Topic: More Bitshares Greed - page 5. (Read 12249 times)

The trademark symbol is not an indication that you are a company, it protects a brand to avoid consumer confusion.  One of our biggest independent supporters thought it would be good to protect the name for that reason and paid  for the trademark application.  He is an independent agent and can do what he pleases.  We appreciated his efforts.  

You can put ™ on anything; it simply means that you consider it to be a trademark for your product or service. The registered trademark bug ® is used to indicate that your trademark is registered with the government, which gives you a wider range of statutory remedies in case of infringement. You only use the registered bug if you've actually registered the trademark formally, but you can use ™ freely.

The BitShares graphic was developed by another graphic's artist.  All of the web sites and forums and blogs, etc. are run by separate independent parties in the decentralized BitShares ecosystem.  They will all make their own independent decisions.  I recommend they continue to use TM for the above reasons.

I assume no responsibility for their actions, I merely try to communicate the BitShares vision and help out wherever I can as, once again, an independent contributor compensated by the token owners of the blockchain to run around making myself useful as best I can.

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 very thread, for example, https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.10059744

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.

So, let me get this straight.  You tried to trademark it and would have, if you could have convinced the USPTO, but since they denied your application, you come on here and attempt to prove your "decentralization" by advocating the fact that you're not "trademarked" when in fact you attempted to do so.  Yeah, that sounds TOTALLY above board.  Hahaha

You might want to get around to changing those logos "Mr. Decentralization", it's been over THREE months since your application was rejected.  I'd hate for people to get the idea that you're a company.

You are NOT preserving the original ideology of the movement.  You are unnecessarily centralizing nodes I suspect for your own gain.  Are you charging ~$1100 just to become a delegate.  If this is payment in arrears, it does nothing to prevent an individual from applying for multiple delegate positions.  If it is an upfront cost, you are disenfranchising stakeholders who don't have the means to pay your tax to forge on their own.  ALL INDIVIDUALS IN A POS OR DECENTRALIZED SYSTEM HAVE THE INALIENABLE RIGHT TO SECURE THEIR INVESTMENT FOR THEMSELVES.

Your son's article is factually inaccurate.

NXT didn't "recently" add leased forging.  It has been a feature for around eight months.

DPoS is a solution in search of a problem.  1000 TPS per second on any crypto network is extremely far off.  When we do finally reach it, hardware costs necessary to support such a network will be even cheaper than they are now.  A 64Mbps synchronous connection is nothing.  Most people in the developed world have extremely fast internet connections.  If transactions are broadcast to the next forger instead of all the potential forgers (implemented in NXT Transparent Forging) this cuts down on the bandwidth required.  Signing transactions doesn't take that much processing power.  It is arguable that reducing Bitshares' forgers to 101 puts more strain on those 101 nodes and results in decreased fault tolerance of the network.  If any chain starts accumulating 2TB of data per week, blockchain shrinking measures will be implemented.  This whole article is simply a rehash of Bytemasters' argument from months ago except he included more ridiculous examples.

He fails to take into account that businesses who use the payment network will be running hardware 24/7/365 anyway.  In addition many home users run their computers constantly and running a node is no additional cost to them.  Let's assume a home user runs his laptop 24/7/365.  A laptop consumes 35W * 24hrs * 365days / 1000 kW * $0.10 kWh = $30.66 a year.  They would be paying this anyway.  He doesn't take into account that running a node has a lot more benefits than simply collecting transaction fees.

He claims Bitshares has "the ability to leverage millions of users" to secure the network.  Let's not forget this is done through voting.  Voting has a history of being susceptible to manipulation.  Look at GHash.io.  How long did miners keep GHash.io at 51%?  They voted to keep their miners directed at that pool.  You are forcing people to centralize into pools that can't be verified to be independent.  It is my assumption that you are pursuing this route because you plan on monopolizing the delegates in the system for your own gain.

Good catch!

Those logos were made by one member of BitShare's decentralized community while another one was attempting to get the trademark approved.  The US government authorities declined to issue a trademark because, in their profound wisdom, the name was "too descriptive".

Apparently they thought it described a company that was in the business "sharing bits".  (I'm not making this up.)  No amount of reasoning by the BitShares lawyers could dynamite them out of that highly insightful position.

So, we need to circle back around and encourage all the independent decentralized users of the BitShares logo to properly reflect the current status.

A bit like herding cats, but that's the price we pay for total decentralization.  Nobody can order anybody to do anything.

Gotta love it!

ISSUE 4 Your website says different.





Bitshares' Logo Trademarked on BitsharesWiki


What's the deal Stan?  Is Bitshares trademarked or not?  If it is not trademarked why on all your logos are you using the TM mark?  The only reason you would be using TM while not "trademarked" is that you are applying for a trademark on the name.  If you are currently in the application process for trademarking Bitshares and it is your intention to do so, don't you think claiming Bitshares isn't trademarked is misleading?

Sounds like you're being disingenuous.

Let's focus on achieving the original ideology of Bitcoin.  Arguing about the merits of the technology is good but shouldn't result in a destructive food fight.  As I answered DE's concern about preserving Bitcoin's ideology in another thread this way:

Actually, returning to the original ideology of Bitcoin was the theme of Bytemaster's keynote address at the Las Vegas Inside Bitcoin conference:


His point is that most of us share the ideology of Bitcoin and are working to upgrade it for the long term success of the ideology, not the technology du jour.  No other industry's technology stands still these days, why should Bitcoin be stuck with its initial implementation forever?  A lot of technology has gone into aerospace since the Wright Brothers first flight. Should we still be using wing warping and pusher propellers?

Anyway, BitShares seeks to grow the Bitcoin ecosystem by providing a decentralized exchange to avoid what happened at Mt Gox and BitStamp.  The two can co-exist, and together with other serious block chains work to forge a solution to the real competitor: today's corrupt global financial system.


The best ideas will emerge and recombine until the Bitcoin ideology wins out over those who hold our freedom hostage today.

What if everyone playing Skyrim was also running a node? Negligible cost and no reason for objection, especially if Nxt provided something in return.

If only there was a way of providing Skyrim players a better gaming experience while at the same time bolting a Nxt node on...



  

[substitute Skyrim for any online multiplayer game, if you choose]

Bytemaster seems to assume that everyone shuts down their node if it's not profitable. I don't observe that in reality.

Because of the increased interest, Bytemaster added this article to his blog overnight.


It describes how he used POS as a starting point and worked to address some of its remaining shortcomings.  Isn't this what innovators are supposed to do?  We all stand on the shoulders of giants.


Remember

Bytemaster started with a POW clone 18 months ago and moved to POS and then on to TPOS and ultimately DPOS.  So technology marches on with this one.  He is not afraid to incorporate valid innovations when discovered so if you have a solid case for something he missed, bring it on! 

The need to pool is based on the need to have a predictable income and reduce variance. The incentive stays the same regardless the level of decentralization. If anything having several big holders mean they are likely to forge on their own rather than feel a need to pool.

One advantage PoS has over PoW is that for pooling the coins have to be left elsewhere which is a big security risk and will play on the mind of the stakeholders.

Good point.
I actually think DPoS is a smart system at this early time. It will force the forgers to behave well, and support the network.
The issue I see is that politics around delegates will create problems on the social side - like politicking and profiteering. We're seeing it now - and it will get exponentially worse with every price rise.
Regular PoS will get more decentralized with a price rise - as the need to pool will go down.

Its not written in stone but thats what we implicitly assume and expect to be. Keep in mind that the network is in bootstrap phase, and right now this gets some leeway.


Same issue here, that its in its early days. Right now I can name around 20 delegates who are publicly known and have been working diligently for a long time. Over time if it can go to 51 then there is no problem.

I can also foresee that shareholders won't be favourable to anonymous delegates in general. I don't expect 51 anonymous delegates to get voted in, no matter the incentives, over the older, known and trusted delegates.

In NXT and in any PoW, all a pool has to do is offer low rent, or rewards on finding block and everybody would go there. That is a very dangerous option and DPoS forcing the responsibility to be shared between 101 delegates makes it much more difficult to grab 51% of the network.

In NXT/PoW - one individual or group can set up 2-3 pools with incentives and take control. The problem is much more severe in PoW as the shareholders and miners don't overlap fully.

In DPoS - one individual or group has to set up 51 delegates with incentives to take control. Depending on the number of already present known, trusted delegates it may even be impossible. For instance if somebody were to try this now, BM, toast and a few others would be kept voted in regardless. If we can have 51 known, trusted delegates there is no issue.

Hmm, I don't know. I'm pretty unbiased here and somewhat interested in Bitshares in general, but reading what happened there looks like a pretty clear case of a Sybil attack. Having one guy secretly holding five delegate positions until he was outed by his former group sounds like it fits that definition to me. That's assuming the intention of DPoS is one delegate = one person(or more). Don't have to attack the network itself to succeed in gaining more delegates through a Sybil attack.

I think theoretically you could get a pretty reasonable amount of confidence in 101 DPoS delegates if each delegate was forced to provide significant proof about their real identity including live streaming. Tax documents, IDs and such too. I'm someone who supports the right to stay anonymous in general and I don't put a lot of stake in people providing their real name and such. But some really invasive protocol to prevent Sybil attacks seems like it could plausibly work.

Lol. That has convinced me to buy Btsx. Thanks for sharing!  I love you 2Kool4skewl

You should take a longer, broader view.





Only a handful are defying Bitcoins fall, only one of them is in the top 10. As has been the case for a while now.

Yes this is the old, unfounded and incorrect argument that all systems centralize at scale due to cost and therefore, we should design centralization into them.  I find it interesting that Bytemaster is advocating designing "centralization" into Bitshares via DPoS, but they keep claiming to everyone that Bitshares is "DECENTRALIZED".  Hmmm...

Of course this argument fails to take into account that most forgers will be running their computer anyway, especially the businesses who need to run their hardware 24/7/365.

This "theory" was debunked over on the NXT Forum.

Nice work so far guys, keep up the good work !