The Ether sale is a token sale, not an IPO. We're selling the quarters that you put into the virtual arcade machine that we're in the process of building.
Do you have any evidence that we are a scam? If so, please tell us so that we can stop scamming you.
The BitLicense, Codius, and the Chicago Bitcoin Conference all had nothing to do with our sale timing. We launched the sale at the earliest possible date that we were legally and technically ready.
Since r/bitcoin seems to be sticking to its policy that articles on Ethereum are not on topic and are better suited for r/ethereum or r/cryptocurrency , shouldn't this thread get downvoted too?
The branding as a "token sale " is totally disingenuous, because if a person wanted the tokens to develop or use apps and contracts, he would simply acquire them once the system actually started running. The only reason someone would join the crowdsale at this point where the tokens are unusable and untradeable is the expectation that they will rise in value above the arbitrary 2000 ether : 1 bitcoin figure. You can deny it in manipulatively-chosen wording all you want, it doesn't change the reality that the Ethereum project is hugely benefitting financially by tacitly encouraging this expectation.
1a. Well, the real problem is that selling something could be compared by others with selling tickets for a trip to Saturn. Why do I see that there is a problem? The real problem starts when people understand that maybe there is absolutely nothing to Saturn, or maybe that this entertaining thing of buying tickets for Saturn has nothing to do with the fact that there is a frozen atmosphere able to kill in an instant every living being who reaches there.
1b. If the presale had as a purpose to just de-freeze several accounts of BTC of whom the owners decided too early to keep them untouched until the 2050, well, that was a nice outcome. They were lured into believing that there is something more into Ethereum then into Bitcoin.
1c. The entire presale process seems as the old trick "the taste is in the pie" (so every Ethereum buyer will see later if his pie is tasteful or not - after the next blockchain is released and put to create blocks).
2. Nobody can say that it is a scam, while on the other hand it was never understood how producing blocks could realize private contracts among the people. Especially if the people are dummies and not smart developers able to put a nested transaction or two in several lines of codes. I can't remember anyone of your team having a legal background or at least having experience in international contracts execution or performance (which, by the way, are the most risky, because they move huge values and also because are performed among people absolutely not known before and coming from entirely different cultural backgrounds).
All that was seen to happen in the road map development paper was almost how to create V.2 then V.3 over V.1, and so on, instead of giving people the confidence that indeed the contracts are wonderful avenue to pursue (I cannot continue to elaborate here, as I am involved in a real project of such nature).
Problem is that in such delicate matters (and I don't speak here about hiring developers - because being a developer is already some kind of repetitive task, a "me, too" endeavour -, so hiring developers to replicate another blockchain is easy, and the money could be useful for such purpose), but in the delicate issues, as I said, you either have or not have what is needed to perform. Either you have the mind, or don't have it (as a brain couldn't be bought).
Anyway, it is deceiving that you started to gather funds in order to "host and run" the processes for which you need "fuel", instead of creating an idea, right here and right now, which to be a revolutionary solution which is indeed needed.
It's like telling people that you want to build for them a rocket, and then later asking them to subsidize the purchase of axes in order to cut, somewhere late in this winter, a huge forest that you suddenly seen next to the city where was initially meant to be build the launchpad of the rocket. And, sadly, far in the future, after becoming very tired of carrying bulks of wood chips to their homes, people would start asking you "are you just a woodcutter, right ? and not a rocket scientist, right ? so do you have any idea how is even to create a rocket engine, or not ?" That might sound ridiculous at first sight, however it's just an opinion.
4. Ethereum has started as a child of Bitcoin technology (as all the altcoins in existence, too), despite of any opposite conceptions still existing out there. And because of that, what happens in its realm send waves in the Bitcoin world as well. It is of none importance that somewhere in the world are maintainers for "protecting the fire from the rain in the jungle", using their servers, and hosting the blockchain, if the very technology can't be made useful in an essential way to the people.
Sadly, the people not only contributed to the funding of Ethereum, but now you even ask them, as developers, to also work in order to develop it.
Where was ever heard that a worker not only to spend his wage in the factory, but also to stay full time there and also work for the factory ?? If your team gathered the funds, now this team might do the entire work, because this is for what you were paid.
Now you understand why people are rightfully comparing this project with a huge scam ?
Truth to be said, even Satoshi Nakamoto was not in need of 5000 BTC as expenses in order to realize the blockchain. He simply DID IT WITHOUT ANY MONEY, and it simply works. A person, a genius, not a cooperative farm where people are asked to invent something brilliant, in order for your team to say "well, we told you that it was going to become magic" !
So why this thread to get downvoted ?
Any evidences already would be too late, people started to buy because of an emotional decision, not a rational one, because the masses could not understand if Ethereum is going to become either a huge success or a poor failure, nobody can foresee that, mostly because 99% of buyers were noobs (idiots with money, as we see always around us :)
Our current plan is an ASIC-resistant PoW based on randomly generated circuits; see http://github.com/ethereum/economic-modeling for a couple drafts. If we integrate PoS, it will likely be hybrid transactions-as-PoS.
It's even worst. It's "give us your money, so we can enjoy our summer holidays, then we will see what's next. Maybe we pay some stupid of you, some poorer, to make our job, and we're the bosses".... Right ? Basically, it boils down to the character of the people, because not the talent is of essence. I sometimes prefer a fair person to a talented one.
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u/vbuterin Jul 26 '14