On the eve of the hard fork scheduled for 20-21 July, we interviewed Taylor Gerring, one of co-founders of Ethereum Foundation. He has also served on the Board of Directors for Ethereum Foundation and is currently an International Speaker and Blockchain Consultant
CT: Why Ethereum?
Taylor Gerring: The name Ethereum comes from the game World of Warcraft. In that game, there is a zone called Netherstorm with several references to "Ethereum". You can see this reflected on Google Trends, where a search for Ethereum shows a bump around 2007. By comparison, today’s search volume for Ethereum the blockchain technology easily outpaces the temporary game curiosity.
CT: What do you think of the hard forking solution to The DAO incident. Are we more secure today?
TG: For me, the primary concern for blockchains should be "does this help us achieve a greater audience"?
Marketing, branding, and community sentiment play into this more than most technologists would like to admit, but at the end of the day, we have to attract eyeballs and mindshare to push blockchains into global consciousness.
Although there’s a a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem with adoption and scaling of blockchains, multiple goals can be sought in parallel, since longer-term scaling research will ultimately help get us where we need to be.
Because the Ethereum community has generally been handling issues with aplomb, I’m cautiously optimistic that the end result will be a more resilient network both in technology and preparedness. CT: How you got involved in Ethereum? TG: I was on sabbatical in 2012 after having worked for some large corporate enterprises. I was in search of something different to work on and in that time, I re-discovered Bitcoin as a means for tipping over the internet.It didn’t take long for me to jump down the rabbit […]
