Should we kill the DACronym?

[Method-X]

Agree. Invictus is ending so that's no longer an attack vector. Bitshares has the ability to fund it's own growth in a decentralized way... I don't understand this constant fear of American regulators. Delegates can locate anywhere on Earth.

Do you want 10 dollar bitshares 5 years from now, or would you like them 30 years from now after a prolonged, worldwide prohibition?

A worldwide ban on BitAssets is unlikely because Bitshares can be described as a p2p company. If regulators are out to get us, they will "get us" no matter what language we use. Should BitUSD be rebranded because it might be confused with real USD?

[lord_potatoe]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

Yeah sure, until they change their mind spontaneously. What do you do when they come after people involved in BitShares even though you insist that it is purely "community" and not business and investment? Just shut the whole project down to prevent any harm to yourself? It sounds like this project is *very* prone to censorship and regulator interference if pre-emptive moves like this are being made. There is a good reason Satoshi is anonymous you know...

[merockstar]

I honestly think the best description of what bitshares "is", would be "blockchain". DAC works too, but from what i understand then DAC is synonymous with blockchain. There are plenty of established english words that work well as metaphors for describing and simplifying what bitshares is; company, community, cooperative etc. But all these words are just approximations, and I dont think we will ever be able to find an established word that properly defines bitshares, because nothing even remotely like bitshares existed before bitcoin.

So given that satoshi decided to name his invention "the blockchain", we might as well use that name too (if DAC causes confusion due to the company part)

we could call them DABs. lol

[hadrian]

Just call it Decentralized Application or DApp. Everybody is using apps on iPhone or Android so they should get this quickly.

Distributed Application for Consensus

[Shentist]

if bitshares will be a threat they will fight us!

i agree to take this SEC etc. into our consideration, but if the old bankcartels feel threaten, they will attack us. But would this bad? i don't think so. Much publicity without 1 bitUSD spend - great!

[sumantso]

Just call it Decentralized Application or DApp. Everybody is using apps on iPhone or Android so they should get this quickly.

[hadrian]

• Dispersed Automated Consortium
• Distributed Automated Collaboration

(I prefer the latter)

[merockstar]

Agree. Invictus is ending so that's no longer an attack vector. Bitshares has the ability to fund it's own growth in a decentralized way... I don't understand this constant fear of American regulators. Delegates can locate anywhere on Earth.

Do you want 10 dollar bitshares 5 years from now, or would you like them 30 years from now after a prolonged, worldwide prohibition?

[Method-X]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

Why do we care about the SEC? Bitshares is a decentralized worldwide platform which they cannot really stop.
Why must we conform to their regulations?

  Agree. Invictus is ending so that's no longer an attack vector. Bitshares has the ability to fund it's own growth in a decentralized way... I don't understand this constant fear of American regulators. Delegates can locate anywhere on Earth.

[hadrian]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

Why do we care about the SEC? Bitshares is a decentralized worldwide platform which they cannot really stop.
Why must we conform to their regulations?

If we want BitShares' usefulness and userbase to be as wide as possible, then the ability to opt in to conforming to regulations matters a great deal. This doesn't mean that all uses and users within BitShares will have to conform to regulations however (I imagine)...

[Shentist]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

Why do we care about the SEC? Bitshares is a decentralized worldwide platform which they cannot really stop.
Why must we conform to their regulations?

because the developers are all US. i personally don't care about the SEC but the german BAFIN, but i don't think most of you care about them? That's right, because we can do nothing.

[Ander]

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

Given that, I think it is clear that we shouldnt refer to bitshares as a company.


Still, DAC is useful, it is part of our brand, and thus bytemaster's original idea of "Distributed Autonomous Community' is a good one. 


I also like DA for Distributed Application.

[islandking]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

Why do we care about the SEC? Bitshares is a decentralized worldwide platform which they cannot really stop.
Why must we conform to their regulations?

[bytemaster]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.

Actually with the SEC what you call it matters more than what it is... I originally adopted the company metaphor based upon the "duck is a duck" mentality... but sadly that is not the case with regulators.   They care about whether or not you are attempting to use terms the public places trust in to persuade others to part with their money.  If you can convince someone to part with their money for a stake in a community then it is very different than selling a share in a company despite the economic result being the same.

[lord_potatoe]

I think it's a mistake to "officially" drop the company metaphor. If Satoshi described Bitcoin as "p2p money", BitShares can be described as a "p2p company". It's a decentralized company on a blockchain that's censorship resistant and cannot be controlled by governments.

I fail to see why dropping the company metaphor is at all useful.

It's only useful in that it doesn't immediately draw attention from the governments claiming to be resistant against. You can call it a "company" or a "community", use "tokens" or something instead of "shares" and "distribution" instead of "dividend", "rewards" instead of "interest" etc... but a duck is a duck. Pretty wimpy move IMO. Also a major flip flop of what has been marketed and constantly pushed since bitshares started.