Vitalik Buterin announced Ethereum in 2014 with the words "welcome to the beginning" (bitcointalk). The thesis I've written has quite large scientific value, it integrates a lot of data that has previously not been analysed (correctly), and I've used Ethereum for proof-of-thesis, an immutable record of that the thesis existed at a point in time. Ethereum as a "global singleton" (Wood, 2015) provides a global medium for trust, "a single institution" as Gavin Wood says, and it performs the same function as scientific journals have provided (reliable timestamps and records), as well as what any other institution has provided as nodes within a ledger ("consensus trance"). In other words, it is an experiment in proof-of-thesis on Ethereum.
Proof-of-thesis,
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x08c63f1700064e59987a9e8c7378b9e3521e9eb52898c366553856b57f30c228
https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/tx/48b35090d5e42c3d54f215c897ff19972b3253f37fc7c947dcb0ef290d6b148b/
"Preprint",
https://zenodo.org/record/1401019
What Ethereum provides is a global state, a new form of institution that has never been possible to create in the past. In the paradigm that precedes Ethereum (note the announcement rhetorics, "welcome to the beginning"), the only available ledger was a "consensus trance" made up of institutions such as academic bodies, organs really within a larger societal body. Now that consensus technology is available, it provides broader consensus, higher security and immutability for more secure records. To make use of that resource, I have recorded the proof-of-thesis on Ethereum.
Current interest in the thesis is
145 downloads over https://zenodo.org/record/1401019
and 55 downloads over https://peerj.com/preprints/27134/
