I'm kind of a backward luddite, and not at all easily excitable about these kinds of things. I think that bitcoin is doomed to failure, for example. However, even though I'm not super well versed in ethereum, I'm pretty excited about it. Eventually, the payments system--which is one of the only good things that banks do for you and I--is going to be updated. It is outdated, slow, bloated, expensive, and inefficient. There seems to be a concensus forming that block chain technology is what is going to replace it (e.g. here is one example among many). Among the current contenders, ethereum appears to be the best positioned to do so (according to the experts, of which I am decidedly not one--not even sure I'd be considered a layman at this point). Banks are busy making their own block chains, but they need a public one to talk bank to bank, and that's where eth might be useful. One grand advantage it has is that it doesn't have the currency cult that btc does, which may be btc's undoing. Crypto "currency" will never be a real currency, because currencies are what they are due to their statutory position as the government's guarantor of debts. But cryptos can be a great way to settle payments and move money quickly and cheaply, which is something we could all benefit from. It is possible that something even better will come along before eth is widely adopted, then it could become obsolete as well. However, if that doesn't happen within the next year or two, I think it will have secured its place as a valuable tool. Once one of these protocols is accepted by the major banks, it is going to be a very valuable tool by which our day-to-day lives operate (even if it remains unseen to the average consumer).