Comments Merged Clean up untested methods Open Metropolis changes Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub.Already have an account?Sign in to comment You signed in with another tab or window.Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window.One week ago I’ve been contacted by the CryptoForecast team that offered me a free account with the goal of writing a review of their service.These are my thoughts about it.CryptoForecast is a web-based service which offers access to cryptocurrencies price forecasts (previsions of the future price) estimated by an algorithm called PILLAR.I said cryptocurrencies (plural) because the algorithm will potentially work with also currencies different from Bitcoin, even if at the moment Bitcoin is the only available.There are already other prediction services that uses neural networks and regression, while CryptoForecast uses an algorithmic prediction modeled by the experience of expert traders.

After logging into the service through the browser, the web dashboard appears.There are only few buttons which are able to offer all the functionalities of the PILLAR algorithm.The flow works as follow: Even if the web interface is still a work in progress, it is already easy-to-use and contains all the necessary tools.After familiarizing with the interface, I decided to try the forecast engine for few days comparing with the real value of Bitcoin in the forecasted period.I generated different charts, with different periods and time-frames.Results are quite impressive, even if it doesn’t estimate always the right price, it surely predict very well the price trends in normal conditions.I wrote normal condition because an algorithm can’t detect easily price crashes due to fork-fear or ETF rejections (these are only examples).For completeness, I asked the CF devs why the price doesn’t retarget with the real price, they said that the algorithm is still in WIP phase, and in the production version it will adjust.

The team developed the CryptoForecast service without initial funding.To raise funds for the development effort, marketing and general expenses, they will release a token called CFT (cryptoforecast token, an Omni token) throught an ICO.The ICO will start in few weeks (the precise date is not yet available).The CFT token will be the only way to pay for the CryptoForecast services.The team will distribute 50.000.000 total CFT during the ICO period, for further informations you can read the official ICO page.Regarding the price, the service will cost about 29.90$/month with discounts for 3 months (12%), 6 months (17%) and 1 year (25%).In conclusion, the service seems to work very well, it’s easy-to-use for everyone and it will be sold for a fair price.Its simplicity make it suitable for both professional and amateur traders.As mentioned before, the service is still work-in-progress, so we can expect many improvements to the algorithm and to the web interface in the public release. and our android app (AD free android app).

Many of you know that the Ethereum platform grew out of the realization that blockchains can go far beyond currency, together with a frustration with the limitations of previous projects.The core idea was simple: a blockchain with a built-in Turing-complete programming language, allowing users to build any kind of applications on top.bitcoin nswOver time, the vision evolved and expanded.bitcoin architect twitterThe blockchain remains a crucial centerpiece, but it is ultimately only part of a larger vision of “web 3.0” as described by Gavin Wood here: a more secure, trustworthy and globally accessible internet for agreements, finance, auditing, tracking and simple websites and web applications that use decentralized technology to overcome some of the practical, political and technological inefficiencies of previous approaches.bitcoin pazar alan?

Together with the Ethereum blockchain, we see an entire suite of internally and externally developed, low-level and high-level protocols including Solidity, Whisper, IPFS, zero knowledge proof systems, account management systems, dedicated browsers and much more, all with the goal of providing a coherent vision of the internet as it should be.ethereum national bank of canadaWith such an ambitious vision, come some challenges.bitcoin dice forumRight now, the Ethereum project is in a time of complicated transition.bitcoin money glitchMany of the difficult initial work – myself, Gavin, Jeff, Martin, Lefteris, Felix, Vlad and many others developing four compatible versions of a project that our security auditors have described as having “testing needs … more complex than anything [they’ve] looked at before”, Christoph and Dmitry’s tireless efforts setting up over ten thousand tests, Marian, Taylor and Konstantin’s work on network analysis and emergency response architecture, Christian, Liana and Gavin’s work on getting Solidity off the ground, IMAPP’s work on the JIT EVM, and the many other projects of contributors to the Ethereum platform  of which there are too many to mention, all culminating with the successful launch of a blockchain with over $50 million worth of value floating around on it starting from day one, are now behind us.

Ethereum now actually exists, and those who were lucky enough to take up Mircea Popescu’s offer to buy ETH from him that he doesn’t have at a price of $0.12 a piece are welcome to try their best to collect.Today, we can all be proud that the Ethereum developer ecosystem has grown large enough to include major banks, corporations, governments, over a hundred dapps and individuals and businesses in dozens of countries speaking dozens of languages.At the same time, however, there are some difficult challenges that remain: some technical, some organizational, and some of almost every kind.The core of the problem is simple.Up until fairly recently, almost all of the work that has been done on the Ethereum project has been done by subsidiaries of the foundation.In the future, however, although the foundation and its subsidiaries are going to continue to take on a strong and leading role, it will be the community that will gradually be the primary driver in making it succeed.This is true for several reasons, some unplanned and some positive.

First of all, it is indeed true that the foundation’s finances are limited, and a large part of this was the result of our failure to sell nearly as much of our BTC holdings as we were planning to before the price dropped to $220; as a result, we suffered roughly $9m in lost potential capital , and a hiring schedule that was meant to last over three years ended up lasting a little under two (although bolstered by a “second wind” from our ETH holdings).Second, the project’s needs have grown.Over the past twenty months, the project has grown from being a simple attempt to improve on Mastercoin by adding a programming language into an effort to push forward a powerful and expansive vision of “web 3.0” that includes multiple technologies, some built by ourselves and some by others, and a complex software stack that integrates them all with one simple aim: to make it as easy to build secure, globally accessible and trust-minimized decentralized applications as it is to build a website – and hopefully even easier.

The foundation and its subsidiaries alone simply do not have the manpower to push the entirety of this vision through to its ultimate completion, including proof-of-stake driven scalable blockchains, seamlessly integrated distributed hash tables, programming languages with formal verification systems backed by state-of-the-art theorem provers and dozens of categories of middleware, all by itself; although the foundation and its subsidiaries can, and will, continue to be the primary driver of technology at the core, a highly community-driven model is necessary and essential, both to help the Ethereum ecosystem maximally grow and flourish and to establish Ethereum as a decentralized project which is ultimately owned by all of humanity, and not any one group.And fortunately, the community has already stepped up.Just to give a few examples, here are a few parts of the Ethereum ecosystem that the Ethereum Foundation and its subsidiaries  have had nothing to do with: Actually, the Ethereum ecosystem is maturing nicely, and looks unrecognizable from what it was barely a year ago.

On the inside, we have Ethereum Foundation subsidiary developers building yet more block explorers and other tools in their spare time, and some developers are already working on implementing Ethereum-based lightning networks, identity and reputation systems, and more.In the near future, there will be several more non-profit and for-profit entities emerging in and around the space, some with the involvement of Ethereum team members, and many with partial involvement from myself.The first of these to announce itself is the Wanxiang blockchain research institute and fund based in Shanghai (yes, this is the “major collaboration” I hinted on recently, and is also my much delayed answer to “how did your China trip go?”), which includes (i) an agreement to purchase 416K ETH, which has already concluded, (ii) an upcoming conference in October, (iii) a non-profit blockchain research institute, and (iv) a $50m blockchain venture-capital fund, all with emphasis on Ethereum development.I fully expect that within six months the Ethereum for-profit ecosystem may well be much more well-capitalized than the Foundation itself.

Note that a substantial number of Ethereum foundation subsidiary staff is going to be moving over to the rapidly growing for-profit Ethereum ecosystem over the next half year in order to bring more funds, interest and development effort into Ethereum-land; so far, everyone I have talked to who is leaving the foundation subsidiaries is intending to do this, and they will in many cases simply be continuing, and expanding, the same work that they have started on now either under foundation subsidiary employment or as personal side projects, under a different banner.Ming Chan, who has recently joined the foundation, will be managing the foundation’s administrative matters, helping to develop an updated and more detailed strategic plan, oversee DEVcon 1 setup, and generally make sure that things on the foundation side work smoothly throughout the many simultaneous transitions that are taking place; we have also expanded our advisory board, and the new advisors will be announced soon.Under these circumstances, we must thus ask, what is the Foundation going to do (and not do)?

Let us start off by providing an overview of the Foundation’s financial situation.Its current holdings are roughly: Plus a 490,000 CHF legal fund that will be reserved to cover possible legal defense (it’s like insurance).The foundation’s monthly expenditures are currently ~410,000 CHF and starting Oct 1 are projected to fall to 340,000 CHF; a mid-term goal has been placed of 200,000 – 250,000 CHF as a good target that allows us to deliver on our remaining, but important responsibilities.Assuming that we get there in three months and that ether and bitcoin prices stay the same (heh), we have enough to last until roughly Jun 2016 at the 340,000 rate, and perhaps up to Sep-Dec 2016 given planned transitions; by that point, the intent is for the foundation to secure alternative revenue sources.Possible revenue sources past that point include: Another action that may be taken is, when Ethereum switches to proof of stake, keeping 50% of the old issuance rate active for a year and directing the issuance into some kind of mechanism, perhaps a simple voting scheme or perhaps something more complex incorporating delegated voting, decision markets and potentially other revealed-preference tricks from game theory, in order to pay developers.

In any case, our original promise that the issuance rate will not exceed 26.00% per year, and the goal that the eventual final issuance will be much lower (likely 0-3% per year) with proof of stake, will both be kept.We highly welcome community input on whether and how to go down this path; if there is large opposition we will not do this, though the community should understand that NOT doing this comes with a risk of greater reliance on the for-profit ethereum ecosystem.Up until perhaps six months ago, the Foundation and its subsidiaries have been doing almost everything in the ecosystem; right now, the foundation and its subsidiaries are still doing much of everything though some community members have stepped up to compete with its own offerings – in some cases, in my own humble opinion, quite excellently.Going forward, the Foundation and its subsidiaries will aim for a more focused approach where it carries out only some of the work in the ecosystem, but does it well.An approximate outline of the Foundation’s activities can be described as follows: Higher-level development tasks will in the medium term be done largely by for-profit entities, volunteers and other members of the community, although the Foundation’s subsidiaries will continue to employ many of the developers in the short term.

The Ethereum Foundation would like to express a renewed interest in being maximally transparent in its affairs; to that end, we are publishing the information above, and as an initial trial in going further we are working with Consensys to use their (Ethereum) blockchain-based accounting software Balanc3 to record all expenses relating to Devcon 1.Another important aspect of transparency is more open and inclusive development; to that end, we are making a renewed push to move conversations from Skype to Gitter where they are more publicly visible (eg.you can check out this room right now) and members of the public can more easily participate.We are also evaluating the possibility of introducing a more formal and inclusive process for agreeing on protocol upgrades and welcome input from client developers on this.And there are more announcements both from ourselves and others that will be following soon.In sum, despite the evidence of growing pains, the state of the Ethereum nation is good, its ecosystem is vibrant, and its future is bright.