Comparative article: Gulu leads V God to receive Wanxiang investment, and Ethereum never comes to life (2)
Guru said to “Comparisons,”“Ethereum is a qualitative leap compared to Bitcoin. By separating the underlying operating system from the upper level application, Ethereum will form a huge ecosystem that can interact, thus forming a network effect. As a result, I used 1/3 of the funds I could allocate at the time to participate in Ethereum's ICO fundraising at a purchase price of about $0.25.”
As for the intersection of Guru and Ethereum, Guru is most widely known as the translator of the Chinese version of the Ethereum white paper, but Guru is actually deeply involved in Ethereum's fundraising and community building. At the price of 0.25 US dollars, Guru mobilized 1/3 of the funds he could use at the time to participate in Ethereum's ICO fundraising. Seeing this, you may have already said “Wow” in amazement! Because the all-time high price of Ethereum reached 1,422 US dollars, the current price is about 240 US dollars, which is several hundred to several thousand times the return on investment.
The Ether ICO is a large-scale ICO launched in 2014 and is known as the venture capital revolution. ICO (Initial Coin Offering) is translated in Chinese as initial coin offering, blockchain crowdfunding. However, people still like to use ICO, which is simpler and more direct. Like IPOs, ICOs are a means of raising capital. Businesses or individuals can issue cryptocurrencies in the form of tokens in exchange for fiat currency or other large and stable cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH).
The advantage of ICOs is that they can avoid complicated and lengthy reviews during traditional fund-raising, drastically reduce huge fees paid to intermediaries and auditors, and save time and costs. The scope of crowdfunding can instantly reach the world and obtain international resources. Its drawback is the lack of investor protection, which makes it easy for investors to fall into investment traps. The rights and obligations that tokens represent are also often confused. Common utility tokens do not represent partial ownership of the company, but can only be exchanged for current or future products or services provided by the issuer, which is a bit like a pre-order model.
Picture source:Block love
The crowdfunding for Ethereum began in August 2014 and lasted 42 days. The crowdfunding target amount was $19.7 million, and was carried out in the following three stages:
The first phase was within 14 days. The exchange ratio of Ether to Bitcoin was 2000:1, Guru indicated that the equivalent price was about 0.25 US dollars/ETH; in the second phase, the exchange ratio was reduced to 1337:1; after the third phase, the Ethereum ICO raised 31,000 bitcoins and sold 60,102,216 Ether, equivalent to the exchange rate of about 18.4 million US dollars at the time.
However, after Ethereum's successful crowdfunding, development wasn't all smooth sailing. Ethereum first experienced financial uncertainty, then a tight budget situation, and reduced costs through layoffs to ensure the smooth progress of the project. After the launch of Ethereum, it was a low point of development. The price of Ether was low, and the Ethereum Foundation questioned the wrong direction of development. At the time, it was expected that the funds would be exhausted within 12 months, and indeed it reached the dangerous edge of life and death. In May 2014, V God came to China to find new development funds because the innovative atmosphere of the Chinese Internet was quite good at the time. However, perhaps because the development concept of Ethereum was too advanced and could easily become an air, many traditional institutions and investors with traditional investment mentality were unwilling to invest in Ethereum at the time.
As a deep shareholder with Ethereum interests and an active member of the community, Guru accompanied V God to visit many investment institutions in Shanghai. He introduced V God to Wanxiang Group, which enabled Wanxiang Group to invest 500,000 dollars in Ethereum, a high-profit transaction famous in history. The transaction price was $1 at the current market price. This $500,000, like timely rain, has indeed alleviated the financial shortage faced by Ethereum, and has made Ethereum the future unicorn.
Wanxiang didn't know how to keep these 500,000 Ether at the time. Guru told “Bitu”, “I suggest they set up a multi-signature wallet to manage. It is said that later it crashed due to problems with GDAX technology, causing the price of Ether to drop to 0.1 US dollars for a while. It seems like every successful cryptocurrency investor must take a heart load test and pass it before they can win 100 times a thousand times more profit.”
According to Shen Bo, the head of distributed capital, another investor in Ethereum, investing in Ethereum is more about helping Ethereum get through difficult times. So what kind of blockchain projects are worth helping with? Shen Bo believes that those projects where everyone in the community is willing to participate in community building are projects worth helping. We reviewed the construction of Ethereum. The participation of community members was very high, the sense of belonging was strong, the community was very active, and the affinity and cohesion of God V was very strong. Guru has done a lot of publicity and promotion work in the Ethereum community. He has held six smart contract salons in Shanghai, and V God participated in two of them.
In the Dao crisis, another “growing problem” for Ethereum, Guru was an active member of the Ethereum community. When major events occurred in the community, Guru had no choice but to work with V God and other community members to create the carbonvote.com website for community members to vote on major events in the Ethereum community and guide public opinion.
The Ethereum community has had serious debates on whether to hard fork and other issues. Should it defend the values of decentralized autonomy or protect investors' hard-earned money? Various opinions express their opinions around different ideas and interests. Some people are worried that once the fork has passed, it can be forked again at any time... just like after BTC and BCH forked, BCH forked with BSV... Ethereum will face the curse of “cold-hearted triggering equilibrium”, triggering a tipping point, and will continue to fork endlessly in the future. However, a fork, a hard fork, or a soft fork is also a difficult choice for the Ethereum community.
At the moment, the members of the community are uncompromising and fighting tit-for-tat. There are opinions that hard forks are contrary to the principles of decentralization. Proponents of hard forks, on the other hand, argue that hackers' misdeeds must not be allowed to succeed; this is unethical. The consequences of such a huge amount of Ether falling into the hands of hackers are unimaginable. Apart from causing serious losses to project participants in the Ethereum community, it will also damage everyone's confidence and enthusiasm to participate in community construction in the future, and should be stopped. Through a hard fork, interference from regulators and legal departments can also be avoided. Ethereum's problems should be solved by the Ethereum community itself.
Picture source:zombit.info
The Ethereum community voted on whether to hard fork, and V God supports the hard fork. About 10% of people are against hard forks. These die-hard fans, who want to defend the blockchain spirit, followed Ethereum Classic ETC and issued a declaration of independence in the ETC community on July 24, cutting any ties with the Ethereum Foundation. At this point, the Ethereum Classic ETC international community was born, and Ethereum was officially hard forked into two chains, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
Looking back at history, the above crisis did not stop Ethereum from becoming the world's number one public chain; it was just one “growth problem” after another experienced in the history of Ethereum's development. As a loyal partner of God V, Guru worked side by side with V God and members of the Ethereum community to resolve the life-and-death funding dilemma and The Dao crisis during Ethereum's growth. The spirit of community collaboration played an important role in crisis management. It can be said that the performance of the Ethereum community did meet Shen Bo's expectations. This is also one of the criteria for many investors to measure whether blockchain projects are worth investing in. The Dao incident also had a profound impact on Gulu's future entrepreneurship.
By Claire Wu, a writer from Twitter
This article is a comparison of the original work. Reprinting requires authorization, and violators must be investigated.
Articles in the “Two or Three Things About Guru” series:
“Guru 2 or 3 Things” Coin Circle Sun Zhengyi - Who is Guru who invested $0.25 in Ethereum?
