ethereum

Three months ago I posted to encourage people involved in Smalltalk to also become involved in the emerging crypto-currency industry. There was interest in knowing which direction to go. We are still early enough in the first wave anything you do will still give a great ride, however, the ambitious should go for the crypto-equities wave that is coming.

Liberation of currency was only a start. The technology that I'm most excited about now is Ethereum (http://www.ethereum.org/). Bitcoin implements op-codes that allow for some script, but Ethereum has sixty that are unlocked from the start. Etherium is more than a solution to specific problems, it is a programming language for building solutions. The op-codes allow you to design new forms of contracts on a decentralized blockchain ledger in which everyone can participate. Every form of contract you are familiar with will soon be done with this technology. You can design the contracts. You can develop infrastructure around helping others to design contracts.

Smalltalk could wrap this technology very well. Smalltalk should be used as a simple interface to all of these op-codes. Smalltalk should be the simple interface for building rich contracts using many op-code combinations. It doesn't have to be Smalltalk, but why would anyone select a more complicated language when given a choice? Smalltalk would make an excellent Etherium IDE. It would appeal to people that wish to invent new contract products without having to bother with the syntax hassles of other languages. This wouldn't be done because Smalltalk needs it, but because it is the most enjoyable work you'd ever be part of.

The slaves are waking to envision a life without restraints and are just now starting to notice the weight of their bindings. It is in your interest to not come late to the crypto-currency revolution as it unleashes a new world of opportunity and freedom. It is an unfamiliar new frontier in which the impositions of others must learn to yield to respect of individuals. It is nice that the greatest risk of involvement today is understanding that you'll likely be more excited about what will come tomorrow.

In Liberty,

Paul Baumann

>> I know a lot about Bitcoin and a little about Ethereum.

>> As such Ethereum is not a general framework but merely a different Bitcoin.

Ethereum is a general framework that is decidedly less than a complete solution (like Bitcoin) and yet capable of being extended to do more than most other alt-coins. Here is useful discussion (http://letstalkbitcoin.com/e80-beyond-bitcoin-uncut/) from the Miami conference.

>> Ethereum is a project that has been initiated by Bitcoin luminaries who are not technologists, as such it is structured somewhat like a project driven by venture capital and the investors already found it necessary to make a couple of technical decisions.

It is wrong to dismiss participants as non-technical. There is underlying competitive tension to inspire success. There is more tension (between Dan and Charles) than the audio link implies.  I've been around these people enough to know what drives them, and money is not primary even with the VC investors.

3I sold BitShares on a dream of what could be and now has more money than they can spend. Ethereum was a little slower out of the gate and it is hard to disprove your claim that the technology appeares rushed. Both are incomplete and will have more funding than they need. Ethereum is more interesting to me. If you can do better then please do. VC funding is plentiful if you need it.

>> From where I stand the liberation aspect seems to be at its apex, regulators are slowly stepping in and my prediction is that they will actually influence the design of bitcoin the coming year or two, clawing back influence from the anarchistic/libertarian crowd.

Nothing is big enough to create a shadow from this light. You'll learn there is little concern and you are overstating the ability to wield influence. Fear and coercion are no longer effective tools. This is a volunaritst crowd. Some will comply, most will see no need; it still won't save the empire.

>> This happened to me regarding the spying brouhaha, and now that people are telling me that I was right that does not undo my tinfoil hat stigma

I don't know anything you spoke of regarding government snooping, but I doubt I would have labeled it "tinfoil hat". People that didn't know the government was snooping were blissfully ignorant. What the public finally came to acknowledge is small. People now accept the snooping without resistance because they have no alternative, and that is the same reason why they first ignored it.

It is more by design than ignorance that existing systems will collapse. What crypto-currencies change is the outcome from that collapse. It is no longer guaranteed that there will be global governance under a single currency that is inflated to the gain of the bloodlines that built and then collapsed the debt-based system. People may not care to cull the herd (as influenced) now that there is greater incentive to just withdraw support instead. If anyone sees that as "tinfoil hat" then they are blissfully ignorant of the situation, and their choice is not my interest.

>> try to fly under the radar. We could consider to step away from the established crypto-currency idioms of money being handled by humans,

Sure, call it however it seems acceptable. By any words these are a means to respect rights and property. The parasites of aren't confused by different words, but it influences their response (if you care). I'd rather not talk around the problem though.

>> end-users of crypto-currencies might be better served with DSM tools along the lines of MetaCase. I.e. having a (graphical?) contract description meta language for creating bespoke contract languages.

Yes, a graphical representation was what I had in mind too. We probably all know how there was a limit to what was useful to draw with VisualAge. At some point you drop back to code, so it would be nice if the code were simple Smalltalk syntax rather than something like Python. It seems every new technology needs to reach the masses first though pictures.

Regards,

Paul Baumann