(05-06-2017, 06:27 PM)pvnk Wrote: (05-06-2017, 06:19 PM)Inori Wrote: Does anyone know why cryptocurrencies are fucking exploding lately? Bitcoin has doubled in value since I bought back in December and now Ethereum is going nuts, too.
Ethereum is going nuts because it's decentralized and many predict that it will overtake BTC the way it's going.
Ethereum > Bitcoin IMO. It's just so much better of a coin. Because it's not
only a coin, it's an app platform as well, which i think is exactly what bitcoin was missing to pull in not only the support of early adopters and investors, but governments + business. While Bitcoin was being used on the darknet for illegal activity, it had no sane way of appealing to the 'real' world of corporations, which set up public support in a bad way from the start.
Ethereum offers an app platform on top of it's cryptocurrency. This means corporations can build a decentralized app for themselves that still makes money (Banks can make out loans, Lawyers can store important documents, Gambling sites can have a defined way of working). And so, it has garnered the support of large Corporations.
Recently, three Ethereum apps were demoed at a Microsoft convention, and there were a bunch of articles out citing "Ethereum won the day" etc etc. That prompted it to go up from ~$60-$90. The jump from 20$ - $50 was made because of similar reasons. Aditionally bunch of other corps citing their interest in the platform publically, and considering investing.
Not to mention, Ethereums about to undergo a *big* update (Casper) which will make it even better. Plus the Android lite client for the platform is in the works.
All this while Bitcoin is struggling with forking because of philosophical disputes, while they struggle to implement a smart contract system of their own.
As of now, ETH is the only crypto with such as system. I think it has the chance of overtaking bitcoin, and honestly there is still time to invest. $1000 or bust.
Litecoin recently experienced a jump b/c it was added to Coinbase and everyone bought some, though it's evened out.
My advice: Get to learning how to build on Ethereums app platform (Or something similar, like blockstack or IPFS). I honestly think decentralized apps are going to become big in the future
Right now the ecosystem is really not bad to use, and it's supposed to be getting easier. The point being to make it accessible to developers to easily create decentralized applicatoins. It works on a webstack that you can use normally with Node.js and anything else you really want (React.js, Ember.js, Meteor.js etc, with the Ethereum Blockchain as your "database").