why not have a bitUSD/BTC trading pair for people who do not want to hold fiat but want to speculate on BTC's volatility...?
With gatewayd ANYONE will be able to set up an instant gateway that allows you to convert bitcoin to bitUSD and back. You don't even need a website for this, all you need is a bitcoin node, a bitshares node, capital in both currencies and an exchange rate feed and spread. Then anyone sending bitcoin to your address will get bitUSD in return, and anyone sending bitUSD to your address gets bitcoin in return (bitshares and bitcoin addresses are compatible).
If you want to do more careful trading then you can use a bitcoin -> bitBTC gateway. This is like depositing your bitcoin into a centralized exchange, and allows you to access the high speed trading enginge that bitshares runs on (DPOS). Then you can trade bitBTC for bitUSD, bitCNY, or bitGOLD. You can also buy shares in some of the few legit user issued assets we have listed, such as BTSBOTS. If you want your money back into real bitcoin, you just convert it to bitBTC and send it through a bitBTC -> bitcoin gateway. Even though the user experience is just like a regular exchange, it's all done on the blockchain and you are never exposed to counterparty risk.
It's not decentralized, but there is such a pair on Bter: https://bter.com/trade/btc_bitusd
I've seen at least two independent market-maker algorithms running on that pair lately. There's been a little discussion on bitsharestalk.org about getting market-maker bots running on centralized exchanges to jump-start trading volume.
