Week in Ethereum News




Week in Ethereum News
October 23, 2016

News and Links
  • Hard Fork 1 was successful last Tuesday, though DoS attacker kept trying afterwards with the EXP and BALANCE opcodes.
  • What if we had an Ethereum convention in the US?  [See below]

“Progressive Hardening” of Ethereum

  • The timeframe for Hard Fork 2 will be less rushed, given the sucess of HF1 in staving off the worst of the attacks. Here is the hard fork 2 spec and also where to check on its progress.
    • Possibly “5x speedup in processing account reads”
    • 30% speedsups on in-memory trie cache optimizations.
    • Replay attack protection might be included
  • Vitalik: “Changes like state change journaling and now the on-disk state cache are NOT band-aids, they are large architectural improvements that would have been eventually necessary anyway.”
    • More VB: “I am happy that they are happening so relatively early in the game.”
  • Gustav Simonsson on the 4 categories of DoS attacks.
  • Parity 1.3.9 is out.  Suggested Geth flag settings to clear out the pre-fork spam and improved block processing speed.
  • Future: “some client developers are considering a dynamic gas limit formula . . .to ensure network health without the need for manual intervention on the miners’ part to change target gas limit[s]”

Tech

Ecosystem

General/Media

What if we had an Ethereum convention in America?

When: March 2017, likely 3/9 – 3/10 [halfway between DevCons]

Where: Houston [I live here, the weather is great in March, and it is United’s biggest hub so airfare is generally cheap]

How long: 2 days, one night

Registration fee (during this week): $211.08

Already in?  

Buy tickets here

.

What: A touch more ecosystem-focused than Devcons

Why:  During the last 3 Devcons (Berlin, London, Shanghai) I’ve been a little bummed not to go.  Shanghai was just too expensive and far away to justify, but I could have swung a domestic ticket and one night away from my kids. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there lots of other Americans who feel the same way.  But I guess we’ll found out from ticket sales.

I doubt that DevCon3 is going to be in the US, so I figured I’d try to organize my own.

Why should you buy tickets now?

  1. Crowdfunding.  You want another Ethereum convention and you would be happy to attend in Houston in March when the weather is amazing.
  2. Cheaper.  This week is the lowest price. Price is only going to go up after Oct 30th.
  3. Refundable. Tickets purchased this week are refundable for any reason (up to two weeks before the conference starts).   Non-early bird ticket sales in future will not be refundable.

Plan

  • For this week, I’m only going to publicize the event through this email.
  • If there’s a lack of interest this week, then I’ll cancel the event and immediately refund in full those who did buy tickets.
  • Next week’s registration fee will go up a small amount as it is marketed to the Ethereum community, though initially ticket sales will still be refundable.
  • I expect non-early bird registration will be $300 and non-refundable.

Caveats:

  • I’ve never organized a big convention.  I assume it will be tons of nailing down details.  Obviously my reputation will be on the line, so I will read as much as I can to prepare and then do my best.
  • I haven’t yet started contacting speakers, as I’d like to know there is sufficient interest before booking speakers.
  • If this event lacks sufficient interest, it will be cancelled and all ticket purchases will be immediately refunded.
  • Sorry, no Ether option available – only credit cards accepted.  You’ll thank me 10 years in the future when you see what that Ether is worth then.
  • Let me repeat: this is unofficial and in no way connected to the Ethereum Foundation

Still want in?  Buy a ticket.

Questions?  Feel free to email weekinethereum@gmail.com                           

Dates of note
  • Oct 26 – Inchain crowdsale begins.
  • Oct 30 – Last day for cheapest Ethereum USA conference tickets.
  • Nov 1 – Beyond the Void game crowdsale begins
  • Nov 2 – My guess: Golem crowdsale begins [not yet officially announced]
  • Nov 3 – last day for Ether.Camp best price
  • Nov 14 – SEC has a fintech/blockchain meeting
  • Nov 15 – vDice crowdsale begins
  • Mid-November – Branche token sale begins (not yet officially announced)
  • December TBA – .ETH name system goes live
  • Dec 7 – Inchain crowdsale ends
  • Dec 15 – vDice crowdsale ends

[I aim for a relatively comprehensive list of Ethereum sales, but make no warranty as to even whether they are legit; as such, I thus likewise warrant nothing about whether any will produce a satisfactory return. This is not investment advice; I charge heavily for that.]                                                        

Token Sales – General Expectations for Founders & Upcoming Crowdsales  

What should we expect from founders doing ICOs?

Good points made by Dunning_Krugerrands, as well in Alex Amsel’s response.

Golem

Ether.Camp Hacker Gold

  • Ether.Camp’s Hacker Gold kicked off 3 days ago.  It’s a long two month crowdsale. Under $150k raised so far.
  • Two excellent due diligence reads:
    • It’s a bit disappointing that they didn’t delay their crowdsale until the idea was more fully baked.

Branche by Digital Escrow Service

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