To begin, I would like to extend my gratitude to the community, particularly to those who are closely associated with the project, many of whom have sacrificed their employment to invest their time into this endeavor, for their remarkable patience concerning the commencement of the ether sale. We have been stating that the sale would commence in two weeks for half a year, and several team members have faced significant challenges due to the expectations we established regarding funding availability. We certainly underestimated the complexities involved in navigating the pertinent legal frameworks in the United States and Switzerland, in addition to the unexpectedly complicated technical challenges related to establishing a secure sales website and cold wallet infrastructure. Nevertheless, the prolonged wait is finally at an end, and we are thrilled to declare the sale’s commencement.
During the past six months, our efforts have been focused on the following:
- Creating the Ethereum clients, leading to our current possession of four comprehensive implementations of the protocol, with two being fully compatible and the remaining two nearly so. Initially, we aimed for just three implementations; however, a community member (Roman Mandeleil) has independently introduced a functioning Java client. PoC5 has been launched today.
- Developing the Ethereum programming languages and compilers, resulting in moderately stable versions of Serpent, LLL, and Mutan.
- Advancing the Ethereum protocol. Significant changes from February to June include:
- The transactions-pay-for-computation system, enabling a transaction to define the allowed “gas” usage and make a pre-payment for it. Initially, contracts were responsible for payment for computation, necessitating a security “wrapper” for every contract to impose a minimum fee to prevent balance-starvation attacks.
- The idea of a recursive virtual machine, allowing contracts to “call” other contracts like functions and receive “return values” in reply. This facilitates a higher level of generalization and code reuse within the blockchain, reducing bloat.
- A block time of 10 to 20 seconds, down from 60 seconds. This feature will be introduced in PoC6.
- The notion of “micro-chains”, where the top-level block header will solely contain PoW-relevant information, cutting down the minimum storage and bandwidth needs for a light node by a factor of 4 (albeit the rapid block time will once again increase these requirements by 4 times). This will be implemented in PoC6.
- The organization of transactions into a Merkle tree, facilitating the development of a light client protocol for the verification of individual transaction execution.
- The concept of memory as a byte array, simplifying the task of porting existing compilers to generate Ethereum scripts.
- Mid-development advancements in the mining algorithm primarily due to Vlad Zamfir’s contributions. More information will be available shortly.
- Establishing an expanding array of testing capabilities to guarantee cross-client compatibility.
- Formulating our legal organizational framework in Switzerland.
- Conducting legal due diligence in the United States.
Ether can be directly purchased through our website at https://ethereum.org. Several documents provide further information about the sale, including a development plan (ĐΞV PLAN), a roadmap, Intended Use of Revenue document, Terms and Conditions of the Ethereum Genesis Sale, Ether Product Purchase Agreement, along with updated White Paper and Yellow Paper. Please pay special attention to the following:
- Ether will NOT be usable or transferable until the genesis block is launched. In other words, upon purchasing ether and downloading your wallet, you will be unable to do anything with it until the genesis block goes live.
- The initial price of ether is set at a discounted rate of 2000 ETH per BTC, remaining at this level for 14 days before gradually decreasing to a final rate of 1337 ETH per BTC. The sale is scheduled to last for 42 days, and will conclude at 23:59 Zug time on September 2.
- The anticipated launch period for the genesis block is winter 2014-2015. This timeline has been repeatedly delayed largely due to funding setbacks; however, development should soon progress at a significantly faster pace.
- Ether is a product, NOT a security or investment offering. Ether serves merely as a token useful for paying transaction fees or creating or acquiring decentralized application services on the Ethereum platform; it does not bestow any voting rights, and we provide no assurances regarding its future worth.
- We are not restricting access from the US after all. Hooray.
- It is highly probable that alternative iterations of Ethereum (“alt-etherea” or “forks”) will emerge as independent blockchains, competing against the official Ethereum for value. Successfully obtaining ETH from the Genesis Sale only guarantees acquisition on the official network, not on any forks.
- The Terms and Conditions of the Ethereum Genesis Sale, as well as the Ether Product Purchase Agreement, are the sole authoritative texts concerning the sale. Any statements made prior to this are rendered null and void. The ethereum.org website, along with blog posts following Taylor Gerring’s recent how-to and other communications we’ve made on various forums including ours and reddit, should be viewed as informal updates intended to keep the community informed about the status of Ethereum.
- The annual issuance ratio is 0.26x the initial amount of ether sold, decreased from the 0.50x that was proposed earlier in January. We may opt later to implement alternative consensus mechanisms, such as hybrid proof of stake, potentially leading to a lower issuance rate in future updates. Nevertheless, we make absolutely no commitments regarding this, other than confirming that the issuance rate will not surpass 26.00% per annum of thequantity of ether sold in the Genesis Sale.
- There are two endowment pools, each 0.099x the original amount of ether sold, which will be designated in the first instance to early supporters of the project and in the latter instance to a long-term endowment for our non-profit foundation (refer to sale documentation for further insights). This is a decrease from our plan in April of 0.075x for early supporters and 0.225x for the foundation.
- We retain the authority to utilize up to 5000 BTC from the pre-sale while it is ongoing to accelerate development. We may choose to exercise this option based on community feedback; if executed, it will be conducted transparently.
- If you qualify for backpay or a portion of the early contributor pool, you will be reached out to shortly.
- Do NOT refresh the page while on the ether sale site.
- If you acquire ether, DO NOT misplace your wallet file or password, or you will permanently lose access to your ether. Additionally, ensure you download your wallet in the first instance.
The exodus address is 36PrZ1KHYMpqSyAQXSG8VwbUiq2EogxLo2; however, DO NOT send BTC to this address directly, as improperly formatted transactions will be invalid and regarded as donations to Ethereum Switzerland GmbH. Use the sale application available on the site. Unlike some other initiatives, however, making payments with BTC via our sale application from a Coinbase or exchange account presents no issues. The BTC address from which you send does not affect the transaction.
For experienced users and those who prefer not to buy through a website, a Python library for executing purchases is also accessible at https://github.com/ethereum/pyethsaletool.
The address is configured as a 3-of-4 cold storage, multisig arrangement among four centers, which are themselves secured with systems such as m-of-n Shamir’s Secret Sharing. Check this transaction on blockchain.info, input 4, to verify that we are capable of accessing funds from the address. We will soon provide a more comprehensive outline of the cold storage policy, although strategically important details (e.g., exact site locations, passwords, safe combinations) will regrettably remain confidential.
Further information will be shared throughout the sale, and we will soon host an AMA on Reddit. We eagerly anticipate continuing this thrilling journey together!
