Get Ready for Ethereum FrontierEthereum Toronto

Paul Paschos May 25, 2015

This presentation will be available on YouTube. A link will be posted in the comments section of this

meetup.

About Ethereum Toronto• Website: www.meetup.com/ethereumtoronto

• Twitter: @ethereumtoronto

• Are you interested in?

• Hosting an Ethereum event

• Assisting with organizing

• Presenting a Topic

• Suggest topics for discussion

• Contact us at ethereumtoronto@gmail.com

Overview• Why are Blockchains Useful?

• Decentralized Apps currently under development

• Ethereum Frontier Launch

• The Transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake

• Ethash

• A Quick Mining Update

• Ethereum Network Status Monitor

What is Decentralization?

Ethereum is a platform for Decentralization and

Decentralized Applications (DApps)

What is a Blockchain?

– Vitalik Buterin

“A blockchain is a magic computer that anyone can upload programs to and leave the programs to self-execute, where the

current and all previous states of every program are always publicly visible, and which carries a very strong

cryptoeconomically secured guarantee that programs running on the chain will continue to execute in exactly the way that the

protocol specifies.”

Why are Blockchains Useful?• Blockchains are useful because they provide the following guarantees:

• Guaranteed data availability

• Guaranteed sharing of data stores - enables use of data stores (including reputation)

• Guaranteed uptime...very far into the future

• Guaranteed transparency in the execution of code - Rogue code can not be inserted

• Guaranteed communication between blockchain apps - apps can talk to each other with 100% realiability

Guarantees allow for decentralized base layer services

• DApps may plug into into these services

• The cost curve of these services approaches zero making these services behave like a public good

• Examples:

• Identity (No need to trust Twitter, Facebook, Google)

• Domain name registration

• Certificate validity information

• Data feeds (prices, weather, other information)

50 DApps under development and counting…

Frontier Homestead Metropolis Serenity

Intended Audience

Exchangers & Miners DApp Builders DApp Users DApp Users

Interface Command Line Command Line GUI (Mist) GUI (Mist)

MiningProof of Work with

Checkpointing Proof of Work Proof of Work Proof of Stake

Mining Rate 10% 100% 100% N/A

Account Balance Carry Over Y Y Y Y

Contract Balance Carry Over N Y Y Y

Frontier

• Everything except account balances will be erased when Homestead is launched

• Bitcoin exchanges up and running at launch

• Checkpointing every 24 hours

• Official exchanges will use this checkpointing service to protect traded assets from potential blockchain rollbacks

Ether Sale Redemption• Ether purchased during the Ether Sale last year will be redeemable

at Frontier Launch

• Instructions to redeem ether will be made available at Frontier Launch

• Redemption will be done through the Command Line as there is no GUI in the Frontier release

• If you are not comfortable using Command Line, then wait for a future release that is more user friendly and includes a point-and-click GUI

Homestead Progress Google “Ethereum Milestones” for progress

Metropolis

SerenityTransitioning from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake

Mining

Let’s Talk to a Local Miner…

Mining Update• Mining Algorithm is called Ethash

• Ethash mining algorithms Hashimoto by Thaddeus Dryja and Dagger by Vitalik Buterin

• Rapid Block Time: 12 8 seconds (decreases with increasing difficulty)

• Mining Pools will not be available at launch

• Features: ASIC resistant, Light Client Verifiable, Full Chain Storage

Mining Update

• ASIC resistant - Reading from memory (RAM) I/O operations is used as the limiting factor in the mining process instead of computer power

• ASIC resistant - Memory-hard computation but memory-easy validation

• Light Client Verifiable - Light clients are supported but mining rewards are only provided to clients running a full node.

• Fast light client boot time of 40 seconds

• Full Chain Storage - Those running a full client get mining rewards. This incentivizes the running of full nodes

• ASIC resistance and a mix of Full Node and Light clients results in a highly decentralized network

GPU Mining• At this stage, mining requires users to be comfortable using the

Command Line

• The most up to date information is available on the mining forums on forums.ethereum.org

• 1+ GB Video Memory required, 2 GB Video Memory recommended

• Implementation written in OpenCL so AMD GPUs will be ‘faster’ than NVIDIA GPUs

etherapps.info/stats/miningScreen capture taken on May 18th. Top 3 addresses are getting > 50% of the mining

rewards

Ethereum Network Status MonitorGoogle “Ethereum Network Status”

http://stats.ethdev.com

How to get involved• Join our meetup “Ethereum Toronto” on meetup.com

• www.ethereum.org

• www.ethdev.com

• Ethereum Blog blog.ethereum.org

• Ethereum Forums forums.ethereum.org

• Reddit Community r/ethereum

• Twitter @ethereumproject

• IRC webchat: https://bit.ly/IRC_ethereum

• IRC #ethereum and #ethereum-dev