You should read this

[JoeyD]

@fuznuts: I agree with the pivotal role of the people and community and the need of sustaining and building that community.

One of the reasons I see why everyone needs  Bitcoin to remain is that it is also the defacto proof of concept and longevity for all blockchain ideas. Only a select few will be guided by technical merits, the vast majority won't give a damn about technical details they just want to know if it can be used and trusted and won't simply disappear. Should Bitcoin be replaced by an arbitrary other version, than that will be a massive blow to the credibility of all crypto-currencies in the eyes of the general public and possibly an insurmountable one, provided there are no catastrophic failures in the legacy systems. To put it in simple terms if Bitcoin gets replaced by another crypto-currency then to the masses that means that a new one can be replaced as well. In that sense despite all its problems Bitcoin really is the gold standard and no upstart coin will be able to attain that. At best they will be just be seen as the next in line to be replaced. So for now, like it or not, we need Bitcoin to bootstrap the industry, until people are comfortable with these new concepts and as far as I can tell such cultural changes tend to take some time.

Went a bit of topic there, so back to the subject at hand. Bootstrapping the bitshares-projects does indeed need more than just investors and developers in their own ivory tower, we need to build a thriving community via as many effective means possible, be it marketing, airdropping, some sort of first mover lottery to divide shares, donations, charities, invitations, collaboration I'm open for anything, but with reservations. I do think it should be focused in some way or another in helping this community, I do not want to sponsor pump and dumpers, Rothschild-wannabes, scam-artists, freeloaders etcetera.

I also think it should be made perfectly clear to people who get "freebies" that we as investors actually made a significant contribution and sacrifice to get this ship sailing. I for one bought the btc I put in AGS very close to the all time high and the current btc-price and possibly perceived AGS-value does not represent the euro-value I put in, nor the considereable effort I had to go through to get those measly euros.

So I'm fine with making a better world and bootstrapping the bitshares-projects and I'm willing to put in a considerable amount of my "equity", but I don't want to play Santa Klaus for people who are not interested.  So I'm all for the take it or leave it solutions at any percentage the community deems appropriate (I'm in it for the long run anyway), I am however somewhat apprehensive about free giveaways.

[fuzzy]

I'm all pro marketing and if I have to put in 90% of my shares to make the remaining shares 10 times better I'm all for it. Also there's a saying in my country, if you try to look to deep in the cookingpot the lid will hit you on the nose, loosely translated this means, if you try to greedily scrape out every last bit of profit you'll probably be left with nothing.

I agree with the points mentioned above and that people should remember that all our ventures fall in the all or nothing category. They either fail or they'll become huge, there is no middle ground. The only way to succeed is if people are willing to participate out of their own free will and indeed reputation is everything. But as DA eloquently pointed out this works both ways, as long as bitshares doesn't get a similar reputation as something like Ripple, any free clone will be seen as a cheap pump and dump.

The question we SHOULD be asking is this:  "What is the one thing that cannot be cloned in this decentralized movement?" 

The answer is "The People".  "The People" are the devs and the community members...

One POTENTIAL error we are making is to think that Bitcoin will ALWAYS be the defacto POW coin.  Though this is very plausible, with all these Bitcoin 2.0 proposals coming out messing with it and fighting over its use for marketing, it is also possible that it dies and takes the 2.0 projects down with it.  Though I do not see this as the case, I still think it is imperative we play devils advocate.  I mean, just think about it for a second...most of these altcoins havent even been around for a year.  What was Bitcoin's value after 1 year? (hint, it wasn't worth what most altcoins are worth today). 

Also, with regard to the question "what are we going to spend our $5000 dollars for marketing on?", I say "money is only a force multiplier...a GOOD marketing campaign need not cost anything"..  Winning people's hearts and minds does not necessarily come with giving free samples to them.  Winning their hearts and minds requires earning their respect...the question we should be asking is:  "How do we get people to respect Invictus?"

Air Drops might be a way...but can we honestly say that our options are limited?  This is one of the reasons why I am always so curious what happened to make Hosk leave the group, because there must have been something that has Bytemaster and team really concerned about Ethereum and their marketing.   

I am a long holder here...and the reason for this is because I do not foresee Bytemaster leaving this project ANY time soon (if ever).  Other altcoins with devs who are so impassioned will also benefit greatly over time...just my opinions.

[JoeyD]

I'm all pro marketing and if I have to put in 90% of my shares to make the remaining shares 10 times better I'm all for it. Also there's a saying in my country, if you try to look to deep in the cookingpot the lid will hit you on the nose, loosely translated this means, if you try to greedily scrape out every last bit of profit you'll probably be left with nothing.

I agree with the points mentioned above and that people should remember that all our ventures fall in the all or nothing category. They either fail or they'll become huge, there is no middle ground. The only way to succeed is if people are willing to participate out of their own free will and indeed reputation is everything. But as DA eloquently pointed out this works both ways, as long as bitshares doesn't get a similar reputation as something like Ripple, any free clone will be seen as a cheap pump and dump.

[jwiz168]

No airdropping is my stand bitshare is for investor that believed on the day of Feb 28 snapshot. If anyone wants bitshare, buy them (if it has gone liquid). 

[fuzzy]

Luckybit, where we disagree is that you ignore that btc holders are very very rarely btc devs and don't necessarily have any opinion on altcoins.  They are just crypto-currency enthusiasts. These are the people you want to come check out protoshares and see what their airdropped shares are about.

You are far too fixated on some imaginary conflict with all bitcoin users.  It just isn't like that.  They're not mostly thieves.  You have painted this whole picture of bitcoin being some evil cabal.  It is rubbish.  It has nothing to do with any culture.  It is true that the dishonest aren't going to be attracted to small cap coins as targets, but has nothing to do with the culture.

I think this may be a bit of a mischaracterization here.  I think what Luckybit is saying is that Bitcoin has OBVIOUSLY been attacked by outside interests and although many of the "little guys" are a wonderful audience for our little game here, that it might not be worth it to award free bitShares to the NSA (if they, indeed, are Satoshi Nakamoto), or those who "stole" from Mt Gox...of course there are many others out there.  This is a good discussion though.

I have absolutely no issues with giving a sizable portion of my holdings to a good cause, but lets make that cause count.  Let us make it something that has not yet been done and let us make it solidify the brand as a way to give power back to the little people.  I know it is hard to believe, but there are many people who are buying other altcoins because Bitcoin simply costs them far too much.

I mean, imagine if we gave a % of dividends for a year to the people of Cyprus, or to people who lost coins at Mt Gox?  There ARE ways out there to do this, and besides, if we are giving people a reason to help us increase market volume...the shares we already hold are going to gain value VERY quickly and the dividends will matter little. 

Let us continue chatting about this until we find something that everyone goes "wtf...why didn't we think of this before?"  It is WORTH banging our heads against the wall to figure this out.

Your heart is in the right place. Sorry, but mine isn't. I think the whole point of air-dropping is to get this thing going in a hurry (a jump-start, if you will). Dumping to foundations, etc. is unlikely to have the same effect. We need people who will spend, invest more, and start using the Bitshares ecosystem. I would argue that we need to find the fastest route to making this the #1 or #2 crypto (by market cap) and that is dropping to people who are more profit-minded and knowledgeable about cryptos. In other words, the holders and users of bitcoin or alt coins. Charities are just going to sell it first chance they get, if indeed they know what to do with it. I say get rich first, then give it away to charities.

What about industries that are closely related to and will directly benefit from crypto-tech?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhtAf8zHR5w is one that might work.  GridCoin is another, similar project. 

My 10% total donation remains, but Lucky has really made an impression on me with his opinions.  If we had to Air Drop to a crypto, I'd rather Air Drop AGS funds or something similar to an altcoin trying to bootstrap an industry, like Sexcoin, Gamecoin...or is for a cause that will improve the lot of all humanity.

PeerCoin, for instance, is developing PeerShares...which pays dividends in savings in the form of Peercoins.  It is the 3rd largest market cap (if you exclude Ripple, which imo should be excluded).  Or give a % of the dividends to one of the Sovereign "Air Dropped" coins.  This would potentially help stabilize these coins as well, which tend to have a hard sell off right after the drop occurs.  Or we could also "Air Drop" to an altcoin whose dev is doing something we would love to have access to before others in the market, so we effectively get that dev as a contractor who helps us improve the project.

Just thoughts...lets please keep thinking about this as there has to be a way where we find a large community consensus. 

[donkeypong]

Luckybit, where we disagree is that you ignore that btc holders are very very rarely btc devs and don't necessarily have any opinion on altcoins.  They are just crypto-currency enthusiasts. These are the people you want to come check out protoshares and see what their airdropped shares are about.

You are far too fixated on some imaginary conflict with all bitcoin users.  It just isn't like that.  They're not mostly thieves.  You have painted this whole picture of bitcoin being some evil cabal.  It is rubbish.  It has nothing to do with any culture.  It is true that the dishonest aren't going to be attracted to small cap coins as targets, but has nothing to do with the culture.

I think this may be a bit of a mischaracterization here.  I think what Luckybit is saying is that Bitcoin has OBVIOUSLY been attacked by outside interests and although many of the "little guys" are a wonderful audience for our little game here, that it might not be worth it to award free bitShares to the NSA (if they, indeed, are Satoshi Nakamoto), or those who "stole" from Mt Gox...of course there are many others out there.  This is a good discussion though.

I have absolutely no issues with giving a sizable portion of my holdings to a good cause, but lets make that cause count.  Let us make it something that has not yet been done and let us make it solidify the brand as a way to give power back to the little people.  I know it is hard to believe, but there are many people who are buying other altcoins because Bitcoin simply costs them far too much.

I mean, imagine if we gave a % of dividends for a year to the people of Cyprus, or to people who lost coins at Mt Gox?  There ARE ways out there to do this, and besides, if we are giving people a reason to help us increase market volume...the shares we already hold are going to gain value VERY quickly and the dividends will matter little. 

Let us continue chatting about this until we find something that everyone goes "wtf...why didn't we think of this before?"  It is WORTH banging our heads against the wall to figure this out.

Your heart is in the right place. Sorry, but mine isn't. I think the whole point of air-dropping is to get this thing going in a hurry (a jump-start, if you will). Dumping to foundations, etc. is unlikely to have the same effect. We need people who will spend, invest more, and start using the Bitshares ecosystem. I would argue that we need to find the fastest route to making this the #1 or #2 crypto (by market cap) and that is dropping to people who are more profit-minded and knowledgeable about cryptos. In other words, the holders and users of bitcoin or alt coins. Charities are just going to sell it first chance they get, if indeed they know what to do with it. I say get rich first, then give it away to charities.

[fuzzy]

Luckybit, where we disagree is that you ignore that btc holders are very very rarely btc devs and don't necessarily have any opinion on altcoins.  They are just crypto-currency enthusiasts. These are the people you want to come check out protoshares and see what their airdropped shares are about.

You are far too fixated on some imaginary conflict with all bitcoin users.  It just isn't like that.  They're not mostly thieves.  You have painted this whole picture of bitcoin being some evil cabal.  It is rubbish.  It has nothing to do with any culture.  It is true that the dishonest aren't going to be attracted to small cap coins as targets, but has nothing to do with the culture.

I think this may be a bit of a mischaracterization here.  I think what Luckybit is saying is that Bitcoin has OBVIOUSLY been attacked by outside interests and although many of the "little guys" are a wonderful audience for our little game here, that it might not be worth it to award free bitShares to the NSA (if they, indeed, are Satoshi Nakamoto), or those who "stole" from Mt Gox...of course there are many others out there.  This is a good discussion though.

I have absolutely no issues with giving a sizable portion of my holdings to a good cause, but lets make that cause count.  Let us make it something that has not yet been done and let us make it solidify the brand as a way to give power back to the little people.  I know it is hard to believe, but there are many people who are buying other altcoins because Bitcoin simply costs them far too much.

I mean, imagine if we gave a % of dividends for a year to the people of Cyprus, or to people who lost coins at Mt Gox?  There ARE ways out there to do this, and besides, if we are giving people a reason to help us increase market volume...the shares we already hold are going to gain value VERY quickly and the dividends will matter little. 

Let us continue chatting about this until we find something that everyone goes "wtf...why didn't we think of this before?"  It is WORTH banging our heads against the wall to figure this out.

[jwiz168]

For the sake of arguements, no name dropping please. We all have our stand. Some may agree or not. It is a healthy way of making bitshare a worthy investment.

[gamey]

Luckybit, where we disagree is that you ignore that btc holders are very very rarely btc devs and don't necessarily have any opinion on altcoins.  They are just crypto-currency enthusiasts. These are the people you want to come check out protoshares and see what their airdropped shares are about.

You are far too fixated on some imaginary conflict with all bitcoin users.  It just isn't like that.  They're not mostly thieves.  You have painted this whole picture of bitcoin being some evil cabal.  It is rubbish.  It has nothing to do with any culture.  It is true that the dishonest aren't going to be attracted to small cap coins as targets, but has nothing to do with the culture.

[fuzzy]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563925.0

Basically the idea is to fork Ethereum and distribute it to BTC owners.

This is the same idea why I3 explain 3rd party dev should honor AGS/PTS: to maximize the user base. And if they don't want to, we fork it and do it anyway.

But BTC holders >>>> PTS/AGS holders. So basically I3 will loose that game.

Peter R's idea is genius. That will change the crypto landscape forever. Note that BTSX and any DAC that I3 will produce can be forked and be distributed to BTC holders. If I3 was right about user base = value, then that idea is a game changer for every body.

BTC is too centralized. The only motivation and outcome of this would be greed and centralization at the cost of innovation.

I'll go on record and say BTC owners getting everything is making BTC miners the central bank of crypto.

LetsTalkCentralization.com

Let's be fair though, when have shares ever been given away for free for any company? They shouldn't be, they can only be traded.

I use to be very hard-over on this perspective, but then I remembered that the 'founders' of a company always got their shares for 'free'.   Bootstrapping a decentralized company requires a large number of initial shareholders.    The idea of airdropping to create a wide initial user base is a great way to form an initial partnership. 

However, if you have investors fund the development of a company then of course they should receive more than the airdrop users get for free.

In my opinion if there should be such an air drop it should be to churches, non profits, and people outside of the Bitcoin community so that it can grow the community.

I think the way to do it would be to set it up as a charity. Not everyone deserves free Bitshares, but if they are willing to try and help others or are associated with groups who do that then maybe a case can be made.

I think the Bitcoin miners at this time are acting very greedy to the detriment of the decentralization movement. I don't want them to be rewarded just because mining Bitcoins isn't profitable. I'm not against rewarding miners if Bitshares are pumped in the background (their cpu resources would purchase Bitshares instead of Blackcoins).

Someone mentioned Ethereum? I actually think it might be wise to collaborate with Ethereum and other Bitcoin 2.0 developers. Maybe give some free Angelshares to people who own Ether and in exchange maybe let Ethereum give some Ether to people who own Angelshares. Also there is computing for good (BOINC) which can cure diseases and reward in Bitshares.

I think giveaways are good but its important to do so carefully in order to grow your strategic alliances.

This was a wonderful post...I would love to see collaboration with a group like that of GridCoin.  They are by far one of my personal favorites.  So glad people got on here and started posting some sense so I could be gently placed back on the ground from my earlier talk...The more I look at it, the more I agree that it is a bad idea to contribute to further centralization of the system, which is what I always try to say I am against, and sadly found myself dipping my toes into. 

With that said, however, strategic alliances--especially with coin devs and communities that have similar philosophies to those held by bitShares holders--will prove quite worth while endeavors. 

Is there a reason we couldn't just let a % of the dividends from trading and/or other transactions (from alternate DACs) go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation or let people choose to give them to altcoins that seem to have a great idea, but lack development?  It wouldn't have to be forever, but it could be for a specific period of time and would thus serve to make the beneficiaries marketers of this bitShares as they would then want to increase the volume of transactions.  If we picked the kinds of institutions that are vehemently against the technocratic corruption attempting to overtake our internet and currency freedom, we might find that we become a mouth-watering commodity to precisely the "right" kind of people.  There are many creative ways around this obstacle and Air Drops may simply be a fad that turns out to only further centralize the community.

[luckybit]

What is the potential downside to not diluting your shares 2% to airdrop them onto millions? (the answer is 100% loss because your competitor will clone your application and distribute it to our target market who will love it and buy more making everyone sell their invictus product for the clone that everyone has deemed the "industry standard")

Why would they only take 2% when they can just take 100%? They can fork it and take it all and put it as some side chain to Bitcoin.

So what is the point of giving them your shares when they already are talking about taking 100%?

I'm not against an air drop if it's to alt coin holders, or people who aren't associated with the crypto industry or Bitcoin community yet. I don't think it's a good idea to give Bitshares to the core developers so they can find it's really useful and then just take 100% and give it all to Bitcoin holders.

Altcoin developers aren't as likely to do this because they want altcoins to exist.

Bitcoin developers are forming a cabal which does not want altcoins to exist at all so there isn't much room to cooperate strategically when they want to destroy the whole altcoin market entirely.

What are you going to pay them for? Do you really think paying them 2% is going to keep them from going for 100% later on? I think Litecoin developers, Dogecoin, Mastercoin, Counterparty, all of these people have a shared vested interest but certain Bitcoin developers and certain miners don't respect the free market process.

If you do, you should give Bitshares to other developers who do.

You guys have a great product with your Bitshares, but as soon as you launch it, then it is effectively AIRDROPPED TO EVERYONE ON THE PLANET for free, weather you vote for it or against it, because that is the nature of the open source world we live in.  Don't fight the airdrop guys, because if you don't do it, then your competitors will, and they will especially love

If your competitors don't want your industry to exist, you're not going to compete with scorched earth. You're right about Mastercoin, Counterparty and others. Those aren't really competitors, there can be symbiosis between Bitshares and them. Ethereum can form symbiosis as can Nxt.

Bitcoin core devs are the only ones saying altcoins shouldn't exist and making moves to prevent Counterparty and Mastercoin from existing. That is not competition, that is the politics of greed. How does an air drop change their minds beyond make them want to take 100% of your equity instead of 2%?

All it is doing is dividing the community up and changing the nature of the community from friendly competition to scorched earth take no prisoners competition. It's stupid in my opinion and maybe one way to deal with that whole side chain idea is to fork whatever they produce and make a version friendly to altcoins as well.

Because if you're going to give shares to all these others in an airdrop, are they going to give shares back in an airdrop? Mastercoin, Ethereum, Counterparty and Nxt, could any of them be talked into doing airdrops too?

But if Bitshares is the only one willing to do it then it's not as fair. Marketing is great, partnership is great, but be strategic about it and get something measurable from it.

Who thinks that we should run a faucet to the Bitcoin holders?  Who cares, because it will be done for free by me or someone else the day after it is launched.  Because the race for maximum adoption starts at that moment.  Are you ready for the race to gain maximum adoption?  Or are you still voting against physics?

A currency like Bitcoin needs to approach adoption that way. Bitshares needs maximum market cap. It's Apples compared to Oranges. I do think you need to introduce the idea to people buy whoever is doing some fork isn't going to maintain it.

Additionally if you give preference to the altcoins then you can have a market for altcoins. A lot of altcoin holders wont be happy at the idea that their holdings could be rendered worthless because of some power mad core Bitcoin devs.

Give the Bitshares airdrop to them. Bitcoin devs are the last people I would expect to see people offering to give shares to, but I suppose if you find some friendly devs then give it to them on a case by case basis.

[luckybit]

Bitcoin is hacked because it is a far bigger target.  This idea that most bitcoin wallets are the ill gotten gains of thieves is absurd.  It has nothing to do with the bitcoin community, btc is just the largest currency by far, so of course they're going to have the most hacks.  Bitcoin can hardly get any positive press at this point.  You blaming bitcoin for bitcoin thefts is just an example of this nonsense.

No, Bitcoin exchanges got hacked because it's becoming a culture which inherently centralizes around MtGox and other infrastructure.

Those hacks can't happen to decentralized exchanges or to people who use cold storage. Hacks have occurred against many altcoins but not all of them get hacked equally.

When you make it a culture to encourage everyone to put everything on one website, or on one blockchain, that is what makes you a target. Bitcoin promotes too big to fail as a culture when it should promote decentralization.

Proof of Work can't be changed because mining is too big to fail. MtGox was too big to fail as well. Now they want to make the entire crypto industry dependent on Bitcoin which again will become too big to fail. This is not a trend we see in the altcoins, it's a Bitcoin trend.

And what encourages this trend of putting all your coins on MtGox? Pure greed and nothing else. The main reason everyone used MtGox despite the risks is because the coins were so much more expensive there that they thought they could make a profit.

Why are Bitcoins being stolen? Because of market manipulation, greed, and people trying to centralize control. It's already corrupted. No effort is being made to decentralize things until after MtGox went down and now you have core developers and everyone else coming up with plans.

The people on this forum wanted a decentralized exchange as far back as April 2013 when the last crash happened. When the last crash happened one of the only reasons it didn't take down the whole industry was because of alt coin development.

[gamey]

The 'forgotten BTC address' objection doesn't work either. If someone doesn't claim it, then their drop expires. I say this BTC drop idea makes great sense. Low risk, high potential reward.

IMO forgotten btc address don't really matter.  It just bumps up equity for those who do receive them.  The forgotten BTC address will just never be spent and the market will adapt.

[donkeypong]

The 'forgotten BTC address' objection doesn't work either. If someone doesn't claim it, then their drop expires. I say this BTC drop idea makes great sense. Low risk, high potential reward.

[gamey]

It depends on which human beings you air drop to. Just giving it to Bitcoiners who probably stole their coins in a hack? That's not cool.

How many Bitcoin hacks have we heard about lately? But I do think there are some coins where it's definitely a good idea to form initial partnerships. I think some coins are better than others.

I think if you want to change things, don't dilute anyone's shares. Find a way to do it from AGS so that everyone who already has their shares are locked in and it only affects future purchasers of AGS.

Bitcoin is hacked because it is a far bigger target.  This idea that most bitcoin wallets are the ill gotten gains of thieves is absurd.  It has nothing to do with the bitcoin community, btc is just the largest currency by far, so of course they're going to have the most hacks.  Bitcoin can hardly get any positive press at this point.  You blaming bitcoin for bitcoin thefts is just an example of this nonsense.