Author Topic: Have we passed a centralization tipping point?  (Read 9920 times)

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Offline Empirical1.1

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I had similar panic concerns fluxer :)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9539.msg124040#msg124040

To be the winner right now though is all about getting the best talent & marketing. Good devs are clearly worth their weight in gold. I think dilution is the best solution for BitShares. There has also been some limits placed on the dilution.

I do worry that if the market views BitShares as partly centralised already, then I think our valuation is going to be significantly handicapped as a result even in the short term so it's also something I've been keen to address by encouraging more voting as well as not keeping too much BTSX on the big exchanges.

Setting aside the fact that BitShares is far more effectively decentralized than most of its true competitors, that is of little concern.  We are also more decentralized than most companies people routinely do business with.  The demographic we will market to first does not generally care about this any more than they stop to consider the share distribution of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Benny's Car Parts Outlet.

:)

Yeah I can see you guys are envisioning people using a variety of front end applications and the fact that it's BitShares on the back end & how it works may be largely irrelevant to them. Personally I think the main market will be BitAssets. I think the brand image of BitShares, particularly the level of perceived decentralisation could be important.

On the shareholder side, if you're perceived to have centralised weaknesses and/or are ever operating in grey areas then they may value BitShares on a very short earnings horizon vs. a competitor that was perceived to be more decentralised, who could therefore achieve a higher valuation and raise more funds via dilution as a result.

BitShares is pretty decentralised though, and I'm really about encouraging more active voting stake and less on big exchanges than anything else.

If one goes out and approaches 20 random people on the street today and asks them if they are worried about the negative impact of centralization.  I bet you the answer would be no.....they many have never even considered the implications.  And for the few that answer in the affirmative, they would generally believe that there are no practical alternatives to the current status quo anyway.  So the mass market is not clamoring for an alternate. In fact most have not identified the issue.  In this case we in the crypto community are the advance guard.....the riders at the leading edge of the wave, if you will.   

The market we are going after is not the crypomarket.........if all we do is capture the current crypto market this project would be a failure IMO.  There is far more unrecognized demand out there, it is just a matter of the packaging and presentation of the product and getting our value proposition and story in focus .  Since in the wider market the issues we here see as pressing - centralization of control and undue influence in the economic system-  are not yet pressing concerns with clear alternatives (thought they are ever so slowly becoming so), we have time to get our decentralization framework right.   I feel we are moving in this direction.  However, we do not need to rush this transition due to fear of alienating the markets.  The mass markets don't care about decentralization (as we here do).  When WILL they care?  It is really unknown and surely out of our control, but my opinion is that they will not start to really pay attention to the issue of centralization until this whole monetary system begins to swerve into the ditch (ala Cypress).

I didn't say BTS shouldn't market outside crypto. I'm saying there are customers and investors.

Unlike a Facebook/Apple, a DAC operates in grey areas and could be unfairly targeted at any time. There are also no legal restrictions placed on notification of and sale of shares in DACs.  If BTS is perceived to be a DAC that can be targeted or overly influenced via one man or a small group, it will receive a tiny valuation from investors as it would obviously be super fragile. (You may have to bring in 5-10X more users/earnings than a competitor to get the same valuation if you're judged to be weak here.)

On the user side, they will be offered probably a debit card, bonus & yield. Each consumer is different but most will at least look at a rating site, a forum or ask a knowledgable friend about BitUSD/BTS before they part with their cash.
Decentralisation is a key criteria on which a DAC is rated by the market that does understand it, so will strongly define the positive or negative BitShares brand image consumers see when trying to validate the opportunity from a more knowledgable source. They will steer clear of a DAC with a negative brand image, feedback or a low rating whether they specifically understand decentralisation themselves or not.

More importantly the next Cyprus catalyst will be huge and could happen at any time. It will result in a huge loss of trust and confidence in centralised institutions & we will see consumers seriously looking for & evaluating those criteria in DACs in the aftermath.

I think BitShares is fine & competitive in this area, I'm just making the point that I think market perceived decentralisation or lack thereof shouldn't be under rated.

Offline jae208

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I don't think its a problem, considering that they are actually creating Bitshares, and we need them to develop it.  Without the devs, a coin is nothing.

True, but without users it doesn't matter if you have rock star developers a coin will still be nothing. I am certainly in favor of taking care of developers. I'm not too sure I can say the same about marketing though. I always like to make the comparison with Bitcoin. How is it that Bitcoin became worth several billion dollars without a marketing team and what is it that we can do to improve? In terms of spreading the message I think that with the cheap communication tools we have there is no reason why spreading the message of Bitshares should cost much.
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Offline starspirit

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DPoS has been sold on the basis of decentralised control, and its important to know that my vote counts. And from BM's figures, its good to have confirmed that it does.

Offline James212

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I had similar panic concerns fluxer :)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9539.msg124040#msg124040

To be the winner right now though is all about getting the best talent & marketing. Good devs are clearly worth their weight in gold. I think dilution is the best solution for BitShares. There has also been some limits placed on the dilution.

I do worry that if the market views BitShares as partly centralised already, then I think our valuation is going to be significantly handicapped as a result even in the short term so it's also something I've been keen to address by encouraging more voting as well as not keeping too much BTSX on the big exchanges.

Setting aside the fact that BitShares is far more effectively decentralized than most of its true competitors, that is of little concern.  We are also more decentralized than most companies people routinely do business with.  The demographic we will market to first does not generally care about this any more than they stop to consider the share distribution of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Benny's Car Parts Outlet.

:)

Yeah I can see you guys are envisioning people using a variety of front end applications and the fact that it's BitShares on the back end & how it works may be largely irrelevant to them. Personally I think the main market will be BitAssets. I think the brand image of BitShares, particularly the level of perceived decentralisation could be important.

On the shareholder side, if you're perceived to have centralised weaknesses and/or are ever operating in grey areas then they may value BitShares on a very short earnings horizon vs. a competitor that was perceived to be more decentralised, who could therefore achieve a higher valuation and raise more funds via dilution as a result.

BitShares is pretty decentralised though, and I'm really about encouraging more active voting stake and less on big exchanges than anything else.

If one goes out and approaches 20 random people on the street today and asks them if they are worried about the negative impact of centralization.  I bet you the answer would be no.....they many have never even considered the implications.  And for the few that answer in the affirmative, they would generally believe that there are no practical alternatives to the current status quo anyway.  So the mass market is not clamoring for an alternate. In fact most have not identified the issue.  In this case we in the crypto community are the advance guard.....the riders at the leading edge of the wave, if you will.   

The market we are going after is not the crypomarket.........if all we do is capture the current crypto market this project would be a failure IMO.  There is far more unrecognized demand out there, it is just a matter of the packaging and presentation of the product and getting our value proposition and story in focus .  Since in the wider market the issues we here see as pressing - centralization of control and undue influence in the economic system-  are not yet pressing concerns with clear alternatives (thought they are ever so slowly becoming so), we have time to get our decentralization framework right.   I feel we are moving in this direction.  However, we do not need to rush this transition due to fear of alienating the markets.  The mass markets don't care about decentralization (as we here do).  When WILL they care?  It is really unknown and surely out of our control, but my opinion is that they will not start to really pay attention to the issue of centralization until this whole monetary system begins to swerve into the ditch (ala Cypress).
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 10:42:50 pm by James212 »
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Offline liondani

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Offline arhag

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Good devs are clearly worth their weight in gold.

Hmm... That sounds nice but is it true? Using a typical career length of 40 years and a median weight of 158 lbs for a US citizen, I would conclude that yes, indeed, a dev is worth at least their weight in gold:)


Offline toast

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- There is no distinction between 'I3 funds' and 'personal funds of I3 members' as far as voting is concerned.

This is false. Spending/voting decisions for "I3" is done by Dan, not all of I3 collectively. You can be sure there are several I3 members who would not have made the same hiring/spending decisions as Dan.
Do not use this post as information for making any important decisions. The only agreements I ever make are informal and non-binding. Take the same precautions as when dealing with a compromised account, scammer, sockpuppet, etc.

Offline Empirical1.1

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I had similar panic concerns fluxer :)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9539.msg124040#msg124040

To be the winner right now though is all about getting the best talent & marketing. Good devs are clearly worth their weight in gold. I think dilution is the best solution for BitShares. There has also been some limits placed on the dilution.

I do worry that if the market views BitShares as partly centralised already, then I think our valuation is going to be significantly handicapped as a result even in the short term so it's also something I've been keen to address by encouraging more voting as well as not keeping too much BTSX on the big exchanges.

Setting aside the fact that BitShares is far more effectively decentralized than most of its true competitors, that is of little concern.  We are also more decentralized than most companies people routinely do business with.  The demographic we will market to first does not generally care about this any more than they stop to consider the share distribution of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Benny's Car Parts Outlet.

:)

Yeah I can see you guys are envisioning people using a variety of front end applications and the fact that it's BitShares on the back end & how it works may be largely irrelevant to them. Personally I think the main market will be BitAssets. I think the brand image of BitShares, particularly the level of perceived decentralisation could be important.

On the shareholder side, if you're perceived to have centralised weaknesses and/or are ever operating in grey areas then they may value BitShares on a very short earnings horizon vs. a competitor that was perceived to be more decentralised, who could therefore achieve a higher valuation and raise more funds via dilution as a result.

BitShares is pretty decentralised though, and I'm really about encouraging more active voting stake and less on big exchanges than anything else.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 07:22:09 pm by Empirical1.1 »

Offline Ander

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I3/devs have a lower percentage of Bitshares than Satoshi has of bitcoin. 

I don't think its a problem, considering that they are actually creating Bitshares, and we need them to develop it.  Without the devs, a coin is nothing.
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Offline Geneko

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When delegates get paid with new share reciepts, that is exactly what is happening.  They are getting credit for their added contributions.

So, if you are tempted to use the word "inflation" with respect to BitShares, stop.  Go back to first principles and be happy. :)

Nobody is arguing here because of purpose for this marriage of Voting-Inflation but because of the way it will work.

Big problem arises with this marriage of Voting-Inflation and I think nobody is able to grasp future consequents. Voting and inflation is meant as substitute for free market forces engaged in hiring and pricing for developers work.
 
The problem arises because of know Parkinson's Law: a project will cost whatever there is available to spend.

But the cost is not the main problem. Set aside inflation problem and lets focus on Voting.
How am I, as average stake holder, going to evaluate quality and cost of developers work, and how could I predict market value of this work. Here we come with another Parkinson’s Law of triviality known as "bikeshedding":

Committee whose job is to approve plans for a nuclear power plant spent the majority of its time with pointless discussions on relatively trivial and unimportant but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bike-shed, while neglecting the less-trivial proposed design of the nuclear power plant itself, which is far more important but also a far more difficult and complex task to criticize constructively.

Obviously this marriage of Voting-Inflation is suggested in a hurry I beg for some more serious considerations of its implications. The fact that Ethereum team come up with idea doesn’t mean it is considered carefully. 

Offline jsidhu

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jsidhu, I know you were an excited supporter of the idea, but I have come to realize that the burning mechanism is economically flawed. There are ideas in that proposal worth salvaging, and I will get around to it, but I think this is more important. I'm actually almost done...
Flawed economically? Why dont you post a message about it there?
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Offline speedy

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bitUSD, bitCNY, et. al, are the currencies.  They are the stable units of account pegged to other currencies.

This is a good point - anyone who thinks that issuing new shares is going to reduce the value of their holdings is free to convert them 100% into BitUSD. But no one is going to do that because Im sure we are all fairly convinced that you will only get hired by the DAC if you add more value than you consume.

Offline Stan

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I had similar panic concerns fluxer :)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9539.msg124040#msg124040

To be the winner right now though is all about getting the best talent & marketing. Good devs are clearly worth their weight in gold. I think dilution is the best solution for BitShares. There has also been some limits placed on the dilution.

I do worry that if the market views BitShares as partly centralised already, then I think our valuation is going to be significantly handicapped as a result even in the short term so it's also something I've been keen to address by encouraging more voting as well as not keeping too much BTSX on the big exchanges.

Setting aside the fact that BitShares is far more effectively decentralized than most of its true competitors, that is of little concern.  We are also more decentralized than most companies people routinely do business with.  The demographic we will market to first does not generally care about this any more than they stop to consider the share distribution of Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Benny's Car Parts Outlet.

:)
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.

Offline Stan

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Quote
author=fluxer555 link=topic=10583.msg139218#msg139218 date=1414332467]

Quote
Firstly, inflation is not "capital infusion". It's a redistribution of wealth. No new money is entering the system, and the market cap does not increase as a result.

The "inflation" is not just given away. It is traded for performance of the devs which adds value to the DAC,  which ,yes, should/will result in increase market cap.

Two people agree to form a company.
One has money, the other has time.
They agree that time is worth money.
So they split ownership of the company according to the amount of time or money each contributes.

Over the years, as they each contribute more time or money to the company,
They are issued receipts, denominated in USD, for their contribution.
At any point in time, ownership percentages are determined by the sum of receipts each person holds.

That is what we are doing here.
BitShares are nothing but receipts for contributions made to the company.

So any concept of inflation here is a non sequitur.
It is a holdover from bitcointhink and does not apply.

BitShares are receipts reflecting ownership originally derived from contributions made to the growth of the company.
bitUSD, bitCNY, et. al, are the currencies.  They are the stable units of account pegged to other currencies.
     They cannot be inflated (although they will faithfully track any inflation in the currency to which they are pegged.)

Anytime anybody brings a contribution of money, or something worth money, to the company, they should be recognized with receipts (shares) for that contribution.  As the company's shares go in value, it takes fewer shares to recognize new contributions than it did to recognize the same contribution made earlier.  Thus, early founders profit from growth in value of their shares but new contributors get credit based on relative value at the time they made their contribution.

When delegates get paid with new share reciepts, that is exactly what is happening.  They are getting credit for their added contributions.

So, if you are tempted to use the word "inflation" with respect to BitShares, stop.  Go back to first principles and be happy. :)
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Offline Stan

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Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.

Offline Stan

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You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done.

                        -- Kenny Rogers
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Offline fluxer555

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jsidhu, I know you were an excited supporter of the idea, but I have come to realize that the burning mechanism is economically flawed. There are ideas in that proposal worth salvaging, and I will get around to it, but I think this is more important. I'm actually almost done...

Offline jsidhu

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The bts owned by i3 is less than 100m.   

Thank you. If this is genuine, this makes me feel much better about all this. I can more easily stand behind funding your development team knowing you  collectively have less than 5%.

This conversation has derailed, however. The main purpose of this thread was about VOTING POWER. It does not make sense for I3 to use AGS stake, or any stake deriving from AGS stake, to vote. This stake should not even be included in the voting total (denominator). We donated for shares in future DACs and developments, not for centralizing voting toward I3.

This has given me an idea... I will be posting a new proposal soon.

Have you finished your previous proposal regarding how bts gets infused as dacs are merged and people invest in dacs and devs to raise funds? I think you were onto something i suggest finalize that first and lets get it out there see what bm et all thinks of it
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Offline speedy

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I keep thinking to myself that I should just code up a localbitcoins site that acts as the escrow 3rd party. I could do it in about a month in my spare time. But then I question whether this is needed given that i3 has secret plans for a fiat on-ramp anyway.

That sounds very useful!

Yeah having to go via BTC to get BTS sucks.

Offline James212

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You seem to struggle putting yourself in the devs shoes.   You own a stake but sit back and do nothing, a dev likely owns a smaller stake than you that they bought with their own money just like you. 

The smart think for a dev to do is work somewhere else, earn money and buy more stake. 

You are asking devs to give up $100,000 per year they could be earning at google to grow their $25,000 stake in BTS that they bought with their own money.

Then you realize that they have to sell their stake to put food on the table while you get to keep your stake and do nothing.

I think Amir Taaki is the best example of what a massive injustice the  "expectations of free work" that bitcoin stakeholders have to their developers, is. He's a guy who has refused to give up on his core principles and work for what he considers the betterment of bitcoin users ONLY, with no special interests. And in return he is given nothing.

He has to beg for scraps, squat on random peoples couches and be known as a fringey lunatic by the community. This is the guy who was behind libbitcoin, the first independent implementation of the bitcoin client that is now used at the core of dark wallet, openbazaar and some other big wallet projects. No wonder he's being weird, he's had to eat shit while idiots (like me) were able to buy in before the big bubbles and just sit back and rake in tonnes of money for doing nothing.

Man I'm so looking forward to when we can hire Amir and pay him a rock star salary, because he really deserves that.

 +5% +5%  I'm with you all the way on that one brother! :-)
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Offline matt608

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I keep thinking to myself that I should just code up a localbitcoins site that acts as the escrow 3rd party. I could do it in about a month in my spare time. But then I question whether this is needed given that i3 has secret plans for a fiat on-ramp anyway.

That sounds very useful! 

Offline James212

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You seem to struggle putting yourself in the devs shoes.   You own a stake but sit back and do nothing, a dev likely owns a smaller stake than you that they bought with their own money just like you. 

The smart think for a dev to do is work somewhere else, earn money and buy more stake. 

You are asking devs to give up $100,000 per year they could be earning at google to grow their $25,000 stake in BTS that they bought with their own money.

Then you realize that they have to sell their stake to put food on the table while you get to keep your stake and do nothing.

End result you get a share in the growth they produced, but they pay 100% of the cost.   Wealth transfer from dev to you.

 +5% +5%
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Offline gamey

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With inflation and our voter turnout levels, it is likely good to have a benevolent large stake-holder.  I suppose one could say their faith in Dan has been lost after changing of social consensus etc.  If you do not take this view, and think it was all ultimately for the better then one should be happy that they have such a large stake.  The fact is that the pot of money that has been created via share creation will need to be defended.

Yip I do not take that view, I'm happy there are large benevolent voting stakes but I'd still like limits & I'm also concerned with how the market may view things. On a personal level I actually get more concerned seeing BTC38 etc. having a 10%+ stake, even though I'm sure they're lovely people.

I think the threat of the Vote DAC made BTSX realise the need for compromise, merging & dilution. However PTS & AGS weren't put in that situation. I think if BTSX had added dilution and started merging and competing, PTS & AGS may have realised like BTSX did, their models were not competitive & that the deal to bring them in and give them nearly 10% in BTS(X) again, was actually very generous and a way for BM to include all supporting parties in his vision. Having said that PTS & AGS don't have tools for consensus so any significant change was going to be tough. I'm looking forward to moving on with some certainty myself.

 

I never said anything about no limits.  I didn't go into defining what large is, but as you pointed out exchanges might very well surpass I3.

Yes, BTC38 having 10% should concern you far more.  And that 10% needs equally large %s to defend with.

btw ..
One could also claim that the "very generous" amount paid to PTS/AGS just barely covered the large value in competing DACs that would have been diversified from PTS/AGS holder's point of view.  I don't know.  I'm wishy on the subject, so I'll take that as the proposal being done fairly.

However, I didn't really think we needed to bring that up in this thread. :)
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Offline speedy

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I think that for Bytemaster or any other of the devs to have to sell their stake would be the last thing any of us want. If we have to issue new shares to pay for devs then Im happy with that. Hopefully AGS wont run out too soon right?

Bytemaster I know you get a lot of flack from people on the forums. I personally feel like Im one of the slackers here who gets to keep my stake without doing much. I am often wondering how I could contribute more to the ecosystem, so I think you could ask the community for help more often if you ever have any subtasks that need doing.

For example I keep talking about the escrow transactions for fiat -> BitUSD. Thats because I keep thinking to myself that I should just code up a localbitcoins site that acts as the escrow 3rd party. I could do it in about a month in my spare time. But then I question whether this is needed given that i3 has secret plans for a fiat on-ramp anyway.

Offline Empirical1.1

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With inflation and our voter turnout levels, it is likely good to have a benevolent large stake-holder.  I suppose one could say their faith in Dan has been lost after changing of social consensus etc.  If you do not take this view, and think it was all ultimately for the better then one should be happy that they have such a large stake.  The fact is that the pot of money that has been created via share creation will need to be defended.

Yip I do not take that view, I'm happy there are large benevolent voting stakes but I'd still like limits & I'm also concerned with how the market may view things. On a personal level I actually get more concerned seeing BTC38 etc. having a 10%+ stake, even though I'm sure they're lovely people.

I think the threat of the Vote DAC made BTSX realise the need for compromise, merging & dilution. However PTS & AGS weren't put in that situation. I think if BTSX had added dilution and started merging and competing, PTS & AGS may have realised like BTSX did, their models were not competitive & that the deal to bring them in and give them nearly 10% in BTS(X) again, was actually very generous and a way for BM to include all supporting parties in his vision. Having said that PTS & AGS don't have tools for consensus so any significant change was going to be tough. I'm looking forward to moving on with some certainty myself.

 
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 04:31:23 pm by Empirical1.1 »

Offline valtr

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I suppose you value developers time a 0 then?    Are they supposed to transfer value of their time and opportunity cost to everyone else for free. 

Suppose developers went on strike you would want to hire new devs right?  Who should pay for it?  Doesn't the market cap grow as a result of developer effort?

It's complex. Do you consider time spent as "capital"? Also, if the developer owns shares already, then he can be compensated through profit/appreciation. If you went on strike it would not be in your benefit, as a shareholder. I'm all for compensating the work, however I think it may be unnecessary to throw loads more cash at the devs, at least at this point in the game. I think I3 has plenty of cash, and if they start spending it as if they had more funds, then all the shareholders could see that they're capable of results, and will give them more.

It would make sense for you to stop working only if you sold all your shares, or you felt that the amount of shares you own are not enough, both of which I think are not true.

Please correct me if I am misinterpreting what you are suggesting.....
Is it your argument that the developers spend their time and effort to improve the bitshares ecosystem simply because it is in their interest as shareholders? That they should work for free because their efforts would result in an increase in price of the shares they already own?
Edit: And of course increase in the price in the shares you own as well.....?
[/quote]
That is it. If I have shares in a company, I am looking for profit, but I do not wonder that employees get salary.
I wish to be a programmer. I am not, so others have to do it and I must admit that not for free.
Anyway there will be voting of shareholders built in.

Offline gamey

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With inflation and our voter turnout levels, it is likely good to have a benevolent large stake-holder.  I suppose one could say their faith in Dan has been lost after changing of social consensus etc.  If you do not take this view, and think it was all ultimately for the better then one should be happy that they have such a large stake.  The fact is that the pot of money that has been created via share creation will need to be defended.
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Offline bytemaster


The bts owned by i3 is less than 100m.   

Thank you. If this is genuine, this makes me feel much better about all this. I can more easily stand behind funding your development team knowing you  collectively have less than 5%.

This conversation has derailed, however. The main purpose of this thread was about VOTING POWER. It does not make sense for I3 to use AGS stake, or any stake deriving from AGS stake, to vote. This stake should not even be included in the voting total (denominator). We donated for shares in future DACs and developments, not for centralizing voting toward I3.

This has given me an idea... I will be posting a new proposal soon.

All shares have a right to vote and trusting us with funds is also trusting us to vote reasonably.   As we pay devs funds will be distributed further.
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Offline Empirical1.1

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I had similar panic concerns fluxer :)

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9539.msg124040#msg124040

To be the winner right now though is all about getting the best talent & marketing. Good devs are clearly worth their weight in gold. I think dilution is the best solution for BitShares. There has also been some limits placed on the dilution.

I do worry that if the market views BitShares as partly centralised already, then I think our valuation is going to be significantly handicapped as a result even in the short term so it's also something I've been keen to address by encouraging more voting as well as not keeping too much BTSX on the big exchanges.

Offline Rune

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Man I'm so looking forward to when we can hire Amir and pay him a rock star salary, because he really deserves that.
BAM!! .. write him a mail so he can prepare for that!

I have a much more ambitious plan in the works :P. But I want to wait until BTS is implemented and delegates are ready. Timing is very important and newcomers who will have to get their head around DPOS, market pegging, inflation (gasp!) and all the other highly advanced functions of BTS, shouldn't also have the confusion of the merger to deal with IMO, as at that point it might simply become too much to swallow in one go and they will turn around on their heels and leave. I think this effect is what's currently causing the price dip, even when anyone who would actually spend enough time out understand the system can conclude that the game is basically over BTS has won because we will get all the developers.

Offline fluxer555

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The bts owned by i3 is less than 100m.   

Thank you. If this is genuine, this makes me feel much better about all this. I can more easily stand behind funding your development team knowing you  collectively have less than 5%.

This conversation has derailed, however. The main purpose of this thread was about VOTING POWER. It does not make sense for I3 to use AGS stake, or any stake deriving from AGS stake, to vote. This stake should not even be included in the voting total (denominator). We donated for shares in future DACs and developments, not for centralizing voting toward I3.

This has given me an idea... I will be posting a new proposal soon.

Offline gamey

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I suppose you value developers time a 0 then?    Are they supposed to transfer value of their time and opportunity cost to everyone else for free. 

Suppose developers went on strike you would want to hire new devs right?  Who should pay for it?  Doesn't the market cap grow as a result of developer effort?

It's complex. Do you consider time spent as "capital"? Also, if the developer owns shares already, then he can be compensated through profit/appreciation. If you went on strike it would not be in your benefit, as a shareholder. I'm all for compensating the work, however I think it may be unnecessary to throw loads more cash at the devs, at least at this point in the game. I think I3 has plenty of cash, and if they start spending it as if they had more funds, then all the shareholders could see that they're capable of results, and will give them more.

It would make sense for you to stop working only if you sold all your shares, or you felt that the amount of shares you own are not enough, both of which I think are not true.

Please correct me if I am misinterpreting what you are suggesting.....
Is it your argument that the developers spend their time and effort to improve the bitshares ecosystem simply because it is in their interest as shareholders? That they should work for free because their efforts would result in an increase in price of the shares they already own?

Edit: And of course increase in the price in the shares you own as well.....?

What fluxor said is that - yes, he would like to volunteer his time in a meaningful manner that brings value to the ecosystem.
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Offline xeroc

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Man I'm so looking forward to when we can hire Amir and pay him a rock star salary, because he really deserves that.
BAM!! .. write him a mail so he can prepare for that!

Offline bytemaster

The bts owned by i3 is less than 100m.   
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Offline Rune

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You seem to struggle putting yourself in the devs shoes.   You own a stake but sit back and do nothing, a dev likely owns a smaller stake than you that they bought with their own money just like you. 

The smart think for a dev to do is work somewhere else, earn money and buy more stake. 

You are asking devs to give up $100,000 per year they could be earning at google to grow their $25,000 stake in BTS that they bought with their own money.

Then you realize that they have to sell their stake to put food on the table while you get to keep your stake and do nothing.

I think Amir Taaki is the best example of what a massive injustice the  "expectations of free work" that bitcoin stakeholders have to their developers, is. He's a guy who has refused to give up on his core principles and work for what he considers the betterment of bitcoin users ONLY, with no special interests. And in return he is given nothing.

He has to beg for scraps, squat on random peoples couches and be known as a fringey lunatic by the community. This is the guy who was behind libbitcoin, the first independent implementation of the bitcoin client that is now used at the core of dark wallet, openbazaar and some other big wallet projects. No wonder he's being weird, he's had to eat shit while idiots (like me) were able to buy in before the big bubbles and just sit back and rake in tonnes of money for doing nothing.

Man I'm so looking forward to when we can hire Amir and pay him a rock star salary, because he really deserves that.

Offline fluxer555

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Please correct me if I am misinterpreting what you are suggesting.....
Is it your argument that the developers spend their time and effort to improve the bitshares ecosystem simply because it is in their interest as shareholders? That they should work for free because their efforts would result in an increase in price of the shares they already own? Sorry, not accusing,  just trying to clarify

I'm not saying they 'should' do anything, I'm just talking about incentives.

You seem to struggle putting yourself in the devs shoes.   You own a stake but sit back and do nothing, a dev likely owns a smaller stake than you that they bought with their own money just like you. 

Someone made an estimate that I3 owns 10% of BTS. That's 4.5 million dollars at the current market cap... isn't that enough to pay developers for a few years? If by then you've proven results, we will have incentive to throw more money in your direction.

Instead of us guessing, I ask again: how much BTS will I3 own collectively after November 5th?

Offline CryptoPrometheus

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I suppose you value developers time a 0 then?    Are they supposed to transfer value of their time and opportunity cost to everyone else for free. 

Suppose developers went on strike you would want to hire new devs right?  Who should pay for it?  Doesn't the market cap grow as a result of developer effort?

It's complex. Do you consider time spent as "capital"? Also, if the developer owns shares already, then he can be compensated through profit/appreciation. If you went on strike it would not be in your benefit, as a shareholder. I'm all for compensating the work, however I think it may be unnecessary to throw loads more cash at the devs, at least at this point in the game. I think I3 has plenty of cash, and if they start spending it as if they had more funds, then all the shareholders could see that they're capable of results, and will give them more.

It would make sense for you to stop working only if you sold all your shares, or you felt that the amount of shares you own are not enough, both of which I think are not true.

Please correct me if I am misinterpreting what you are suggesting.....
Is it your argument that the developers spend their time and effort to improve the bitshares ecosystem simply because it is in their interest as shareholders? That they should work for free because their efforts would result in an increase in price of the shares they already own?

Edit: And of course increase in the price in the shares you own as well.....?
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 03:07:00 pm by crypto_prometheus_81 »
"Power and law are not synonymous. In fact, they are often in opposition and irreconcilable."
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Offline bytemaster

You seem to struggle putting yourself in the devs shoes.   You own a stake but sit back and do nothing, a dev likely owns a smaller stake than you that they bought with their own money just like you. 

The smart think for a dev to do is work somewhere else, earn money and buy more stake. 

You are asking devs to give up $100,000 per year they could be earning at google to grow their $25,000 stake in BTS that they bought with their own money.

Then you realize that they have to sell their stake to put food on the table while you get to keep your stake and do nothing.

End result you get a share in the growth they produced, but they pay 100% of the cost.   Wealth transfer from dev to you. 
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 03:00:09 pm by bytemaster »
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Offline CryptoPrometheus

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Once, the developers work for the blockchain and get payed by "capital infusion" there will be no more I3 .. and all funds that are owned by I3 will be gone

Firstly, inflation is not "capital infusion". It's a redistribution of wealth. No new money is entering the system, and the market cap does not increase as a result.

If Bitshares were a currency with hard established rules and little room for improvement by developers, then I would largely agree. However, Bitshares is a flexible and rapidly evolving company, so "inflation equals redistribution of wealth" is not the appropriate rule of thumb for this situation. Perhaps part of the confusion, I have noticed, is that there are many in this community who have accumulated knowledge of conventional economic theory, but have not yet put together how these concepts will apply in this situation.
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Offline fluxer555

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I suppose you value developers time a 0 then?    Are they supposed to transfer value of their time and opportunity cost to everyone else for free. 

Suppose developers went on strike you would want to hire new devs right?  Who should pay for it?  Doesn't the market cap grow as a result of developer effort?

It's complex. Do you consider time spent as "capital"? Also, if the developer owns shares already, then he can be compensated through profit/appreciation. If you went on strike it would not be in your benefit, as a shareholder. I'm all for compensating the work, however I think it may be unnecessary to throw loads more cash at the devs, at least at this point in the game. I think I3 has plenty of cash, and if they start spending it as if they had more funds, then all the shareholders could see that they're capable of results, and will give them more.

It would make sense for you to stop working only if you sold all your shares, or you felt that the amount of shares you own are not enough, both of which I think are not true.


Offline Rune

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As I have argued elsewhere, I think it's time to let go of the bitcoin era mentality of trustlessness. Bitshares is trust-abundant. I3 are publicly known humans with deep personal relationships to many stakeholders, and to each of their employees and coworkers, and especially to the community who has supported them through good and bad. Arguing that I3's large control over bitshares is a risk to the company, is like saying mark zuckerburgs control over Facebook is a risk to Facebook. Be honest, do you think there is ANY chance mark zuckerburg would short Facebook stock and then wipe their servers, even if he could profit from it?

Unless you think it is a realistic possibility that zuckerburg would do that with his 30% stake and centralized managerial control over Facebook, then it makes no sense to think that Dan would or even could do that with his 5-10% stake in BTS and no effective control beyond his stake. I don't even think I3's combined stake is that high.

It's time to realize that everyone involved in this project are just human beings. We're so used to the old mentality of bitcoin where anonymous competitors are locked in a constant battle for artificial scarcity to keep them honest, but it's over. Bitshares' organizational structure is public, it is transparent, and it is ultimately very personal.

Of all the people I've interacted with in this community, I have amazingly enough not met a single person so far, who has given me the vibe that they're in this for the money. Every single person I have spoken with has, through their actions and opinions, convinced me that they're doing this primarily because they believe that we, and the blockchain, have a purpose beyond making money - that we're in this to do good.

When the forums cry out in rage at, say, bad allocations of DNS sharedrop it's not even out of greed, it is simply human beings reacting in anger to what they perceived as a huge injustice and insult to them and their contributions. At the time I derided them for being greedy and devolving this thing into a fight for the pie, but in hindsight I realize that they acted also because they simply abhor the idea of injustice, whether it is done against themselves or others. Also, as the whole debacle proved, justice and generosity came out on top, as I3 simply chose to donate money to the unfortunate to make up for their losses. I think this proves the inherent trust-abundance of the system.

That being said, I think it would be a great gesture of goodwill and faith for every member of I3 to come forward and announce the amount of their personal stake in BTS,and I think it would significantly increase community trust and the confidence of future investors.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 02:46:28 pm by Rune »

Offline James212

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Quote
author=fluxer555 link=topic=10583.msg139218#msg139218 date=1414332467]

Quote
Firstly, inflation is not "capital infusion". It's a redistribution of wealth. No new money is entering the system, and the market cap does not increase as a result.

The "inflation" is not just given away. It is traded for performance of the devs which adds value to the DAC,  which ,yes, should/will result in increase market cap. 


« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 02:48:56 pm by James212 »
BTS: theangelwaveproject

Offline bytemaster

Once, the developers work for the blockchain and get payed by "capital infusion" there will be no more I3 .. and all funds that are owned by I3 will be gone

Firstly, inflation is not "capital infusion". It's a redistribution of wealth. No new money is entering the system, and the market cap does not increase as a result.

I suppose you value developers time a 0 then?    Are they supposed to transfer value of their time and opportunity cost to everyone else for free. 

Suppose developers went on strike you would want to hire new devs right?  Who should pay for it?  Doesn't the market cap grow as a result of developer effort?
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Offline Method-X

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I've had these same concerns myself. Invictus already has the power to vote in and out delegates at will. While I believe they have every right to "own" the first unmanned company, I know it will be a massive criticism levied against them. The community only has the illusion of influence.

Offline sudo

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AGS fund belongs to who?
& who have the rights to use?

Offline fluxer555

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Once, the developers work for the blockchain and get payed by "capital infusion" there will be no more I3 .. and all funds that are owned by I3 will be gone

Firstly, inflation is not "capital infusion". It's a redistribution of wealth. No new money is entering the system, and the market cap does not increase as a result.

Secondly, when I say 'I3', I'm not talking about the company. I'm talking about the stake that make up I3, because this is what matters for voting. If I3 is made up of developers, and the AGS fund is used to pay those developers, then that does not help diversify the voting power.

I just want to be clear that I have no doubt that the dev team are doing an amazing job, and it is in my opinion that they have good intentions. But this isn't about opinion, this is about centralization and game theory.

Offline xeroc

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I3 also has the expenses in terms of paying developers ... toast, nathan, vikram, Stan, and some others on the team .. such that the funds of I3 are spread among the people that are working (hard) for the BitShares ecosystem..

Also, I3 will be dismantled as soon as the funds from AGS and others are depleted (read: "spread/pay towards the developers")
Once, the developers work for the blockchain and get payed by "capital infusion" there will be no more I3 .. and all funds that are owned by I3 will be gone

the only thing left will be the individual funds that developers hold in there private pocket .. and to be honest .. they deserve any penny/larimer ..

However, for transparency Stan should consider upgrading the google docs to reflect all AGS funds:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqTwk-e7yzJydDFnQmlkTVlkbWpubnJBbzR2UG5ucnc&usp=sharing#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqTwk-e7yzJydFZ3bVVWT0o1OUwzXzdESHFBY0FkUWc&usp=sharing#gid=0

Offline fluxer555

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For transparency reasons, I think this is important for shareholders to know how much BTS I3 will own after November 5th. It is possible that we may have passed a tipping point of shareholder centralization.

Consider this:

- I3 were some of the first to mine PTS, and also did not dump despite massive gains.
- I3 gained massive PTS during the AngelShares donation period
- Members of I3 undoubtedly donated their own "personal" funds (aka mined + purchased PTS) to the AngelShares address
- There is no distinction between 'I3 funds' and 'personal funds of I3 members' as far as voting is concerned.

In other words, every PTS that I3 donated to the AngelShares address gave them extra voting power, at absolutely no cost.

On top of all this, I3 has been purchasing BTSX with AGS BTC, giving them even more voting power.

If the direction of the BTS SuperDac is to be determined by vote, then we may as well all sit back, grab some popcorn, and let I3 run the show. (Many of you want this, maybe?)

To seal the deal, decisions for wealth redistribution (aka inflation via delegates) are determined by vote, and now all of I3 want to be hired as inflationary delegates. Can you see where this is going?

I propose that I3 should not be able to vote with BTS derived from AGS and PTS donated to the Angel address, and BTSX/BTS purchased from AGS BTC. While I'm still not sure if this saves us from passing a centralization tipping point, this at least makes the situation far more reasonable.

I also propose that we don't hire I3 immediately and redistribute wealth to them. In fact, the vesting plan they have set out is effectively going to act as a paced redistribution toward I3, as they have the most BTS to be released over the next two years. After the snapshot, we will be able to determine the effective inflation rate that I3 will have without even being hired.

I3, what percentage of BTS will you have control over after Nov 5th?
« Last Edit: October 26, 2014, 01:35:55 pm by fluxer555 »