Let's peg stock market indices: S&P, Dow, Nasdaq

[bluebit]

I'd rather want to see the Bitshares wallet become more user friendly before more assets are added. I needs to be super fast and easy to use.

[jsidhu]

I don't think the SEC will pay any attention to Bitshares in general until we have at least passed bitcoin and all eyes are on us.

You might be surprised. I've seen SEC target small businesses before. For a lot less than this would be.

s'far so good.. aslong as we dont offer offensive things for sale thru a marketplace we should be ok... keep in the backburner until it blows up then hopefully by then we will know from overstock what it takes , if anything, to become legit and go after other markets to bring even more money in.

I'm not sold on all the "wait for Overstock" talk. Once Overstock and Counterparty start experimenting with interesting things, they will reap all the benefits from being the first to do it and be seen as bold and cool. Bitshares is an unmanned company built on a blockchain; if we're not pushing the status quo, why are we here?

Fair point... ok how about... lets get some hype happening.. and then when the hype seems to die down lets release this one to bring the hype back.

[Method-X]

I don't think the SEC will pay any attention to Bitshares in general until we have at least passed bitcoin and all eyes are on us.

You might be surprised. I've seen SEC target small businesses before. For a lot less than this would be.

s'far so good.. aslong as we dont offer offensive things for sale thru a marketplace we should be ok... keep in the backburner until it blows up then hopefully by then we will know from overstock what it takes , if anything, to become legit and go after other markets to bring even more money in.

I'm not sold on all the "wait for Overstock" talk. Once Overstock and Counterparty start experimenting with interesting things, they will reap all the benefits from being the first to do it and be seen as bold and cool. Bitshares is an unmanned company built on a blockchain; if we're not pushing the status quo, why are we here?

[jsidhu]

I don't think the SEC will pay any attention to Bitshares in general until we have at least passed bitcoin and all eyes are on us.

You might be surprised. I've seen SEC target small businesses before. For a lot less than this would be.

s'far so good.. aslong as we dont offer offensive things for sale thru a marketplace we should be ok... keep in the backburner until it blows up then hopefully by then we will know from overstock what it takes , if anything, to become legit and go after other markets to bring even more money in.

[donkeypong]

I don't think the SEC will pay any attention to Bitshares in general until we have at least passed bitcoin and all eyes are on us.

You might be surprised. I've seen SEC target small businesses before. For a lot less than this would be.

[Mysto]

The FTC regulates mergers. Should we call our lawyers? Should we ask the FTC what they think?

I think these questions are ridiculous because Bitshares X is software not a security. If Bitshares X is a security then Bitcoin is a security. If Bitshares X is using BitUSD then is that counterfeiting? No because BitUSD is just BTSX.

Honestly I don't think there is anything lawyers could say to help when it comes to truly ground breaking innovations. No one really knows how authorities will react. In China they banned Bitcoin and who knows the SEC could react the same way but even if that happens Bitshares X is supposed to be able to survive that.

Even if every one of us were fined Bitshares X should be able to survive. Additionally if there is a lot of money made then will the fine be the worst thing in the world? It becomes just like a tax.

You know I respect your opinions. I've agreed with most of them on the forum. And I can see your point here also. Mine is that I'd like us to do this legally and get it right. SEC shoots first and asks questions later; by the time you get your day in court, you've been financially ruined and your innocence is beside the point. Why take that risk when Overstock is spending the money to solve those problems for the whole industry? Let them bridge that gap and let us jump in when the time is right. There's enough good stuff in BitShares without breaking the law.

I agree we should hold off creating bitINX but not for the same reasons. I don't think the SEC will pay any attention to Bitshares in general until we have at least passed bitcoin and all eyes are on us. imo that could be another 3-5 years so hopefully by then Overstock has come up with something. If not then we should have a big enough market to help OS make an impact. But I think the type of people we are trying to attract with bitINX won't be comfortable with it until bitassets have a track record.

[donkeypong]

The FTC regulates mergers. Should we call our lawyers? Should we ask the FTC what they think?

I think these questions are ridiculous because Bitshares X is software not a security. If Bitshares X is a security then Bitcoin is a security. If Bitshares X is using BitUSD then is that counterfeiting? No because BitUSD is just BTSX.

Honestly I don't think there is anything lawyers could say to help when it comes to truly ground breaking innovations. No one really knows how authorities will react. In China they banned Bitcoin and who knows the SEC could react the same way but even if that happens Bitshares X is supposed to be able to survive that.

Even if every one of us were fined Bitshares X should be able to survive. Additionally if there is a lot of money made then will the fine be the worst thing in the world? It becomes just like a tax.

You know I respect your opinions. I've agreed with most of them on the forum. And I can see your point here also. Mine is that I'd like us to do this legally and get it right. SEC shoots first and asks questions later; by the time you get your day in court, you've been financially ruined and your innocence is beside the point. Why take that risk when Overstock is spending the money to solve those problems for the whole industry? Let them bridge that gap and let us jump in when the time is right. There's enough good stuff in BitShares without breaking the law.

[jsidhu]

This would be a killer asset and I would love to see it...if we could find a way to get it done. I definitely would talk to the lawyers. We do NOT want SEC trouble.

Issues: (1) SEC regulates secondary securities markets. Index funds have to hold stocks they are tracking.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have a lot more freedom to operate, but are regulated companies that offer their shares on an exchange.

(2) I believe if you have a derivative product that even tracks the S&P 500 or Dow Jones, you need to license that trademark. Both are owned by Dow Jones Inc.

As decentralized as BTS is, I question whether it can just ignore the laws. Part of me says wait on this and let Overstock spend their money on lawyers to figure out how best to approach a decentralized stock market. And then copy learn from what they are doing if it works.

The FTC regulates mergers. Should we call our lawyers? Should we ask the FTC what they think?

I think these questions are ridiculous because Bitshares X is software not a security. If Bitshares X is a security then Bitcoin is a security. If Bitshares X is using BitUSD then is that counterfeiting? No because BitUSD is just BTSX.

Honestly I don't think there is anything lawyers could say to help when it comes to truly ground breaking innovations. No one really knows how authorities will react. In China they banned Bitcoin and who knows the SEC could react the same way but even if that happens Bitshares X is supposed to be able to survive that.

Even if every one of us were fined Bitshares X should be able to survive. Additionally if there is a lot of money made then will the fine be the worst thing in the world? It becomes just like a tax.

It issues shares bitcoin does not... Why was the term "interest" renamed?

Any company issuing any kind of shares will have to track the shares issued to by physical indentity as well as company being registered (something overstock will have to do)... since this isn't a company being registered it is a gray area... but one where if something like this is done and it grows quite a bit will have people looking into it for sure and trying to find a way to shut it down.

[luckybit]

This would be a killer asset and I would love to see it...if we could find a way to get it done. I definitely would talk to the lawyers. We do NOT want SEC trouble.

Issues: (1) SEC regulates secondary securities markets. Index funds have to hold stocks they are tracking.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have a lot more freedom to operate, but are regulated companies that offer their shares on an exchange.

(2) I believe if you have a derivative product that even tracks the S&P 500 or Dow Jones, you need to license that trademark. Both are owned by Dow Jones Inc.

As decentralized as BTS is, I question whether it can just ignore the laws. Part of me says wait on this and let Overstock spend their money on lawyers to figure out how best to approach a decentralized stock market. And then copy learn from what they are doing if it works.

The FTC regulates mergers. Should we call our lawyers? Should we ask the FTC what they think?

I think these questions are ridiculous because Bitshares X is software not a security. If Bitshares X is a security then Bitcoin is a security. If Bitshares X is using BitUSD then is that counterfeiting? No because BitUSD is just BTSX.

Honestly I don't think there is anything lawyers could say to help when it comes to truly ground breaking innovations. No one really knows how authorities will react. In China they banned Bitcoin and who knows the SEC could react the same way but even if that happens Bitshares X is supposed to be able to survive that.

Even if every one of us were fined Bitshares X should be able to survive. Additionally if there is a lot of money made then will the fine be the worst thing in the world? It becomes just like a tax.

[bytemaster]

One big problem with tracking stock indices with bitassets would be to compensate for dividends. When you hold an index ETF (SPY for S&P500, for example) you receive all the dividends that the companies pay, normally on a quarterly basis. With a bitasset we would need to add them quarterly to the bitasset price, so there would be a growing deviation from the tracked index/ETF and a nightmare for the feed publishing script.
BTW, I already proposed bitassets tracking S&P500, Dow, and Nasdaq a while ago:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=8690

No need to track dividends... you get yield instead which may be higher

[busygin]

One big problem with tracking stock indices with bitassets would be to compensate for dividends. When you hold an index ETF (SPY for S&P500, for example) you receive all the dividends that the companies pay, normally on a quarterly basis. With a bitasset we would need to add them quarterly to the bitasset price, so there would be a growing deviation from the tracked index/ETF and a nightmare for the feed publishing script.
BTW, I already proposed bitassets tracking S&P500, Dow, and Nasdaq a while ago:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=8690

[Mysto]

As decentralized as BTS is, I question whether it can just ignore the laws. Part of me says wait on this and let Overstock spend their money on lawyers to figure out how best to approach a decentralized stock market. And then copy learn from what they are doing if it works.

hehe I like the way you think!

[donkeypong]

This would be a killer asset and I would love to see it...if we could find a way to get it done. I definitely would talk to the lawyers. We do NOT want SEC trouble.

Issues: (1) SEC regulates secondary securities markets. Index funds have to hold stocks they are tracking.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs) have a lot more freedom to operate, but are regulated companies that offer their shares on an exchange.

(2) I believe if you have a derivative product that even tracks the S&P 500 or Dow Jones, you need to license that trademark. Both are owned by Dow Jones Inc.

As decentralized as BTS is, I question whether it can just ignore the laws. Part of me says wait on this and let Overstock spend their money on lawyers to figure out how best to approach a decentralized stock market. And then copy learn from what they are doing if it works.

[starspirit]

I disagree that it would dilute interest in BitUSD, because it would grow the overall market interest. However I would like to see higher confidence in the peg and liquidity mechanisms first before reproducing them too broadly.

I also think currencies and cross-currency pairs should come first.

Finally, I think that the concept of BitAsset yield will need to be reviewed as we move to other underlyings. I expect that shorts will want to pay much lower interest for leverage on BTSX when borrowing in assets that are more volatile than USD. In fact, its possible at some point that they may want to be paid for the service of issuing and guaranteeing 30 day buyback of BitAssets, if they are not particularly inclined the borrow for BTSX in that underlying. Not sure, but its an idea I'm thinking about, maybe somebody has a good counterargument.

[Mysto]

Oops sorry think I quoted the wrong comment?  Not sure but yeah my response doesn't make sense now that I re-read it.  It's late, time to quit the internet for the night.  Anyway I agree that serious investors won't take notice until we are out of beta (no more filp flops on core design principals) and the system is shown to be working and stable for a relatively long period of time.  Maybe shorter than Bitcoin, but still years in my opinion.  Debit cards and other useful features will hopefully attract more casual users much sooner than that though.

hehe no problem happens to all of us.

Yup I agree if it's done right it will be in a shorter time than bitcoin.