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Comment by SilasX | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't seem to do it for me. The multiple explanations it offers are all either:

1) Extremely vague and handwavy, or

2) Links to extremely long documents.

Neither one is an explanation, something that hits the key points and gives you enough to know what to ask to get greater detail.

Edit: toned down criticism.

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Be my guest: http://github.com/Breefield/whatthefuckisethereum It's supposed to be a combination of layman information, reference material, and humor, I agree some of the content was rushed.

As soon as I understand ethereum, I will!

Shoot! Explainer site missed the target. I wrote the "average person" page to be quite high level. Unfortunately the "nerdy" page became a little too nerdy.

I should work on an "I'm a software developer who wants an intermediate technical understanding" or something like this.

I'm still learning what the fuck ethereum is, but it seems like it could have some revolutionary implications for the political process, am I right? Maybe add an "Explain it like I'm a nerdy politician" (and also an "Explain it like I'm a nanny-state politician" for the politicians more interested in regulating it and protecting the children, than leveraging it)

Me and all my coworkers are in this boat and would greatly appreciate a "I'm a software developer who wants an intermediate technical understanding" page!

This is the exact option I was looking for. I've dabbled a tiny bit in bitcoin but that's about it. An explanation about Ethereum that assumes I know some basic computer science stuff would be perfect :)

GitHub issue created [1]. I encourage everyone to add to it.

Thanks for the resource!

[1] https://github.com/Breefield/whatthefuckisethereum/issues/7

Something that would be helpful is "How is it different than X?", such as bitcoins or whatnot.

This is what i was trying to find! Would be very nice to have one :)

Unfortunately it's simply not something that can be explained easily and clearly. Imagine trying to explain the Internet to someone who has never seen a computer.

This is actually a sign that something innovative is happening, because it can't be explained in terms of something that already exists.

I hear that on every topic and have never found it justified. A high level explanation can illustrate the general structure of what you're explaining and then you can paint in details as necessary. It's always possible to find an "in between".

When I wrote understandingbitcoin.us, I explained it as a global ledger with mutiple versions floating around where everyone agrees to trust the version (out of the valid ones) with the most proven work invested in it. That provides the overall structure and allows me to dive into:

- How you sign transactions (public key crypto basics)

- How you know how much work has been invested in something (the guessing game and the crypto version with hashes and nonces)

- Why people invest work in it all (mining and transaction fees).

- Why people agree to follow these rules at all (dynamics that encourage people to follow vs reject a protocol and what effects that has for the network)

(I would like to see something similar for ethereum.)

If I were explaining the internet to someone in your example, I would explain what functions computers can perform, then introduce the concept of them communicating with each other and what that allows, and the flesh out the details of how the communication happens in a distributed way.

(The linked page also doesn't provide that kind of explanation.)

This is probably the best relatively quick explanation: https://youtu.be/66SaEDzlmP4

For me, a "relatively quick explanation" is one that I can read in five minutes, skipping around easily if I already understand part of it, and which points me to the appropriate concepts that I can research for deeper understanding.

Not one where I have to watch a 3 minute ad and a 23 minute video of someone reading off slides.

All of that is the same on Ethereum. But where Bitcoin has a table with "userid,balance" and a stored procedure that lets you move some of your balance to any other user, on Ethereum you have developer rights. Aside from the core ledger, you can make your own tables, and your own stored procedures that anyone else can use.

This isn't a precise analogy for various reasons. Bitcoin has the UTXO model (though Ethereum actually does have userid/balance), and Ethereum is more like an object database than SQL.

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