand. Receive coins by trading computing power (value), and those coins are inflating in value, for reasons I still don't understand further than 'this pyrite now holds the value of Gold times N (Au*n) because everyone wants it'

 

[MarekvBeek]

So are people investing in cryptocurrency as if it were a stock? Or are they investing in GPUs so they can trade computing power for coins?

Both.

Since people believe that in both ways they will earn money.

This video explains very well why prices keep rising (and eventually fall):

 

[Coalission]

I keep reading over and over again that Ethereum's real value is in the "platform" and in the "smart contracts". I'll say it again, you're deluding yourselves, Etherum's raise has come because it's extremely easy to mine using GPU's and people have been buying graphics cards in bulk, right now it's extremely hard to find AMD GPUs in stock because for the last months miners have been purchasing them all.

Miners don't give a damn about the potential of Ethereum (or any other blockchain technology) they just want to make money out of thin air and when mining stops being profitable they'll switch to the next big thing, which may very well be Monero or ZCash (they're already talking about which will be the next goldmine), or sell all their graphics cards, which is expected to be really soon because mining difficulty grows exponentially.

What are the benefits of using blockchain technologies? It's decentralized and safe, right?

Well, Ethereum was hacked and thousands of ETH were stolen, which is the reason why ETH and ETC are now different currencies. There's no certainty that this could happen again in the future, and then what, another hard fork?

And as I've said in my earlier posts, decentralized means shared, if you don't have enough nodes to share the entire blockchain it doesn't work or it works slowly. When miners stop making money with ETH they'll disappear and with them a huge chunk of the computational power.

Seriously, except for making easy money there is no reason why companies need any blockchain technology.

A Lamborghini, being a car, can be used to drive around the mountain. But why would you use a sports car when you can use a 4x4 vehicle specifically designed for that?

In other words, just because you can use Ethereum for some things it doesn't mean that you should. And we already have dedicated technology for those things that Ethereum is (supposedly) capable of.

I still have no idea why some are connecting blockchain technology with a supposed to come Web 3.0. If it's going to be a Web 3.0 it's going to be built on top of Web 2.0 standarized API technologies and languages and IPv6. If you need extra layers of security we already have very robust encryption systems and VPN services.

I've read that Ethereum would be great for cloud computing/hosting. Why would you use Ethereum for that when there already are specific dedicated and 100% proven technologies?

Just to be clear, if you're making money out of this I'm more than fine with that, I'm not against people making money out of thin air, I think it's pretty awesome in fact. I'm just trying to make you aware that Ethereum may very well burst in the future and go to hell and that blockchain technology may very well be just an overhyped piece of work that's irrelevant out of the context of cryptocurrencies. After all, we've had blockchains for almost a decade and there's no one out there using them outside of virtual money.

Now, back on the Web 3.0 thing, if I had to put my money on something it would be Virtual/Augmented Reality mixed with Web 2.0. I think V/AR are natural extensions of what we already have, the Internet is kind of a virtual world anyway but with HMDs we can create 3D virtual paralel worlds. Several developers are already speaking about the Metaverse and its posibilities.

Right now with your smartphone you can take pictures and make videos about the real world and share them with other people, a Web 3.0 would be similar but from something that's just digital content.

I can tell we're going in that direction because you see it all the time in every tech convention.

I wouldn't call it Web 3.0 though, but I'll leave it here for posterity and see what happens in a couple of years.

Clifford Stoll, is that you?

 

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[Disciple96]

To me, cryptocurriences tied to ICOs equal access. ICO-based currencies are tradeable access...think of it like a tradeable board seat.

This video explains very well why prices keep rising (and eventually fall):

So basically, don't invest in overvalued companies but rather those with the most reliability.

Many reliable companies see value in Ethereum from a programming perspective alone. That speaks for something above Bitcoin because it's simply more value. It's the same thing, but better. Now, is it worth the trading price? That depends and is up for you, the investor, to decide.

Aside from Ethereum, Mark Cuban has made an interesting decision to invest in "UNIKRN" - which is a crypto based on betting over "e-sports" matches.

For some reason I see this being wildly successful. I personally know of an old friend my age who apparently has one gun "camo" worth $1200, which he purchased at $600 (not as an investment).

It's all about demand.... HD-DVD didn't take off (or Beta-max if you want to go old school) because there was a higher demand for opposing technology.

Most people didn't care, most just picked up a moving picture player they saw at Wally-World (which happened to be designed for Blu-ray, or VHS) and that's what makes certain platforms "take off". Widespread adoption - Not a bunch of bull investors looking to make a quick buck. However, it's clear there are contingency plans in place for this behavior.

That's what makes these things impossible to predict, constant change. What if UNIKRN becomes the #1 currency because a bunch of kids bet over video games more than businesses are willing bet on Ether, and for one reason or another competing cryptos fail to make their mark?

Billionaire Bitcoin Skeptic Mark Cuban Wants In On The ICO Boom

 

[LifeTransformer]

I've been studying this topic for almost 2 months solid now. Made a nice bit of cash doing some trading too, here's where I'm at with it:

You're all familiar with the technological adoption life cycle, where we're at on that curve (despite bitcoin being around for about 8 years now) is right at the very beginning.

Are there teething problems? Damn right there are! Bitcoin was/is on the verge of being labelled a "shitcoin" because it is having scaling issues currently which should be getting fixed very soon. Ethereum was choked recently too because the amount of ICOs that have been coming out made the system bogged down.

Then there was the false news of Buterin's death which sent the price down also.

EDIT: Hit submit too early...

Someone above mentioned the DAO being hacked, that was a big F*ck up for sure, but it's not like the system itself was hacked, more that a programmer screwed up a line of code in something (that wasn't meant to be able to be changed) and hey-presto! Someone spotted it and stole some Ether.

Bitcoin, Ether etc. etc cannot be hacked themselves, but smart contracts on Ethereum can be messed with (I hope I've explained that properly).

There was also an issue where one of the wallets that people store Ether in got hacked, but that wasn't an Ethereum problem either, the wallet programmers f*cked up.

People lose money in centralised exchanges when they get hacked also, but that isn't an Ethereum or Bitcoin problem either, it's the problem with centralised exchanges.

Someone above mentioned Ethereum and Bitcoin mining above, my current view is you need a lot of hash power to mine bitcoin, but you can mine Ethereum with one major caveat; Ethereum is meant to be (eventually) moving away from being minable to what they call "proof of stake" which means your mining gear will be worthless unless you find another crypto to mine (and there are plenty of them).

This post is getting long and I need to do something, so I'll follow it up some other time soon.

The short version is this; Don't get too hyped up about Bitcoin Vs Ethereum, the big picture is far more interesting than that.

 

[alwayshungryleh]

What are the benefits of using blockchain technologies? It's decentralized and safe, right?

Well, Ethereum was hacked and thousands of ETH were stolen, which is the reason why ETH and ETC are now different currencies. There's no certainty that this could happen again in the future, and then what, another hard fork?

As said by @LifeTransformer above, the smart contract was hacked and not the ethereum platform. That being said, this is still a legitimate concern for me as a programmer. Smart contracts are meant to be unchangeable after upload. This means no one can change the code of smart contract, neither the original programmer nor the hackers. But this doesn't mean that if you write a shitty program, no one is going to go in and manipulate it in their favour.

So instead of trusting some other middleman, I now have to trust a middleman programmer? A programmer who probably writes a code language few understand? Legit question, but how is this any different? Or is there some type of standardization in the contracts, say, like an MLS contract?

Oh hey MJ! Gotta read this twice to know its a legit question. A bit used to your sarcastic tone of words. Haha.
In my opinion, at this early stage, you have to trust the programmers. Yeah they are writing in arcane language that is harder to understand than legal lawyerly words currently used.

I think your actual question is what advantage does it bring to end customers when the middleman now is being replaced by programmers or contracts instead?
1. Cost - Right now you pay to the middleman. In the future you pay for the computing power miners provide (and fees to the programmer if they want it)
2. Security - Once you upload the contract, it's there. Unchangeable.

Disclaimer: or all could go wrong and instead of being F*cked over by middleman using fine prints, now programmers F*ck you over using exorbitant fees using arcane programming language. Also, they create an army of robots to steal all your money including your underwear. And world war 3 starts... ba dum tss...

What's MLS btw MJ? Never heard of the word before? Sorry I'm from the other side of the world.

I haven't dug deeply in this technology but I am going through some training about Blockchain. I'm still trying to understand the technology but so far, its an automation of a manual process (please correct me if I am wrong), contracts becomes "if-then-else" statements in programming terms.

Again, that was just my personal interpretation of the technology.

This is correct as per my understanding. It's very much the same like programming language we have today, but the contract can receive and send money based on its program. This is made available thanks to the blockchain being unhackable and miners.

Thank you for the insight! I'm the guy who hates not knowing, especially if a new tech has potential (see my 3D printer in the corner over there? Eh, eh?)

So are people investing in cryptocurrency as if it were a stock? Or are they investing in GPUs so they can trade computing power for coins? If it's the latter, then I think I understand. Receive coins by trading computing power (value), and those coins are inflating in value, for reasons I still don't understand further than 'this pyrite now holds the value of Gold times N (Au*n) because everyone wants it'

Read somewhere that coins inflating in value is mostly because of ICOs. ICO is like IPO, but raising coins instead of raising money. So they raise like a million ETH and then stash that million ETH as "developers fund". Problem is they stash the ETH instead of changing it back to fiat money. There is only so much ETH in the market and it never went back in circulation.
On the other hand, raising a million ETH is insane. At current price its worth millions. My mind is F*cking blown everytime I read this news.

Word of caution to investors: Unlike Bitcoin, the supply of eth is unlimited. With bitcoin, you mine up to a certain amount and it becomes too difficult to mine. ETH supply increases over time and this creates a deflationary effect.

Ohh, ETH went down again. Maybe time for me to buy more. It's been on a downtrend since mid June.

 

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[alwayshungryleh]

Regarding the market, I believe it is a bubble currently. There is no DAPP. No news of anyone creating a killer app replacing Uber or Grab.

You know what is actually happening? All the investors buying all the ETH, and throwing money at these startups and the startups keep stashing the ETH and not spending it. Then you and I are left wondering what's happening with the price.

Adoption Stages
Let's talk about how smart contracts can slowly be adopted.
Stage 1 - distrupting current industries
1. Replace existing middleman through value of cost and security. The customers will be early adopters who are tech savvy and wants either cost advantage or security advantage.
1a. Gambling sites (security advantage)
1b. Logistics company (public ledger advantage - but this is on a separate blockchain. Not on ETH)
1c. Insurance company (security and cost advantage) Insurance is now done traditionally where everyone pools their money in one place and the one that gets into accident gets to withdraw the money.
1d. Some startups began to tinker with the idea of automated company. No CEO, no managers. Only AI.
Stage 2 - Cryptocurrency becomes more accessible
2. ETH (and other cryptocurrency) gets more accessible. It is now as easy as buying it through banks, and exchanges through your phone. You can spend it as easy as credit cards. Your mum now says "ETH is just like money but no one government controls it right?
2a. Uber Grab. Your mum decides to use ETH companies because its cheaper. Your mum says "This is just like a cheaper taxi, but I just need to change my money to this coupon. What do they call this coupon again?ETT? HET?"
2b. Money sending services. Money transfer service becomes a bit cheaper. Little did they know ETH/bitcoin is in the background. (This is a big maybe. I can't see any advantage in creating money transfer using ETH)
Stage 3 - New tech that depends on cryptocurrency and blockchain takes shape
3. Web 3.0 happens. Decentralized internet takes shape. Sharing economy is created. Someone wins the Mozilla Firefox decentralized internet prize and becomes the millionaire.
3a. You can sell you excess bandwidth by downloading a DAPP. Your neighbour that stays in the woods receives wifi signal from your modem and pays you in ETH.
3b. You can trade with someone without the prying eyes of government.
3c. High value assets is recorded on the public ledger. If you buy diamond, you can check its validity and information on the public ledger.
3d. Also someone decided to create a public ledger recording your every past mistake that everyone can see. You are a single mother. Recorded. You were involved in robbery and drug trading. Recorded. You accidentally visit a gay bar one random night and was caught by a colleague that hates you and decides to write it in your public ledger. Recorded. "Who the F*ck created this monstrosity!" you cursed

Un-adopted stages (joke)
1. Government gets unhappy and decides to regulate it. Putting decentralized internet to a stop. America decides its a big threat to their fiat currency and USD as the petrodollar. Russia gives a big F*ck you to America and adopts ETH. They also take income tax and value added tax on companies running on ETH. China starts arresting people sending money out using ETH.

 

[daivey]

So instead of trusting some other middleman, I now have to trust a middleman programmer? A programmer who probably writes a code language few understand? Legit question, but how is this any different? Or is there some type of standardization in the contracts, say, like an MLS contract?

it's funny because the people arguing the hardest about ETH being amazing, understand it the least.
"gets rid of the middle man...."

except you gotta trust the programming middle man....

LOL.

EXCEPT that with a LAWYER, they have to report to their law association and write a test and pass the bar.. They need error and omisions insurance.. there is an entire network built around them.

MLS contracts?? same concept. Realtors might not be the smartest bunch, but they shift liabilty.

This whole Crypto crap wont get far because there is no liability anywhere.... the liability is "in your self"... you cant even easily move BTC or ETH around.... you gotta go create this wallets.. then download these speciali unlock codes... "keep this code safe".. dont lose it.. print it out.

Oh YOUR BTC wallet got hacked??? well tough shit, that money is lost.

You see that is why this shit will never take off.. they drive to shift liability to the individual but people don't want that......... You know what, I like having a bank account.. so if my shit gets stolen, they will replace.

Oh but the block chain keeps all the information.. Oh yeah.. ok so where did those BTC that get stolen go?? where did those ethereum coins that got stolen go??? thought the block chain records everything.... why didn't they fix it? Oh wait, they can't?? or don't want to?

Anyway, for BTC and ETH to go mainstream to retail consumers, liability, and everything needs to be sorted out.

 

[Alxander]

It seems like the coins are having a pullback, luckily didn't invest yet (sadly not soon enough either lol)

Currently looking into the programming side of things and of ideas.
There are some people working on social media stuff lol, but I don't think they will compete with any of the big guys.

The next big update of Ethereum will be a lot better, so guess if you want to create an app with it or so, now is the time to already start with it.

 

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[fhs8]

Now everyone is quiet since Ethereum has dropped 55% from it's high. In the end the I'm betting the real winners will be governments collecting taxes on gains and the graphic card companies. From what I've seen people touting the "benefits" of Ethereum has always been vague about it's implementation and failed to describe exactly why and how it would be used over existing processes. My questions of exactly why it would be favored over existing processes have not been answered.

Ethereum is under stress with 7 transactions a second and the blockchain size is already 200GB. Wow I'm sure it's going to be able to handle the tens of thousands of transactions a second credit card companies handle. No middleman? You mean the "gas" you have to pay to process a transaction and wait 20s-2mins is not a middleman? The wallet is not a middleman? What the hell?

What happens if someone buying a burger at a fast food has to wait? It would be faster to pay by cash. Much faster. There's no reason for the transaction to be on Ethereum.

 

[LifeTransformer]

Now everyone is quiet since Ethereum has dropped 55% from it's high. In the end the I'm betting the real winners will be governments collecting taxes on gains and the graphic card companies. From what I've seen people touting the "benefits" of Ethereum has always been vague about it's implementation and failed to describe exactly why and how it would be used over existing processes. My questions of exactly why it would be favored over existing processes have not been answered.

Ethereum is under stress with 7 transactions a second and the blockchain size is already 200GB. Wow I'm sure it's going to be able to handle the tens of thousands of transactions a second credit card companies handle. No middleman? You mean the "gas" you have to pay to process a transaction and wait 20s-2mins is not a middleman? The wallet is not a middleman? What the hell?

What happens if someone buying a burger at a fast food has to wait? It would be faster to pay by cash. Much faster. There's no reason for the transaction to be on Ethereum.

Everyone is probably quiet because the thread fell off the main page and hasn't had anything added to it for a while?

I'm going to avoid the tax thing, because you could say the same thing about anyone here becoming rich via another means and paying their taxes, not sure what you are on about here?

The graphic card companies? Yeah what a shame that a company providing a solution to a need will make money. Not sure what you're on about here either...

BTW, if we're talking about Ethereum and only ethereum, then guess what one of the next phases for the development of that is? Doing away with mining, i.e. no more graphic cards needed for it at all.

Virtually the entire market is down right now for a combination of reasons (see here CryptoCurrency Market Capitalizations) one of them being bitcoin's upcoming "fork", and the other being that so much money was being pumped into ICOs that the price was over inflated. There's also been lots of people taking profits no doubt.

What can Ethereum do that regular old technology can't? Well, here's an article that just cropped up as I was typing out this reply:

A New Startup Just Proved That Blockchain Is Going to Utterly Transform Our Future

• Gnosis, a decentralized prediction platform built on the Ethereum blockchain, has officially launched with a goal of becoming "the world’s most efficient forecasting tool."

• Gnosis auctioned off all of its first round of digital tokens in less that 24 hours, bringing in millions for the company.

So Gnosis, built on Ethereum using smart contracts to create smarter prediction markets. The article also says:

"Another benefit to Gnosis is its transparency and security. Users needn’t worry about a market being removed or their funds disappearing. “By creating prediction markets on a Blockchain layer, we can ensure that the data always remains open and accessible to all parties,” explained Gnosis CSO Matt Liston in a video introducing the platform."

That's just one thing that Ethereum (and blockchain technology) can enable.

In regards to the middleman argument, I can see where you're coming from. Will need to do a separate post on that. But as always due diligence is key. Jaxx wallet got hacked and about $5million Ether was stolen (might even be more), but Exodus wallet is just fine for example.

 

[LifeTransformer]

Two great articles I've just been reading:

This one is anti bitcoin: Bitcoin = Death Processors – The Pivot – Medium
And, this one is more pro-bitcoin and also mentions other blockchain technologies (like Ethereum): How to properly invest in Bitcoin, Blockchain and other cryptocurrencies

In one of the comments in the second article, a person mentions (twice for good measure) that blockchain technology is "faulty" but doesn't divulge why...

 

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[Mosfet]

This cryptocurrency bubble was nothing and there will be other ones that will be even crazier. Even if it doesn't make sense to buy the black tulip bulbs, people will still do it. In fact it would take some extraordinary event for cryptocurrencys to just disappear. They're out there and they cannot be deleted, they can only be replaced by something better.

It will be interesting to watch how low bitcoin can fall approaching August 1st and what's going to happen next.

 

[alan3wilson]

Lots of people I know in college are getting into that blockchain thing and they want to buy home mining tools so they can make 50$ every week lol

From what I see, you do not have any control on a crypto currency right?