Author Topic: Most compelling strength & biggest misconceptions/obstacles for adoption of BTS?  (Read 5723 times)

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Offline merivercap

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One big hurdle in adoption is that BTS is 'pre-mined' and the early stakeholders control it.   

BTS is distributed to those who own PTS(which was a POW coin), and those who own AGS which earned by  donating PTS or BTC to I3 development team. PTS, BTC both have a cost wether you mine it yourself or purchase from a crypto exchange.

If you are right to call it premined, but at least you should know this distrustion history.

I3 has returned ALL the PTS to BTS donors and so our message can emphasize that if this point was brought up.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11289.0

It's better to avoid discussing the history all together and avoid calling it a currency/coin.  It's interesting and I enjoyed learning about the history, but it's easier to skip it focus on the idea Bitshares is a company, a DAC, and/or a DEC (decentralized exchange company)...and people can own a share in the company as it grows.  Think Apple.. you have some core founders, developers and investors, but the great thing is that people can buy in during the early stages.    Too confusing to explain the history and raises more questions than necessary. 
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Offline cube

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One big hurdle in adoption is that BTS is 'pre-mined' and the early stakeholders control it.   

BTS is distributed to those who own PTS(which was a POW coin), and those who own AGS which earned by  donating PTS or BTC to I3 development team. PTS, BTC both have a cost wether you mine it yourself or purchase from a crypto exchange.

If you are right to call it premined, but at least you should know this distrustion history.

I3 has returned ALL the PTS to BTS donors and so our message can emphasize that if this point was brought up.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11289.0
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Offline merlin0113

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One big hurdle in adoption is that BTS is 'pre-mined' and the early stakeholders control it.   

BTS is distributed to those who own PTS(which was a POW coin), and those who own AGS which earned by  donating PTS or BTC to I3 development team. PTS, BTC both have a cost wether you mine it yourself or purchase from a crypto exchange.

If you are right to call it premined, but at least you should know this distrustion history.

Offline MrJeans

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

I don't buy into the whole mass market merchant angle as a viable strategy in the near future.  As a merchant, I can sign up for Bitpay and have the amount immediately converted to Fiat and dumped into my bank account. The immediate use cases I see for BitUSD is more niche:

* Eliminating dark market volatility
* High risk merchants such as the adult industry where credit card fees are ridiculous
* A way for Bitcoiners a chance to move a portion of their holdings to a savings account that pays interest (hedgewallet)
  +5%
I completely agree with the niche market opportunities you have pointed out here.
Dont you think that consumers would benefit from using a more stable cryptocurrency than Bitcoin (to put it in an odd way, what do you think would gain more traction in the market for merchants and consumers, BTS or bitUSD).
For merchants the charges and spreads (not sure how their model works) when using bitPay could be avoided.

Customer education is extremely expensive. It's easy for people like us to see the benefits of BitUSD over Bitcoin for daily transactions, it's a very different story when we start venturing out of the crypto believers. The use cases I outlined above targets markets that are ready to hear our message. If we attach to something like Gocoin, mass distribution becomes a very different story.  Now they have an easy on/off ramp with fiat backed by a company able to provide direct customer service when something breaks. 

I would love to proven wrong on adoption.
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Offline hpenvy2

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

I don't buy into the whole mass market merchant angle as a viable strategy in the near future.  As a merchant, I can sign up for Bitpay and have the amount immediately converted to Fiat and dumped into my bank account. The immediate use cases I see for BitUSD is more niche:

* Eliminating dark market volatility
* High risk merchants such as the adult industry where credit card fees are ridiculous
* A way for Bitcoiners a chance to move a portion of their holdings to a savings account that pays interest (hedgewallet)
  +5%
I completely agree with the niche market opportunities you have pointed out here.
Dont you think that consumers would benefit from using a more stable cryptocurrency than Bitcoin (to put it in an odd way, what do you think would gain more traction in the market for merchants and consumers, BTS or bitUSD).
For merchants the charges and spreads (not sure how their model works) when using bitPay could be avoided.

Customer education is extremely expensive. It's easy for people like us to see the benefits of BitUSD over Bitcoin for daily transactions, it's a very different story when we start venturing out of the crypto believers. The use cases I outlined above targets markets that are ready to hear our message. If we attach to something like Gocoin, mass distribution becomes a very different story.  Now they have an easy on/off ramp with fiat backed by a company able to provide direct customer service when something breaks. 

I would love to proven wrong on adoption.

Offline MrJeans

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

I don't buy into the whole mass market merchant angle as a viable strategy in the near future.  As a merchant, I can sign up for Bitpay and have the amount immediately converted to Fiat and dumped into my bank account. The immediate use cases I see for BitUSD is more niche:

* Eliminating dark market volatility
* High risk merchants such as the adult industry where credit card fees are ridiculous
* A way for Bitcoiners a chance to move a portion of their holdings to a savings account that pays interest (hedgewallet)
  +5%
I completely agree with the niche market opportunities you have pointed out here.
Dont you think that consumers would benefit from using a more stable cryptocurrency than Bitcoin (to put it in an odd way, what do you think would gain more traction in the market for merchants and consumers, BTS or bitUSD).
For merchants the charges and spreads (not sure how their model works) when using bitPay could be avoided.

Offline vegolino

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

I don't buy into the whole mass market merchant angle as a viable strategy in the near future.  As a merchant, I can sign up for Bitpay and have the amount immediately converted to Fiat and dumped into my bank account. The immediate use cases I see for BitUSD is more niche:

* Eliminating dark market volatility
* High risk merchants such as the adult industry where credit card fees are ridiculous
* A way for Bitcoiners a chance to move a portion of their holdings to a savings account that pays interest (hedgewallet)
  +5%

Offline merivercap

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

I don't buy into the whole mass market merchant angle as a viable strategy in the near future.  As a merchant, I can sign up for Bitpay and have the amount immediately converted to Fiat and dumped into my bank account. The immediate use cases I see for BitUSD is more niche:

* Eliminating dark market volatility
* High risk merchants such as the adult industry where credit card fees are ridiculous
* A way for Bitcoiners a chance to move a portion of their holdings to a savings account that pays interest (hedgewallet)

I agree with the niche markets, but I wouldn't discount the mainstream market.   We'll wait and see. ;)

I agree logically and economically the way BTS was created and has grown makes perfect sense as a startup business, but it is a very difficult  psychological  hurdle to overcome, especially with something that is perceived as sacred as money.  I also don't like the feeling of being a late adopter and it's the same problem Bitcoin had when prices started rising quickly....  It's the economics of envy as Bytemaster mentioned.  I'm an anarchocapitalist and it took me a while to overcome the psychological hurdle so I can't imagine what the average person would have to go through to understand.  Sometimes I wonder if a 100% freely distributed coin with built in referral incentives and inflation going to development might not be more appealing for mass marketing and network effect.  On the other hand when people buy something, people value it more, perceive it to have greater value, have a greater sense of ownership of both the asset and their decisions.  A purchase can create a commitment & consistency bias.

Well, we basically have IPO price for a while now. Anyone can be an early adopter now. If anything this Bitcoin bear market is good for, it's the distribution of BTS. I don't think anyone will ever have a right to tell that BTS distribution was unfair.

It's not what is right or logical, it's more about psychology and perception.  If the price goes higher the same perception will reappear...it's similar with Bitcoin.  I think sticking to the 'company' idea rather than 'coins/currency' avoids a lot of misconceptions and it's good that Bitshares is branded that way. 

For entrepreneurs, money talks. For users, convenience talks. For investors, returns talk. Everything else is water under the bridge.

I like your perspective.  So for each group, what would be the most compelling strength or misconceptions/obstacles for adoption?

I like this perspective too. There are many ways to tailor the message depending on the demographic you are pitching. Try not to cross the streams too much, it can confuse the message.

IMO one of the biggest obstacles to overcome is reducing the cognitive dissonances of voting i.e. making it easier, more intuitive, less time consuming, etc. I like the ideas luckybit mentioned before about making AI algorithms in the future that could vote similar to how you would vote, automating it. Allow manual overrides of course. Then you could just glance every so often to see if your AI voter is sticking to your voting ideologies.

On that note, everyone vote for dev-pc.bitcube! Bitshares can use all of the active developer delegates it can get.
  Yes. We have to know our audience.    Yeah voting in general I don't focus on because it adds extra confusion.  Heck I don't even know how it works.   :) I try to limit explaining anymore than necessary to get people started.   You can always explain things over time.  BTW what is the % voter participation? 
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Offline hpenvy2

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

I don't buy into the whole mass market merchant angle as a viable strategy in the near future.  As a merchant, I can sign up for Bitpay and have the amount immediately converted to Fiat and dumped into my bank account. The immediate use cases I see for BitUSD is more niche:

* Eliminating dark market volatility
* High risk merchants such as the adult industry where credit card fees are ridiculous
* A way for Bitcoiners a chance to move a portion of their holdings to a savings account that pays interest (hedgewallet)

Offline cass

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

 +5%
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Offline MrJeans

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Its a bit of a chicken-egg scenario.
We need merchants to accept it to make it useful.
Merchants will only start accepting when it has a critical mass.

I clearly see the benefits of bitAssets. But if I get myself some bitUSD, what am I going to do with it?
The technology needs to be paired with some kind of utility.

Offline vlight

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I agree logically and economically the way BTS was created and has grown makes perfect sense as a startup business, but it is a very difficult  psychological  hurdle to overcome, especially with something that is perceived as sacred as money.  I also don't like the feeling of being a late adopter and it's the same problem Bitcoin had when prices started rising quickly....  It's the economics of envy as Bytemaster mentioned.  I'm an anarchocapitalist and it took me a while to overcome the psychological hurdle so I can't imagine what the average person would have to go through to understand.  Sometimes I wonder if a 100% freely distributed coin with built in referral incentives and inflation going to development might not be more appealing for mass marketing and network effect.  On the other hand when people buy something, people value it more, perceive it to have greater value, have a greater sense of ownership of both the asset and their decisions.  A purchase can create a commitment & consistency bias.

Well, we basically have IPO price for a while now. Anyone can be an early adopter now. If anything this Bitcoin bear market is good for, it's the distribution of BTS. I don't think anyone will ever have a right to tell that BTS distribution was unfair.

Offline robrigo

For entrepreneurs, money talks. For users, convenience talks. For investors, returns talk. Everything else is water under the bridge.

I like your perspective.  So for each group, what would be the most compelling strength or misconceptions/obstacles for adoption?

I like this perspective too. There are many ways to tailor the message depending on the demographic you are pitching. Try not to cross the streams too much, it can confuse the message.

IMO one of the biggest obstacles to overcome is reducing the cognitive dissonances of voting i.e. making it easier, more intuitive, less time consuming, etc. I like the ideas luckybit mentioned before about making AI algorithms in the future that could vote similar to how you would vote, automating it. Allow manual overrides of course. Then you could just glance every so often to see if your AI voter is sticking to your voting ideologies.

On that note, everyone vote for dev-pc.bitcube! Bitshares can use all of the active developer delegates it can get.

Offline merivercap

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For entrepreneurs, money talks. For users, convenience talks. For investors, returns talk. Everything else is water under the bridge.

I like your perspective.  So for each group, what would be the most compelling strength or misconceptions/obstacles for adoption?

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Tuck Fheman

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misconceptions/obstacles for adoption of BTS?

This exact conversation took place between myself and a waitress last weekend ...

Me : "Buy some bitcoin."
Her : "I heard that's illegal."  <now pointing her finger at me> "Yeah, that's illegal."

 ::)

Good news is, by the time I let her go this happened ...

Me : "So are you going to?"
Her : <pause> "Yes. Yes I will".
Me : "You will what?"
Her : "I will buy some bitcoin!"

Mission accomplished.

But yeah, I was standing in amazement when I heard "it's illegal".

I couldn't believe people thought that about bitcoin. It's amazing what  a great job the msm does scaring the public away from bitcoin / blockchain technology.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 07:51:04 am by Tuck Fheman »