Posted on 03/19/2015 11:50:14 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ethereum, the brainchild of wunderkind software developer Vitalik Buterin, who was just 19 when he came up with the idea, is the most buzzed-about project right now in the cryptocurrency community. It has attracted an all-star team of computer scientists and raised $18.4 million in a crowdfunding campaign—the third most successful of all time. And now, according to the official Ethereum blog, it's on the verge of being rolled out to the public.
Ethereum's developers use a rolling ticker tape of bold tag lines to describe what they're creating, including a “Social Operating System for Planet Earth,” and “the Upcoming Decentralization Singularity.”
So what is it?
Ethereum is a programming language the lives on top of a "blockchain"—a concept invented six years ago with the launch of Bitcoin. A blockchain is essentially a database that's jointly maintained on the personal hard drives of its users—sort of like a shared Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. But transactions recorded to a blockchain are time stamped, fully transparent, and protected from tampering by hackers and thieves through an ingenious system that utilizes cryptography and community consensus. Blockchains make it possible, for the first time in history, to participate in a complex marketplace without the need for a mediating third party. The blockchain is what allowed Bitcoin to become the first form of virtual money that can be exchanged without a bank serving as an intermediary. (Read Ron Bailey's recent piece on the blockchain's transformative potential.)
Ethereum is an effort to apply the blockchain to a broad range of uses, though it's not the first such attempt. Projects like Counterparty and Colored Coins have come up with clever methods of tailoring Bitcoin to facilitiate projects like a blockchain-based stock market. But Bitcoin's blockchain was designed to handle the exchange of money....
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Let’s just put government on computers and shut down the marble and mortars.
Bitcoin has had security problems.
I expect this one to have its own as well.
Didn’t Bitcoin already collapse over some massive ponzi scheme that was going on?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Criminal_activity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Security
That’s basically what etherium does. This is much more of a story for third world countries where the registry aspects of government are hopelessly corrupt. It provides an alternative. It would also be a lot cheaper.
Careful what you wish for.
High-technology witch hunts and hero worship: there’s yer Brave New World.
“... “the Upcoming Decentralization Singularity”..”
Decentralization means diffused.
Singularity means a focal point.
The two are opposites.
So then, what -is- this new scheme, in reality?
“Singularity” in si-fi and other ‘future think’ is used as a term to describe a point in time when things change drastically. It is when something so pivotal happens that society is so changed as to be hard to recognize after that point.
Ether?
OK, then, using that definition, would this singularity then get rid of overbearing, over regulating, over taxing, corrupt governments and despots of every stripe?
So do banks, ATMs, credit cards, debit cards, walking down the street with a couple of twenties in your pocket...
http://nypost.com/2015/03/19/evo-admins-make-off-with-12m-in-bitcoins-after-closing-site/
‘Evo’ admins make off with $12M in bitcoins after closing site
Drug dealers and their clients alike are seething after Evolution, an eBay-like exchange for illicit goods, abruptly closed this week, taking more than $12 million in customers’ bitcoin with it...
Details are sketchy, but a moderator for the so-called Dark Web trading hub with the user name “NSWGreat” said it appeared to be an “exit scam” perpetrated by Evolution’s own two administrators, individuals who go by the aliases Verto and Kimble.
News of the heist sent bitcoin prices tumbling more than 10 percent Wednesday, trading as low as $248.41 as worries mounted about the virtual currency’s vulnerability to hackers and criminals. Since Monday, bitcoin prices have tumbled 12.1 percent to $255.30 at Wednesday’s close.
The primary use for cryptocurrencies is to nullify laws against what you may be transacting. Computer government is freer. It legalizes everything but physical confrontations.
Yeah, but the point is it doesn’t solve themsecurity problems. I think some people will believe from this article no security issues will exist with it.
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