You may not realize it, but in the next few minutes you are going to learn how Ethereum could become bigger than Twitter, Facebook, Uber & Airbnb combined.They’re already being tested and have partnerships with some of the biggest and most innovative organisations in the world, including Microsoft.When it comes to returns on investment, Ether (the crypto-fuel that powers Ethereum) has produced an ROI upwards of 2,000% for crowdsale investors since the official launch on 30th July 2015.It’s a complete shock why mainstream media-outlets are not giving it more attention.In terms of business ethics; the developing team behind Ethereum are on a good track with transparency and ethical standards, they even post expenses by the Ethereum Foundation on Reddit.And the founders are not fictional characters, unlike Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym used by the creator of Bitcoin).Richtopians performed months of studies and background checks on Vitalik Buterin, the main founder of Ethereum, prior to meeting him in London – and it could certainly be stated that if he does not live and breathe Ether, he certainly comes close.

Vitalik’s team include experts with post-graduate degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a number of professors, Blockchain experts, and influencers in the field of cryptography.Here’s what Frances Coppola had to say in her Forbes article ‘Ethereum: Towards A New BitSociety‘: “Recent developments take us towards new forms of law, new types of democracy, even – perhaps – the redefinition of what we mean by a “nation”.It may sound extreme to say this, but some blockchain aficionados are even talking about complete reordering of society.” Banking the unbanked to put them into the world economy It could unintentionally be used to support scams or dark-markets similar to Mt.bitcoin stampaGox or Silk Road respectively, gaining a bad reputation like Bitcoin Ethereum is the first Blockchain platform with physical implementations outside of finance, such as Slock.it Think of the future application of Slock.it like Uber or the London Cycle Hire Scheme on a mass-scale viable within any business model including hotel rooms on autopilot where people pay for minutes and not days, internet cafe’s, physical assets like 3D printers, cars, and boats on autopilot.bitcoin hard drive in trash

This is what former UK Prime Minister David Cameron said about the Blockchain … Also See: Marc Andreessen to Vitalik Buterin, These Are the Most Influential People in the Blockchain IndustryBlockchain Startup Axoni Raises $18 Million in Series A Funding Bitcoin OpinionNews Elon Musk, Appointed to Trump’s Team of Advisories, Thinks Bitcoin Is a “Good Thing” Justin OConnell Advertisement: Elon Musk, head of Tesla and SpaceX, joined President-elect Donald Trump’s team of Advisories, as did Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.bitcoin private key leakMusk has made jaw-dropping comments on Bitcoin in the past.bitcoin poker botIn an interview available on YouTube, Mr.bitcoin pool germanyMusk, who has been appointed to Trump’s , describes his feelings on Bitcoin.bitcoin hl

“I think Bitcoin is probably a good thing.I think it’s primarily going to be a means of doing illegal transactions…But that’s not necessarily entirely bad.You know, some things maybe shouldn’t be illegal,” Mr.Musk, who said he did not own Bitcoin at the time, elaborates.He said: “It will be useful for legal and illegal transactions.Otherwise, it would have no value as a use for illegal transactions.Because you have to have a legal to illegal bridge.” Mr.Musk is not the only person sympathetic to Bitcoin close to Trump’s ear.As well, billionaire technologist Peter Thiel, whose Founder’s Fun has made millions of investments into Bitcoin startups like BitPay, is on Trump’s transition team and organized a meeting last week among U.S tech CEO’s.Musk was there, joining Trump on Wednesday in New York with CEOs from Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Amazon and others.According to reports, the executives discussed the repatriation of American profits still held overseas, as well as US cybersecurity and infrastructure.

“America has the most innovative and vibrant companies in the world, and the pioneering CEOs joining this forum today are at the top of their fields,” Trump said in a .“My administration is going to work together with the private sector to improve the business climate and make it attractive for firms to create new jobs across the United States from Silicon Valley to the heartland.” Mr.Musk expressed doubts about a Trump presidency, but this did not get in the way of the two working together.Featured image from Flickr/Heisenberg Media.In the beginning the Prophet Satoshi brought us Bitcoin.And the cryptogeeks and libertarians looked upon it, and said lo, we smile upon this, for it is good, and decentralized, and solves the Byzantine Generals Problem.For a time all was well.But then came wailing and gnashing of teeth and wearing of sackcloth.And then came the Prophet Vitalik, bearing Ethereum; and lo, it was even better.There appears to be a severe outbreak of Ethereum Fever south of Market.

— Parker Thompson (@pt) May 20, 2016 What is Ethereum?It’s a combination of a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, and a vast decentralized computer.As an above-average TechCrunch reader, you already know Bitcoin is a currency whose transactions are secured by the immense computing power of its distributed network of “miners,” rather than any central entity.But you may not appreciate that every Bitcoin transaction is actually a program written in the Bitcoin scripting language — aka a “smart contract.” Bitcoin’s contractual language is quite limited, by design.But it allows for transactions that can be delayed until a particular time; or transactions that occur only if, say, 3 of 5 signatories agree to them; or crowdfunding campaigns that only transfer money if a particular total is attained; and many other possibilities.Importantly, once incorporated into the Bitcoin blockchain, these contracts require no trust and no human intervention.Bitcoin is programmable money … with a highly restrictive programming language.

Ethereum removes those restrictions entirely.The Ethereum scripting language is Turing-complete, meaning it can replicate any program written in any traditional programming language.However, to prevent ill-behaved contracts with infinite loops from running forever, every Ethereum transaction computation must be paid for.Just as Bitcoin miners collect small amounts of bitcoin, known as “fees,” in exchange for mining transactions onto the Bitcoin blockchain, Ethereum miners collect “ether,” the Ethereum currency, for running Ethereum contracts.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.Consider: heavily funded Bitcoin startup Coinbase will soon support Ethereum trading on its rebranded cryptocurrency exchange.Microsoft offers “Ethereum Blockchain As A Service” on Azure.Ether has risen in value more than tenfold over the last year, to a market cap which now exceeds $1 billion.And while Bitcoin’s hashrate, a measure of the computing power devoted to mining, still vastly exceeds Ethereum’s, look at the hockey-stick nature of that latter chart.Most of all, though, consider the DAO, and the $163 million — $163 million!— it has raised.Sorry: I mean “raised.” What is the DAO?

It stands for “Decentralized Autonomous Organization.” Ethereum offers a tutorial explaining how to create your own.The DAO, however, as Seth Bannon explained on TC recently, is a particular DAO which: as of the time of writing, controls more than $100 million in assets, and yet it exists entirely on the Ethereum blockchain.In exchange for supporting The DAO financially (in the form of Ether), backers get DAO tokens, which they can then use to vote on the direction of the organization.They can use their tokens to vote on big governance issues (akin to traditional shareholders) but also on minute details of how The DAO spends its resources.In this way, token holders have total control over The DAO’s assets and its actions.People with projects they’d like to build for The DAO can submit ideas in the form of a proposal written in plain English accompanied by smart contract code.The code automatically executes payments so long as certain agreed-upon conditions are met.Because this is all built on top of Ethereum, which allows for robust smart contracts, this can all be done autonomously.

Or as Peter Vessenes put it: It’s a cross between a crowdfunding site and a venture capital / private equity partnership.It’s controlled by a set of voting rules encapsulated and enforced on the Ethereum blockchain as a smart contract.People that trust the code, rules and plan are sending ether directly to fund the contract.[…] If a certain percentage decide to fund a proposal, then it’s funded.Think of it as a kind of corporation incorporated only on the Ethereum blockchain, whose laws consist entirely of those defined by its contract code.A corporation that appears to be a means of investing in the future … without having any concrete idea exactly what that future is yet.For many people, that kind of investment is a holy grail.But if this sounds to you like a poor fit with existing legal and regulatory structures, and/or a disaster waiting to happen, well, you’re certainly not alone: What's the future of the DAO?Regulators nuking it, of course.https://t.co/C0I1cmDCQF — Josh Myer (@xek) May 17, 2016 To quote Eris COO (and attorney) Preston Byrne: the plain-English covenants made on funding proposals, the absence of legal certainty as to what THEDAO actually is and the nebulous and ever-shifting nature of THEDAO’s “membership,” will make it very difficult to properly assign ownership in these projects’ work product.

#THEDAO might look and feel like a company, but on cursory examination, too many gaps, too few formalities, not enough structure and legally incorrect methods reveal themselves as fatal to the exercise.I sympathise with THEDAO’s intentions, in that I believe that the financial markets are currently rigged against the “little guy” and that there is no reason why the kinds of investment opportunities (and returns) available to the super-wealthy should not be available to small investors whose traditional means of accumulating wealth (savings) are all but useless given current, zero interest-rate monetary policy.I also believe that blockchain tech will one day play a role in facilitating more democratic access to the capital markets.However, the current body of laws governing this sphere of conduct exists to ensure that people to whom investments are marketed can be absolutely certain about what they’re getting in exchange for their money.In this respect THEDAO clearly falls very short of the mark.

ALSO possible to imagine a (not legally suspect) DAO that isn't a crapcoin disaster.Sad if this sets us back https://t.co/whBz5sEMKX — Michael Casey (@mikejcasey) May 18, 2016 Its worth noting that the money the DAO has “raised” is essentially refundable.As Bitshares founder and DAO skeptic Dan Larimer puts it: The DAO has tentatively raised $100 million dollars worth of ETH, but so far the investors have taken no real risk.Every single person who has purchased DAO tokens has the ability to reclaim their ETH so long as they never vote.The end result is a massive marketing campaign that totally misrepresents what has been invested and what hasn’t.Considering there is no real risk being taken beyond the risk of holding ETH and that there is the potential for a large gain it is no wonder so many people have participated.So let’s all try to damp down the hype just a bit.Right now all we have are headlines, promises, and a lot of “raised” money which has not actually been committed.

Let’s wait for the results, if any — legal and otherwise — to roll in before declaring the DAO revolution underway.Because, I mean, I like hype too, but this is getting more than a little ridiculous./Z9O6Sr2mMY — Preston J. Byrne (@prestonjbyrne) May 20, 2016 That said, the DAO does serve to illustrate that these are fecund, exciting times for Ethereum.I’m not worried about the hype; that gets in everywhere.What most concerns me about the Ethereum project is security.Ethereum is planning a transition from proof-of-work security (mining) to proof-of-stake security.There are very good reasons to do this, but proof-of-work, for all its flaws and excesses, is simple and thoroughly tested.Ethereum’s “Casper” proof-of-stake mechanism is fascinating; but if it has a serious undiscovered flaw, the entire network is at risk.Similarly, one reason Bitcoin’s scripting language is limited is to help prevent hacking and denial-of-service attacks on the Bitcoin network and its miners.