So, the Sia thread derailed a bit with a discussion about Nxt and it's skewed distribution of owners. I'm not sure I picked the best title but that idea is what seems to have started the discussion. I've continued it here.
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Why did you decide go via the NXT AE?, that method enriches/favors NXT holders and means putting in additional steps to buy the shares for investors who aren't holding NXT. and additional steps for the issuer to cashout to BTC. It's a tedious process to sell often via BTER and means taking haircuts either side if the liquidity is not there . Basically a lose/lose unless you as issuer are planning on accumulating NXT or a buyer already rich in NXT
I want to invest in SIA but don't want to hold NXT because the distribution method is one of the most disproportionately skewed to few individuals in recent memory (early NXT IPO backers, some presumably who used socks to register multiple stakes have already profitted enough), I would rather not support that in any way. You could of made a BTC denominated offering directly using CounterParty (without requirement for any XCP token) and open ownership of siastock to whole crypto community, without having to sell the shares in background via PM's and undertake complicated manual book-keeping to ensure you don't oversell shares and so forth.. Addtionally because that method is on-top of bitcoin blockchain it will be transparent and auditable for anyone to look at so there will be no cries of fraud like with maidsafe IPO.. An example of an IPO issuance on counterparty is below
http://blockscan.com/assetInfo.aspx?q=ROCKMINERAllow me to weigh in. Nxt is simple, clean, easy to use, and has an active community. The most painful part of the process has been trading Nxt for Bitcoin, and the second most painful part of the process has been micromanaging the Bitcoin deals. To me, it seems like Nxt was a great choice. There aren't many established alternatives (MaidSAFE used Mastercoin, and we considered that), but the biggest advantage is the public price of the exchange. I didn't have to make my own cryptocurrency, and getting Nxt has been painless enough for everyone who's purchased so far.
At a market cap of some $30,000,000, I don't see how you can be complaining about distribution. With new technology, there will always be early adopters and they will see extra benefits for being first to the market. If you think that Nxt has a real chance at becoming worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, you should buy some. Post a notice that you are buying at 0.0001 btc each and I'm sure you'll have 10,000,000 in no time. That puts you right next to the other largest holders of Nxt.
The great thing about Nxt is that they're actively moving the currency forward. The AE is like 3 days old. You can't copy-paste innovation. It's a process, and Nxt is alive an well. NEM has about as much of a chance as Litecoin, will always be trailing in second place.
Like msin said, you don't need to get involved with Nxt to participate in the IPO. You can send me Bitcoins and get marked down in a spreadsheet and let me manage it. It's not nearly as fancy, but it's pretty much how the IPO would have gone without Nxt. And then you can claim the Sianotes at any time, and I'll be in touch with you when Sia is complete to give you your Siastock.
I know the distribution seems a bit skewed, but that's mostly because of how new it is. I don't think any cryptocurrency will ever be as seriously skewed as Bitcoin. The other thing as that people seem to be worried about one cryptocurrency becoming the primary cryptocurrency of the human race. That's not going to happen. Look at how much has changed in the space already. It'll take decades for any single cryptocurrency to get that large, and nobody is going to be happy using decades old technology.