Ethereum

Ethereum is a new crypto-currency that has been under development for the last couple of years lead by Vitalik Buterin. Ethereum is not just another "alt coin" though, it really is the next generation of this paradigm, taking it out of the basic currency role by offering full-scale general purpose distributed application development and testing framework. Ethereum does still have an associated currency aspect called "Ether" (ETH) which performs the important role of "fuel" in the Ethereum network. Distributed applications in the Ethereum network require payments in the form of Ether to fuel every computational step and storage operation on the system.

Bitcoin and Litecoin are often thought of as the gold and silver of the crypto-currencies. To continue with that analogy, Ethereum could be considered as the "oil" of crypto-currency since it plays the role of fuel which can be used for any generic application. Another interesting and important aspect is that Ethereum could help to pave the way towards how a real-world resource-based economy might be implemented, which seems to be the only viable way to transcend the economic bottom-line problem.

Ether

Ethereum has an associated currency aspect called "Ether" (ETH) which performs the important role of "fuel" in the Ethereum network. Distributed applications in the Ethereum network require payments in the form of Ether to fuel every computational step and storage operation on the system.

Bitcoin and Litecoin are often thought of as the gold and silver of the crypto-currencies. To continue with that analogy, Ethereum could be considered as the "oil" of crypto-currency since it plays the role of fuel which can be used for any generic application. Another interesting and important aspect is that Ethereum could help to pave the way towards how a real-world resource-based economy might be implemented, which seems to be the only viable way to transcend the economic bottom-line problem.

On 23 July 2014 the "Genesis Sale" began which will last for 42 days and allows Ether to be pre-purchased with Bitcoin in the form of cold-storage wallet that can be converted to Ether after the network is established in late 2014 or early 2015.

Ether will be mined and probably use a hybrid proof-of-work/proof-of-stake system that should have a very quick block time of around 12 seconds and use Turing-completeness to make FPGA/ASIC hardware infeasible for mining. Ether will not be issued at more than 26% per annum of the initial genesis sale total. For more detail about the reasons for these parameters and their expected future evolution, see The Issuance Model in Ethereum.

Ethereum projects relating to the Organic Design vision

• Project Ðouglas
• The World Game
• Ideologi: The Universal Collaboration Engine
• BitCongress
• BitVote
• Universal Basic Income
• All Ethereum projects...

Ethereum news

• 2014-08-05: Ether pre-sales over 20,000BTC today!
• 2014-08-02: Ether pre-sales reached 10,000BTC today!

Ethereum links

• Home page
• General discussion
• Ethereum Launches ‘Cryptocurrency 2.0’ Network
• Web 3.0 – A Chat With Ethereum’s Gavin Wood
• Ethereum white paper
• Etherium yellow paper
• Interesting thread about economy with good links
• Ethereum Scalability and Decentralization Updates
• Understanding the Ethereum Trie
• Secret Sharing and Erasure Coding: A Guide for the Aspiring Dropbox Decentralizer

See also

• Bitcoin
• Money
• Peer-to-peer
• Big Q&A on redit covering all sorts of topics about Ethereum