RE: Thoughts on an Ethereum Classic Roadmap
Thank you for this post. I enjoyed reading it a lot from the technical perspective. However, my piece of advice would be to rebrand under a different name. This would be the most proactive thing to do for the crypto space and for ETC. Until this happens ETC won't get rid of it's bad image and it will always be in ETH's shadow. What crypto needs is mass adoption and good luck with explaining ETC-ETH to a mainstream user. It hurts everybody. The only legitimacy ETC has atm is that it was listed on exchanges and this was done purely out of Polo's greed.
On a different note, @charleshosk, I don't really understand your motives and find your communication confusing. You say your interests are purely academical. If that would be the only factor in the story, you could have forked Ethereum long ago. Moreover, you stated yourself that you didn't leave Ethereum in best way. I can imagine that if I was in your shoes, I'd be emotionally involved at least. At the same time, you're saying you don't want to lead the project - sounds like you don't want the responsibility even though you are actually the most vocal developer for ETC, keeping it alive and pushing the most forward. For these reasons, for an outsider like me, it seems that ETC is for you a good opportunity to "hit" back EF, to promote your name and your company. Until ETC I didn't know for example for IOHK. All this actually gives me the impression of a masterpiece trolling. Please, understand this as proactive criticism. I do believe you're one of top blockchain experts and for this I regard IOHK as one of the top blockchain companies. This is also the reason why I left this comment, as I think your actions can get misunderstood quickly. Especially in the crypto scene.:) Moreover, this could quite easily change with ETC rebranding - then only it can become it's own cryptocurrency. People speak about Ethereum as Bitcoin 2.0. Why don't then make with all these propositions Ethereum 2.0 blockchain which steps out of the shadow of ETH. This situation currently just hurts everybody.
Fair enough, I cannot be intellectually honest and say I'm not emotionally invested in ETC. It was the original social contract I signed up for in the first place. This contract has been abandoned for better or worse and I really don't want to see it die.
This said, there is a strong business case to work on ETC. We have an opportunity to work with a live and valuable cryptocurrency and solid community. We also have chance to AB test a different DApp model from the Foundations if the community wants to move in that direction. A Dash style treasury would mean that ETC could be a paying client for IOHK's work long term, which again is a great business proposition.
All this said, it's nice to just be thinking about ethereum's challenges again. I loved the original ideas and the potential and it was a shame I've been excluded for so long from participating in any meaningful capacity.
Thanks for the clarification! Also, what do you think about a name change? The reason why I'm asking this - even though it might seem unimportant in perspective of other challenges - because I've first hand experienced difficulties in communication with people who are not following the crypto space closely. They want to buy some and are ultra confused which one to get, what is the difference, etc. Then when I start explaining the difference, they get lost when hearing things like hard fork, immutability, etc and scared when they hear hack. The response I got (from more people) is, that they'll wait. In this regard, I feel that the whole crypto space would benefit as it would remove one obstacle to wider adoption. Personally, I don't care about names but do believe a new name would make ETC stand better on its own. Still, having experience in brand development, I do think that it would help to differentiate it and build a stronger story.