Privatizing BitAssets

[bytemaster]

I agree that voting for feed producers that get paid each time they publish a feed with a minimal interval between feed publishings would incentivize things nicely and keep them separate from delegate responsibilities.

[jcrubino]

I do not like this idea, perhaps it will lead to a ripple-like ecosystem, I don’t think that is the right way for Bitshares.
But I think the rules for issuing pegged assets need some change.

When my newbie butt tries to explain BitShares and bitAssets to people, this is always the #1 point where I stumble. "market-pegged", huh?
Maybe that quoted term itself needs to be better defined, by more nodes, or by a different market mechanism completely.

I am not sure if this is too far down a rabbit hole but...
A triple collateralize smart contract that executes like a CFD or "hedging contract" is how I finally understood it as a newb.

If delegates publish a USD feed I doubt a 3rd party would enter to compete.

Could we add 25-50 more "Producer" delegate positions that get voted on to maintain feeds and incentivized for feed product performance?
This would give variety and maintain some focus within the community.

If that does not work then open the gates to all.

[bytemaster]

Think about it like how Linux has different repositories and distributions. It's actually the best and only solution. Having different versions of USD would allow the best version to emerge.

 
 
Exactly. Think Distrowatch:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
 
The MARKET decides which ones get mass-adoption. I'm such an agorist.

Woe.  If this happens, Bitshares will be the first use case of cannibalization in crypto-equities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalization_%28marketing%29

 Internal teamwork and cooperation produces MORE VALUE than internal competition.  Until this formula is understood, Bitshares will continue to take missteps in Apple-ify themselves. If Bitshares is to retain the company metaphor, then name one company that has succeeded from a pure idealist culture of gamification and market-based darwinism?  Great companies are careful to note how each piece and product line works energetically with each other.   

I'm saying this not because I am against this idea.  I just think there is a strong misconception here.  Its the best products and entrepreneurs that bring solutions to market problems that eventually succeed.  Not markets themselves creating the best solutions.

I agree with this in principle... it depends upon what you want your business model to be.   3rd party developers hate it when Apple enters their domain because they cannot easily compete with Apple on Apple's platform.   BTS has been accused of not being "neutral" so it is really just a matter for the delegates and stakeholders to decide whether or not they wish to publish feeds or leave it to others.   If delegates publish a USD feed I doubt a 3rd party would enter to compete.

[NewMine]

Just to be sure.

Do you mean that MineBitShares could create it's own bitUSD, set the trading fee and profit from the movement of those bitusd inside the system?

Would this allow multiple "versions" of bitUSD for example?

This is a good idea. If you could use your project to gain adoption of your BtiUSD which would have more liquidity than the delegate provided BitUSD then you would profit more and you can turn those profits into growing your operation.

Yes, and the best marketed/supported one would emerge the winner and gain huge profits from trading fees.

Was this not the main reason for the merger?  Now it is OK for bitUSD's to compete and kill each other?

[karnal]

IMO this is not such a good idea. The reasons have been stated throughout this thread.

I reckon tracking stock indices would be nice, sure, but this is that and much more. In fact, it seems to be a convoluted way of increasing adoption by luring newcomers, promising wonderful fees in exchange for doing essentially nothing.

[Bitcoinfan]

Think about it like how Linux has different repositories and distributions. It's actually the best and only solution. Having different versions of USD would allow the best version to emerge.

 
 
Exactly. Think Distrowatch:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
 
The MARKET decides which ones get mass-adoption. I'm such an agorist.

Woe.  If this happens, Bitshares will be the first use case of cannibalization in crypto-equities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalization_%28marketing%29

 Internal teamwork and cooperation produces MORE VALUE than internal competition.  Until this formula is understood, Bitshares will continue to take missteps in Apple-ify themselves. If Bitshares is to retain the company metaphor, then name one company that has succeeded from a pure idealist culture of gamification and market-based darwinism?  Great companies are careful to note how each piece and product line works energetically with each other.   

I'm saying this not because I am against this idea.  I just think there is a strong misconception here.  Its the best products and entrepreneurs that bring solutions to market problems that eventually succeed.  Not markets themselves creating the best solutions. 

[kenCode]

Think about it like how Linux has different repositories and distributions. It's actually the best and only solution. Having different versions of USD would allow the best version to emerge.

 
 
Exactly. Think Distrowatch:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
 
The MARKET decides which ones get mass-adoption. I'm such an agorist.

[oldman]

I like this idea in abstraction but think would be detrimental in execution.

1234USD, usdUSD, bitUSD_sexy_time etc. are a branding nightmare.

The general sentiment in the community right now is the correct one - get a stable minimum-viable product in place, then market, then get some liquidity/cap... and then start tinkering.

DPOS is a brilliant system that is only struggling due to a lack of liquidity.

Once delegates are taking $10-$100k/month the system will be unstoppable, like a snowball hurtling down a mountainside. We just have to get the first little grain of snow rolling.

There is a lack of liquidity because the user experience is lacking, not because the design, functionality or features are lacking.

Maybe look at changing the 30 days to 6 or 12 months... but that is all I think is worth considering at this point.

[luckybit]

The peg Assets is 2 products and 2 private companies competing.  Like same toothpaste, but different company Colgate and Pepsodent.

Like Bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin, dogecoin, feathercoin, justacoin, weiredcoin, all the NXT clones, etc.

Yes, and Bitshares is the Blockchain, all these are Assets and they pay fees.

BitReserve have their own BitGold, so will BitGold.com and soon many 2.0 crypto-currencies including Ethereum will probably have their own decentralised versions. (There are also multiple USD products on the market.) They will all be competing to become the dominant digital gold.

It will probably end up with the same type of distribution as Bitcoin where the market leader has 80%+ market share.

Introducing BitGold competitors onto our own blockchain would mean our BitAssets would not only have to try and get market share from every other contender on the market but will even have to cannibalize the BitShares customer base.

I think BM realises this, but hopes free market competition would rapidly find the best BitAsset model for BTS which will then also be competitive against all the other competitors. 

Ultimately the market would settle on one or two variants and the rest would die off or be special purpose.   

New BitGold on Bitshares blockchain is part of the team of Bitshares, this BitGold will only compete with other BitGolds and not with Bitshares, the success of any of these BitAssets is also the success of Bitshares.

 

[luckybit]

The peg Assets is 2 products and 2 private companies competing.  Like same toothpaste, but different company Colgate and Pepsodent.

Like Bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin, dogecoin, feathercoin, justacoin, weiredcoin, all the NXT clones, etc.

Yes, and Bitshares is the Blockchain, all these are Assets and they pay fees.

BitReserve have their own BitGold, so will BitGold.com and soon many 2.0 crypto-currencies including Ethereum will probably have their own decentralised versions. (There are also multiple USD products on the market.) They will all be competing to become the dominant digital gold.

It will probably end up with the same type of distribution as Bitcoin where the market leader has 80%+ market share.

Introducing BitGold competitors onto our own blockchain would mean our BitAssets would not only have to try and get market share from every other contender on the market but will even have to cannibalize the BitShares customer base.

I think BM realises this, but hopes free market competition would rapidly find the best BitAsset model for BTS which will then also be competitive against all the other competitors. 

Ultimately the market would settle on one or two variants and the rest would die off or be special purpose.   

New BitGold on Bitshares blockchain is part of the team of Bitshares, this BitGold will only compete with other BitGolds and not with Bitshares, the success of any of these BitAssets is also the success for Bitshares and its holders.

Imagine on the Dogecoin blockchain, there was no Dogecoin but instead 'Doge1', 'Doge2', 'Doge3' & 'Doge4'. All of them trying to promote themselves to a similar market as Dogecoin used too. The results might be that combined their CAP's might be greater (unlikely because of the way network effect works) but individually they could all be weaker and have no chance of being widely adopted. The only possibly way it could be good, if say 'Doge3' was such a popular, good model that all the other Doge's died and then Doge3 then started competing against Bitcoin. But otherwise distributing your user base among multiple versions of the same product (Like BitGold1, BitGold2, BitGold3 etc.)  instead of getting the community and DAC to focus on one is probably not advisable.

Doge is just a coin. Bitshares is a platform. As a platform there is no reason why we couldn't have 1000 competing USDs. The USD which best holds the peg should get the highest score and that USD should become the #1 BitUSD.

I understand from the user interface it might not be cool to have more than one so you should only have one BitUSD but you can also have E-USD (Ethereum USD), N-USD (NXT-USD), and so on. Because you know all of these platforms will have their own versions of USD.

Don't forget BTER's USD and the centralized exchanges who can always issue a UIA which is an IOU for USD.

[luckybit]

Where is the wheel of the bike ..........
Is it lack of incentive to promote the bike , or it's really hard and deep labor cost to promote a bike without a wheel ( hence higher customer support cost) ......

Let's not forget someone had huge marketing bonus incentive before .......

BitShares does not have a solid product that needs advertising. There is a long list of reasons why people prefer to use VISA, Paypal, Bitfinex, Huobi, Paypal, ApplePay, Square, gold ETFs, etc. more than BitShares. It's not just a chicken and egg problem. Those services have better user interfaces. better leverage/borrowing and lending, advanced order types, working mobile wallets and point-of-sale technology, easier access, etc.

Bitassets provide a yield, sure, and less counterparty risk, but that's not enough. I'm not trying to be negative, but the product isn't finished. It's alpha-stage software that crashes often on two of my machines.

Marketing an unfinished product might actually hurt BitShares. The last thing we need is 1337usd and sexUSD and dozens of crap, failing currencies cluttering the client.

They shouldn't clutter the main client but the advanced tab or the client we use should have many USDs competing.

Think about it like how Linux has different repositories and distributions. It's actually the best and only solution. Having different versions of USD would allow the best version to emerge.

[luckybit]

Guys, you are stuck with the idea of alternative BitUSDs. In this point of time, nobody would even try to compete with the original BitUSD. It just makes no sense.

Instead try to imagine User Pegged Assets as a feature, which enables creation of BitIndexes and BitStocks. Wouldn't this be useful?

Ethereum will likely have E-Dollar/Stablecoin. Why not import that into Bitshares as a BitEDollar or something like that?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/32sirc/

[Volker]

Where is the wheel of the bike ..........
Is it lack of incentive to promote the bike , or it's really hard and deep labor cost to promote a bike without a wheel ( hence higher customer support cost) ......

Let's not forget someone had huge marketing bonus incentive before .......

BitShares does not have a solid product that needs advertising. There is a long list of reasons why people prefer to use VISA, Paypal, Bitfinex, Huobi, Paypal, ApplePay, Square, gold ETFs, etc. more than BitShares. It's not just a chicken and egg problem. Those services have better user interfaces. better leverage/borrowing and lending, advanced order types, working mobile wallets and point-of-sale technology, easier access, etc.

Bitassets provide a yield, sure, and less counterparty risk, but that's not enough. I'm not trying to be negative, but the product isn't finished. It's alpha-stage software that crashes often on two of my machines.

Marketing an unfinished product might actually hurt BitShares. The last thing we need is 1337usd and sexUSD and dozens of crap, failing currencies cluttering the client.

[Bitcoinfan]

Guys, you are stuck with the idea of alternative BitUSDs. In this point of time, nobody would even try to compete with the original BitUSD. It just makes no sense.

Instead try to imagine User Pegged Assets as a feature, which enables creation of BitIndexes and BitStocks. Wouldn't this be useful?

What does it matter.  Truthcoin will be able to provide a trusted feed.   This problem will be solved before Bitshares understands what it is in the first place. 

Any feed provided outside of Truthcoin will be inferior and therefore isn't worth any higher trading feeds for marketing or support.

https://twitter.com/Truthcoin/status/587451935239770112

[kenCode]

I do not like this idea, perhaps it will lead to a ripple-like ecosystem, I don’t think that is the right way for Bitshares.
But I think the rules for issuing pegged assets need some change.

When my newbie butt tries to explain BitShares and bitAssets to people, this is always the #1 point where I stumble. "market-pegged", huh?
Maybe that quoted term itself needs to be better defined, by more nodes, or by a different market mechanism completely.
I don't trust any fiat whatsoever, so, I do not invest in bitEUR for example. I know the silver price has been suppressed for years, so I know that the silver price in dollars will go up relative to the dollar's collapse (or Goldman, whichever comes first).
 
Yep, let's get 0.9.0 and 1.0 goin first, please.
I need something for our point of sale systems asap.