Also it does appear that some actual development is being done in the Ethereum ecosystem, so if we don't compete with what they are offering then the speculators are just going to think we are jealous sour grapes.
There is no denying that the space has been made but whether ETH eco-system is desirable as a platform to develop in is highly debatable. I fear (I'm actually quite certain) that the entire ETH project is nothing more than vapor that will slowly dissipate all the resources that have been thrown at it.
I am 80% leaning towards it will fail although I think Emin @hackingdistributed (Cornell)) et al are going to become more proactive now and these universities have a lot of research resources to throw at helping Ethereum become viable. So I think we actually need to compete with it head-on, to topple it.
If we stand back and let them breathe, they will come back at us again with a larger and more developed ecosystem. But a persmissioned block chain that is controlled by consensus and has blacklisting, etc. They are working now on stoppable contracts, etc..
MIT has proposed ChainAnchor for Bitcoin!! Research that 666 shit.
Or just stick with BTC and accept the fate of Blockstream + China, which in my opinion in another way we are being used for the objectives of those who control us.
It is depressing. But I want to fight back by coding.
We already know that BTC has failed and the world as a whole just hasn't noticed yet. I feel your pain and am sure you will get back to coding your dream. The issue these days is how to get that critical mass of resources as ETH has done into projects that are not flawed at inception. The "investors" in the alt scene are truly mind boggling dumb and gullible to the point of incredulity. Not to mention their myopic view on nothing but the allure of a quick rich scheme that blinds them to all else including their own solvency.
Problem is Bitcoin
may not fail in terms of being scaled out. They may end up succeeding spreading it out to the masses (
as essentially a centralized coin and Lightning Networks on corporate servers) and we will be enslaved by it with 666 id required, etc..
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