NOTE: This was originally published in another thread as part of our ongoing troll-spray program, but since most serious folks probably don't even look at those disinformation threads, I thought this was worth repeating here in slightly expanded form. Apologies if you've seen a shorter version of this already.
It's been a gradual process but, I think we can say the BitShares is now sufficiently independent of its Cryptonomex developers to be treated as an emancipated adult company.
Over the past weekend, the elected governing committee handled a hot issue without even involving Cryptonomex. (This is not to say that everybody is happy with how they handled it, but that will always be the case in the course of human affairs.)
Bitshareholders are now free to explore all sorts of exciting new ways to grow their business. Cryptonomex is still available to provide support, but bitshareholders make the decisions about what gets done. Two more software companies recently announced their availability as developers so BitShares is no longer dependent only on us. That means we can be fired from our various upgrade projects if the owners aren't happy.
There are now several ways BitShares the Unmanned Company can raise funds to keep adding polish and features:
1. The
referral program encourages entrepreneurs to add features that attract new users. Entrepreneurs who use this method are eligible to keep 80% of the revenues from the new users they bring in. The business they grow is the business they own - and for this the BitSharesholders charge 20% for maintaining the world's
most cost effective blockchain platform.
2. The new
Fee Backed Assets allow an entrepreneur to add a new feature and have 80% of its fees automatically routed to them and/or to the folks who paid for it's development. The other 20%, once again, go to the BitSharesholders'
Reserve Pool (i.e. the company savings account). Fee Backed Assets then trade like any other asset, giving their holders a share of the revenue earned by the feature(s) they helped to build.
3. If there is a feature everyone wants for the General Good,
BitSharesholders can vote to take it out of a blockchain-controlled Reserve Pool. All blockchain revenue goes into this pool (and out of circulation) increasing the value of the remaining shares. So far, this pool of savings has been growing since 2.0 was released, meaning the BitShares is now a profitable enterprise.
And all the source code is open for use by any third party developer to extend the platform or build businesses on top of it.
So, whatever those poor troll's may think of us is of little consequence.
BitShares is an emancipated adult unmanned company.
It will become whatever the investors and entrepreneurs of this industry make it.