Ethereum Cloud Mining for Dummies | Hacker News Reader

Ethereum Cloud Mining for Dummies

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35 pointscdvonstinkpot51 comments

Vitalik Buterin and others have been very clear that Ethereum may fail completely and that it's an experiment. Others (https://twitter.com/NickSzabo4/status/495300992049479680) widely acknowledge that Ethereum is the most technically ambitious cryptocurrency since Bitcoin; it's not in the same category of coins which changed a parameter and created a new coin.

I'm the organizer of the Silicon Valley Ethereum meetup; I've offered a chance to Greg Maxwell, and Austin Hill the chance to talk to us and give a coherent critique of Ethereum; they did not take me up on the offer (We had Matthieu Riou give a brief critique of Ethereum at our meetup; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwPulJKP1_Y). I'd be very happy for a coherent and respectful critique of Ethereum from one of you at one of our meetups; you're welcome to contact me; see http://www.meetup.com/EthereumSiliconValley/

Skepticism of individual cryptocurrencies is advisable as is skepticism of their critics. A lot of the vitriol and guttersniping is the product of rivalry between them, bitterness over the fall in value for many of them, and an almost religious division of opinion on the merits of sidechains versus separate currencies. At the moment the Wikipedia page for ethereum has no criticism section, as most controversial subjects do.

All currencies are religions.

> At the moment the Wikipedia page for ethereum has no criticism section, as most controversial subjects do.

At the moment the Wikipedia page reads like an advertisement.

This is as much of a scam as any product ever sold. The creators sell you a product that will make them money. You know that you are paying more than its cost because you want it. Am I describing ethereum or a toothbrush?

The point is: even if they get stupid rich because of the block premined for the presale doesn't make the system better or worse.

Nobody buys toothbrushes on the basis that the toothbrush market will go to the moon. This is, however, the standard selling point for cryptocurrencies. As is claiming the selling point is something other than a claim it will go to the moon.

facepalm

Bitcoin fundamentalism doesn't really change what we've shipped, and as you see products coming out based on our technology over the next few weeks, these questions will be settled, cold, hard and clear.

Enough.

(I should note that I'm the release coordinator for Ethereum)

I look forward to you explaining this one:

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115034/ethereum-launches-but-l...

If you look at how the money actually flowed, it went from the suckers to the premining pumpers who dumped it, and the devs will be paid another seven months before leaving the bagholders high and dry.

Note the irrelevance of the promised smart contract/distributed botnet functionality - which, as that post notes, at present rates won't be working properly for years - to the actual, observed flow of cash.

This is a repeat of Paycoin and Stellar. Totally standard premined altcoin pump and dump.

Bonus scam: Ethereum introduces the first ever verified pyramid scheme!

http://pastebin.com/AGDsJL6j

A lot of claims about this being a scam. As someone who have had same idea as Ethereum and not to scam people, can someone explain to me what makes it a scam.

Premining,

Satoshi releases Bitcoin quietly to the world and doesnt ask for a red cent in advance from anyone despite creating one of the most important/innovative technologies of the last decade, and then disappears with his mined coins remaining for years unused and presumed lost.

Ethereum guys sell Ether(s) in advance (why for bitcoin of course) promising the moon and the stars in the form of a cryptocurrency + scripting

They put the horse before the cart IMHO, imagine if all those years ago Linus asked everyone to give him 18 and half million to develop Linux, would it be where it is now?

Thats like saying the dotcom bubble was a scam isn't it? You can certainly phrase it like that but is that really whats going on. An actual scam?

Many dotcoms were very scammy.

A few were but most were just naive. Point is that calling Etherum a scam seem based on claiming to know the intentions of the creator, rather than an actual description of what Etherum is.

So I take it you're against crowdfunding in general?

Your story might have substance if you had any evidence that it were the truth. But we don't know Bitcoin's origin story yet.

Also, your criticism is only of fundraising politics (which not everyone need agree with you on), not the product. There are many ways to fund great software, and even if you don't like it, crowdsales are one.

Real criticism is welcome, if you have any.

Because it's not Bitcoin. As far as I can tell, this is the number one piece of evidence that a cryptocurrency is a scam. I've been following Ethereum almost entirely because I'm a developer and I'm interested in using the technology for projects, and I can tell you the atmosphere is maddening. I'm accustom to welcoming communities that care about the tech, not cynical communities that care about pushing their particular interests because they have investments. The cryptocurrency space is awful and polluted with unhelpful attitudes but the tech is too important to be pushed aside for that reason.

Ignore the FUD, Ethereum is not a scam. It's actual open source software with multiple popular implementations successfully delivered from a toxic environment with an impressive level of care toward getting the technical aspects right while being as transparent as possible. It's not perfect, about as perfect as any startup I've watched. Don't dump money into anything you don't understand.

EDIT- just as an illustration, I think it's interesting to use the Bitcoin Talk forum search tool. There are 464,000 results for "scam" and 484,000 results for "currency". Spend 5 seconds on the forum to find the word used like it's the coolest slang around. Everything is a scam, because evidence.

Thats also my experience.

What I see is Bitcoin fans pointing out the glaring problems in every altcoin, but not admitting that every single one of those problems applies to Bitcoin as well.

Because Bitcoin is immutable and blockchains are a codification of the network effect. Altcoins are themselves competing chains, and thus compete with the main chain. Because the 'first mover' is Bitcoin, then the incentive for any miner is to join that chain. The problems in other altcoins are particularly important because their miners always sell that altcoin to the greater fool... in exchange for bitcoin.

Altcoins are (amazingly) even worse, but that doesn't make the Bitcoinsphere good. It still has no actual use case beyond illegal drugs, and is riddled with scammers and criminals at every level.

I detailed the problems as I saw them as of January here: http://reddragdiva.dreamwidth.org/594396.html Things really haven't improved in any regard.

Agreed. The black market is the smallest sector of the world's economy. If the best Bitcoin can do is service that market, its safe to say the Bitcoin is a massive failure.

Never before has a truer truth been spake.

Agree. I'm assuming it's because dealing with technical difficulties meets reasonable expectations when diving into a black market. As the pieces come together and the experience improves, it'll fade I hope.

The Ethereum scam is detailed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3g5sk8/anyone_pay...

tl;dr it's a pretty standard premined altcoin scam. All the "smart contract" babble is a cover for the premined altcoin scam.