Ethereum co-founder Taylor Gerring: Hard forks can make the network more resilient

Crazy Review : Cointelegraph interviewed Taylor Gerring, one of the board members of the Ethereum Foundation. In the interview, Talor explained the origin of the name Ethereum, which was named after the Ethereum in the Voidstorm zone in the World of Warcraft game. At the same time, he said that the hard fork solution can create a very resilient network in terms of both technology and prevention. The name of Ethereum's smart contract can cause misunderstandings, because smart contracts actually represent applications on the blockchain, and the coding can be used for any project.

Translation: Nicole

On the eve of the hard fork on July 20-21, we interviewed Taylor Gerring, one of the co-founders of the Ethereum Foundation.

He is also a member of the board of directors of the Ethereum Foundation and is currently an international speaker and blockchain consultant.

CT: Why is it called Ethereum?

Taylor Gerring: Ethereum is named after the game World of Warcraft. In the game, there is a zone called Voidstorm, and the word 'Ethereum' is used many times. You can search for Ethereum in Google Trends (Google Trends: when searching for blockchain in 2007, it showed a lump). In comparison, the current search volume for Ethereum and blockchain technology exceeds the short-lived popularity of World of Warcraft in a matter of minutes.

CT: What do you think about the role of the hard fork in resolving The DAO? Are we safer now?

TG: To me, the primary concern about blockchain should be “can this help us reach a larger audience?”

There is more marketing, branding and community sentiment to this event than most technologists realize, but at the end of the day, we must capture eyeballs and attention to take blockchain global.

Although there are many causal issues and goals to be achieved in the process of blockchain adoption and expansion, long-term expansion research will ultimately help us achieve our goals.

Because the Ethereum community generally handles issues with aplomb, I am both cautious and optimistic that the end result will be a more resilient network, both in terms of technology and prevention.

Taylor Gerring

CT: How did you get involved with Ethereum?

TG: After I finished my job at a large corporate company in 2012, I took a sabbatical and was looking for something different. I discovered that Bitcoin could revolutionize the entire Internet.

It wasn’t long before I got into the space, and in the process I met Wendell Davis, founder of Hive wallet, who encouraged me to attend the Darkwallet event in Milan, Italy during my early attempts to develop Bitcoin decentralized applications.

It was at that event that I met Amir Taaki, Peter Todd, Mihai Alisie, and many others in the Bitcoin space, and we discussed how to make crypto more accessible, but ultimately limited by the protocols available. I first heard about some new ideas that could solve many problems from some Russian kids writing a Bitcoin magazine.

After returning home to Chicago, I kept in touch with Mihai, who put me in touch with Vitalik Buterin, and I started helping develop the Ethereum website.

CT: Ethereum and smart contracts: Is this concept difficult for ordinary people in the real world to understand?

TG: I believe that most of the misunderstanding about so-called smart contracts is due to the misnomer, when what we really mean is programs on the blockchain that can be encoded and applied to any project, but with the benefits of digital uniqueness without the worry of a central node failing and affecting other nodes. From this point of view, many things become possible, from digital assets to autonomous assistants.

CT: You mentioned micropayments as a valid application for cryptocurrencies, what do you think of Steem emerging in that context?

TG: I haven’t spent too much time looking into Steem yet, but the concept of micropayments is starting to be implemented both in content and in action, and I’m excited to see projects like Steem and Akasha (built on Ethereum & InterPlanetary File System) starting to get developed.

Whether we can effectively incentivize good community behavior with real assets remains to be seen, but in the face of an increasing number of traditional services, any solution that allows users to own their own data while leveraging the resilience of decentralized technology is a big win.

CT: What do you think is the future of Ethereum? Will Ethereum’s Ether eventually replace Bitcoin as a digital currency?

TG: People are beginning to realize that blockchain has other functions besides value transfer.

Since the blockchain value transfer function remains the core function of any public chain, there are still unlimited opportunities for new projects that want to enter the blockchain field and gain a foothold.

No technology is guaranteed to succeed, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, although I do think Bitcoin is a winner in payments and remittances.

When I first came into contact with Bitcoin, low-cost and near-instant transactions of small amounts were the dream to be realized.

To fulfill this dream, I developed a short-lived service, Paythru, that made it possible to send Bitcoin to digital entities that had not yet published a tip address. Once updates like "dust-free" were in place, I started running into some of the limitations of blockchains, such as "one chain to manage everything."