Ethereum

[Matthew Light]

After getting spammed about Ethereum on Reddit, I decided to check it out.

Fascinating platform, I actually decided to buy a bit of Ether on shapeshifter just in case this is the next revolution in distributed computing.

Anyone else here interested in Ethereum?

 

[YarkoL]

Damn, you're telling me that spam actually works???

Aside from that, I think Ethereum's great and quite possibly revolutionary as you say. Last summer I devoted couple of weeks for learning how to do stuff with it. At that time the documentation was a little sparse, and there were some difficulties getting past roadblocks. I wonder if that situation has changed for better?

 

[Matthew Light]

It reminds me of the excitement and new possibilities when I heard about Bitcoin in 2009-2010.

Reading the Ethereum fora is such a breath of fresh air compared to the nightmare of the blocksize stupidity consuming Bitcoin these days. The people are all interested in making the platform work as well as can be conceived of. I traded about 1/4 to 1/3 of my BTC position over the last few days and feel really good about crypto again.

 

[JVWVU]

Ethereum may be a trading opportunity but I don't see it as smart money.

If Bitcoin is gold, Litecoin is silver, Ethereum is a Borgata Casino Chip that can be used to play at a Black Jack table. But in this case you get to write code and spend it.

If this gets much more ingrained I would have to think Microsoft might look at scraping Ethereum and making it based on a USD coin.

 

[Matthew Light]

Everyone has to do their own due diligence of course. But I think Ethereum has a shot at taking what Bitcoin does and doing a lot more. I was comfortable enough with the possibility to take a long-term position.

 

[JVWVU]

As will http://www.rootstock.io - Ethereum has a lot of room to grow but as a store of value I don't think it will meet that.

 

[Matthew Light]

Well, I am invested in both BTH and ETH, so would love to see both go to the moon

 

[VeritasSapere]

I have been mining Ethereum since launch. I have several GPU rigs sitting next to my asics miners. It has actually been very profitable, and it has changed the GPU mining landscape since launch, for the better.

I am also holding Ethereum, it is a good project. One issue I have with Ethereum is that it is still so difficult to use. It was a pain in the ass when I first started mining. I think its a bit funny, how most coins are launched today is that it is all very easy. But with Ethereum it was all a huge pain in the ass, its like they are special, so user experience does not matter.

Not sure how much it has improved since I got my miners running, but I am still a bit discouraged using a Ethereum full node directly. Not having a particularly deep technical background I am not very adapt at command line, so you could say I am still a sucker for a shiny GUI.

 

[Bloomie]

I tried mining it and failed miserably. Will wait until there's a dumb guy version.

 

[VeritasSapere]

Its not exactly a dumb guy version, but this is the guide I followed:

https://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/2227/cuda-miner/p23

Its that long post on that page with all the commands and stuff, could not figure out how to link that individual post.

At least it does include all of the commands, and does not assume knowledge of Linux command line. This is for nvidea type cards and I used Ubuntu 14.04. I am running several 750TI rigs, 6 cards per board. Still very efficient cards, but if I was to build another rig now I would use the 970's. Same efficiency but more power.
[doublepost=1453929568][/doublepost]One thing that I do love about Ethereum, and is most likely partially to blame for the current terrible user experience. Is that they developed several implementations, even using different programming languages, with different development teams. In the interests of decentralization.

With the recent blocksize debate I can definitely see the value in this. I suspect this existential struggle within Bitcoin might have been a lot easier if that was the case when this question surfaced.

 

[tynwald]

some folks may not like to hear this, but word is that several banks are doing in-depth study on ETH over BTC. So it's possible ETH may end up being the one used between banks while BTC sorts out its governance issues, or not.

 

[Matthew Light]

It's not just a rumor, the banks are definitely going with ETH technology on their private blockchain.

 

[Matthew Light]

In the interest of full disclosure, I have now converted 75% of my original BTC to ETH, a process that began several weeks ago.

 

[IMALLIN]

Seems like an incredible risky thing to convert 75% of your bitcoin position in this Ethereum mania. Could easily see this is a bubble and you could be sitting there with 50% of your original bitcoin if it crashes.

 

[VeritasSapere]

I have to agree with @IMALLIN here. I am invested in the altcoins myself, including Ethereum. However investing in cryptocurrency I have learned that diversification is very important. I hold more then twenty different cryptocurrencies myself. I personally think that seventy five percent of your cryptocurrency holdings is to much to put into any one alternative cryptocurrency. I have 1/3 of my holdings in Bitcoin which represents my largest holding.

I would recommend that while the ETC price is up, you could sell some of your Ethereum for Dash, MaidSafe, Factom and Bitshares maybe?

Take everything I say with a grain of salt, no investment is ever guaranteed. Investing in cryptocurrency this strategy has served me well. I am not a extremely early adopter like many of the people here. So having good investment strategies is not wrong, we are taking care of our own future and families. Having a well diversified portfolio is wisdom and in my case at least will allow me to continue devoting my time to the cryptocurrency revolution.

 

[Matthew Light]

I liquidated about 70% of my BTC for ETH. Total portfolio value is now 85% ETH (with the price action in 2016).

95% of my assets are locked up in 401K, retirement plan, and home equity. I have a bit of physical gold and silver as well.

If Bitcoin becomes the global monetary standard I'll do just fine. If ETH does, I'll do better than fine.

I've evaluated the other "altcoins" and never had any interest in them aside from Ethereum, which I think has a very good shot at becoming the global ledger. Also keeping my eye on Hyperledger, but so far it's just vaporware. If there is ever a coin/token there to buy, I'll get some.

Regarding Bitcoin, the civil war has caused me to decide that enhancing Bitcoin to scale globally and support blockchain applications simply won't happen. Meanwhile, Ethereum is doing all kinds of new and amazing things with the platform. I just don't see Bitcoin able to keep up given what has happened with blocksize over the last three years.

But if I'm wrong, I still own a significant fraction of the Bitcoin ledger if it becomes the global ledger. I just don't believe it will at this point.

 

[_mr_e]

Ethereum isn't yet even close to the size of Bitcoin. How are you so sure then when it reaches the same level of scale it won't be hit with the exact same types of civils wars and infighting bitcoin has? This is only happening precisely because it is so big and valuable. If not the blocksize, it would be about something else.

 

[Matthew Light]

Ethereum isn't yet even close to the size of Bitcoin. How are you so sure then when it reaches the same level of scale it won't be hit with the exact same types of civils wars and infighting bitcoin has? This is only happening precisely because it is so big and valuable. If not the blocksize, it would be about something else.

VB has, so far, been very interested in improving and scaling Ethereum. The remaining Bitcoin Core developers don't seem to have the same caliber of vision. And Ethereum seems to have a lot fewer paranoid and antisocial personalities involved holding vast quantities of ETH.

In any event, I am quite sure the Ledger is the future of money and many other things. Which ledger will it be? I don't know, and I'll spread my bets. But for now I've got my largest bet on Ethereum. That could change, but based on what I see today that's where I'm putting most of my crypto chips.

I should also emphasize that I started buying ETH below $2 and my cost basis is around $2.25 with only one small purchase made over $3.

 

[IMALLIN]

Having a project or company for that mater depend one developer is pretty fragile if you ask me.

 

[Bagatell]

I'm also diversifying. The only coin in the top three I don't have is Ripple. Does anyone have an elevator pitch for it? I know nothing about it other than Theymos thought it was a good idea back in 2012.