
Final Steps - Moshe_Silnorin
https://blog.ethereum.org/2015/07/27/final-steps/
======
tombh
Just to chime in with the obligatory: sounds-interesting-but-for-the-love-of-
turing-it's-infuriatingly-hard-to-find-a-basic-description-of-what-it-
actually-is.

~~~
codezero
Ditto, after reading several of the about pages, I'm still not sure what Ether
is, or how it's used, or who the target audience is.

Something in there about a decentralized platform for running apps, but I
don't want to guess too deeply about what this means.

Is it a cloud hosting platform that runs on Ether? Is the platform going to be
used primarily for mining Ether? I'm not even sure, if anyone has a short
description that will explain what this is, I'd love to read it!

~~~
chipsy
Ether is a "computational currency." You earn it by running computations on
your computer. You spend it by purchasing processing power on other people's
computers. The computation is software defined, so that customized
"distributed apps" are possible.

This is my outsiders understanding. I think there are potentially a lot of
things that could be gotten wrong here - from the specific implementation and
security measures to the economic plan. But it's one of several such
experiments with using the blockchain, so I'm looking forward to see what they
can do - that said I have no expectations for financial gain.

~~~
drcode
Some important properties of ethereum:

1\. A program written in ethereum can execute code at a predetermined point in
the future, and there is as close to 100% certainty as possible that the code
will execute as written (i.e. as long as a single ethereum user remains in the
world at that date everybody's code is guaranteed to run exactly as written,
even if it involves moving money between accounts.)

2\. All computer programs are "open source" not just before a program is
launched but also WHILE THE PROGRAM IS RUNNING- Nobody can run any code
without having full transparency.

3\. Users accounts are provably always in a state of complete anonymity
(unless of course they do something to purposely reveal their identity) and
can use all programs on the platform in this fully anonymous state.

4\. Program authors are forced to explicitly document ahead of time all
situations in which their program code might be modified in the future, making
it much harder to have the "screw your user after they've committed to your
platform" business model that's so popular among startups these days.

Those are just some of the properties of ethereum that come to mind.

~~~
convulsive
>4\. Program authors are forced to explicitly document ahead of time all
situations in which their program code might be modified in the future

Can you point me to a resource that explains this in more detail? I think I've
gotten the gist of how Ethereum works, and have gone through a tutorial of
Solidity, but I'm unclear how versioning will work in Ethereum (even though I
do have some guesses for how it could be implemented).

How would I deploy a new version of my contract? Would I have to implement a
mechanism for basically hot loading new code?

~~~
drdeca
If you want your contract to be updateable, you can have the contract store an
address of a contract which is the part you might want to change. Then, to
update the contract, you upload the new version of the contract ( or contract
component) , and make the address that the first contract stores point to the
new one.

Uh...

Users interact directly with contract A.

Contract A stores a address which currently points to contract B, and uses
whatever contract it currently points to to accomplish whatever it needs to do
for users.

To update the part of Contract A, upload an updated contract C, and send A a
message to tell it to change the address it stores to point to contract C
instead.

Contract A only changes where the address points if whatever conditions it was
designed to use for that are met.

And, of course, you don't have to use this "point to another contract" thing.

That's just if you need part of the contract to be updateable under some
conditions, which you might not need.

------
jMyles
Blockchain tech is finally getting interesting.

Of the part of the population that is reasonable well informed about the
workings of bitcoin, there is a huge sub population that, for one reason or
another, regards it as less than a full viable implementation to accomplish
the goals set forth in the whitepaper. I am among these.

Although the bitcoin whitepaper represents a compelling call to action and a
mathematical head opener, the state of bitcoin today makes it clear that, like
many first tries, this one didn't succeed.

However, announcements like this one provide a very powerful reminder that,
taken generally, blockchain technology, as a movement, may yet have the
evolutionary gravity that we imagined.

~~~
jsprogrammer
How do you say Bitcoin didn't succeed?

The currency currently has a market cap of about $4,300,000,000 USD, processes
transactions equivalent to $300,000,000 USD daily and can be used globally by
anyone.

It's been running completely decentralized for 6 years without compromise.

It has probably succeeded far beyond most expectations for it.

~~~
mizzao
If only we could harness the computational power wasted on Bitcoin mining as
heat, for useful distributed computing.

~~~
pera
I don't understand this recurrent point: computer power is "wasted" almost
everywhere. At least Bitcoin use this power to build a decentralized currency.

~~~
scott_karana
> computer power is "wasted" almost everywhere. At least Bitcoin use this
> power to build a decentralized currency.

Pinning a GPU or ASIC at 100% undeniably draws more power than an everyday
user idling around Facebook on their Macbook Air (~21W MAXED, so likely 7W)

Whether it's _worth_ it is the question.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation gives me _$12Mn USD per day_ as the
approximate global cost of electricity given the current global hashrate of
375Mn GH/s, for 0.05¢/kWh, assuming everyone is using reasonably modern,
efficient (?) ASICs like a Spondoolies SP35 Yukon at 5.5TH/s for 3850W.

If that's for a $300Mn USD daily market, that's not particularly efficient.
Nor particularly inefficient either, admittedly. Democratic, for sure ;)

EDIT: initially forgot to include some time units, thanks jsprogrammer!

~~~
pstrateman
> A back-of-the-envelope calculation gives me $12Mn USD per day

3600.00 BTC or $1m is paid as subsidy per day.

Are you saying that people are spending 12x that on power?

I dont think so.

~~~
scott_karana
Do your own calculation and see what you _find_ , instead of _think_. This is
HN after all. :)

You have all the relevant numbers in my post after all: maybe I made a
mistake? That certainly possible :P, since you seem to be right about the
rewards paid per day.

Or maybe people willingly factor in power costs as a price of speculating on a
volatile, trending currency? Or maybe most power costs are actually carried in
low-cost areas rather than North America and Europe, so my $0.05/kWh is an
overestimate?

------
groby_b
So, it seems to be "computational currency". Is it too much to ask that
something that'd like to be a currency manages to have proper SSL certs?

(Both Chrome and FF reject the issuer certificate)

~~~
1_player
Looks OK from here, Archlinux+Chrome.

Either you need to update your OS, or there's a MITM in your connection (can't
rule that out, can you? That's what SSL has been designed for.)

------
moistgorilla
Hey, just a heads up. On your landing page the text in your Hero didn't render
properly. I'm using Firefox version 39.0 on Windows 7

------
kristianp
Why must these Bitcoin alternatives be so hard to install? Why do I have to
manually generate my own Genesis Block? Even for testing.

~~~
drcode
The whole point of ethereum is to keep trust in a third party to an absolute
minimum. Wait a month or two and much easier options will appear (created by
startups happy to act as the trusted third party)

------
Udownvotemeudie
How does the company behind it make money? Do they have 20% of ether supply or
something?

~~~
drcode
They earned some money from people in a presale, they hold some modest ether,
and everyone at the company can expect lucrative consulting contracts.

------
aakilfernandes
Good luck guys! I'm incredibly excited. This feels like a modern day Apollo
launch.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I'm sorry, but no.

~~~
natrius
I think Ethereum (or something like it) will have a greater effect on many
more lives than the Apollo missions did. If successful, it will reshape
society by giving every individual reduced economic transaction costs that
once required the economies of scale of a megacorporation to achieve.

Take the humble grocery store. The grocery store is a byproduct of economies
of scale. Producers sell to grocery stores because it's easier to sell to them
in bulk than to find each individual end customer to sell to. Customers buy
from grocery stores because it's easier to get everything they want in one
store than trying to find each producer to buy from.

Ethereum makes it trivial to connect producers and consumers. It could make
the grocery store obsolete. Using an Instacart-style interface, customers
could shop from every producer on the planet and have their purchases appear
on their doorstep. No intermediary is necessary for this: consumers will pay
producers directly, and pay the delivery people and storage centers along the
paths from their goods to their homes. Software will do this for them.

Competing in this market is as easy as putting your goods up for sale and
building up your reputation—not with a brand marketing campaign, but by
selling your goods and services for lower prices until enough people rate them
highly enough for you to demand higher prices. More competition and fewer
middlemen will lead to lower prices and better products. Trade will be so easy
that more trade will happen, and since every trade makes both sides more
wealthy, mankind will be more wealthy.

This is why I'm excited about Ethereum. It's easy to dismiss if you don't
understand what can be built with it. I encourage you to learn more about what
it is and imagine new things that can be built with it.

~~~
carterehsmith
Anyone can order stuff from Amazon or Alibaba or wherever and have it
delivered, and build reputation, and so on - how does Ethereum improve on
that?

~~~
natrius
To clarify, Ethereum isn't a marketplace or a reputation system. It's just a
good platform for building those things.

Ordering from Amazon or Alibaba means paying them for the privilege. Systems
that connect producers directly to consumers will have lower costs because
there's no middleman that needs to skim profits. If such systems become
popular, it will be a transfer of wealth from the Amazons of the world to
everyone else. I find that desirable.

In general, Ethereum gives us powerful tools to coordinate human interactions.
That means there will be more human interactions, and you'll be able to
interact with people you don't have much personal history with. You will buy
your USB drives directly from the factory in Shenzhen with a good reputation
score and low prices. You'll get your loan directly from the person who wants
to earn returns on their savings.

~~~
carterehsmith
>>Systems that connect producers directly to consumers will have lower costs
because there's no middleman that needs to skim profits.

Will it? Amazon and the likes operate on notoriously slim margins whilst
buying at wholesale prices, and getting shipments in bulk. Whereas me buying 1
widget from Shenzhen, that will be retail price, plus shipment for 1 single
item overseas, that will cost way more than Amazon is paying per bulk-shiped
item. I don't see how all that could add up being cheaper than buying it at
Amazon or Walmart or whatever.

~~~
natrius
Wholesale prices exist because it's hard to find customers. Selling in bulk to
a single customer is a good deal. However, when it's effortless to connect
producers with customers, everyone will get wholesale prices.

You won't pay to ship one single item. The entire batch from the factory
that's heading for your country will go out together on one boat with lots of
other stuff. Instead of going to an Amazon warehouse when it gets here, it'll
just go to you, along with all the other goods from the port headed to your
area. Decentralizing shipping will make it more efficient, too.

Another option is that a manufacturer who expects overseas customers can ship
the goods to convenient locations for their customers to get faster shipping
times. Amazon uses part of their markup to pay for that today. Customers will
pay for it directly in the future. Customers will pay for _everything_
directly.

Anyone with a warehouse will be able to make money by participating in the
decentralized retail system, but today, it's impossible for those people to
compete with Amazon and Walmart. Competition will drive down profit margins.

------
treelovinhippie
The Genesis block could very well mark a turning point in human history. The
beginning of the complete decentralization of the global human society.

The global insurance industry replaced with autonomous smart contracts able to
provide 10x value, at 10x cheaper cost than any current provider. Escrow
services instantly replaced in the same fashion. Global marketplaces more
nimble, efficient and cheaper than Uber, Airbnb, eBay and KickStarter (to the
point where they will be forced to decentralize themselves to remain
competitive). Distributed, autonomous hosting, DNS and CDN services that
vastly outperform giants like AWS, ICANN and Cloudflare.

And that's just the low hanging fruit.

It will be many years before it reaches critical mass and invisibly seeps into
mainstream ubiquity. But just as Bitcoin and the Internet cannot be shutdown,
the Ethereum Genesis block will be an irreversible Singularity.

