Author Topic: Ethereum crowd sale is live  (Read 10043 times)

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Offline Empirical1

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It isn't about "fairness"... it is about the good of mankind.   Mining is rewarding people for consuming resources that produces no residual value and makes all of society poorer for it. 

Ie: because of mining electricity costs more and everyone pays for it.

Socially awkward geeks living in their parents basement distributing coins by burning electricity is no basis for a fair distribution. 



 +5% I've used that image in a response on BTT https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=679185.msg8027034#msg8027034

Offline luckybit

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I think the Ethereum team can make mining something everyone with a general purpose computer can take part in.

Are you ready to put money behind this statement? :)
I purchased some ETH.

Memory hardness is possible, storage hardness is possible. In 2013 I was trying to solve this same problem and the best solution I saw was from Tacotime http://mc2.xwebnetwork.com/storage/mc2_0.05.pdf which was to have an hashing algorithm which changes intermittently.

If the hashing algorithm keeps changing then it takes a lot longer to optimize it. ASICs do cost a lot of money to produce at first so they would have to create an ASIC for each one. Memorycoin for example was memory hard so there isn't any ASIC to make that optimized that I know of. Primecoin is another good example.

I think theoretically it is possible to do it but it's very difficult and there is no guarantee how long it would be before people figure out ways to game the algorithm. For example Primecoin and Memorycoin could be gamed by botnets and the cloud. Once it's in the cloud and controlled by botnets you end up paying cash for coins again so the algorithm would have to constantly keep changing in my opinion.

If the algorithm changed a lot then you wouldn't be able to mine it with one setup. The other possibility is to use BOINC combined with the algorithm changing so that everyone is encouraged to mine BOINC when the algorithm changes to something they aren't best able to mine.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 09:23:45 pm by luckybit »
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Offline bytemaster

It isn't about "fairness"... it is about the good of mankind.   Mining is rewarding people for consuming resources that produces no residual value and makes all of society poorer for it. 

Ie: because of mining electricity costs more and everyone pays for it.

Socially awkward geeks living in their parents basement distributing coins by burning electricity is no basis for a fair distribution. 

« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 08:56:54 pm by bytemaster »
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Offline luckybit

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Then they have mining... seems to me that this is the soft underbelly and that by the time ETH arrives mining will be a thing of the past.

Right, every curreny should be 100 percent premined and sold to a small group of early adopters... :o
(Premined is kind of a misnomer for a system that will never use mining.)
 
What is the difference between purchasing and mining?  Either way there is a cost.   That cost in either case will reflect the market value, and I'd expect it to be nearly equivalent.  Mining for coins/shares doesn't magically make them cheaper, easier to get, or more fairly distributed.  If anything the reliance on mining increases the cost, introduces waist and inefficiencies, makes it more difficult to acquire, and is available to a much smaller group because it requires some special technical knowledge.

If mining isn't necessary to secure a network.  I don't see that it serves any purpose at all, except revenue for mining manufactures and electric companies.

If a slow controlled release of supply is the goal, there are better ways to do this than mining.
+5% +5% +5%

If you're talking about mining with ASICs then there are up front costs. It's a business to mine.
On the other hand if you're mining with the CPU as we would ideally want it to be then everyone can mine.

The problem is the hashing algorithm doesn't change and there isn't enough random variances. I think the Ethereum team can make mining something everyone with a general purpose computer can take part in.

It will not be completely fair but it would be more fair than asking for money. More people have access to computers than have money. I could for sure find a homeless person or person in a developing country somewhere who has a smart phone or even a laptop to mine with but I don't think they'll have money to buy something they probably don't fully understand.

At the end I don't think mining alone stays fair for long and it attracts only the technical or intellectual elite. This is kinda cool for us because we are among them but it's not going to be so cool for people who don't understand what hashing, or what the difference between SHA-256 and MD5 is. The learning curve is becoming steeper and steeper which excludes people who lack the specialized knowledge.

Mining as a serious game has a shelf life. It's purpose is to attract people like ourselves to these communities. Gamers, programmers, engineers, scientists, (the sort of people likely to have access to computer labs or home computers with powerful CPUs). After a certain point though you have to figure out how to get other demographics interested in this technology.

Statistics reveal certain facts that the majority of people involved with Bitcoin are highly educated white males with an average age in the early to mid 30s.  Bitcoin is not going to take over the world if the only people using it are the same demographic because eventually that well is going to run dry.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/bitcoin-user-demographics-libertarian-men_n_4874727.html

How do you bring the other demographics in? You have to find other ways to distribute stakes which aren't mining or asking people to purchase shares. You do have to make sure the people who receive stakes prove that they really want it that proof doesn't have to come from money or from mining.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 08:56:46 pm by luckybit »
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Offline fuzzy


Quote
Then they have mining... seems to me that this is the soft underbelly and that by the time ETH arrives mining will be a thing of the past.

Right, every curreny should be 100 percent premined and sold to a small group of early adopters... :o
(Premined is kind of a misnomer for a system that will never use mining.)
 
What is the difference between purchasing and mining?  Either way there is a cost.   That cost in either case will reflect the market value, and I'd expect it to be nearly equivalent.  Mining for coins/shares doesn't magically make them cheaper, easier to get, or more fairly distributed.  If anything the reliance on mining increases the cost, introduces waist and inefficiencies, makes it more difficult to acquire, and is available to a much smaller group because it requires some special technical knowledge.

If mining isn't necessary to secure a network.  I don't see that it serves any purpose at all, except revenue for mining manufactures and electric companies.

If a slow controlled release of supply is the goal, there are better ways to do this than mining.
+5% +5% +5%
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Offline bytemaster

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Considering they have a fixed-price system for their IPO and have set the price at a 10 Million market cap,

First, the ether sale is not an IPO. Please read the terms of sale. Second, the market cap is set by the amount purchased and will be reset by active trading- like all coins- once the coin has launched.

Quote
it is relatively cheap for large investors to BUY IT ALL UP before anyone else can get in the game.


How exactly can anyone buy it all up if ether is created by the presale? Anyone can create ether at the moment Dan just by clicking buy on the website.

Quote
Investors simply make an estimate on the valuation of Eth. at launch and assume it works a 10 Million market cap is probably a "safe" bet. 

There are no investors. Again, please read the terms of sale.

Quote
This will cause ETH to have the appearance of extreme centralization in initial ownership. 

Do you have any hard numbers on the amount of people who currently own ether? Can you calculate a Gini coefficient? There are currently 2201 transactions to the exodus address- many small transactions under 500 dollars in value.

Quote
Then they have mining... seems to me that this is the soft underbelly and that by the time ETH arrives mining will be a thing of the past.

Right, every curreny should be 100 percent premined and sold to a small group of early adopters... :o

I had bad information relayed to me when I posted that.  Thanks for the clarification.
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Offline changematey

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Bitshares delegates or users can mine it for us and offer an IOU token so that we can just buy our ETH from within Bitshares itself by buying their ETH cloud mining asset.
Not related to topic at hand but this is a very bad idea. This is how most scams on btctalk start - an IOU to mine with a huge hash rate promise which is never met. I am yet to get BTSX working but if we already have some assets like that with volume - I think we might be looking at first scams coming out of BTSX.

Xeldal

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Quote
Then they have mining... seems to me that this is the soft underbelly and that by the time ETH arrives mining will be a thing of the past.

Right, every curreny should be 100 percent premined and sold to a small group of early adopters... :o
(Premined is kind of a misnomer for a system that will never use mining.)
 
What is the difference between purchasing and mining?  Either way there is a cost.   That cost in either case will reflect the market value, and I'd expect it to be nearly equivalent.  Mining for coins/shares doesn't magically make them cheaper, easier to get, or more fairly distributed.  If anything the reliance on mining increases the cost, introduces waist and inefficiencies, makes it more difficult to acquire, and is available to a much smaller group because it requires some special technical knowledge.

If mining isn't necessary to secure a network.  I don't see that it serves any purpose at all, except revenue for mining manufactures and electric companies.

If a slow controlled release of supply is the goal, there are better ways to do this than mining.

Offline luckybit

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This is a plea to everyone who sees "currency" in this space.  There is no "currency" with btc or alt btcs.  Really, there are shares in companies.  The blockchain is the general ledger, very similar to the one Walmart uses.  Holding a bitcoin is also very similar to holding stock in Walmart.  At most we should concede share-currencies, because using btc at Walmart is like paying for groceries at Walmart with Apple stock.

Further, tuning back to BitShares, BitUSD will be a currency. BitUSD will not be a company, unlike Ethereum or BitShares X and Walmart.  BitShares is to BitUSD what the US is to USD.  A share of a BitShares company is what a property stake is to the US.  BitUSD would be like walking into Walmart and exchanging 1 USdollar for 1  walmart dollar.  When you get to the register to buy a snickers you pay 1 walmart dollar while buying a snickers next door at Kmart would cost 1 USdollar.  Please stop saying Ethereum or bitcoin is a "currency"


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Offline fuzzy

Does ethereum plan to enable stealth transactions or zerocoin protocols?  Or will all tx's be easily trackable and linked to the party who triggered them?

This is a plea to everyone who sees "currency" in this space.  There is no "currency" with btc or alt btcs.  Really, there are shares in companies.  The blockchain is the general ledger, very similar to the one Walmart uses.  Holding a bitcoin is also very similar to holding stock in Walmart.  At most we should concede share-currencies, because using btc at Walmart is like paying for groceries at Walmart with Apple stock.

Further, tuning back to BitShares, BitUSD will be a currency. BitUSD will not be a company, unlike Ethereum or BitShares X and Walmart.  BitShares is to BitUSD what the US is to USD.  A share of a BitShares company is what a property stake is to the US.  BitUSD would be like walking into Walmart and exchanging 1 USdollar for 1  walmart dollar.  When you get to the register to buy a snickers you pay 1 walmart dollar while buying a snickers next door at Kmart would cost 1 USdollar.  Please stop saying Ethereum or bitcoin is a "currency"


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Ether will be an attempt to replace the petro dollar, which is a currency.  So at least in effect, his calling it a currency is actually quite apt. 

As far as bitshares goes...it will do just fine, but they will likely be forced by fiat to play with ether using legal frameworks already in place.  Anyone who doesn't comply will likely be considered a...what is the word i'm looking for?  Oh, terrorist...that's it. In this way, crypto can be harnessed by deep pockets. 

I find it funny that most people actually thought the owners of the old paradigm's infrastructure would not want to have a piece of this and wouldn't use their already-vast amount of fiat monopoly reserves to be VC's.  I disagree with BM, Ethereum or at least some iteration of it, will survive.  Not only that, they will almost single handedly make POW Technocracies seem both trendy and benevolent.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 05:45:25 am by fuznuts »
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bitbro

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This is a plea to everyone who sees "currency" in this space.  There is no "currency" with btc or alt btcs.  Really, there are shares in companies.  The blockchain is the general ledger, very similar to the one Walmart uses.  Holding a bitcoin is also very similar to holding stock in Walmart.  At most we should concede share-currencies, because using btc at Walmart is like paying for groceries at Walmart with Apple stock.

Further, tuning back to BitShares, BitUSD will be a currency. BitUSD will not be a company, unlike Ethereum or BitShares X and Walmart.  BitShares is to BitUSD what the US is to USD.  A share of a BitShares company is what a property stake is to the US.  BitUSD would be like walking into Walmart and exchanging 1 USdollar for 1  walmart dollar.  When you get to the register to buy a snickers you pay 1 walmart dollar while buying a snickers next door at Kmart would cost 1 USdollar.  Please stop saying Ethereum or bitcoin is a "currency"


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Edit: I should probably edit this for grammar and clarity. I tend to write like crap with Tapatalk
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 06:00:42 pm by bitbro »

charleshoskinson

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Quote
Considering they have a fixed-price system for their IPO and have set the price at a 10 Million market cap,

First, the ether sale is not an IPO. Please read the terms of sale. Second, the market cap is set by the amount purchased and will be reset by active trading- like all coins- once the coin has launched.

Quote
it is relatively cheap for large investors to BUY IT ALL UP before anyone else can get in the game.


How exactly can anyone buy it all up if ether is created by the presale? Anyone can create ether at the moment Dan just by clicking buy on the website.

Quote
Investors simply make an estimate on the valuation of Eth. at launch and assume it works a 10 Million market cap is probably a "safe" bet. 

There are no investors. Again, please read the terms of sale.

Quote
This will cause ETH to have the appearance of extreme centralization in initial ownership. 

Do you have any hard numbers on the amount of people who currently own ether? Can you calculate a Gini coefficient? There are currently 2201 transactions to the exodus address- many small transactions under 500 dollars in value.

Quote
Then they have mining... seems to me that this is the soft underbelly and that by the time ETH arrives mining will be a thing of the past.

Right, every curreny should be 100 percent premined and sold to a small group of early adopters... :o
« Last Edit: July 25, 2014, 01:45:25 am by charleshoskinson »

Offline luckybit

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@ Luckybit I think it's just semantics at this point there are some investors in crypto-currency and BitShares owners that have multi-million net worths for sure.

Except for the Litecoin thing, I think we mostly agree on the investment stuff actually. 



When you talk about providing some good or service to the market what market are you talking about? Rich crypto-anarchists? Gold bugs? Who is the market? It's possible that the supply of crypto-anarchist money has dried up and we have to build a new market for ourselves.

Oh except that we don't agree there :) If you don't believe we can offer profitable products and services to various markets you shouldn't invest in BitShares I don't think.  BitAssets will target traders (If it is user friendly enough) take it to trading forums and people who've never used crypto currency should want to use it if we do it right. Same with Lotto if we take it to lottery/gambling forums etc.

I'm asking who is the demographic? Have you or anyone else conducted any market research?

Where is the data? When you do a business plan usually there is a chart of projected growth, some numbers such as the size of the demographic, the purchasing power of that demographic, and the needs/expectations of that demographic.

How are we supposed to be effective at marketing when we don't have any facts to work with?
« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 12:09:38 am by luckybit »
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Tuck Fheman

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If you don't have at least a million net worth you're not a real investor because you're unsophisticated.


Offline Empirical1

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@ Luckybit I think it's just semantics at this point there are some investors in crypto-currency and BitShares owners that have multi-million net worths for sure.

Except for the Litecoin thing, I think we mostly agree on the investment stuff actually. 



When you talk about providing some good or service to the market what market are you talking about? Rich crypto-anarchists? Gold bugs? Who is the market? It's possible that the supply of crypto-anarchist money has dried up and we have to build a new market for ourselves.

Oh except that we don't agree there :) If you don't believe we can offer profitable products and services to various markets you shouldn't invest in BitShares I don't think.  BitAssets will target traders (If it is user friendly enough) take it to trading forums and people who've never used crypto currency should want to use it if we do it right. Same with Lotto if we take it to lottery/gambling forums etc.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2014, 10:57:54 pm by Empirical1 »