Microsoft to Offer Ethereum-Based Services on Azure

[James212]

Now that this News is out will Ether turn south again  ? What do you think?  Mid Thirties were tempting but I was hesitating to long...

It not a competition in technology, but for mainstream mind share.

 

[betax]

I think Graphene should be marketed more as a blockchain platform or infrastructure, similar (but not the same) to Ethereum. Flexibility vs Performance.

It needs (quick brainstorming):

+ Clear licencing model (How much, or simple written negotiation terms)
+ Showcase (Bitshares, Muse eventually).
+ Clear documentation (how do I extend Graphene to do business X)
+ Business model boundaries (If you are extended financial services, this should be implemented in Bitshares, the revenue model will be, Music in Muse. any other model you can use the Graphene toolkit)
+ Market itself as a toolkit / platform etc.
+ Invest some resource on proving the infrastructure (note as graphene, not bitshares), ie 100k TPS, Security etc.
+ Clear future plans.

[topcandle]

So they also get Microsoft to sponsor their conference.  And we haven't even had one conference even though we've been in business for one year more. 

[luckybit]

Ethereum is not a threat, it is a hackers paradise. Because it is Turing complete it cannot be proven to be secure, so you're stuck dealing with probabilities and complex risk statistics.

And sad to say, the malware artists are the offense, the offers has the advantage in the cybersecurity arms race, and Ethereum empowers the offense. They do plan to do formal verification, and they do plan to have a good virtual machine with isolation, but ultimately when you hold an Ethereum token it's because you trust the developers.

And it's the same for us. We trust the developers so we hold Bitshares. In the future when there are decideable blockchains and formal proofs = programs then we will only have to trust the mathematics and not even the developers would have to be trusted. Microsoft is known for producing bloated millions of lines of code software with bugs, backdoors, etc, so it's not a threat to Bitshares or competition for Bitshares.

It's actually good for the industry and many of us hold Ether along with Bitshares so it's good for the Ether price, but it's not much more than that. Bitshares hopefully can form a strategic partnership with a Russian bank, and with popular video game companies in Japan.

[DMo09]

Yeah look at how many projects Ethereum has racked against how many bitshares has.  Ethereum has a higher rate of project growth than Bitshares.  Your competing over entreprenurs.  And so far most of the entreprenurs are flocking to Ethereum.

Eth attracts lots of devs cause it's a total sandbox but not so many devs with business plans.  We can pull more talent once we begin to show the money.

And we don't want a sandbox, we want a construction site! But we need more architects and multidisciplinary construction professionals!

[Riverhead]

Yeah look at how many projects Ethereum has racked against how many bitshares has.  Ethereum has a higher rate of project growth than Bitshares.  Your competing over entreprenurs.  And so far most of the entreprenurs are flocking to Ethereum.

Eth attracts lots of devs cause it's a total sandbox but not so many devs with business plans.  We can pull more talent once we begin to show the money.

 

Right now any mainstream eyes on Crypto benefits the whole ecosystem.

[carpet ride]

Yeah look at how many projects Ethereum has racked against how many bitshares has.  Ethereum has a higher rate of project growth than Bitshares.  Your competing over entreprenurs.  And so far most of the entreprenurs are flocking to Ethereum.

Eth attracts lots of devs cause it's a total sandbox but not so many devs with business plans.  We can pull more talent once we begin to show the money.

[topcandle]

Yeah look at how many projects Ethereum has racked against how many bitshares has.  Ethereum has a higher rate of project growth than Bitshares.  Your competing over entreprenurs.  And so far most of the entreprenurs are flocking to Ethereum. 

[Pheonike]

Now that this News is out will Ether turn south again  ? What do you think?  Mid Thirties were tempting but I was hesitating to long...

It not a competition in technology, but for mainstream mind share.

[Stan]

I don't think Ethereum is our direct competition.
Ethereum is for soft-coded smart contracts. It offers flexibility.
Graphene is for hard-coded smart contracts. It offers robustness and industrial-scale performance.

There will be business cases better suited for Ethereum and business cases better suited for Graphene.

Precisely the point I made during my two hours on stage in Shanghai...

I just made it back to Half Mile High Meadows in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia an hour ago.  Since I'm still Jet Lagged from a 36-hour-long Saturday, I thought I'd file my report.

First off, the part of Shanghai I saw, from the airport to the Hyatt on the Bund, is spectacular.  It reminded me of New York only more colorful and friendlier. 

I also concluded, based on an exhaustive scientific sample, that China has more smart people than we have people.

I would like to name all the folks who made my visit there so pleasant, but I'm afraid I might leave someone out!  Nevertheless, special thanks to the DACPLAY team and "David Lee" for escorting me everywhere and making me feel like a visiting dignitary. 

I also much appreciate the efforts of Bo Shen to give me opportunities to raise the visibility of BitShares and Cryptonomex with, egad, four opportunities to speak:

Day 1, AM:  A panel discussion on Scalability in front of an ocean of attendees in the main auditorium.
Day 1, PM:  A panel discussion on Digital Assets in front on that same beach.
Day 2, AM:  A invitation only technical session on scalability co-moderated by Vitalik.
Day 2, PM:  A invitation only session with commodity brokers co-moderated by, um, me.

I couldn't have even hoped for more exposure.

My unifying theme for all four sessions was that industry growth would be greatly enhanced if we started moving onto common blockchains rather than continuing the "altcoin" mentality of a separate stovepipe blockchain for every asset.  Community Brands should be free to upgrade to shared Platforms that serve like "operating systems" for digital assets.  This would allow them to interact on a common ledger with all the infrastructure services provided for the same reasons that Windows/MacOS/Linux operating systems exist.  I used Ethereum and Graphene as examples of two such OS platforms - one focusing on rapid prototyping flexibility and the other on industrial strength performance. 

In the next two posts, I'll provide a transcript of my remarks during during two panel discussions on October 15, 2015.  These are taken from a pocket recorder I sneaked onto the stage which unfortunately only picked up my own powerful, orator quality voice.  So the other panelists have not been transcribed and my recollection of the actual moderator questions is only approximate.

Enjoy.

[mudshark79]

Now that this News is out will Ether turn south again  ? What do you think?  Mid Thirties were tempting but I was hesitating to long...

[jakub]

I don't think Ethereum is our direct competition.
Ethereum is for soft-coded smart contracts. It offers flexibility.
Graphene is for hard-coded smart contracts. It offers robustness and industrial-scale performance.

There will be business cases better suited for Ethereum and business cases better suited for Graphene.

[DMo09]

From the comment section:
http://www.ether.camp/press/1.html

http://blockapps.net/pdfs/blockapps-strato-microsoft-partnership.pdf

[Pheonike]

I think the competition just got real...   

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/10/28/bitbeat-microsoft-to-offer-ethereum-based-services-on-azure/