Why BitShares isn't Taking off and What we are doing about it.

[bytemaster]

From what you all tell me of Dark, it looks like they are supporting their price NuBits style, offering interest to encourage holding.  As long as the interest rate is above the long-term price decline everyone holding is breaking even.

I got to thinking about why it is so hard to bootstrap a business in crypto and it is because NEW investors are always bailing out OLD investors which sucks up all of the capital.   We can easily resolve all of this by placing unclaimed BTS from delegates INTO a yield fund for BTS holders.   Having a yield fund would encourage people to move their money off of exchanges and to hold it for longer periods of time. 

The side effect of a yield fund is that it wouldn't actually debase ANYONE except those who are looking to cash out short term. IE: transfer of value from those who want short term liquidity to those who are in this for the long run.

In effect YIELD == DRK model.  Whether or not this is a good idea remains to be seen.

[infovortice2013]

BitShares cannot "take off" while bitcoin and the rest of crypto are in a bear market.

Yes, because that is number 4 on Stanimov's 7 deadly crypto natural laws:

"#4. only DarkDashTITANCOPYCoin can grow its market cap duting a bitcoin bear market."

DASH/DRK was the only coin on the list that figured out the whole supply vs. demand thing. If you want to create a DASH masternode (which receives new DASH in exchange for the masternode's mixing services), then you need to lock up 1000 DRK. Sort of like staking in Peercoin. You can't touch those 1000 DASH and you receive more DASH out of the block reward.

There are thousands of DASH masternodes now and they are each locking up $3000+ USD worth of DASH, taking it out of the supply. The people who run these masternodes then save up another 1000, and then "stake them" in order to get even more DASH.

BitShares could employ a similar strategy for delegates. Instead of having a registration bond that's destroyed, (which only motivates scam delegates to pretend to do work for a few weeks), we could instead have a large registration fee that's not destroyed, but is rather returned to the delegate after "canceling" delegate registration. Perhaps 1 million BTS. (If DASH can have $3000-required masternodes, we can have $4500-required delegates) So everyone who is a delegate or running as a delegate must have 1 million BTS locked up in the system. What would be the result?

1) All delegates are heavily invested in BTS compared to the pay they receive. Unless they truly believe that they will serve as beneficial delegates for a long time and that BTS will be worth more in the long-term, then becoming a 100% delegate will be too risky for them.  If they're willing to lock up 1 million BTS and risk getting fired in a few weeks for inaction or incompetency after BTS drops 30% against the USD, they'll lose money measured in USD.

2) 101 * 1 million = 101 million BTS taken out of supply by delegates alone and probably more because delegates need to lock up 1 million BTS on the blockchain to be eligible for votes.

Wow, your trolling of DASH just made me think of this on the spot. This is a damn good idea and solves delegate accountability and incentive issues  without having to micromanage them.

I'm sure some people will complain that it's elitist though.

mmm i think dark make a great marketing campgain, the holders win insterest with masternodes, traders win so easy for a whale pumping his price, users talking hey this is the new bitcoin cose his stake is multiplying value!! from my point of view they colected lot of holders that now are trapped, if you make a masternode at 0.02 - 20 btc to win 3 or 4 darks per month .... if you wanna sell it now at 0.013 you take 13 btc LOL they have alot of forced holders-master nodes, and the whale make his profit.. good profit ... and this is the model.
Sure cant compare with BitShares DPOS delegates model.... no way, here the value to be delegate is what you can give,offer,make for grow BitShares, here ask for your talent or your business, whatever productive, not for your money like dark.

[svk]

I also believe we should add stocks as market assets, specifically I'd like to see something like Vanguard ETFs. Google provides realtime stock prices so feeds should not be an issue, the only thing holding us back is the price of registration.

Google discontinued their API a while ago - the only way now is to scrape it, which is against TOS

Yea I just realized that too, I found the disclaimer page first saying they provided realtime prices, then dug further only to see it was discontinued long ago

[monsterer]

I also believe we should add stocks as market assets, specifically I'd like to see something like Vanguard ETFs. Google provides realtime stock prices so feeds should not be an issue, the only thing holding us back is the price of registration.

Google discontinued their API a while ago - the only way now is to scrape it, which is against TOS

[svk]

I also believe we should add stocks as market assets, specifically I'd like to see something like Vanguard ETFs. Google provides realtime stock prices so feeds should not be an issue, the only thing holding us back is the price of registration.

In my opinion the 500k fee for short-name assets should only apply to user assets, creating a market asset should be a lot cheaper, more like 10k BTS. That way we could introduce interesting stocks with short ticker names and start trading them, with shorting and collateral backing. That would make the DEX a hell of a lot more interesting, and be something you could actually sell to your friends!

If users add them for a 10k fee, it might look sloppy. It needs to be neat and organized. Maybe the NASDAQ can have its own tab. ETFs can have its own tab. Separate categories of market pegged assets.

Yea the 10k might need to be higher to prevent spamming, but you can already add useless market assets with long names for 500 BTS, we have several of them already: CROWDFUN, DRAGON, TESTME, etc...

While I agree having separate categories would be ideal, it would take some testing and development to implement. Lowering the price for market assets is a very simple change that could be implemented immediately with huge benefits, imo.

[Volker]

I also believe we should add stocks as market assets, specifically I'd like to see something like Vanguard ETFs. Google provides realtime stock prices so feeds should not be an issue, the only thing holding us back is the price of registration.

In my opinion the 500k fee for short-name assets should only apply to user assets, creating a market asset should be a lot cheaper, more like 10k BTS. That way we could introduce interesting stocks with short ticker names and start trading them, with shorting and collateral backing. That would make the DEX a hell of a lot more interesting, and be something you could actually sell to your friends!

Yeah, that would be great. But if users add thousands of MPAs to one big list for a 10k fee, it will look sloppy and unusable. It needs to be neat. Maybe the NASDAQ can have its own searchable tab full of NASDAQ stocks.  ETFs like Vanguard can have their own tab. The devs would have to work with us on this.

[svk]

I also believe we should add stocks as market assets, specifically I'd like to see something like Vanguard ETFs. Google provides realtime stock prices so feeds should not be an issue, the only thing holding us back is the price of registration.

In my opinion the 500k fee for short-name assets should only apply to user assets, creating a market asset should be a lot cheaper, more like 10k BTS. That way we could introduce interesting stocks with short ticker names and start trading them, with shorting and collateral backing. That would make the DEX a hell of a lot more interesting, and be something you could actually sell to your friends!

[hrossik]

I will take advantage of this thread being used for showing what people want in bs and add my opinion: Originally I came to BitShares because I was looking for a platform allowing easy trading of stocks (particulary indexes). BitUSD is a huge thing, I love it, but it needs merchant adoption to be useful. Trading stocks would be hugely beneficial alone, because the cost for an ordinary mortal to enter the stock market is quite big. If we had (pegged) stocks trading platform, we would get plenty of users AND we would have a use case for bitUSD. Also when trading bitUSD <=> bitStocks, you don't need gateways as desperately as we do now, because you only enter once, then gamble the market or hold for an extended period of time, and leave once a while after making some profit.

tldr> BitShares were supposed to be a trading platform. Trading currencies is a gamble, nobody (few) wants to do that. We need bitStocks! bitIndexes in particular..

 

finally something gave me hope again just reading it!

PS we need CFDs like trading and the option for leverage in general ...

Totally agree. options would be great.

 

Do we have enough liquidity to hold the pegs though?

I am glad I am not the only one, who finds this idea attractive. Is there enough liquidity? I don't know, but I will tell my perspective: I am a conservative investor in BTS terms, but I trust the bitUSD peg to hold and I believe, it would hold also for other assets (if they were useful - such as indexes). And indexes are far less speculative investment than BTS, so I could invest like 2x - 3x more than I am currently in BTS

To me, a referral program is completely worthless. At present I don't tell my friends/family about BitShares, because there is nothing useful for them here (I just discuss with them the theoretical aspects of BS, mostly without mentioning it). And a referral program won't change it. On the other hand, as soon as there appears something useful for them in BitShares, I will begin spreading the word WITH or WITHOUT the referral program.

My priorities:

1) Finish 1.0 and introduce other pegged assets (stocks, indexes, commodities)
2) Wait for the word to spread + use ordinary marketing channels
3) If this doesn't help, start referral program

[donkeypong]

for a referral program the payment has to be come from someone

we shouldn't increase transaction fees and just look into existing possibilities

- create a pool who will distributed and everyone can donate to him and we can elect delegates to fill this pool up

to be consider

every transaction i do on the exchange i have to pay, so if i want to trade in the future i will have the need to change my orders
constantly, on a normal exchange this transaction is total free, but we have to charge, so the costs should as low as possible.

Ah, but a good referral program can generate value. Marketeers will be spending their own money on ads and rounding up everyone they know. So any investment in creating this program really comes back in spades. This is more of an observation than advice, but if I were a wealthy investor I'd strongly consider going long on BTS, agreeing to underwrite this referral program, and then laughing all the way to the bank with the kind of profit that is hard to generate in today's financial markets. For a big fish, the amount needed to move this thing higher would be absolutely trivial, given the strong possibility of a very significant return. Know big fishies, people?

[fav]

for a referral program the payment has to be come from someone

we shouldn't increase transaction fees and just look into existing possibilities

- create a pool who will distributed and everyone can donate to him and we can elect delegates to fill this pool up

to be consider

every transaction i do on the exchange i have to pay, so if i want to trade in the future i will have the need to change my orders
constantly, on a normal exchange this transaction is total free, but we have to charge, so the costs should as low as possible.

employed by blockchain doesn't mean being depended on donations/external sources. I don't think an affiliate program can work this way.

It's true that you don't pay for order changes in an exchange, but you pay fees. it's not free

[Shentist]

for a referral program the payment has to be come from someone

we shouldn't increase transaction fees and just look into existing possibilities

- create a pool who will distributed and everyone can donate to him and we can elect delegates to fill this pool up

to be consider

every transaction i do on the exchange i have to pay, so if i want to trade in the future i will have the need to change my orders
constantly, on a normal exchange this transaction is total free, but we have to charge, so the costs should as low as possible.

[Volker]

BitShares cannot "take off" while bitcoin and the rest of crypto are in a bear market.

Yes, because that is number 4 on Stanimov's 7 deadly crypto natural laws:

"#4. only DarkDashTITANCOPYCoin can grow its market cap duting a bitcoin bear market."

DASH/DRK was the only coin on the list that figured out the whole supply vs. demand thing. If you want to create a DASH masternode (which receives new DASH in exchange for the masternode's mixing services), then you need to lock up 1000 DRK. Sort of like staking in Peercoin. You can't touch those 1000 DASH and you receive more DASH out of the block reward.

There are thousands of DASH masternodes now and they are each locking up $3000+ USD worth of DASH, taking it out of the supply. The people who run these masternodes then save up another 1000, and then "stake them" in order to get even more DASH.

BitShares could employ a similar strategy for delegates. Instead of having a registration bond that's destroyed, (which only motivates scam delegates to pretend to do work for a few weeks), we could instead have a large registration fee that's not destroyed, but is rather returned to the delegate after "canceling" delegate registration. Perhaps 1 million BTS. (If DASH can have $3000-required masternodes, we can have $4500-required delegates) So everyone who is a delegate or running as a delegate must have 1 million BTS locked up in the system. What would be the result?

1) All delegates are heavily invested in BTS compared to the pay they receive. Unless they truly believe that they will serve as beneficial delegates for a long time and that BTS will be worth more in the long-term, then becoming a 100% delegate will be too risky for them.  If they're willing to lock up 1 million BTS and risk getting fired in a few weeks for inaction or incompetency after BTS drops 30% against the USD, they'll lose money measured in USD.

2) 101 * 1 million = 101 million BTS taken out of supply by delegates alone and probably more because delegates need to lock up 1 million BTS on the blockchain to be eligible for votes.

Wow, your trolling of DASH just made me think of this on the spot. This is a damn good idea and solves delegate accountability and incentive issues  without having to micromanage them.

I'm sure some people will complain that it's elitist though.

[Globally Distributed]

Please consider adding the ability for the referrer to give a portion of his transaction earnings to his referees. Add this because it allows referrers to incentivize potential users to sign up with the referrer's code/link.

"Sign up with my link and get 2% off transaction fees for life". 

This is like the "trade spend" concept we see in CPG businesses.

Just to expand a bit - I'd like to suggest that it may be preferable to use " transactional rebates" rather than "off-invoice discounts". 

For example:

     "Transaction occurs, user is charged 10bts.  User then receives 1 bts rebate." 

     may be more effective than

     "Transaction occurs, user is charged 9 bts"

...This may be splitting hairs, but in such a marginal business I'd like to be able to experiment with the options to optimize the effect on future transactions.

[yellowecho]

You need this...


In summation...

If you want BTS to take off you need to make it attractive and easy to use. 

Pricing and community are huge components of that attractiveness. 
Liquidity is a direct component of pricing.
Get more gateways and other commercial interests on board and dump the delegates not actually contributing.

Finally, ease of use and exposure are key to community building. 

Fix those and your problems are gone.

Just my 2 BTS.

Your analysis is spot on!

BitStocks and indexes, a stable client, and a mop please.

[luckybit]

I will take advantage of this thread being used for showing what people want in bs and add my opinion: Originally I came to BitShares because I was looking for a platform allowing easy trading of stocks (particulary indexes). BitUSD is a huge thing, I love it, but it needs merchant adoption to be useful. Trading stocks would be hugely beneficial alone, because the cost for an ordinary mortal to enter the stock market is quite big. If we had (pegged) stocks trading platform, we would get plenty of users AND we would have a use case for bitUSD. Also when trading bitUSD <=> bitStocks, you don't need gateways as desperately as we do now, because you only enter once, then gamble the market or hold for an extended period of time, and leave once a while after making some profit.

tldr> BitShares were supposed to be a trading platform. Trading currencies is a gamble, nobody (few) wants to do that. We need bitStocks! bitIndexes in particular..

 

finally something gave me hope again just reading it!

PS we need CFDs like trading and the option for leverage in general ...

Totally agree. options would be great.

 

Do we have enough liquidity to hold the pegs though?