a. I understand public/private key ownership of Bitcoin, but don't
understand how the Bitshares "contact name" relates to a public key
Your account name / contact name is registered on the blockchain and links the
name to a 'master public key' that is used to derive stealth addresses
b. What is the difference between a registered and non registered "contact name"?
A registered account is stated on the blockchain .. there is a special type of
transaction to register a name. if you want to use an address (similar to
bitcoin) you cannot (currently) directly send to that address
but need to add a contact name to which you can send .. that contact name is local only and not registered with the blockchain
c. In the recent transaction section in the client, it almost looks like
my genesis block shares have been moved "from" GENESIS "to" brentallsop? Does
this mean they are now under a different private/public key?
Yes .. the private key for your genesis stake are worth nothing now ... but
your private key for brentallsop should be stored somewhere safely
i. A related question is: If someone had the private key for the public
GENSIS block key, could they get my shares, or do I need to move them to a new
public/private key to guarantee they are secure?
Each stake in the genesis has it's own private key ..
d. How does the delegate voting process work. When I change my vote in my
client, does this change happen real time, or does the vote only change once I
do a transaction. or does the vote change just for the shares that are being
transacted....?
No realtime voting .. voting is by stake .. it works as follows ..
you have a set of delegates you like .. (lets call that set a slate) .. if you
want to give them a single vote you need to approve those candidates (thumbs
up) and also need to broadcast that vote to the network.
How is that done? You need to make a transaction (from yourself to yourself)
with the amount (stake) you want to use to vote for your candidates.
The transaction then contains a list of your approved candidates and
every candidate in that list receives an extra vote as large as the
stake you are transmitting.
e. Is there some way to check on how each of my shares are currently
voted, or do the votes of all my shares change in real time, when I change my
vote?
You can do that in the client console with "wallet_account_vote_summary"
f. Are there now plenty enough voted in delegates to secure the network.
What is the status of any voting change plans? Ultimately, who will make such
controversial decisions?
you can have a look at the current top 101 delegates by "blockchain_list_delegates 1 101".
Those delegates mostly have been voted in by the masses .. Afaik the voting
scheme will not change anytime soon.
g. What are daily income, expenses and burn sections in the client UI?
Hae? The client UI does not have daily income nor does it burn anything. ..
the delegates have income and some of them burn ... check them out on
"blockchain_list_delegates"
Hope that helps.
Kind Regards
-- Fabian