State of the Ethereum network
In the previous posts, I wrote about several versions of a simple financial contract to be implemented on the Ethereum network. The contract was easy to run back in the summer of 2016, but things changed in September and October. This post is about the events and the current situation on the network. What has happened to the Ethereum network? The easy way to understand this is by imagining the Ethereum network as an email system, where each person can send emails, and each email is broadcast to anybody else, creating a long "email chain". The consensus algorithm ensures that everybody agrees on the sequence of emails. In essence, the system is designed to cryptographically evidence and verify this chain. Early on in the network history, the emails or transactions were easy to send and process, and the transaction fees were low. Unfortunately, the ease of my access to the Ethereum chain also meant that spammers, hackers, or other enemies could easily spam the network w...