let's go over a few (very) important things coming in the near future for Ethereum.
Metropolis (Ethereum 3.0) - This upgrade is slated for Aug/Sept and will be the first upgrade since Homestead (Ethereum 2.0) from early last year and for reference Frontier (Ethereum 1.0). Metropolis will bring with it some huge upgrades.
Raiden - Currently Ethereum can process a max of 15 transactions per second, Bitcoin can do about 7. This is nowhere near what Visa does at 40k/tx per second. You've heard of Bitcoins lightening network which will enable Bitcoin to do infinite tx/sec? Well Raiden enables the exact same thing on Ethereum by creating what are called "Payment Channels". Not gonna go into too much detail but it's like Bob and Carol agree to put a $100 deposit into an account and write notes saying one or the other owes $x amount, then on a predetermined day one of you squares up the account by making one large transaction on the Ethereum blockchain.
ZN-Snarks - You know how your friends tell you Ethereum isn't anonymous like Monero or ZCash? Well ZK-Snarks will enable you to selectively make transactions public or private. It's the same standard used for ZCash but implemented on the protocol level on top of Ethereum. This is a big part of Enterprise Ethereum Alliances road map which is why JP Morgan is working with ZCash to implement it into Quorum (JP Morgan private Ethereum Chain) as well. Ethereum is basically taking all the best features from other coins and implementing them.
Ice Age - Currently, there are ~93 Million ETH circulating with 5 ETH created every 15 seconds (15% annual inflation) during the last upgrade (Frontier) there was an "Ice Age" coded into Ethereum which would slow down the creation of ETH on a curve that would eventually freeze up Ethereum. The reason for this was to force the developers to finish up Metropolis before the network froze up. One side effect of the ice age is that the creation of ETH slows down thus reducing the rate of inflation but also increasing the transaction time. We're beginning to see the first effects of it and by August it'll be 5 ETH created every ~30 seconds.
Casper - Shortly after Metropolis, Ethereum will release the actual figures for Casper as well as the first of 5 phases which will move Ethereum from PoW (Proof of Work) using mining rigs and computers to approve transactions to PoS (Proof of Stake). What happens with PoS is instead of miners running all the time, you will have people holding ETH "Stake" their ETH and basically lock their ETH up in a smart contract while running software on their internet connected computer. In return for locking their ETH up, they will earn interest on it at an undermined rate (figures Vitalik has floated around varies from 6-12% annually). Not everyone will be able to stake, Vitalik has stated that the inflation rate of ETH will drop from 15% currently down to 0-2%. With basic supply and demand math you should be able to figure out what that means for the price.
Casper is a major reason people are stocking up on ETH. Imagine if in 1 year you could lock up 1000 ETH and earn 120 ETH per year? If the price is $1000/ETH you're talking USD $120k annual without selling any of your original ETH.
Edit: some typos, was writing on the treadmill
Awesome. Amazing summary of features and upcoming landmarks. I am one of the idiots that got really excited about Ethereum when it was around $8 and talking about it to friends amd just never invested. Kicking myself hard at this point. I've been waiting for a big correction to maybe put 50% of my BTC in ETH, but it just keeps surging. Not sure what I'll do at this point, probably miss the boat as usual. Think it's too late to jump on the ETH train, or are we going north of $1000+ for sure? Haha wish I had a crystal ball... Also, I thought Vitalik was really pushing sharding vs lightning channels?
I'm out for the moment. Believe in ETH long term. Look at the one month chart. It's a declining trend since the 12th of June or thereabouts. Now it may be in a turnaround phase. However if it dives, the downward trend continues.
I'm in this long term. I'm keeping plenty of cash to the side for the moment because there is crazy volatility in cryptoland. Furthermore the problems (seemingly related to ICOs) of recent times don't help. I was sold on ETH because of it's promise of scaling well. However we have seen that it is not without its own issues. I'm sitting on the fence for the moment. Also IOTA looks seriously promising...
I'll finish by saying I think both ETH and IOTA have a future. Not so sure about bitcoin...
We live in interesting times...
It's declining in part because of all the massive ICOs. Companies that did ICOs cashing out is suppressing the price.
What's the incentive for ETH stake producers to increase the resources their node make available to the network ? Is holding 1000 ETH in itself mean anything in terms of keeping up low latency with very high number of transactions, resilience and large redundant storage ?
Still, it seems that not all of the advantages of EOS have been addressed in the Ethereum roadmap.
Ethereum wont make it. And you wont make 120k year annually. When all these new eco systems start coming out that make it more user friendly then Ethereum, Ethereum will be an obsolete product. Bitcoin is an obsolete product. The reason prices are so high is from chinese investors that don't have a clue of what is going on. 90% of the crypto market is from chinese investors and they are not experienced with investing. They over inflated the prices and the prices will come crashing down. These prices are not realistic. They did the same thing with their stock market. All these smart hedge fund managers were investing heavily into china as I shook my head that its not realistic market.
What makes ecosystem work and take on mass adoption is ease of use. Its hard to even do a transaction with ethereum. You have to sign on to your wallet make sure the long address is right, the erc20 token is the right one and then make sure your gas costs are right before you send out your crypto currency to whatever address. That is not taking on mass adoption. People want it to be like a credit card. Swipe and your done. Or put in your credit card number click send and done. Not do 3 or 4 steps and try make sure everything is right. If you think that will work your being delusional. Ethereum is to slow, and when they do updates its never smooth. They always run into tons of problems because try to push stuff out to fast. Even some of their own community complained about doing things to fast.
One day their will be a eco system that is user friendly, can update the network smoothly and will take on mass adoption. Don't know what it will be but all these new cryptos coming out are new and improved from what Ethereum is. More and more will come out. But all ethereum and bitcoin did was get the train going. Its like the first cell phone came out. Then apple and samsung make smart phones and take over the market. Ethereum and bitcoin are like the first cell phones out. Cheap, put on market to fast and not well made.
Anyone invested in cryptos at these over inflated prices will be broke in a few years. I seen this over and over again. Warned people over and over again to stay out of over inflated markets from novice investors over buying in the market. They learn the hard way. Patience is key and waiting for that one product that is putting out a quality product. I don't see one on crypto space yet. I remember this old man told me I was crazy to think oil can ever free fall. I said it will. He said but oil used in everything even tires and we will run out and it something world has to have. I told him don't ever fall for a sale pitch that technology over time will replace everything. He lost tons of money. I seen people argue same thing about housing and gold. Its just novice investing. . Always check the background of the people who make the coin not their idea. Then look at the idea and see how they handle ddos attacks, how they handle new software updates, how they deal with tech problems and always study their competition and compare products. Technology is so fast anything can be replaced at any time. No coin has stood out to me yet. The only thing that has impressed me so far is actually steemit.
Actually, I think the Chinese investors know what they are doing. They'll relocate their funds once Tencent comes out with their own currency that will absorb wechat and alipay.
So glad i never listened to you