 People are worrying that they are going to lose you, Andreas, to the altcoin sphere. Oh, no! Peter says, recently I see more and more people, especially on Twitter, commenting on whether you will remain faithful to Bitcoin. In certain ways, I empathize. You certainly have never been in this for the money. That is what I truly and thoroughly believe. It makes me wonder why you would spend so much time on Ethereum and even writing a book about how to master Ethereum. I've always looked up to you as a person with a deep technical understanding, not only about Bitcoin, but about distributed systems in general. Looking at Ethereum from various angles just makes my heart bleed. It's saddening and goes against so many ideologies that you have been proclaiming and teaching over the years. I guess the question is, why? Not for the money, not for the fame, and undoubtedly not for the technology. So why? Peter, undoubtedly it is for the technology. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the reason I'm interested in Ethereum is because I'm interested in the application of blockchain technology. Two consensus networks that resolve the state of smart contracts. I'm interested in programmable blockchains. I'm interested in blockchains that use a virtual machine to resolve the state of smart contracts, so as to expand the state of possibilities and make programming blockchains much more flexible. Don't be under any illusion that what I'm doing, writing Mastering Ethereum, is writing a book about why you should invest in the particular chain launched by Vitalik Buterin and many others back in 2014. I'm writing a book about blockchains that use smart contracts within virtual machines. The book I'm writing is called Mastering Ethereum, but it also applies to Ethereum Classic, it applies to Rootstock, it applies to Lisk, it applies to EOS, it applies to a variety of other virtual machines, smart contract-based blockchains. I am fascinated by this technology, not because it provides better answers than Bitcoin, but because it provides different answers than Bitcoin. These technologies as a whole are about changing the trade-offs between security and flexibility. Bitcoin is by far the blockchain that is the most secure, the most decentralized, and provides robust monetary systems. That's not the purpose of Ethereum, and it doesn't compete with Bitcoin at that. The purpose of Bitcoin is to take that trade-off and shift it to the other side, where it's more flexible, in order to be able to do a much broader range of programmable smart contracts. These programmable smart contracts are not going to be as secure as Bitcoin. That's a given, that's how the trade-off works. They're not going to be as scalable as Bitcoin, because the scalability is much more difficult to achieve when you're dealing with all of this state. They're not going to provide the robust monetary guarantees of Bitcoin, again, because that's not the trade-off that was aimed for. That doesn't mean that this technology is useful or useless, that's for the market to decide. Whether you want to write applications to smart contracts, DApps, things like that, up to you, does it mean that this technology is interesting? Absolutely. Whether you agree with these trade-offs or not, they do open a whole new realm of technology, research, experimentation, and innovation. Right now, most of that research, experimentation, and innovation is being used to make shitcoins by the truckload, and that's not good. But that's not the technology. The technology has opened the door. The fact that a whole bunch of idiots have tried to rush through that door to make shitcoins has nothing to do with the underlying technology. Before Ethereum people were making shitcoins using Bitcoin's technology, don't fool yourself. There will always be people who are in scrupulous and want to make shitcoins. The bottom line here is that I'm interested in technology, and I'm open to all different technologies, reading, and learning about them, even if I don't agree with their governance models. Even if I don't agree with the choices they've made about how to fork and fix problems and bugs, even if I don't agree with the level of decentralization or decentralization, they have, because they're not alone in this space. They're competing against a variety of other technologies. The technology of using virtual machines and consensus algorithms and blockchains to run smart contracts, that technology exists independent of Vitalik Buterin's Ethereum, independent of any current implementation, whether that succeeds or fails, or has a big price or a low price. Independent of whether these things compete or don't compete against Bitcoin, which, in my opinion, they don't. That technology is interesting. There's a real technology there, and I'm interested in it. If you think that I'm going to be faithful to Bitcoin by limiting my intellectual curiosity, by refusing to read or learn about technologies that may, in some people's minds, threaten the supremacy of the one true doctrine, that's not science. That's religion, and I don't do religion. That's a litmus test. That's a loyalty test. That's a purity test, and I don't do any of that. I'm going to remain intellectually curious. If ideas threaten you, then you need to learn more about them, not stop learning. This is not a faith-based system. At least I hope it's not. I'm not interested in faith-based systems. Does that mean that I'm no longer interested in Bitcoin? Absolutely not. I am absolutely interested in Bitcoin. I'm also interested in Ethereum. I'm also interested in half a dozen other chains, technologies, layers, and protocols, all swirling around this amazing cryptocurrency system. We are so focused on setting up the circular firing squads and litmus tests that we've forgotten what the real enemy of this is. The real enemy is not the decentralized system just across the road that other people use cryptocurrency technology to build. The real enemy is totalitarianism, fascism, corrupt, crony capitalism, and destructive banking systems that are absolutely centralized, share none of our values, and are causing enormous damage to the world. Stop worrying about whether Ethereum is going to compete or isn't going to compete against Bitcoin. This entire cryptocurrency space is growing. You don't like Ethereum? That's fine. I don't have a problem with that. Don't use it. It's an open market. Nobody is forcing you to use it. The reason I'm writing a book about this technology is first and foremost because I want to learn about all of the intricate details of how a virtual machine, a blockchain, a consensus algorithm can be used to execute smart contracts. Not because I'm interested in one implementation of that, but because I'm interested in all of the possible implementations of that idea, because they provide a very broad and rich domain for experimentation. You can do that with a variety of monetary policies, you can do it with a variety of governance policies, you can do it in centralized or decentralized networks, you can do it across the board. That's why I'm writing Mastering Ethereum. I'm still very much interested, invested, working on Bitcoin and other open blockchains every day. I will continue to work on open blockchains, I will continue to be curious, interested, and playful with technology so I can learn as much as I can about this new technology. If that makes me disloyal, that's okay. I don't mind.