DACs vs. Firms (Are DACs useless?)

[bitmeat]

Couldn't agree more one the one chain (or alternatives to chain) solution that can represent all assets. This is at the core of my platform's design. It is not an easy thing to solve. I mean elegantly.

[AsymmetricInformation]

Could you respond to this point?

> The prediction market concept is flexible enough to contain functions for gambling, insurance, and portfolio replication (currency exchange), as well as other functions.

Right, and if I can have lower fees than Truthcoin for my currency exchange by having a special-purpose blockchain (delegates would have lower bandwidth/storage requirements), shouldn't I make my own blockchain and out-compete truthcoin on that one particular area?

The only argument against one blockchain to rule them all is efficiency and resistance to centralizing forces. I think we disagree about the premise here, no?

Sorry, you faked me out there with the ">".

Lower fees are great, as is competition. I meant to say that blockchains are only useful for Value Storage, and Truthcoin can improve on Bitcoin  via a clever escrow. Someone could design a better Truthcoin, or a better Bitcoin, but if they did, the old owners would probably absorb the design ideas into their existing software/ownership structure.

Value storage implies money. Money has a strong network component (you'd want USD if you're here in the States, in Europe you'd need Euros, etc.) I'm not saying that there will only ever be one (optionally, two) blockchain design(s), but that only one (optionally, two) blockchain(s) will ever be in use at one time.

I'm arguing FOR one blockchain to rule them all. If someone argued against it, I would expect them to (at a bare minimum) describe one hypothetical situation where a blockchain would be required that did NOT involve the storage of money (Bitcoin) or escrow of money (Truthcoin).

[Stan]

Once a strong delegate network is established, many developers will want their DACs to join it and it will be up to the elected delegates authorize an upgrade to let them in.

Some will not get in for whatever reasons, and they will band together to form other such DACling nurseries.

From here on out, Invictus will have plenty of competition - as we have always intended.  There is nothing stopping others right now from forming their own trust fund - except the courage to try and success at convincing others that the donations will be used faithfully and wisely.

I have nothing against someone defining a trust fund to be run under different rules.  But, as others constantly remind us, you can't change the rules once the donations have begun.  The BitShares Trust is based primarily on bytemaster's judgement, skills, philosophy and reputation.  Other funds are free to compete based on their own better mix of these things.

It is this decentralization that protects us all from seduction or coercion at central points of attack.

[Stan]

Stan you continuously fail to see my point. What I'm proposing is not ONE organization ran by committee, but rather a PLATFORM in which MANY independent projects and organizations can be funded via the SAME currency. In other words you would still run your project however you would not be funded in BTC or PTS but rather in say BTS and you will be hugely incentivized to create value for BTS because if you don't you won't get paid.

The second point I was making was on how I would reduce risk for investors by only gathering a "pledge" 5% amount, which is like an option to buy the full when/if I feel confident in the product near it's release.

Again this is a brainstorm at this point. But please get it through your head that what I'm proposing is not a design by committee but rather a competitive environment where next to Invictus others could compete for the donated funds in a fair market. That said nothing is stopping people from competing since you are not even using your own currency for the donation.

Ok. Beaten it to death. I had different expectations. No need to justify what you do. You explained your plan and are sticking to it.

Also let me remind you that had I not started the whole argument about how one trustee is a horrible idea and proposed deposit paid positions were you even going to pursue DPOS? My point is I have my fair share of constructive criticism. Just some of my ideas are not doable within your structure. Doesn't mean I'm not going to bitch about it

Your criticisms are much appreciated and, as you say, have help lead us to an improved product.  More improvements will be made in the future, if not by us, then by others who build on what we all have accomplished so far together.

You should really like our toolkit because it makes much of what you are talking about possible.  We could, and just might, release one chain that allows many of the DACs we have been talking about to trade under one currency and share a common amount of critical mass together.  Just like competing businesses tend to cluster together to achieve enough traffic for them all to be successful.

I predict that such DACling nurseries will be common until some DACs need more lebensraum and "fly the coop" -- to mix a few metaphors.

[bitmeat]

So will future DACs be built on top of BTS, or will they each have to build their own network from scratch? I'm not in favor of gazillions different pieces of software that need installing and updating. Of course there might some pros in DACs having completely independent chains I'm not seeing. Diversity would be one, staying away from a mono culture.

Anyways. Fun times. I hope this DPOS thing is put to bed soon so I can start trading BitUsd

[gamey]

If you want to pay for specific DACs to be developed, I'd expect you to do that individually once the toolkit has matured somewhat.  I'd much rather have I3 make a few mediocre DACs but the best DAC toolkit than a couple of great DACs with a toolkit lacking in versatility.

If you want to support DACs, wait for them to be on the free market and then buy into them.  Why would you want AGS pulled into that?  The DACs will happen and if the toolkit is strong enough, this will be the ecosystem where they flourish.

edit -
Asenski - I agree about blockchain bloat being a serious problem.  I agree that something needs to be done there.  A hybrid approach seems fine, but removing the blockchain so that there is nothing but running totals of balances seems like a bad idea to me.  (And thats what you're implying by removing the blockchain, right ? )

[bitmeat]

All the nice features like stalking and spying?

I try to think what would the world look if we use only a digital currency. Well we would need to be able to process 2000 transactions per second. Bitcoin is nowhere near that. Then we would not want stalkers to be able to identify us. Say I bought a coffee, you sit in the coffee shop and observe, now you know where my money came from you can track me and my spending habits, that's not good.

You can still examine your transactions but they are private between you and the other parties involved.

As a person willing to put significant capital into a digital currency, I'd rather have a ledger of the process.  A cloud holding balances where things break with no record to audit doesn't seem like an improvement.  I agree privacy is a good thing, but you can fix that in other ways and maintain the blockchain.

 I think adoption is hindered more by lack of trust than a fear of privacy.

Adoption is also hindered by lack of good idiot proof tools. But thy is changing.

As far as the ledger goes you can keep it in your wallet, doesn't have to be on the cloud. So long as the used public keys are marked in a chain to prevent double spending.

In fact I wasn't trying to solve privacy concerns but rather reduce the block chain it is 17GB for just 40M transactions. It's laughable. You will eventually have people run thin clients and trust the centralized servers willing to hold all the data that it is correct. Which at some point might not be. Of course it's not easy to fake blocks. But it's not impossible either. So unless you are able to check the entire block chain in Bitcoin you can't really know for sure.

[Stan]

Here's a post I made exactly one month after the launch of PTS:

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1254.msg13344#msg13344

It reads as follows:

To be successful in the short term, a fledgling DAC, (um, a DACling), needs someone strong and dependable to support it while it grows.
To be successful in the long term, the DACling needs to become independent of any single point failure, including its parent. 

We must always have a plan to cut the tether to its parent company, which must remain in fiat space where it could be seduced or coerced into corruption at some point.  That's why DAC engineering must include the engineering of a distributed development community.  So the parent company can let go and know there's a whole community looking out for its baby.

That's why we seek free-lance developers on 6 continents (we span 3 so far).

But I agree, it can still be profitable for its shareholders long before it becomes a sovereign creature of Free Space.

[bitmeat]

Stan you continuously fail to see my point. What I'm proposing is not ONE organization ran by committee, but rather a PLATFORM in which MANY independent projects and organizations can be funded via the SAME currency. In other words you would still run your project however you would not be funded in BTC or PTS but rather in say BTS and you will be hugely incentivized to create value for BTS because if you don't you won't get paid.

The second point I was making was on how I would reduce risk for investors by only gathering a "pledge" 5% amount, which is like an option to buy the full when/if I feel confident in the product near it's release.

Again this is a brainstorm at this point. But please get it through your head that what I'm proposing is not a design by committee but rather a competitive environment where next to Invictus others could compete for the donated funds in a fair market. That said nothing is stopping people from competing since you are not even using your own currency for the donation.

Ok. Beaten it to death. I had different expectations. No need to justify what you do. You explained your plan and are sticking to it.

Also let me remind you that had I not started the whole argument about how one trustee is a horrible idea and proposed deposit paid positions were you even going to pursue DPOS? My point is I have my fair share of constructive criticism. Just some of my ideas are not doable within your structure. Doesn't mean I'm not going to bitch about it

[gamey]

All the nice features like stalking and spying?

I try to think what would the world look if we use only a digital currency. Well we would need to be able to process 2000 transactions per second. Bitcoin is nowhere near that. Then we would not want stalkers to be able to identify us. Say I bought a coffee, you sit in the coffee shop and observe, now you know where my money came from you can track me and my spending habits, that's not good.

You can still examine your transactions but they are private between you and the other parties involved.

As a person willing to put significant capital into a digital currency, I'd rather have a ledger of the process.  A cloud holding balances where things break with no record to audit doesn't seem like an improvement.  I agree privacy is a good thing, but you can fix that in other ways and maintain the blockchain.

 I think adoption is hindered more by lack of trust than a fear of privacy.

[Stan]

To me a true DAC is not controlled or owned by any legal entity. It is owned and controlled by voted delegates. Delegates in turn are incentivized to do what is expected of them, and even punished if they do what isn't expected.

If I am correct (and obviously I think I am ), Invictus is a Central entity that formed to create the DAC toolkits and develop their own DACs to start and compete in the market.  I do not recall them ever saying anything about being a DAC themselves, though.

Invictus is not a DAC.  However we are trying our best to be decentralized by encouraging independent 3rd parties to do as much as possible.  Our legal structures are also designed to be decentralized and exist only because we humans must continue to live in regulated meat space.  We exercise centralized control over donations made to us because that is what we promised to do.  Those donors are counting on us to use our best judgement, skills, and philosophy to employ their contributions wisely.  To turn control over to a random collection of other judgements, skills and philosophies would be to betray those who trusted what they knew about us.  I am sure that I would never donate to any organization run by a committee.  Shudder. 

[bitmeat]

What I'm looking at in my design is to make the block chain obsolete. Once you do that, you can have millions of derivative coins all using the same infrastructure. Another thing I thought bitshares was going to implement but I see how that would've slowed them down.

Getting the network effect for each DAC is just too painful and could jeopardize a good DAC

So if blockchain is obsolete what about all the auditing features we are given with a blockchain?  Sure you could get rid of it, but you also will lose faith in the technology.

All the nice features like stalking and spying?

I try to think what would the world look if we use only a digital currency. Well we would need to be able to process 2000 transactions per second. Bitcoin is nowhere near that. Then we would not want stalkers to be able to identify us. Say I bought a coffee, you sit in the coffee shop and observe, now you know where my money came from you can track me and my spending habits, that's not good.

You can still examine your transactions but they are private between you and the other parties involved.

[gamey]

What I'm looking at in my design is to make the block chain obsolete. Once you do that, you can have millions of derivative coins all using the same infrastructure. Another thing I thought bitshares was going to implement but I see how that would've slowed them down.

Getting the network effect for each DAC is just too painful and could jeopardize a good DAC

So if blockchain is obsolete what about all the auditing features we are given with a blockchain?  Sure you could get rid of it, but you also will lose faith in the technology.

[bitmeat]

What I'm looking at in my design is to make the block chain obsolete. Once you do that, you can have millions of derivative coins all using the same infrastructure. Another thing I thought bitshares was going to implement but I see how that would've slowed them down.

Getting the network effect for each DAC is just too painful and could jeopardize a good DAC

[bitmeat]

Difference between GPU resistant and QR is night and day. One aims at decentralizing mining power, which is not necessarily that scary, the other aims at making sure your coins are safe!!!