Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#11

Post by AroundTheBlock_ » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:09 PM UTC

merlincorey wrote: post #9

AroundTheBlock_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, dont use it. Clearly, others don't share your perspective. That's the beauty of decentralized systems. No one is forcing you to use Ethereum or Bitcoin or anything. But your opinion on its usefulness as an outsider is much less meaningful.

Your attitude here isn't exactly endearing me, and I would imagine some third party observers as well. Your team has always been a bit combative with regards to criticism, from my experience. That said... I am actually more interested in using ethereum classic than I am ethereum, uh, central.

My attitude is neutral. I'm not here to endear anyone. I have zero desire to influence you nor anyone else to purchase and/or use Ethereum. My only purpose is to clear up misconceptions and defend the reasoning behind the hard fork. And I am very supportive of those users who want to use Ethereum Classic. However, don't shit on the users who want to use the main chain.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#12

Post by splintercell » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:14 PM UTC

merlincorey wrote: post #5

sarayevo wrote: post #2

The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin (for those who don't know, ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution) and the development ecosystem is much more vibrant and promising. We haven't seen the last of this.

> The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin Opinion > ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution Fact -- but double edged sword (my opinion, of course). I have personally been skeptical of ETH for years as their team have been promising the moon for a variety of use cases. For me, the biggest blow to ETH is t…

> For me, the biggest blow to ETH is the revelation that "the code is NOT law".

Considering Ethereum Classic has all the features of ETH and it follows whatever your distorted definition of 'code is law' means, the fact that ETC is at it's all time low (compared to its price in ETH)). The question remains if ETH violated 'Code is Law', then how come market doesn't care.

Clearly the biggest blow to ETH is NOT the DAO fork. If ETH is not above bitcoin, then among all the reasons I can list, its decision to hard fork is not one of it (because if that is the case then ETC would have been the market leader).

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#13

Post by koolba » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:14 PM UTC

AroundTheBlock_ wrote: post #10

koolba wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles. > No it wasn't a centralized bailout. > Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was a very confusing time for all. > Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't complain about a hard fork when you have a community that up…

"What's to prevent a similar situation in the future and why should anyone believe that to hold?" Ask yourself if this was a centralized hard fork ordered by up high, or as users we chose to opt in to this change. Clearly we opted in, because Ethereum Classic exists for those who so wish. Therefore, the Ethereum Foundation did not "force" me to do anything that I didn't agree to. Yes in my example Musk might have got…

> Ask yourself if this was a centralized hard fork ordered by up high, or as users we chose to opt in to this change. Clearly we opted in, because Ethereum Classic exists for those who so wish. Therefore, the Ethereum Foundation did not "force" me to do anything that I didn't agree to.

The analogy to the legal system is that mob rule supersedes (digital) contract law and property rights.

If people want to go down that path they're free to do so but I'm not a fan.

> Yes in my example Musk might have gotten sued (although really? is he at risk of that right now? I doubt it.), but a mistake early on in development should not hinder the advancement of the technology.

> If you are going to say smart contracts are useful, but we should abandon the Ethereum blockchain, then BY ALL MEANS please go to Ethereum Classic. You'll be welcome there with open arms. But the main Ethereum community clearly prioritizes pragmatism, as do the majority of the world. We're not idealists. We're actually trying to put out a meaningful technology to help people.

Eating the loss doesn't stop you from developing better software. Heck, I'd say that it's a pretty good way to prevent things in the future by giving people a real incentive to prevent bugs in the first place. If it's socially acceptable to roll back the clock because somebody wrote a dumb smart contract then it's a sign that writing dumb smart contracts is socially acceptable.

> So you can throw Musk in jail or let him get back to work on saving lives.

That's a false dichotomy. In the analogy Musk doesn't go to jail unless he willfully released something that he knew could kill people or otherwise programmed the cars to drive on the sidewalk.

In ETH's case they could have absorbed the loss, hardened the systems, and moved on. Honestly it would have added a lot more credibility to the whole endeavor by showing that they were willing to put their (ETH) money where their mouths are.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#14

Post by Xophmeister » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:19 PM UTC

sarayevo wrote: post #2

The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin (for those who don't know, ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution) and the development ecosystem is much more vibrant and promising. We haven't seen the last of this.

Both BTC and ETH have been (generally) climbing lately; ETH especially. However, I feel (and I should be clear that this is all my own, anecdotal opinion) like -- even if it is superior -- BTC was "first to market" in a popularist sense and thus probably a better long-term bet. ETH is Betamax to BTC's VHS.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#15

Post by splintercell » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #8

AroundTheBlock_ wrote: post #3

I'll get the dumb stuff out of the way. No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles. No it wasn't a centralized bailout. Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was a very confusing time for all. Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't complain about a hard fork w…

> No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles. > No it wasn't a centralized bailout. > Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was a very confusing time for all. > Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't complain about a hard fork when you have a community that up…

> What's to prevent a similar situation in the future and why should anyone believe that to hold?

Look, ETC is still there, and currently it's at its all time low. Clearly the market didn't care about the DAO situation.

In other words, if a company makes a decision X which you think is a bad decision, and nearly none of their customers oppose them for it, did they really make a bad decision?

If tomorrow another DAO debacle happens and another such thing happens, I for one expect Ethereum Foundation to take steps to safeguard the integrity of the network by thwarting the theft.

If after Mt Gox theft had bitcoin been forked to undo that theft, then I would have jumped on to the forked chain (again no promises, but in principle I'd have gone to the forked chain).

On the other hand I presume you'd have stayed on the non-forked chain.

In other words, there are two kinds of cryptocurrency investors. You and I belong to two different groups. If you like Ethereum but are worried about 'code is law' violation, then please go join ETC.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#16

Post by AroundTheBlock_ » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #13

AroundTheBlock_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What's to prevent a similar situation in the future and why should anyone believe that to hold?" Ask yourself if this was a centralized hard fork ordered by up high, or as users we chose to opt in to this change. Clearly we opted in, because Ethereum Classic exists for those who so wish. Therefore, the Ethereum Foundation did not "force" me to do anything that I didn't agree to. Yes in my example Musk might have got…

> Ask yourself if this was a centralized hard fork ordered by up high, or as users we chose to opt in to this change. Clearly we opted in, because Ethereum Classic exists for those who so wish. Therefore, the Ethereum Foundation did not "force" me to do anything that I didn't agree to. The analogy to the legal system is that mob rule supersedes (digital) contract law and property rights. If people want to go down tha…

>The analogy to the legal system is that mob rule supersedes (digital) contract law and property rights.

That's basically true. I don't dispute that. That's basically how Bitcoin works as well. There's currently a coup attempt going on to overthrow Bitcoin Core. If the mob grows big enough they will succeed.

>Eating the loss doesn't stop you from developing better software. Heck, I'd say that it's a pretty good way to prevent things in the future by giving people a real incentive to prevent bugs in the first place. If it's socially acceptable to roll back the clock because somebody wrote a dumb smart contract then it's a sign that writing dumb smart contracts is socially acceptable.

Eat the loss or not eating the loss doesnt affect development. The development track is the same either way. One saves a sad sack of idiots from losing money and the other doesn't. It's not the development team's job to teach people basic life skills about risk. Users had a choice to be on the chain where they lost money or the one that they didn't. Shocker, they chose to recover their money. Has nothing to do with developing better software or not.

>That's a false dichotomy. In the analogy Musk doesn't go to jail unless he willfully released something that he knew could kill people or otherwise programmed the cars to drive on the sidewalk. In ETH's case they could have absorbed the loss, hardened the systems, and moved on. Honestly it would have added a lot more credibility to the whole endeavor by showing that they were willing to put their (ETH) money where their mouths are.

No one willfully released TheDAO code to suck. It just sucked by accident. Absorbing the loss would NOT have hardened the system. Everything would be exactly the same. It wouldn't have made Eth any more or less credible if we absorbed the loss. And if you are put off, that's fine. If you want to join a blockchain with perfect credibility, good luck. Bitcoin has forked ~3 times, and Ethereum Classic has forked 2 or 3 times now as well.

Maybe blockchain technology is too nascent, or it just isn't for you. But the takeaway here is that _we are all still striving and working hard to make this technology be meaningful for the world, so stop shitting on it just to get your rocks off_. Not you personally, but others clearly do.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#17

Post by che_shirecat » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

AroundTheBlock_ wrote: post #3

I'll get the dumb stuff out of the way. No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles. No it wasn't a centralized bailout. Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was a very confusing time for all. Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't complain about a hard fork w…

> No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles.

The hard fork was inevitable and it exposed the most glaring problem with the whole thing - there's no use case for a ledger that's supposedly decentralized and immutable but is in fact subject to the decisions of a particular group, however "super awesome and competent" who have significant vested interests in the speculative value of the currency. I'm not even talking about the DoS hard fork which you can explain away as fixing a core ethereum bug. The fork that unilaterally decided to nix the ethereum of the hacker who exploited a flaw in theDAO's smart contracts, the action that was taken purely to roll back the losses of those who had their hands in the speculative ethereum cookie jar, makes ethereum as an implementation of a great concept impossible to take seriously. If code isn't law, then what is besides the whims of the ethereum community? Any sane individual would much rather take such a contract dispute to a U.S. court where at least one has an idea as to who is pulling the strings. Labeling such concerns as "dumb stuff" is simply a knee-jerk reaction to criticism that endangers your own stake in ethereum's success.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#18

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:22 PM UTC

AroundTheBlock_ wrote: post #3

I'll get the dumb stuff out of the way. No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles. No it wasn't a centralized bailout. Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was a very confusing time for all. Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't complain about a hard fork w…

[deleted]

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#19

Post by adeptus » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:24 PM UTC

Xophmeister wrote: post #14

sarayevo wrote: post #2

The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin (for those who don't know, ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution) and the development ecosystem is much more vibrant and promising. We haven't seen the last of this.

Both BTC and ETH have been (generally) climbing lately; ETH especially. However, I feel (and I should be clear that this is all my own, anecdotal opinion) like -- even if it is superior -- BTC was "first to market" in a popularist sense and thus probably a better long-term bet. ETH is Betamax to BTC's VHS.

>ETH is Betamax to BTC's VHS.

More like the Netflix to BTC's VHS

I personally equate it to DOS vs Android. The potential for ETH is massive... granted security concerns, scalability, POS are equally massive hurdles to overcome.

Re: Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week

#20

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 8:25 PM UTC

merlincorey wrote: post #5

sarayevo wrote: post #2

The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin (for those who don't know, ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution) and the development ecosystem is much more vibrant and promising. We haven't seen the last of this.

> The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin Opinion > ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution Fact -- but double edged sword (my opinion, of course). I have personally been skeptical of ETH for years as their team have been promising the moon for a variety of use cases. For me, the biggest blow to ETH is t…

I'm personally waiting on an ETH successor with non-Turing-complete, verifiable code.

There's no reason that smart contracts require Turing completeness (no real world program requires it, for that matter), and software theorem proving will be required for me to take smart contracts seriously. We need to be able to prove things about the contract execution for it to be safe to trust "code as contract".

Im not as upset about the hardfork as many people, though. Social constructs should be changable by politics, not indelible and absolute. That's not what they were selling, but all the same, what they were selling was dystopian nonsense where humans are chained to machines, not their masters. It's a feature not bug of social constructs to be changeable through politics. What matters is the political process to do so.