| I like to think of it as a global coordination platform. If you're familiar with bitcoin: bitcoin is a platform that coordinates global views of bitcoin balances and verifiable logic for transfer of bitcoin from one account to another. In a similar way: ethereum is a platform that coordinates global views of state and verifiable logic for state transitions. > Can you give an example of what this would be used for and how? This would be used in any scenario where a global or otherwise undefined group of actors desires to coordinate action in a way that does not inherently require trust from a single party. In human terms, it is used when you want to communicate or interact with some unknown others without relying on a company/single entity to provide the medium. Oh yeah, the example. Lets build a small one. Lets say the people at the tor project wants to publish some master public keys, etc. There is a core group of folks who should have write access, but they don't necessarily trust each other. Some of their 'important decisions', like changing their group membership, or changing a public key, should be put to a vote. (Oh and lets say they need to be able to cycle their individual keys, as well) They could create an ethereum contract (or interacting contracts) that managed the operation. They wouldn't have to necessarily trust each other individually, and their progress would be visible/verifiable by all. The contract(s) would handle their published data (allowed adding/removing content), maintain their group membership, and would presumably only be modifiable by the members of their group. Members could be modelled as ethereum addresses. Member needs to change keys? Include logic to swap a member for another address, iff the call came from the member to be swapped out. Important tasks need to be voted on? Include logic to initiate and track votes on certain operations. |