Yesterday began with the subpoena of Bitfinex and Tether. This was big world news that shook a lot of investors with weak hands. The bulls pushed back.

Unfortunately for those anticipating a rise in value, this major story was accompanied by another: Facebook threw a blanket ban over all ICOs and cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. This was probably a wise move for Facebook. They are a very large company ripe for regulation. This is their first major action against the many scams and schemes proliferating across their network. These action are good for Facebook because it was easy to accuse them of being negligent, or even complicit, in the selling of unregulated securities and the many other frauds that have been perpetrated on Facebook users through Facebook’s advertising channels.

This was a wise move for Facebook and ultimately good for the Ethereum eco-system. The fewer people who are harmed by the many bad actors currently exploiting our beloved Network, the better. But in the short term, this also means less money in the ecosystem, which is going to affect the market. These reports crushed Bitcoin. The value dropped as low as the $9641.82 USD on Coinbase. I’m sure many readers of this site would have been interested in purchasing at that rate and this moment in time. So the bulls did push back and Bitcoin worked its way back up to the $10K zone.

BTC Goes Down Against ETH on 1/31/2018

Now, here’s the interesting part. Ethereum also lost value alongside Bitcoin, but less, and Ethereum proved to find a ceiling around $1024 USD on Coinbase. The last time Bitcoin dropped below 10K was on January 17th, 2018. It dropped to $9833.17. That same day, January 17th, 2018, when fears of Asian regulation scared away some investors, Ethereum dropped to $838.69.

My point is this, during the last major hemorrhaging, Ethereum bleed much worse than Bitcoin. This time around though, Ethereum held much better. I think this signifies greater investor optimism in Ethereum overall. I think it’s a good sign for the future, unless you’re trying to pick up some Ether for less than $1k. That boat might have left.

Warning: Investing in cryptocurrency is risky. The above is just one person’s opinion. That person could be totally wrong and has been many times before. Invest only what you can afford to lose and do not add peril to your life by investing too much.

Did you know that you can interact with the Ethereum Blockchain directly from a website? It’s true. All you need is Google Chrome and the MetaMask plugin. Once I got mine up and running, the first thing I did was what any sound-minded fan of the free press in-the-know would do: I went to Leeroy.io.

Initial Impressions

When I arrived at the homepage of Leeroy.io, I was greeted with a minimalist interface. The single input box invited me to create an account. This is because I was logged into MetaMask. My identity on the blockchain had already been validated without me even noticing. They didn’t need my email address and a complicated two-way validation approach. They knew who I was right away. I was wallet id: 0xbacb58a5bd0e2df0b3d3e82a1c75ad565a417cd6 and now they just needed to associate user-provided details with my already verified ID. THAT’S PRETTY COOL!

It’s ok. I only wasted like 30 cents figuring this out.

Now, here’s the part where I did some dumb stuff. If you are going to open an account on Leeroy, don’t waste your gas doing dumb stuff like I did. First, I inputed a Leeroy username to associate with my wallet id. It goes without saying (but is also said) that I chose Ethereum Bulls as a user name. I suppose I grew impatient. I clicked away or refreshed or something. Then I tried to go back. I didn’t know what to do. So I made another user name, then confirmed that transaction. Fortunately it was only about 10 cents worth of stupid. In the next few moments my account existed. When I visited Leeroy.io, I had new options and a name associated with my now-existing account. My account had settled on Ethereum Bulls as a username. I suppose Leeroy resolved the conflict by throwing out the second user name that I tried to enter, though I did go back and reenter Ethereum Bulls a second time after that, so it’s hard to say.

Having hacked JavaScript together for the better part of a decade now, I began my first post with a “Hello World.” Now, here’s the craziest thing about Leeroy.io. Even with as much attention as the site has received for being a cool, functioning DApp, there are very few active users on the site. Perhaps the costs associated with interacting on the network are prohibitive. Perhaps installing the MetaMask plugin and funding an account with Ethereum are too frightening for people. Maybe they are all stuck on the login screen, creating 5th and 6th user names. It’s hard to say. I can, however, report that very few people are actively using Leeroy.io, and I think that’s awesome.

Here’s why, I am actively interacting with another writer who is really interested in Ethereum. I don’t know too much about this person other than that their website looks better than mine, and they are big into Ethereum, but we’re off to a good start. We meet on Leeroy.io? What better place to forge connections in this community?

Future Analysis

Leeroy.io is cool and really fun. I am going to keep using it, alongside standard Internet channels like Facebook and Twitter. However, I am a passionate Ethereum supporter actively writing on the topic. Callmegwei probably isn’t going anywhere either, but I think there’s just WAY TOO MUCH FRICTION for the average user. This isn’t the fault of the entity behind Leeroy.io. The development effort is VERY admirable. I am very impressed with how it works and the way it interacts with the blockchain. This, however, might not be the ideal use case of the technology.

Having grown up alongside the Internet, most developers are going to have a hard time unlocking the true potential of the blockchain. We will continue to see efforts that are analog to web offerings for some time. Some of these might even be improvements over their currently-existing Internet counterparts. Leeroy does have some valid improvements over Twitter for SOME people. For example, instead of writing Hello World nonsense, a person could make an important political statement or something that will be immutable. Likewise, someone could also scrawl some hateful inflammatory content and pictures. Such activities might test one’s commitment to the notion of free public expression. Yet projects like Leeroy.io are important for us developers. Monumental. They help us see glimpses of the true capabilities of this thing that many of us are still trying to wrap our heads around. For that, I am thankful for and pleased to see an application like Leeroy.io.

I look forward to continuing to grow with this hybrid web-service.
If you’d like to fund my activities on Leeroy: 0xbacb58a5bd0e2df0b3d3e82a1c75ad565a417cd6

Ethereum is so much more than a crypto-currency. It’s a platform for the next generation of apps that will make use of public, trustless data and digital assets. Crypto currency is just the first app that runs on the Network. The amount of apps and programs that will make use of the Ethereum Network is set to grow exponentially in 2018 and beyond. But in the meantime, it’s hard to find concrete examples of how this tech can be used in clever ways. That’s why I love this here CS paper. The author describes some ways that the Ethereum Network can be used to help actual brick-and-mortar business.

Specifically, the writer discusses how a frozen goods supplier can add accountability to the delivery process. This is done by equipping a cooler with temperature sensors. The sensors vote at intervals to verify that they are working and haven’t been tampered with. Then the sensors record the temperature of the cooler to the blockchain. Using such a system, both the buyer and supplier have access to the same public, trustless data.

Did you know that the Ethereum Network can be used to better secure and monitor tangible assets? It’s true. That’s because data submitted to the blockchain is immutable. It cannot be changed. We can trust that the data is as it always was. Right now Developers and engineers are working on systems that will bring in a new generation of accountability. These applications are not quite ready for business and consumers yet. Soon though, the Ethereum Network will be powerful enough to handle the world’s data.