Ethereum Cofounder claims IBM Blockchain "The point is missing"

Hosted in Prague, Czech Republic, the co-founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin kicked off the recent Devere 4 conference at Ethereum on the fourth stage of community development, Serenity. Nicknamed "Ethereum 2.0", he argues that it is a "combination of a number of different characteristics we have talked about over the last few years." We are actively researching, building and now finally managing to bring them all together. "Also, because Serenity will allow finally at Ethereum to abandon the test of work, Buterin believes that the network will be "1000 times more scalable".

IBM and Blockchain

In a interview with Quartz at the event, however, Buterin has criticized IBM and other corporate entities for "missing the point" and "wasting time" with their corporate blockchain offers and services. Buterin probably referred to IBM struggling The TradeLens program, which aims to bring the logistics and supply chain industry under a common blockchain.

Initially IBM collaborated with the Maersk expedition giant to build the platform. However, since then it has failed to establish any major partnership.

Enterprise-grade blockchains they have increased in popularity in recent years. IBM, in particular, was one of the first companies to adopt technology and devote significant time and resources to understanding its applications. In particular, he founded The Hyperledger project in association with The Linux Foundation.

Hyperledger It is understood as "an open source collaborative effort created to advance blockchain cross-industry technologies". Since its release in 2016, other companies in the field of finance and technology have also joined, including Intel, American Express, Cisco, Accentureand J.P. Morgan to name a few.

IBM's research and development in the blockchain field allowed the company to offer a complete blockchain-as-a-service package (BaaS) platform on top of its IBM Cloud infrastructure. However, because the underlying blockchain and Hyperledger Fabric framework is managed entirely by IBM, it is a closed ecosystem. Moreover, since all the nodes on the blockchain of IBM are controlled by the company, many believe that the aspects of decentralization and security are compromised.

However, IBM's previously mentioned blockchain platform has been in trouble for a different reason. According to industry sources, the company has failed to convince any major logistics company to sign an agreement primarily because the platform's intellectual property rights fall on a rival, Maersk.

The point is missing

Speaking in particular of the efforts of the corporate blockchain, said Vitalik Buterin Quartz, "I read this CoinDesk article on something IBM blockchain. I do not understand it deeply, but the detail that has come up is that they are saying "Hey, we own all the IPs and this is basically our platform and you're getting there." And how, it's absolutely not the point. "

In addition to TradeLens, IBM has also developed Food trust, a blockchain effort designed to make the "global food supply chain safer, more efficient and more sustainable". This essentially consists in keeping track of a particular food from the farm to the table, with its conditions and quality recorded on a blockchain in agriculture, processing, distribution and retail levels. According to IBM, this will help consumers establish the freshness and safety of a given food while reducing waste and maximizing shelf life for retailers. When asked about his opinion on the platform, Buterin said,

"The potential value of tracking food on a blockchain is that you would get the QR codes printed on it [food] at every step [along] the way in which, as a consumer, you can scan the code and get confirmation about "where the material comes from." As if he were able to verify if it complies with my moral values ​​or quality standards and so on. There's definitely something there, but regardless of whether any of the actors are doing it remotely, they're much less secure. "

Ethereum down 90%

A Reddit to send presented to the cryptocurrency subreddit meanwhile he stressed that the co-founder of Ethereum lost over $ 460 million in the last year. At current market rates, the blockchain explorer service Etherscan reveals that the 355,003 ETH of its portfolio is worth around $ 39 million, far from the $ 500 million of the previous year.

Launched in early 2014 as an initial coin offering (ICO), Ethereum was the first blockchain platform to support the development of decentralized applications and smart contracts. At the moment, each ETH it was sold for around $ 0.31. The token sales raised about $ 15.5 million and reached its hard cap. Over time since the ether has consistently ranked itself as the second most valuable cryptocurrency later bitcoin, trade blows with Ripple XRP for the position.

While the ether has reached a historical maximum valuation of about $ 1400 in January 2018, its price has decreased, similar to most other cryptocurrencies on the market. In fact, at the time of publication, the ether is at $ 97, which represents a drop of more than 90 percent since it is a high valuation of all time. However, unlike the DAO hack which has ruined the reputation of Ethereum in June 2016, no specific incident can be blamed for this crisis.

However, of Buterin wallet he did not see any major activity during the year, pointing out that he had no interest in selling his cryptocurrency holdings through the bear market. This is in stark contrast to the founder of Litecoin, Charlie Lee, who reportedly reports sold it his entire LTC balance in December 2017. Citing a conflict of interest, Lee he wrote:

"Every time I tweet about the price of Litecoin or just good or bad news, I'm accused of doing it on a personal basis, some people even think that I'm short of LTC!"

Serenity and Ethereum 2.0

Apart from price concerns, the development of Ethereum continues to progress at a steady pace. In October 2018, Buterin and The Ethereum Foundation stated that "Constantinople"The hard fork would have been rejected at the start of 2019.

Billed as one of the largest network updates in the life cycle of Ethereum, Constantinople plans to significantly improve transaction efficiency, reduce reward per block and make the Ethereum network more resistant to ASIC miners. However, it will not introduce the long-awaited Casper Protocol that will migrate to a game test consent mechanism.

However, Vitalik Buterin continues its commitment to the blockchain industry and the future of the Ethereum network. He summarized his mission to Devcon 4 with the statement:

"[Ethereum] Serenity is the "computer of the world" that is actually destined to be, not a smartphone of 1999 that can play snake. "