Topic: Is BitShares too centralized? (Read 580 times)

I don't think you understand PTS. Here's an explainer I posted earlier: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.10012941

The rise and fall of PTS correlates around moments in time known as "snapshots". Pre snapshot, PTS value goes up; post snapshot, PTS value drops. This is because a snapshot gives you stake in a new DAC project, so by holding the PTS in your wallet at that moment you gain a stake in the project that the snapshot was taken for. After people get their stake, some tend to dump while others would take that opportunity to buy low for the next snapshot.

I think you need to look at it from a Development point of view, all services, website design and updates cost money.  Where does the money come from if say the Coin is POW only and relies on mining only?

If you look through every Coin the main problem is it has lack of funding because no one wants to donate continually to fund Development so then it should NEED to be slightly skewed so the larger holders a bit better than the smaller holders.

Bitshares actually makes sense to me, I don't own any but I might buy some later on.

It may be more centralized but there are also a lot of people that are really happy with the way it is going and has been very stable. I guess if you think it is too centralized then you should try to come up with some ideas of how to make it more decentralized and present it to the Bitshares community.

I think your estimates are on the high side. Even if they're not you're looking at the company that started it, the founder and all the devs that have contributed owning less than 9% of the total supply. I don't think that is unreasonable & is much less than most other projects. I would be concerned if they collectively owned less because I want them to be incentivised.

It does become an issue because of current voter apathy, which could also be a reflection of shareholders being happy for key developers to manage a frequently updated client until the release of 1.0 soon. Many are also waiting for cold storage voting options I believe.  Though it's possible voting incentives may be needed at a later stage.

The blockchain's total outgoings are less than $40 000 a month at the moment compared to LTC just above that pays $2.5 million a month to miners in fees. Even maxed out the inflation rate would be far less than Bitcoin and would have to be adding far more value than miners.

http://bitsharesblocks.com/delegates

The delegates are all very transparent and there would be a community uproar and BTS value loss if there were shenanigans/favouritism so I expect the market to keep the system in check during this period where I agree they collectively can carry a lot of voting influence.

I would've given you counter arguments, but the self-moderated thread indicates it would be a futile effort.
Start a normal one and then we can talk.

BitShares is a delegated proof of stake. This means they have 101 delegates/block producers who are "elected" in by votes proportional to the stake of the voter.

Right now, near 2 billion BTS have been claimed from the genesis.

Only about 17% of the 2billion shares participate in voting. A majority of these votes are from I3 and the Dev team.

The least voted for delegate is currently voted in with 7% voting for that person to produce blocks.

I3, the development group collectively have ~70 million BTS.

The core Dev individually controls "probably" 100 million or near shares if not more.

The other Devs probably have 50 million BTS more.

The core Devs and some others (marketing groups) are diluting the shares by taxing the block chain as a delegate who takes 50 BTS per block produced. This means the Dev's AKA, the largest share holders are getting more shares to the tune of 100,000 plus per month.

Even if shares were more evenly distributed, voter/share participation would drop to minuscule levels where one big whale could come in and take control of the network at these price levels.

This just seems way too centralized. I love the BitShares idea of the exchange and collateralized assets, but this scares me as an investor. Greed has become an open requirement in order for some of the Dev's to maintain the network and stay on board which caused dilution and this new blockchain tax that they call "blockchain for hire" even though they collected millions of dollars in crowd funding a year ago.