[Ethereum] Upcoming meetup, Web 3.0 and stuff

[Alexander Hirner]

Hello Etherealists, welcome some updates from the frontline!


Web 3.0

Lately, the Ethereum project has been touted as a new social operating system [1]. Essentially, the simple but compelling premise is to not only virtualize money, but relationships in a secure and consensus driven manner. 
Now this paradigm took on a more concrete shape. In the latest London meetup, Gavin put forth on which software stack this is based on, and in turn with which tools a DApp will be built: Blockchain for consensus and monetization, ‘Whisper’ for communication and a kind of Torrent for data. In the excellent Q&A session, the real world tensions towards a successful launch are discussed [3].

As an example of why the whole approach is superior, lets have a look a lottery implementation. Spinjar, Bitcoin vs. Ethereum [4]. Since the code is a persistent part of the blockchain a lot of trust issues and hassles with interfacing are gone. The same goes for other projects. Recently, the website of a Proof of Existence service went offline [5]. So the data you put into is still on the blockchain, but the way to validate is ambiguous given the missing interface. With interfaces (partly) and code (more important) being persistent in the blockchain, this can’t happen.
For a PoC 5 implementation of a Proof of Existence, look into Chronos [6]. A well versed web programmer, teaching us how to write PoC 5 HTML interfaces is very welcome btw.

A series of new Blogs wrap up the news for Web 3.0. Additionally to news for the mining algorithm [7].


Other new Developments

Future of Payment Industry: A panel discussion reveals regulatory ideas of jurisdictions like Isle of Man (pushing them subsequently to London). Plus, SWIFT allegedly plans to implement a baby-SWIFT where blockchain interaction is possible. Very interesting indeed. Michael Parsons is on the Ethereum team. Thx Ferdi for pointing out the event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L1ZcMi_FLA

Decentralized Exchange: caktux (skype channel) is working on a decentralized exchange on Ethereum. Whatever that means in detail… he promised to release code in a month.
http://etherex.org

Test HLL code online: HLL is aka as Serpent or python-like language for contracts. Including stepwise debugger.
http://www.mintchalk.com


Orga Meeting Yesterday

Andi, Ralph and me played with the PoC and implemented some contracts with EtherScripter. The insights are:

1) EtherScripter is not yet compatible with PoC 5, e.g. the CALL instruction doesn’t reflect the latest changes of GAS handling
2) PoC 5 development branch had difficulties with syncing to the testnet. However, you can try any transaction and code offline. That means, turn on mining but not the network. Integrated debugger is just fine
3) Actually, HLL (serpent) code might be runnable already in PoC 5. Use 'init: ‘ and ‘body: ' before your HLL fragments and the serpent compilation path is taken. Gonna try that next time more in depth.


Upcoming Meetup

For our upcoming meetup, as announced will be held in combination with the cebexpo [8]. Foremost, I talked to Vitalik. He will arrive a few days earlier and probably has some time to share. Not only should we meet at the metalab but a cultural event with community members out in wild Vienna is surely appreciated as well. What exactly? Post your ideas in the forum or on the mailing list!

Alex



[1] https://medium.com/p/4790bf5f7743
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJGIeSCgskc
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSMbBsdE45U
[4] http://labs.humint.is/spinjar-bitcoin-vs-ethereum-a-test-case/
[5] http://www.proofofexistence.com … by now it is back on-line, phew
[6] http://forum.ethereum.org/discussion/825/chronos-trusted-timestamp-on-top-of-ethereum
[7] http://blog.ethereum.org (the 3 articles)
[8] http://cebexpo.net
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