Why Colony is 100% behind ETH
I was a vocal proponent of the hard fork because for me it represented the best solution to an awful situation we (the Ethereum community) found ourselves in. I went into detail about why I thought it was for the best here.
Nobody wanted to have to fork. It was a measure of last resort and it’s unfortunate that it had to happen. I think we’ve all learned a lot and Ethereum, and the dApps built upon it, will be better as a result.
So as many others have done, we’ve gotten behind Vitalik’s 100% rallying cry, and I thought I’d share why.
Team
I believe that the Ethereum Foundation and Ethcore are the best teams working on a technology which is far from feature complete. We want to be building on the network being developed by Vitalik Buterin, Jeff Wilke, Gav Wood, Jutta Steiner, Vlad Zamir, Alex van de Sande, Bob Summerwill, Viktor Tron, Nick Johnson, Fabian Vogelsteller, Aeron Buchanan et al. Talent attracts talent, these teams will only grow stronger as time wears on.
It’s not even just about the code (because clearly ETC will freeride on ETH’s development), it’s about the people I want out in the world representing the technology upon which Colony is built.
Funding
Ethereum still has a long dev roadmap ahead. Unless the thief is planning to bankroll ETC dev, it’s going to be difficult for the ETC team to engage in anything like the same intensity or quality of development as ETH.
Sure, ETC will freeride on ETHDEV, but I suspect that the fundamentalism of the ETC position will necessitate a diverging codebase over time.
People need to be paid to work full time. Part time, unpaid efforts (which is what I assume ETC is reliant upon) cannot compete with the rate of progress well funded teams like the Ethereum Foundation and Ethcore can exert.
Utility
Hashing power is a red herring as to which is the ‘dominant chain’. Miners may be moving there because there is a marginal short term economic benefit, but it’s a smash and grab.
What really matters is network effect. As ETH has the support of an overwhelming majority of teams building real dApps, its network effect is much stronger and its adoption is therefore likely to accelerate much faster than ETC.
Ether is not intended as a currency in the same way that Bitcoin is. It’s function is entirely to allow users to pay miners to run dApps. Without dApps with the potential significant scale like Colony, Ownage, Augur and so on, there will be little to pay miners for, so there will little by way of real utility for ETC’s coin. Without utility, the market will wither.
Culture
Based on the behaviour exhibited on Reddit at least, ETH has the more positive, adaptable and supportive community.
Trial and error is a fundamental mechanism for learning and growth. I want to be part of a community which recognises that and does not stifle innovation through fundamentalist dogma, and does not try to make pariahs of those who attempt it.
That will do for now. We’ve got a dApp to build.
