In November, we conducted a brief survey for the Ethereum community to assist us in assessing our performance, identifying areas for enhancement, and determining how we can best connect with everyone as we approach the genesis block launch in March. We believe it is crucial for the community to engage not only with Ethereum but also among themselves, and we aim to provide new and captivating tools based on the insights from the survey.
The survey was composed of 14 inquiries, divided into two categories: Ethereum as an “Organization” and Ethereum as a “Technology”. We received a total of 286 responses, representing 7.8% of the existing Ethereum subreddit audience, or 2.4% of the current @ethereumproject followers.
In which country do you currently reside?
Here’s a summary of respondents’ locations by continent: out of the 286 participants, there are 123 (43%) in North America, 114 (40%) in Europe, 30 (10%) in Asia, 13 (5%) in Oceania, and 6 (2%) in South America. This distribution is expected, yet it highlights the necessity for us — and the broader crypto sector — to focus on outreach in regions south of the Brandt Line. One strategy to address this is by fostering more international Ethereum meetups. You can view a map of all existing Ethereum meetups here (With a total of 81 events worldwide from London to New York to Tehran, comprising over 6000 participants). If you wish to initiate one yourself, please reach out to us for additional support – info@ethereum.org.
Our commitment to transparency is vital to the community. Accordingly, we aim to make much of our internal processes publicly available online. As shown in the chart, the majority of respondents agree that we are fulfilling this goal. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement. We are currently refreshing the ethereum.org website in preparation for the genesis block release. Anticipate a wealth of new content and information as we finalize this endeavor by the end of January. Meanwhile, please explore the Ethereum GitHub Repository, or browse the new ΞTH ÐΞV website for deeper insights into the organization behind Ethereum 1.0 and its extraordinary team.
We have always aimed to provide the community with comprehensive insights into our financial status, and feedback suggests that many of you concur with this approach. For more details regarding Ethereum’s plans for the revenue generated from the Ether sale as we progress, please refer to the Road Map and the ĐΞV PLAN. To find out more about the Ether Sale itself, check out Vitalik’s Ether Sale Introduction, the Ethereum Bitcoin Wallet, or the Ether Sale Statistical Overview.
While most respondents agree that Ethereum’s applications in society are apparent, I am not entirely convinced we have identified them all just yet. Every day, we communicate with developers and entrepreneurs through Skype or on IRC (Join in your browser – #ethereum / #ethereum-dev) who have conceived new and exciting concepts intended for implementation atop Ethereum — many of which are novel to us. For a concise summary of some of the uses we’ve encountered, please check Stephan Tual’s recent talk at NewFinance.
We are striving to keep everyone informed about the numerous changes, updates, and overall advancements in the project that have occurred in recent months. Gavin Wood and Jeff Wilcke, in particular, have crafted some fantastic blog posts detailing the progress in their respective Berlin and Amsterdam ÐΞV Hubs.
ΞTH ÐΞV’s mission statement is now proudly displayed on the ΞTH ÐΞV site for everyone to view. In depth, it outlines what must be accomplished as time progresses, but can be summarized as “To investigate, develop, and construct software that, as optimally as possible, aids, in a secure, decentralized and equitable manner, the communication and automatically-enforced agreements between involved parties.”
Much like the cryptocurrency sector in general, Ethereum can be quite challenging to grasp at first. There is no denying that, and it is our responsibility to simplify the process of understanding and facilitating participation as much as possible. As previously stated, the newly designed ethereum.org website will serve as a crucial resource in assisting individuals in accessing the appropriate information relevant to their own expertise and capabilities. Additionally, we aim to develop a utility similar to Udemy/Codacademy that will enable individuals with skill levels ranging from novice to expert to comprehend how Ethereum operates and how to execute their concepts. In the meantime, a wonderful starting point for those eager to use Ethereum is Ken Kappler’s recent Tutorials.
This was a significant query as it provided a lot of insight into what elements required attention before the genesis phase, and which (while beneficial) could be developed subsequently. From a user interface standpoint, the Go team in Amsterdam is striving towards the development of Mist, Ethereum’s “Ðapp Navigator”. The initial design concepts for Mist are shared by Lead UI Designer, Alex Van de Sande in this video.
The simplicity of installation will significantly influence user adoption – we certainly cannot have individuals recompiling the client with every new update! Hence, binaries with internal update systems are in the works. Client Reliability (bugs) is being handled by Jutta Steiner, the Manager of our internal and external security evaluations. We anticipate that the community bug bounty initiative will be active by mid-January, so stay tuned and prepare for incredible 11-figure Satoshi rewards, leaderboards, and more “1337” prizes.
Developer tools are also on the horizon. Specifically, project “Mix”. Mix boasts some remarkable features, encompassing documentation, a compiler, debugger integration for tracking code health, valid invariants, code structure, and formatting, in addition to variable values and assertion truth annotations. It is a long-term initiative projected to launch within the next 12-18 months; currently, our focus is heavily placed on completing the blockchain. Once finalized, we can redirect our resources toward other essential projects. More information can be obtained in the Mix presentation from ÐΞVcon-0. For now, documentation is being consistently generated on the Ethereum GitHub Wiki.
The blog and social media engagement will persist in providing Ethereum content through pertinent channels with the goal of reaching the broadest audience possible.
With more individuals possessing smartphones than computers already, think about how ubiquitous they will become as time progresses? This is particularly likely in emerging markets like India and Nigeria, where they will probably leapfrog computers to some extent and achieve rapid adoption. A mobile light client will be critically important to the usability of Ethereum. As part of IBM and Samsung’s collaborative initiative “Adept” (an IoT platform being unveiled at CES 2015), an Android variant of the Ethereum Java client – ethereumj, is set to be open-sourced on GitHub. This will significantly contribute to making Ethereum Mobile!
It is fascinating to observe a diverse range of responses to this question. As previously mentioned, Ethereum’s potential applications are as broad as they are diverse, and it’s encouraging to witness the various types of services individuals are eager to develop on Ethereum. The focus on governance-oriented Ðapps underscores Ethereum’s capability to facilitate connections between the digital and physical realms and form autonomously governed communities that can rival both government and corporate entities. Primavera De Filippi and Raffaele Mauro delve deeper into this in the Internet Policy Review Journal.
This diagram illustrates a fairly uniform distribution; we have made efforts to provide the various clients across multiple operating systems. You may locate the Alethzero binaries here, while the Mist binaries are available here. However, these will become outdated promptly and might not connect to the test net as development progresses, so if you are contemplating using Ethereum prior to release, it’s advisable to review the client building tutorials for the latest versions of the clients.
With Mist (Go), Alethzero (C++), Pythereum (Python), Node-Ethereum (Node.js), and Ethereumj (Java), Ethereum boasts a diverse array of clients. The Yellow Paper authored by Gavin Wood serves as an excellent reference for the community to develop their own clients, as evidenced by those still in progress such as the Clojure and Objective C versions.
As Gavin Wood highlighted in a prior blog post, both Mutan and LLL as smart contract languages will be phased out. Vitalik, along with his team, will continue the development of Serpent, while Solidity remains the primary programming language for Ethereum contracts. You can test Solidity in your browser, or view the recent vision and roadmap presentation by Gavin Wood and Vitalik Buterin at ÐΞVcon-0.
Thanks to Alex Van de Sande for aiding in the creation of the survey and chart visuals. Icons sourced from icons8. If anyone is interested in acquiring a copy of the raw survey results, don’t hesitate to email george@ethdev.com.
