- You may well be thinking: “Oh come on. Bitcoin was more than abstruse and geeky enough. Now this new made-up-magical-money thing is even more complicated? Why should I care?”
You should care because decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are–or at least could be–essentially an Internet for money, securities, and other contractual transactions. Like the Internet, they are permissionless networks that anyone can join and use. Ethereum optimists might analogize Bitcoin as the FTP of this transactional Internet, with Ethereum as its World Wide Web.
I’ve waxed about why I think Bitcoin matters. I’m a little less enthusiastic about Ethereum … so far. To be clear: as I’ve written before, Ethereum is really cool, truly innovative, and potentially revolutionary. However, it is now–probably–at the peak of its initial hype cycle.
You know what's even cooler than being excited about Ethereum? Being excited about Ethereum but then writing about how people are too excited about Ethereum.
can someone help me be a cool adult and walk me through how I can get an etherium wallet on my mac? I tried once and failed miserably.
Although I won't be surprised if ETH pulls back post DAO sale (5 days from now), IMO this is not peak first hype. IMO peak first hype is going to be over $50. Bitcoin has their halving event coming in July, and they remain at their transaction ceiling. If BTC does not rally soon after the halving (and I don't think it will), then shoop!, it's going into ETH. When bitcoin went nuts in 2013, it reached a marketcap of $14B. That would put ETH at $175. At that time, the number of people that were in the cryptocurrency universe was much smaller, and the number of on-ramps were far fewer.
At the same time, the success of The DAO is going to lead to a whole lot of new DAOs. Coinbase didn't change their exchange's name to Global Digital Asset Exchange to trade DOGE and LTC. They are going to trade DAO tokens. Someone somewhere is creating 'insta-DAO software' atm.
Shit is going to be messy, and it is going to be crazy, but you are going to need ETH to play.
My nervousness over daohub is that it's the black triangle of an RGB venn of "kickstarter tastemaking" "hedge fund exuberance" and "cybercurrency goldbugging" that could lead to some seriously ugly shit. Could, not will.
Uber is illegal but also a fact of life. The regulatory objections to DAOs are not going to stop them. I think you're right - it's going to be messy and it's going to be crazy and I'll probably regret not having more to play with but as far as uncharted territory goes, DAOs are pretty much On Beyond Zebra.
Agreed - we will see another dip before we see $20.
(my prediction, don't blame me if it doesn't happen. The crypto markets are fucking fickle as fuck)
just buy some ETH. i figure if I get ten bucks worth or so it'll be fun to see what it does.
Oh, then use Kraken or Gemini. No need to set up a Mist wallet.
Here's another option: donate $10 to Hubski, then go to https://myetherwallet.com make a wallet and send me the public address. I'll send you the ETH. :)