Ask HN: Is Ethereum the next Bitcoin?
It's surging right now but seems to be heavily underreported. They're pretty similar, though, right? Why is it climbing at all?
Similar? Yes.
Ethereum is different because it is built to be a platform first and foremost. This platform is for allowing other individuals and organizations to build new blockchain technology without having to engineer their own blockchain.
Imagine if every crypto company had their own blockchain, adoption of crypto would be unlikely.
So, Ethereum allows you to create 'smart contracts' which you can think of as microservices (yeah, code) that exist forever on the blockchain, maintaining application state on a decentralized and infinitely expanding database i.e. the blockchain.
Industries will be disrupted by the new concept (web3) of the decentralized app or DAPP. This concept effectively removes middlemen from various processes (middlemen charge fees and own your data in a centralized way).
So think:
- No more centralized trading exchanges with fees.
- No more Google owning your digital identity data.
- No more AWS running your computing infrastructure in a proprietary, closed manner.
- Direct licencing for artists and musicians.
- Impossible to censor, decentralized news.
The list goes on.
Why is Ethereum different? It aims to make it EASY for others to create ontop of a blockchain.
A few interesting projects:
Golem - Decentralized cloud computing
Uport - Self-Sovereign digital identities
Augur - Prediction market platform
OH and don't forget about the popularization of a new (to me) investment model called the ICO, or "Initial Coin Offering" there are DAPP companies rasing millions of dollars in immediate funding in a matter of days right now.
See Gnosis.
Hope this helps you understand.
Edit: Missed letter (on phone), Formatting
A beautiful feature of this market is that most of these projects have whitepapers!
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper
https://golem.network/doc/Golemwhitepaper.pdf
https://whitepaper.uport.me/uPort_whitepaper_DRAFT20170221.p...
https://bravenewcoin.com/assets/Whitepapers/Augur-A-Decentra...
https://gnosis.pm/resources/default/pdf/gnosis_whitepaper.pd...
It's important for everyone to realize that as some of the more technical people in the world, we are uniquely positioned to be able to judge the value of these projects by understanding of the technological implications they introduce.
I.E. We know the value of platforms, well, some of these projects are positioning themselves to be core platforms in an ecosystem where entire industries will be built with software. Any project that makes it easier to build this software is worth looking into and reading their whitepaper.
That's all from me. It's really exciting!
Until, as we saw with The DAO, the whales are in danger of losing money.