Hard Questions for Bytemaster

[bytemaster]

You guys are avoiding the 500 pound gorilla in the room.  You think you can create an open source voting system, show a couple people how cool it is and then make money off it? You are entering a world you know nothing about and, FMV knows nothing about based on their résumé.

EAC, HAVA, Secretary of State, election like load testing, 3rd party testing and County acceptance are huge hurdles I don't see Bitshares clearing.

Oh, and don't think for one second that Dominion or ES&S won't jump on your open source code if it even looks like we are the slightest of competition and beat us to the punch. You are entering a world were real world money is on the line and believe me, those companies are not of the altruistic types. With cryptocurrency, you are going after states whose egos will let the little guy try there thing. But a companies earnings on line is a whole different game.

You also have nobody involved in real politics consulting or guiding you. This is your biggest mistake. In politics, things happen through and because of who you Know or because who you know is owed a favor, not because of what you think you know or what you think you can offer will change the world.

The sharedrop will turn out to be a huge mistake in hindsight as VOTE will never be what you think it's going to be unless you hire a Consulting firm, aka a lobbyist, or a seasoned insider with connections to begin pulling weight.

You could also start telling us your plans. So far, no plan that was kept secret here had ever needed to be a secret to begin with after the revelation. Saying there is a plan, or über secret stuff to come most likely means there is no good plan or stuff to come yet.

Or, I would like one reason anything on an open source project should remain a secret to the people floating your meal ticket.

Lets get one thing straight.  Vote was 60% AGS/PTS so you are really only talking about .9% of BTS.   With that we get a team of people helping us market BitShares by reaching an audience through an alternative motivation, voting.

If you think for one second our plan depends upon governments accepting what we are doing or 3rd parties not copying us then you have completely misjudged our strategy.   We do not care *if* governments accept our voting solution.   Our business model for VOTE is independent of government acceptance. 

[Rune]

You could also start telling us your plans. So far, no plan that was kept secret here had ever needed to be a secret to begin with after the revelation. Saying there is a plan, or über secret stuff to come most likely means there is no good plan or stuff to come yet.

Or, I would like one reason anything on an open source project should remain a secret to the people floating your meal ticket.

This is what's really important, and it's the one thing I think drives many of us crazy when thinking about the huge sums of our collective funds that have been gifted away with no legal strings attached. Why aren't we at allowed to know what our money is being spent on? Why are the people entrusted with these massive stakes not even active members of our community?

From experience, I think once someone like Brian or Adam have received these massive no-strings-attached gifts, they will instantly internalize the money as their own property (which it de jure is), and will now be highly disincentivized towards spending any of it on anything other than their own "salary". When they are not even members of our community and thus have no loyalty towards any of the other people involved in this project, they won't feel like they are screwing us all over, they'll just be doing what makes most sense from their point of view. Maybe I'm wrong and just "need to be patient", but the total silence and lack of info or transparency of any kind is driving people mad.

[NewMine]

You guys are avoiding the 500 pound gorilla in the room.  You think you can create an open source voting system, show a couple people how cool it is and then make money off it? You are entering a world you know nothing about and, FMV knows nothing about based on their résumé.

EAC, HAVA, Secretary of State, election like load testing, 3rd party testing and County acceptance are huge hurdles I don't see Bitshares clearing.

Oh, and don't think for one second that Dominion or ES&S won't jump on your open source code if it even looks like we are the slightest of competition and beat us to the punch. You are entering a world were real world money is on the line and believe me, those companies are not of the altruistic types. With cryptocurrency, you are going after states whose egos will let the little guy try there thing. But a companies earnings on line is a whole different game.

You also have nobody involved in real politics consulting or guiding you. This is your biggest mistake. In politics, things happen through and because of who you Know or because who you know is owed a favor, not because of what you think you know or what you think you can offer will change the world.

The sharedrop will turn out to be a huge mistake in hindsight as VOTE will never be what you think it's going to be unless you hire a Consulting firm, aka a lobbyist, or a seasoned insider with connections to begin pulling weight.

You could also start telling us your plans. So far, no plan that was kept secret here had ever needed to be a secret to begin with after the revelation. Saying there is a plan, or über secret stuff to come most likely means there is no good plan or stuff to come yet.

Or, I would like one reason anything on an open source project should remain a secret to the people floating your meal ticket.

[gamey]

Believe me, BTSX would not have wanted to face VOTE as a competitor!

You mean BTSX wouldn't want bytemaster as a competitor. The merge resolved that conflict of interest (on how he should spend AGS funds) for him so that he can focus on BTS only.

Otherwise, BTSX could have in theory just avoided the merge (and the 25% dilution as part of it), implemented delegate dilution (which supports a lot more value per year than any of the other DPOS chains could because of its larger market cap), and poached the core devs and Follow My Vote team away from the other DACs they were working on with superior pay. Then DNS and VOTE could just die due to lack of interest, and AGS and PTS would continue as sharedrop instruments like they already are anyway despite the merge.

What if he just let the developers do what they wanted and if they reneged on agreements then make it known.  Bytemaster could have just taken their code and put it back into BTSX with a smaller team.  Let a different chain dilute itself. 

There were likely many options and who knows what all the true considerations were when making the decision we see today.

A lot of the problem is there is only a relatively small group of people who know the codebase with no comments.  Months ago there was talk of developer's training developers.  Maybe that already happened?

This way maximized the chances bts/btsx success but it isn't apparent at all that is maximizes chances of success in general.  No one really knows that answer except time.

[bytemaster]

FMV is a team of people so....   7 slots is nothing especially at todays pay rate and with our plan for them.

Yes this seems very reasonable to me.

I think the problem is that most people have no idea what it is or what its going to do.

We have significant plans for it starting Q1 2015

[Ander]

FMV is a team of people so....   7 slots is nothing especially at todays pay rate and with our plan for them.

Yes this seems very reasonable to me.

I think the problem is that most people have no idea what it is or what its going to do.

[arhag]

Believe me, BTSX would not have wanted to face VOTE as a competitor!

You mean BTSX wouldn't want bytemaster as a competitor. The merge resolved that conflict of interest (on how he should spend AGS funds) for him so that he can focus on BTS only.

Otherwise, BTSX could have in theory just avoided the merge (and the 25% dilution as part of it), implemented delegate dilution (which supports a lot more value per year than any of the other DPOS chains could because of its larger market cap), and poached the core devs and Follow My Vote team away from the other DACs they were working on with superior pay. Then DNS and VOTE could just die due to lack of interest, and AGS and PTS would continue as sharedrop instruments like they already are anyway despite the merge.

[zerosum]

Lets do math:

Follow my vote got 30% of VOTE, which became .9% of BTS.  Thats 22,500,000 BTS.

One full pay delegate = 1,561,188 BTS per year.

FMV is 14.4 years of paid delegates.
FMV is equivalent to 7.2 paid delegates over 2 years.

Will we get 7 paid delegates of value from it?  I have no idea.

FMV is a team of people so....   7 slots is nothing especially at todays pay rate and with our plan for them.

In other words, BM will never get paid that much for working on the BTS...ever. Not even half of it. 

Well to be fair the 22.5 million BTS (or whatever the exact number is) is not just for one person but for a team of people.

Still, I would love to have more transparency on what and who those funds are being spent on.

I know it is a team and I will be happy with just a teaser ...

[edit] Never mind, I got one from Stan.

[Stan]

Believe me, BTSX would not have wanted to face VOTE as a competitor!

[bytemaster]

Lets do math:

Follow my vote got 30% of VOTE, which became .9% of BTS.  Thats 22,500,000 BTS.

One full pay delegate = 1,561,188 BTS per year.

FMV is 14.4 years of paid delegates.
FMV is equivalent to 7.2 paid delegates over 2 years.

Will we get 7 paid delegates of value from it?  I have no idea.

FMV is a team of people so....   7 slots is nothing especially at todays pay rate and with our plan for them.

[arhag]

In other words, BM will never get paid that much for working on the BTS...ever. Not even half of it. 

Well to be fair the 22.5 million BTS (or whatever the exact number is) is not just for one person but for a team of people.

Still, I would love to have more transparency on what and who those funds are being spent on.

[zerosum]

Fmv is little more than a couple full pay delegate slots over 2 years. 

I think you are off by an order of magnitude there. It would take two 100% delegates 10 years to make 30 million BTS (actually that isn't accounting for the pay halving every 4 years), or 10 100% delegates 2 years.

P.S. If you account for the pay halving every four years, it is impossible to make 30 million BTS with just two 100% delegates.

In other words, BM will never get paid that much for working on the BTS...ever. Not even half of it. 

And we are not even discounting for the time value of money...

[Ander]

Lets do math:

Follow my vote got 30% of VOTE, which became .9% of BTS.  Thats 22,500,000 BTS.

One full pay delegate = 1,561,188 BTS per year.

FMV is 14.4 years of paid delegates.
FMV is equivalent to 7.2 paid delegates over 2 years.

Will we get 7 paid delegates of value from it?  I have no idea.

[arhag]

Fmv is little more than a couple full pay delegate slots over 2 years. 

I think you are off by an order of magnitude there. It would take two 100% delegates 10 years to make 30 million BTS (actually that isn't accounting for the pay halving every 4 years), or 10 100% delegates 2 years.

P.S. If you account for the pay halving every four years, it is impossible to make 30 million BTS with just two 100% delegates.

[Ander]

Fmv is the cornerstone of my marketing strategy.

Thats a big statement!


Its pointless for us to complain about the shares to FMV.  That commitment was made long ago.

In the future, we will be able to look back and either say it was an effective or ineffective use of funds.  For now, we dont have the details of the I3 marketing plan.   All we can do is work on making the community marketing efforts as good as possible, and elect good devs and marketers.  We need at least one of the community marketing and the I3 plan to be successful.  Only one of those is under the community's control.  The best result is if both campaigns are successful and we grow the fastest.