Topic: BitShares? interesting ! bullish (Read 16362 times)

Very good testz, you pass the test!

Here's exactly "what Stan said" the last few times he's had this conversation with DE:

The business about whether BitShares is a company or currency is a pedagogical metaphor selection issue which was asked and answered multiple places in this forum, for example,


The best answer to this question was given by Bytemaster himself in his article What is BitShares? where he used TEN different nested metaphors to describe it.  It is eye-opening in its scope.


We've had lots of fun with metaphors over at bitsharestalk.org and bitshares.org.  Two of the classics, written by Dr. Charles Evans, are linked here:

http://bitshares.org/decentralized-autonomous-jedi-mind-tricks/
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/a-bitrose-by-any-other-name/

Bottom line is that metaphors are helpful in explaining certain concepts until the light bulb comes on for people.  There is a duality to BitShares that allows you to view it as a currency or a company.  Both are true, depending upon the context.  

My favorite way to look at it is that BitShares are shares in a company just like Bitcoin are shares in a company.  (Just because I called Bitcoin a company in the classic article that introduced the concept of a Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) -- http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-and-the-three-laws-of-robotics/ doesn't suddenly make Bitcoin subject to securities laws.)

Both Bitcoin and BitShares are volatile crypto-currencies on their faces.  But, BitShares viewed as a company (a blockchain like Bitcoin) does much more.  It runs a full-up unmanned crypto-exchange providing decentralized trading services and the ability for users to create currency and commodity derivatives backed by BitShares collateral.  That's what we call BitAssets (BitUSD, BitGLD, BitBTC, etc.)  These are the real currencies we are aiming for.  Products of BitShares "the company".  These are what give you stability (pegging to real world assets) and pay you interest.  So, inside a single Bitcoin 2.0 currency you have a whole new financial system on a blockchain.  Speculators can use the built-in exchange and trade BitShares tokens thinking of them either as shares or coins or fuel tokens, or whatever metaphor makes sense to them.  Consumers just deal with the BitAsset products - the "smart coins".

So simultaneously you can find BitShares in the top 5 on coinmarketcap.com and BitUSD at around #35 as a non-volatile "smart coin" that tracks the value of the US dollar.

So we shouldn't get wrapped around the axle about the implications of a particular metaphor someone is using to explain a particular concept about BitShares.  I personally jump between metaphors a lot when explaining things to people.   My intent is to show that the design decisions are reasonable when viewed in the right perspective.  It helps people escape from preconceived mindsets and appreciate what we have here.

In reality, BitShares is a Whole New Animal.  We can only describe it like the classic story of blind men describing an elephant while touching its many dissimilar individual parts.  Hope this helps.

BitShares is software
BitShares is a network
BitShares is a Ledger
BitShares is a Company
BitShares is an Exchange
BitShares is a Bank
BitShares is a Currency
BitShares is a Community
BitShares is a Country
BitShares is an Idea…
http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/update/2014/12/18/What-is-BitShares

BitShares is a Communism
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/communist-bitshares-wealth-redistribution-is-theft-916696

That's not what Stan said.

Its a toolkit to create dacs it can be analogous to what a company does but it really is a toolkit

You better ask Stan for clarification but I'm pretty sure it's a company.

Its not a company its a toolkit

BitShares isn't a currency, it's a company.

classy..

no but you are.

Looks like shit to me. Is it shit?

can you read

What the fuk is that shit

BitShares investors (anyone who holds BTSX) might want BitShares to issue new shares to attract new users, either by giving away these new shares for free or giving it to someone who can promote or develop something to make BitShares more popular. At the moment, investors are hesitant to issue new shares because it dilutes their stake, and they have the mentality, like most crypto currency people, that this is a bad thing. Eventually I think people will realize that BitShares is not a currency, but a business on a blockchain (DAC) that needs capital to grow in the early days (and this is how businesses do it, they issue new shares in return for capital). In any case, if investors will do so or not is decided by vote. The way BitShares works is that there are tons and tons of Delegates to vote for (anyone can become a Delegate) and the top 101 get paid according to their publicly set pay-rate. If investors vote for Delegates that have a low pay-rate, then BitShares will be deflationary, and no new shares will be issued, if they vote for Delegates that have a high pay-rate, then BitShares will be inflationary, and new shares will be issued. Again, anyone who holds BTSX can vote. In each case, investors will not vote for a high-pay Delegate unless they are convinced, via an announcement in the forum or a website or whitepaper, that this particular Delegate will bring more value than they spend creating it.

Yes it is like the system today where people may vote or delegate their vote.. however you can't vote for specific issues anymore.. your delegate has that power and actually has incentive to manipulate the vote for themselves.. if I could have voted against QE and I was a US citizen I would have... the only way is to vote out the leader and have a new leader, but we got a new leader and he did the same thing.. it is to enticing to print some money and cover it up in the books, some go offshore, some go to your friends at JPM Chase. That's conspiracy but its possible. With this every share holder has ability to vote.. ofcourse they can delegate or sell their votes but the idea is that would QE have happened if all shareholders voted? I think a high turnout would have happened because of the context and I think QE wouldn't have happened and we would have reset then and there instead of dragging the economy in another fake bubble.

We won't change our framework overnight (only certain currencies are allowed to exist, those that they can pay taxes with and are tracked)... many currencies with different properties won't fly IMO.. and I doubt we will change it so drastically based on what a bitcoin society will be like in the near future.. however we use USD (and other fiat currencies) so a transition period using bitUSD is certainly something we can work with in the current model.. and later on transition into a more deflationary society because bitcoin is in demand as a safe haven and bts is controlled supply based on consensus.

Ok so volunteers helped bitcoin get to where it is.. however to grow as a ecosystem effectively you need talent from outside the crypto pool who's motivation is to earn money.. after all you have to put food on the table. I doubt many volunteers were in dire needs of these coins to go up in value so they can sell to put food on the table.. An environment giving professionals the ability to develop and earn funds through a democratic mechanism is greatly desired and effective to assist in creating tomorrows technologies.

Essentially for profit companies raising funds would be replaced by "capital infusion" by the power of the people. Thus it's not liable to regulation which tends to stunt growth and its open to the imagination of everyone combined.. instead of the select people in the company raising the funds.

Aren't most Fiat currencies inflationary DPoS currencies as well? Citizens vote for "representatives" who than delegate officials to set monetary policy on an inflationary currency that isn't tied to anything like electricity or hashing power.


Transaction volume actually increases when a deflationary bubble occurs in Bitcoin as proven by bitpay. Why do we need to change our economic framework when we can allow inflationary and deflationary currencies to coexist and compete in the marketplace?



Within Bitcoin development is done by:
1) Volunteers (The open source ecosystem is large enough for a critical mass of developers to be interested in working on it for free)
2) For profit Companies paying for development. some of which is for their own products and some of which is given away to support the ecosystem.
3) Donations to non-profits that pay for donors

With Bitshares almost all of the development is done by a group of developers being paid by an initial IPO, and now this further dilution.

Both Bitshares and Bitcoin are also funding development by the vested interests of early stakeholders supporting the ecosystem to further increase the value of their investments. Within Bitcoin there never was an IPO or change in the protocol for capital infusion. This is a critical difference as the rewards for development with Bitcoin are only tied directly to the success of the ecosystem and a failure in the development or ecosystem penalizes all their work. With Bitshares Invictus wins if bitshares fails, more if it succeeds, and even more it it succeeds and they can convince the investors to pay by  decreasing their stake along the way.

Well alot of economists say the perfect currency is one that ties supply equilibrium to that of real growth (GDP). This tries to do that in a democratic way. It's not to say that votes can't be delegated to someone making it for you, but the ability as a shareholder to vote on these things is what seperates it from our system today... otherwise it ties as a nice upgrade to our current framework.. I quite like the idea... how is it different than bitcoin? Bitcoin serves as a commodity IMO not as a currency. It can't grow supply and thus people will only spend when they have to... its very deflationary... if we change our economic framework to model it after bitcoin sure... if we want to adapt both ways without turning the world upside down I think both can work in unison... bitcoin functions as gold/currency and shares for exchanging things...

I don't know how you think bitcoin raises funds to be able to comment on what the differences are between raising funds in bitshares vs bitcoin.... The major difference I see is that funds are raised by consensus and not by individuals in power. Is bitshares the one? Maybe maybe not.. all I said was the decisions being made I like so far... its personal opinion so shouldn't mean to buy it because I said its good unless you trust my judgement. The rest time will tell. BTW the supply went 187k above the limit.. its been burned... so it's not a big thing.

I was promised this couldn't happen and that Bitshares was more secure and decentralized with their delegates than Bitcoin.

Meanwhile in the course of a month :
Bugs in the code inflate monetary supply:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitshares-x-inflating-due-to-bugs-and-hacks-809378

and its interesting how one developer can leverage another DAC to influence all the delegates with such ease.

Some would consider this a form of theft from early investors. I know that I would consider any change in the 21million dollar cap of bitcoin theft.

Bitcoin is far from perfect but Bitshares advocates need a serious dose of reality.

We can argue over definition but anything centralized like BitsharesX and Ethereum is a scam waiting to happen.  Bankers put the entire world into a mess and solution isn't replacing the current set of bankers with a newer set of bankers like BitSharesX.

One time, huh? What do you think the differences between a consensus being reached within PoW Bitcoin increasing the 21 million limit and BTSX further diluting shares?


Hmmm.....that's not exactly answering the question.....


Or are you suggesting there are no differences?

The only real difference is that bitshares added the voting capability thus tying in consensus... and its only as inflationary as it needs to be... if new technology justifies the funding it funds it... otherwise it doesn't... not like today where we have technologies that don't hold their own weight... thats as far as I can tell, the rest we will have to look in hindsight... but I believe in the decisions so far.