As Ethereum moves towards the release of its genesis block, we at EtherEx are delighted to offer those wishing to utilize our open source, decentralized exchange a candid view of its organizational structure as well as our plans for its future.
First and foremost, we'd like to highlight EtherEx's commitment to being 100% open source. This is incredibly important to us moving forward and we promise EtherEx will continue to make its code available with an open source MIT license. Also, it is our hope that by being entirely open source, EtherEx will be incredibly easy to integrate and collaborate with.
Hand in hand with our open source ideology, we also promise to continue operating as a non-profit entity. Forever. It is our mandate that there shall be no business model whatsoever. This means the exchange will operate at zero profit, generating no income from its operations and smart contracts. There's only the gas costs to execute the smart contracts that make up the exchange itself - there will never be any other fees. Because of this, trades on EtherEx will be considerably cheaper (around 5000 gas to fill a trade, even less to add one) than there would be in a for profit model. We hope this, along with its open source nature, will allow EtherEx to foster the creation of a thriving ecosystem which uses the exchange as a reliable way to trade assets.
To action on EtherEx's future, we're creating “The EtherEx Foundation”. The Foundation is being formed on the premise that any entities using EtherEx will want a voice in the continued development of the platform. Similar in many respects to the Linux Foundation, the EtherEx Foundation will be a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of the exchange in the future.