Quote from: NeuroticFish on March 21, 2017, 09:11:36 AM

Since you know programming, is Ethereum code as bad as some say? Did you look into it?
I somehow live with the idea Ethereum is too big, too buggy to hold for a long time. The bold area can be interpreted in so many ways..

I am shilling for ETH a bit (so factor that in), but I'll try to be objective.

I studied the DAO bug but I haven't studied Ethereum code nor its smart contract language (virtual machine) closely.

I know there is research into proving more invariants, but the fact is that it is impossible to prove all the invariants. This is why Bitcoin is very, very cautious about adding new opcodes because as Craig Wright pointed out (which both Gmaxwell and Nick Szabo didn't understand) that even Bitcoin's scripting is Turing complete because the looping (unbounded recursion) can occur in the composition of invocations of transactions, i.e. the blockchain is the unbounded tape (memory).

So the point is that smart contracts opens up a hornet's nest of potential vulnerabilities.

So as I said, if i see a huge (e.g. $100 million) amount of ETH value in one smart contract again, I will sell ETH. But as long as they keep the risk spread out over many different contracts, then the hacking of any one contract is not likely to have a very great impact (although it would probably scare n00b speculators and cause a temporary selloff).

I do expect Ethereum's code is much less polished than Bitcoin. But that is risk we pay for being able to move very quickly forward on experimentation. And the experimentation which may end up producing a killer app for blockchains. We don't know when another DAO-like mania might kick on.

If not for the Bitcoin Unlimited attack on BTC, I would not have diversified into ETH, but now it looks like Bitcoin is stalled and in uncertainty, so as a diversification token the only choices with sufficient liquidity are ETH, LTC, and XMR. It is alleged that DASH is a pyramid with fake liquidity (and although Ethereum may also have a R3 agent market manipulator, the market for ETH tokens appears to be more diversified/aggregate than for EvanIncCoin).

I don't think Ethereum has the best possible design we can do for apps and smart contracts. I say that because I am biased and am working on my own project. But comparing someone's ideas for vaporware to the available projects you can invest in now, is not very useful. As of right now, it seems Ethereum has the most new apps and ICOs being created on its platform. Most of us believe these apps are just gimicks to take ICO money from speculators. But maybe that is the killer app (gambling)? Any way, we can't predict the future. The creativity of humans is basically unpredictable. There is a lot of experimentation going on. I can't even keep track of all of it. I can't be in Slack all day monitoring dozens of decentralized app projects.

Note I haven't studied Ethereum closely at all. I don't have sufficient time to do that. It might even be that the clients and wallets suck so bad that I am really mistaken. But one thing I do know, they seem to have academics in their back pocket (e.g. hackingdistributed website) and they can generate a lot of promotion when they decide to announce a new release. Also their community is very enthusiastic. There is lot of energy still in that community, although it is a bit drained or subdued from the DAO attack. But perhaps that more reserved "wall of worry" is the what we should see early in another nascent pump.

I could be mistaken about ETH. I was pressured to diversify because of the Bitcoin Unlimited attack on BTC. Also because I've seen a lot of money moving into the Top 5 or so altcoins since Bitcoin made this ATH. I would have preferred to stay 100% in BTC, because I don't have sufficient funds at risk and time to justify doing detailed research on altcoins. Because I want my head in the sand focused on my own project and programming work. Basically I see my project as a competitor on the concept of blockchain apps, so I want to diversify my funds into holding my competitors in case they beat me to the market. Thus I hold some ETH and STEEM. For ETH I expect it to outperform BTC near-term. With STEEM I hold a small marketcap, just in case the dice happens to land on snake eyes.

Edit: currency has value because of confidence, so in that respect BTC being more polished and reliable would be the wisest choice. But I don't think blockchains are going to be about only currency. Ethereum's community also thinks this way.

Edit#2: Evidence that the community is more cautious: http://www.coindesk.com/bug-discoveries-hinder-launch-of-new-ethereum-domain-app/