I need to read all those links, honestly. I know very little about what Ethereum is, how it differs from Bitcoin, how to buy and sell it, etc. Any recommendations on where exactly to start?
I'd start with Wikipedia. Read the short article, then work through a number of the referenced articles in the bottom. ethereum.org also has information. However, their blog can be a bit thick. In short, Ethereum is a blockchain-secured decentralized global computer. It has little power, but can enable fancy transactions and contracts. Ether (ETH) is the token that secures it, and it must also be spent to execute code on the network.
I'm kind of a backward luddite, and not at all easily excitable about these kinds of things. I think that bitcoin is doomed to failure, for example. However, even though I'm not super well versed in ethereum, I'm pretty excited about it. Eventually, the payments system--which is one of the only good things that banks do for you and I--is going to be updated. It is outdated, slow, bloated, expensive, and inefficient. There seems to be a concensus forming that block chain technology is what is going to replace it (e.g. here is one example among many). Among the current contenders, ethereum appears to be the best positioned to do so (according to the experts, of which I am decidedly not one--not even sure I'd be considered a layman at this point). Banks are busy making their own block chains, but they need a public one to talk bank to bank, and that's where eth might be useful. One grand advantage it has is that it doesn't have the currency cult that btc does, which may be btc's undoing. Crypto "currency" will never be a real currency, because currencies are what they are due to their statutory position as the government's guarantor of debts. But cryptos can be a great way to settle payments and move money quickly and cheaply, which is something we could all benefit from. It is possible that something even better will come along before eth is widely adopted, then it could become obsolete as well. However, if that doesn't happen within the next year or two, I think it will have secured its place as a valuable tool. Once one of these protocols is accepted by the major banks, it is going to be a very valuable tool by which our day-to-day lives operate (even if it remains unseen to the average consumer).
What is the current payments system you made reference to, the one that Etherium could replace? Is it the ACH I hear about sometimes? The Clearing House? What's the difference between say, Venmo, a friend-to-friend payment method, the Clearing House, and Ethereum/ether? Sorry, I inow you qualified yourself as barely a layman on this topic, so maybe mk could help me, too?
SWIFT I have a dollar. You have an apple. We want to deal. 1) We can both agree to use The Bank of Venmo. Sure, it may look like an app, but it's Paypal, which is a financial institution like any other. I offer you a contract that entitles you to a dollar from Venmo. Venmo charges me a dollar for the privilege. We're still dealing in dollars, operating under the banking regulations of any country the transaction occurs under, and shows up on SWIFT just like any other banking transaction. 2) We can both agree to use SWIFT, except we can't, because we're not banking institutions and not governed by the bylaws of international finance. So you still have an apple, I still have a dollar, and no sales happens because our current banking system does not allow you or I to act as a financial institution. 3) We can agree to use some form of cryptocurrency (CC$). I send a command to the network to give you the equivalent of a dollar in the CC$ of your choice, which, and b_b is right, is only really of value because of the secondary market of buying and selling CC$. The value of that CC$ is generally volatile and there may be a lot of wiggle between the time I send it and the time you receive it - this is one of the big beefs against BTC at the moment, there's only like six transactions a second that it can handle, which would barely get through Craigslist in a large city, let alone provide a financial backbone for the whole of the world. BUT when all is said and done, the system/network/computer/whatever you want to call it ensures that for one brief shining second, my dollar and your apple crossed paths at the agreed upon rate with no bank standing between us. ___________________________________________________ But that's not really the interesting part, it's just the low-hanging fruit. Fundamentally, we're not trading dollars for apples. We're trading value for value and value comes in ways far more diversified than currency and finance. Your apple actually reflects, for example, 1/50th of your bikeride to Safeway, 1/52nd of your day at work, and 1/10th of your hunger because you really want that apple. Meanwhile, my dollar represents approximately 42 seconds of mixing crap reality television (a true statistic, by the way). Let's say I've got my mixing console wired into Ethereum. Let's say you've got your bicycle wired into Ethereum... and so does everyone else. Vast and mythical forces that I don't even need to know about can value my time at the mixing console down to the second and algorithmically remunerate me for my mad skillz. An ad-hoc network of bicycle delivery services could monitor your Ethereum-connected bicycle and credit your bike for the number of miles it travels x the mass it carries factored by the temperature and humidity. Both of these points could actively negotiate on the network in real time and not only hunt for the best exchange between reality television mixing and apples, they could actually optimize the exchange for both of us. Never mind the fact that value can be traded completely without intermediary - the thing that excites nerds about cc$ is its ability to dissolve "money" as a marker and facilitate a true form of non-intermediated commerce. Right now, of course, cc$ is hot mostly because shady fucks can use it as a coupon for shady shit that you flat out can't do through SWIFT. But hey. VCRs wouldn't exist without porn, probiotics wouldn't be cost-effective without the Soviet bioweapons program and computers as you know them were largely developed for modeling nuclear weapons blasts so it's not like shady starts are uncommon.What is the current payments system you made reference to, the one that Etherium could replace?
What's the difference between say, Venmo, a friend-to-friend payment method, the Clearing House, and Ethereum/ether?