Thursday, September 24, 2015

Investing in Ethereum.



If you are someone looking to jump into the cryptocurrency but you are not sure about the potential returns, this blog post here from VMX Labs will dive into the Cryptocurrency of Ethereum and discuss what Ethereum is, the potential of holding Ether (It’s currency) and the potential of Ethereum as a whole.


Cryptocurrency is a relatively new form of technology. We had a blog post that gives a quick introduction to what Cryptocurrencies are, feel free to take a look at it HERE. To rehash what was said in our earlier blog post, cryptocurrency is simply digital currency, much like the Euro and the USD except it is kept online.


We also have a blog post that gives a brief introduction to what Ethereum is, you can check it out HERE.


So… 



As someone who is interested in investing in a cryptocurrency, the first question that comes to mind is…”Is it worth it?” followed by “Will I make money from this?”


These are perfectly valid questions to keep in mind but before we answer these questions, let’s jump into what Ethereum is and its currency, Ethers.


Ethereum has been in the making now for almost 2 years, fund raising was done in 2014 and tens of millions were raised which was a very successful crowdfunding exercise.


Ethereum official launched in late July 2015, and since has become liquid with active trading going on. We have sites such as Kraken, Poloniex, and Gatecoin that trade 
significant amounts of Ether each day.




So What is Ethereum?





It is meant to be a cryptocurrency that is backed by computer power, anyone who holds Ether essential own computing power. The idea of a World Computer is what Ethereum is trying to sell. It is a computer that anyone in the world can use. Essentially it is  blockchain-based platform where any program can be run that has been uploaded into the network.


It’s goal is to allow people around the world to have cheaper and efficient access to computing power that essentially will have no down-time, no-fuss about storage, and is decentralized due to its blockchain-based platform which means it is very secure.




Are computers going away in the future?




The answer to this question seems to be very obvious. Every year there are greater technical advances and this leads to a need in greater computing power to put these new forms of technology to use.


Most people today are already heavily reliant on computers and what they can do for us day-in and day-out. Imagine the future…


In the past, people who have had access to great computing power would have had to invest a lot of money into buying and designing these machines to perform the work required of them. Typically, these would have been big corporations; with Ethereum, this allows for the rest of the world to have access to this power too.


This accessibility to everyone around the globe means more opportunities all around. From being able to have cheaper access to computing power, there are things called Smart Contracts that can be used for things that banks today handle for its customers. For example, loan contracts, a contract that is written in a programming language (Javascript for example) can be used made between two parties without having to go to the middleman (the bank), this agreement can be made quickly and it will not take days to process (like in the banks today) and will even cost less without the fees from the big banks.





Bitcoin Versus Ethereum






With Bitcoin being the first cryptocurrency and a very successful one too, it is nature to try to draw comparisons between Ethereum and Bitcoin. Most people today will have heard of Bitcoin and have some sort of idea that it is a digital currency.


To put it simply, Bitcoin and Ethereum are very different from each other. The only similarity it has is that both use Blockchain technology to reach consensus of all transactions made in its network.


Here is a great article that explains what Blockchain technology is:




So What is Bitcoin?


Bitcoin’s creation had the sole purpose of being a currency, like the ones we know today such as the Euro, the USD, or the RMB. It is not backed by anything, it is simply traded between parties with the trust that it is worth what it is worth, much like many other typical currencies today.




How is Ethereum(Ether) different?
"Ethereum is a modular, stateful, Turing-complete contract scripting system married to a blockchain and developed with a philosophy of simplicity, universal accessibility and generalization."
What is Turing-complete? 
Turing-complete normally refers to a device that can solve any problem given an appropriate algorithm and the necessary time and memory.

The Ethereum blockchain is one that has a built-in programming language that is a consensus-based globally executed virtual machine. 


Ethereum and its Ether is backed by computing power, unlike Bitcoin which can only be traded as a currency, Ether can be used to run computational work. 




What is the potential of Ethereum?


The potential of ethereum is immense, the range of possibilities can change how the internet works. Ethereum themselves state that it is “how the Internet was supposed to work”, allowing applications to “run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.”


Of course, nothing in this world will be 100% certain in succeeding, but Ethereum stands a pretty good fighting chance based on the logical direction of technological growth. People who invested in Bitcoin and held them until the prices took a giant leap got a great Return on Investment (ROI); Ethereum has the potential to succeed Bitcoin as the next big thing on the block.




So is it worth it?


We here at VMXLabs believe that it is. We buy into the idea and the things that can be done on the Ethereum platform. As the general public becomes more aware of this technology and more applications get developed around the Ethereum network, the intrinsic value of Ether can rise.


Ultimately everyone has to decide for themselves we encourage everyone to do a little bit of research on the topic, here are some useful links that can help you along the way as you look into Ethereum.




General Content:




Statistics Content:




Technically Advanced Content:



Article Written By: Michael Chow (Co-Founder of VMXLabs) 
Website: www.VMXLabs.com


Monday, September 21, 2015

Introduction to Ethereum And Why It Can Be The Future.



What is Ethereum?

This is a question we get a lot when we tell people what we do... However, when the word Bitcoin is mentioned, then most of the general public will know what it is. 

So how does one explain to their friends and family what Ethereum is? 


To put it simply, Ethereum is a form of Cryptocurrency that includes a virtual computer. The currency is called Ether. The idea/ideals behind Ethereum is to have an online computer, with a lot of computing power behind it, where it can be accessible to anyone across the world with an internet connection to do computational work cheaper and easier. 


Lets jump into the future for a second and play a hypothetical. What if NASA in the future required immense computational work to calculate and simulate the landing of a spacecraft onto a distant planet, lets say Mars. What NASA can do is use Ether to purchase computing power from the Ethereum Network of computing power to help with these calculations. 



Another example could be when a movie production studio wants to have their videos Rendered. Rendering videos requires some very expensive computers, but with the Ethereum network, this process can be done without having to invest in the equipment as sunk costs. 


This allows for anyone that holds ether to own computing power. So you might ask what do the people who provide the computer get? They will get paid via Ethers. Each computation done will have a cost, the cost most likely being stated in the Smart Contract used as part of the deal to do the work. Smart Contracts are basically like normal contracts except facilitated by computer protocols. (We will dive into Smart Contracts in more detail in future blog posts.) 

For More Information on Ethereum we suggest the following sites:



____________________________________

My Point of View:

Growing up around computers my whole life, I have seen a lot of really awesome things get developed, from having dial-up internet, to moving over to DSL and then fibre optics... to the uprisings of Paypal, E-Bay, Amazon, Apple, and Google just to name a few... Ethereum and the idea/ideals it stands for appear to be the next big thing in my honest opinion.  

Computers are not going anywhere, if anything they are becoming more prevalent, I personally believe the next logical step as technology advances is to have computing virtually which can be access by all and even contributed to by anyone with computers (with an internet connection) to add to the virtual computing power and make some money (Ether) without much cost. 


We here at VMXLabs specialize in Block-Chain Technology and GPU Mining. We produce rigs that have a lot of computing power for the purpose of Mining and also to add computational power to the Ethereum Network. For more information please go to Our GPU Mining Website for our Rig.


Article Written By: Michael Chow (Co-Founder of VMXLabs) 
Website: www.VMXLabs.com
Twitter: @VMXLabs 
Personal Twitter: @DexVitalitY

Friday, September 18, 2015

What is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency and the use of it has grown immensely in popularity with the first of its kind introduced in Bitcoin in 2009.






Ever since then there have been many different cryptocurrencies (Altcoins) introduced into the market (For Example: Litecoin, Dogecoin etc..) and the latest one to make a splash… Ether (from Ethereum).

















So what is Cryptocurrency?


To put it simply, cryptocurrency is digital currency. It acts like normal currencies such as the USD or the Euro and is designed for the purpose of exchanging digital information made possible through certain principles of cryptography.


Cryptocurrency is fully decentralized meaning it is theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.


Cryptocurrencies make it easier to transfer funds between two parties in transactions. Transfers are facilitated through the use of public and private keys for security purposes. Fund transfers are done with minimal processing fees, this avoids steep fees charged by banks and financial institutions for wire transfers.  


Cryptocurrencies are mostly derived from one of two protocols: (1) Proof-of-work and (2) Proof-of-stake. We won’t go into detail into these protocols today but here is an example of what each are:


  1. Proof-of-work (POW): The requirement of computational work in order to verify the validity of the block-chain.
  2. Proof-of-stake (POS): The requirement of the validator to show ownership of a certain amount of currency.


The first Cryptocurrency was Bitcoin, later coins are referred to as Altcoins.

In our next Blog Post we will go into an introduction to what Ethereum is. 

Welcome to VMX Lab's Blog



What is VMX Labs?


The idea of starting a blog was an exciting for us here at VMX Labs. As our first official post as a Start Up company based in Hong Kong, we thought having an introduction to who we are and what we do to kick things off.


What do we do?


Our blog’s goal is to provide a steady weekly/bi-weekly blog posts about the current state of affairs with what VMX Labs is up to and also to share some of our thoughts on different matters in the tech industry. This would involve topics from a wide variety of programming languages like Javascript (AngularJS, ReactJS, MeteorJS etc...), iOS(Swift), and Ethereum (GPU Mining, Solidity).


Our blog is meant to be casual and to put our interest out to the public so we can engage in meaningful discussion together.


Who are we?


VMX Labs is a short form for the three co-founders: Victoria Li, Michael Chow, and Xiao Yang.


With a degree in Mathematics and Statistics, Victoria began her career at an investment bank. She loves day dreaming and would want to spend all her time exploring new things.




Michael has a background in Academic Research in Public Health and has also worked in the eSports industry before going into Application Development with General Assembly and since Co-Founded VMX Labs.


Twitter: @DexVitalitY


Xiao spends most of his time pondering the creation of our universe and his spare time coding and exploring new technologies. Feel free to drop him a line on any topics regarding tech and science.


Twitter: @rndmnd
Website: www.rndmnd.com