Ethereum Foundation Blog

Special thanks to Vlad Zamfir and Zack Hess for ongoing research and discussions on proof-of-stake algorithms and their own input into Slasher-like proposals One of the hardest problems in cryptocurrency development is that of devising effective consensus algorithms. Certainly, relatively passable default options exist. At the very least it is possible to rely on a Bitcoin-like proof of work algorithm based on either a randomly-generated circuit approach targeted for specialized-hardware resitance, or failing that simple SHA3, and our existing GHOST... [Read More]

Over the next few weeks, I am going to make a series of posts that is going to be a large overview of the possibilities for scalability of Ethereum, intending to create a precise understanding of the problems at bay in implementing a scalable cryptocurrency infrastructure, and where the least-bad tradeoffs and sacrifices required to solve those problems might lie. As a general outline of the form that this series is going to take, I intend to first discuss the... [Read More]

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Alan Kay</blockquote> January 3rd 2009 marked the beginning of a new era. The invention of the blockchain is a milestone in technology – the string of characters 36PrZ1KHYMpqSyAQXSG8VwbUiq2EogxLo2 being just one of the side effects triggered by it. Thanks to you and this technology, more than thirty one thousand bitcoins will go towards spawning an entire new digital realm. The unfettered peer to peer world wide digital finance grid is... [Read More]

One of the key properties that is usually sought for in a cryptoeconomic algorithm, whether a blockchain consensus algorithm such a proof of work or proof of stake, a reputation system or a trading process for something like data transmission or file storage, is the ideal of incentive-compatibility - the idea that it should be in everyone’s economic interest to honestly follow the protocol. The key underlying assumption in this goal is the idea that people (or more precisely in... [Read More]

Development of Ethereum has been progressing increasingly quickly this past month. The release of PoC5 (“proof of concept five”) last month the day before the sale marked an important event for the project, as for the first time we had two clients, one written in C++ and one in Go, perfectly interoperating with each other and processing the same blockchain. Two weeks later, the Python client was also added to the list, and now a Java version is also almost... [Read More]

One of the more interesting long-term practical benefits of the technology and concept behind decentralized autonomous organizations is that DAOs allow us to very quickly prototype and experiment with an aspect of our social interactions that is so far arguably falling behind our rapid advancements in information and social technology elsewhere: organizational governance. Although our modern communications technology is drastically augmenting individuals’ naturally limited ability to both interact and gather and process information, the governance processes we have today are... [Read More]

how ethereum could shard the web Given the state of our 25-year old web and all the problems inherited from legacy 1970’s systems design, we should pause and take inventory of those components which are fundamentally broken and would offer a substantial return on development investment. Intersecting this concern with security, privacy, and censorship resistance, it should be painfully obvious that an all-out attack on Internet infrastructure is already underway. As netizens, a shared duty falls on us to explore,... [Read More]

One of the more exciting applications of decentralized computing that have aroused a considerable amount of interest in the past year is the concept of an incentivized decentralized online file storage system. Currently, if you want your files or data securely backed up “in the cloud”, you have three choices - (1) upload them to your own servers, (2) use a centralized service like Google Drive or Dropbox or (3) use an existing decentralized file system like Freenet. These approaches... [Read More]

Now that the first two weeks of the ether sale are over, and over 50 million ETH has been sold, we intend to soon make a transaction to begin using the funds to repay loans and kickstart the process of setting up our development hubs and expanding our staff. We have made a commitment to be highly transparent about how we spend the funds, and that is a commitment that we intend to live up to; to that end, we... [Read More]

The first two weeks of the ether sale are over, and we have to date received over 25000 BTC from selling over 50 million ETH. This marks the largest cryptographic token sale to date, and with the two endowments places ETH as being the token with the 8th highest total value, even beating out the beloved Dogecoin at $17.3M USD vs $15.5M. A total of 6670 transactions have been made, with values ranging from the minimum 0.01 BTC to a... [Read More]