When will we achieve next order of magnitude increase?

[Brent.Allsop]

Oh and I'm in close contact with the guy working on Instant Transactions, which is what initially drew me to Nxt, it is definitely taking too long, it's a big project though and until about a month ago was working a full time job and doing this in his spare time.  Apparently just switched over to full time though.  And it scales very nicely.. entirely world could switch to Nxt and the instant transaction system would scale. Other parts would break first.  The other thing is that it apparently somewhat depends on Transparent forging, which isn't due until November, to be released on Nxt's first birthday.

Sounds too good to be true, to me.  I'd be interested in knowing THE bytemaster's take on this.  You know if he believed in it, he'd be busy integrating it into BitsharesX.

[hughmanwho]

That's just it though, an attacked would not to have any stake in BTSX.. or barely any, just enough to be allowed to run a delegate.  Then he maybe he spends some money convincing people to vote for him or giving giving back 100% of transaction fees to those that vote for him, or whatever.  Given that people can vote for multiple delegates, a lot of people will vote for these delegates who are willing to work for free.  Once the attacker gets the bottom 51% of delegates, he locks down the network.. and 51% attacks and you hurt trust in Bitshares, even if you do fork the blockchain.

Oh and I'm in close contact with the guy working on Instant Transactions, which is what initially drew me to Nxt, it is definitely taking too long, it's a big project though and until about a month ago was working a full time job and doing this in his spare time.  Apparently just switched over to full time though.  And it scales very nicely.. entirely world could switch to Nxt and the instant transaction system would scale. Other parts would break first.  The other thing is that it apparently somewhat depends on Transparent forging, which isn't due until November, to be released on Nxt's first birthday.

[oldman]

UPDATED: You only need the bottom 51, not the top.

Now that market cap of BTSX is reasonable high and the top 51 delegates have over 10% of the voting shares it's an interesting exercise figuring how much it would cost to unseat the top 51.

So with a market cap of $70MM USD the cost of unseating the 51 delegates would be:

50th delegate has 10.11% and the 101st delegate has 9.2% of the share votes for an average of say 10% of shares voted.

$70MM USD market cap. 10% is $7MM USD to buy enough votes to unseat all 51. That is of course assuming you could amass $7MM USD worth of BTSX without raising the price at all.

That leaves the attacker to ponder how they could net more than $7MM USD out of the attack.

I think it would be a major bonus for the entire network if someone did that... here is what would happen:

1) people would organize to vote them out...
2) if the attacker stopped transactions that voted for other people then DAC Sun would release a hard fork that burned the attackers shares and the network would continue... instant 10% dividend

Hah! Beat me to it.

[oldman]

UPDATED: You only need the bottom 51, not the top.

Now that market cap of BTSX is reasonable high and the top 51 delegates have over 10% of the voting shares it's an interesting exercise figuring how much it would cost to unseat the top 51.

So with a market cap of $70MM shares the cost of unseating the 51 delegates would be:

50th delegate has 10.11% and the 101st delegate has 9.2% of the share votes for an average of say 10% of shares voted.

$70MM USD market cap. 10% is $7MM USD to buy enough votes to unseat all 51. That is of course assuming you could amass $7MM USD worth of BTSX without raising the price at all.

That leaves the attacker to ponder how they could net more than $7MM USD out of the attack.

I think this FUD angle would ignore the profit motive within the Bitshares ecosystem and focus on more sinister themes:

Perhaps there is a certain legacy industry that would see market share evaporate if Bitshares is successful...

Or perhaps the bad actor has substantial holdings in another tech (ahem) that would benefit greatly from damaging Bitshares.

Either way, pure profit motive does not seem adequate to justify this type of scorched-earth attack.

I think the answer is simply that should a bad actor somehow acquire the required stake and attack successfully the delegates/devs of the day will just fork and carry on.

Let's run through the exercise for kicks:

The attacker would likely have to acquire the stake off-market, as the slippage from acquiring on-market would be unmanageable.

Right away the attacker is going to run into a problem - most folks with large stakes are not selling at these prices.

If I'm reading sentiment correctly, most large stakeholders seem to consider $0.5-10/BTSX the floor for profit taking.

So now you're talking $1-20bn cap before large lots of BTSX become available and that means a $100m-$2bn stake.

The attacker would have to be willing to sacrifice the value of the stake. Ouch.

But let's assume the attacker has acquired the stake (somehow) and carries out a successful attack.

What has the attack accomplished? Proof that the platform can be attacked?

Now, if the delegates/devs are smart they fork... and decide to burn the attacker's funds.

A serious attack is transmuted into a very generous donation to BTSX shareholders.

Bitshares should really have an attack response plan in place to this effect.

Fork & Burn has a nice ring to it.

[G1ng3rBr34dM4n]

very nicely written.

we need that one on a shirt:

THE bytmaster prefers to say: "Go to Mars, or even Pluto"

 

[G1ng3rBr34dM4n]

I'm with Brent Allsop on this one.  As a singularitist and engineer - the fact of the matter is: technology is increasing at an exponential rate.  Even when Moore's law doesn't directly apply, the law of accelerating returns does.  The future is very exciting and BitShares is going to play a very large role in that. 

[xeroc]

If you do not know some of the powerful arguments for why it could be worth $0.50 in 6 months, you must be new to this forum.  A few of the very powerful (though not quantitative) arguments I know about, which are most convincing to me, are the fact that everyone always talks about how Bitcoin is just the first draft of this decentralized technology, and that something far superior will eventually replace it, long term.  Hence the term Crypto Currency 2.0.

Also, BitsharesX, as far as I can see, is vastly superior not only to Bitcoin, but to everything else out there, or even on the horizon.  The second most powerful argument to me, is the fact that there is a critical need (i.e. HUGE demand) for a crypto currency that is Stable in price.  BitUSD is the first technology that has now proven that this is possible.  In other words, BitUSD, once sufficiently proven to everyone, could replace the US government as the largest distributor of USD denominated currencies or stores of value (i.e. more than all T-bonds issued by the US Governement).  And even if only .0001% of that happens, the price of BTSX cold literally "go to the moon", or as THE bytmaster prefers to say: "Go to Mars, or even Pluto" simply because of all the BTSX collateral requited to enable that to happen.  And I can think of a whole shitload of other arguments that are near as powerful as these, but there isn't space for all that here.  If there are any  BIG (as in convinces lots of people) arguments for anyone I've messed, I'd like to hear them.

Finally, are you familiar with exponential laws like Moore's Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law and the more general Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns?  Gordon More helped Intel grow as much as they did by predicting the growth rate of Integrated Circuits with his very accurate predictions that came to be known as Moore's Law.

When I saw Bitcoin doing a very similar law like thing, over a very surprisingly long period of time, especially the last 10 times increase in 6 months, for a total of 7 times, I couldn't believe that could happen, so consistently, with something like Bitcoin.  So I started thinking of this as the "Canonized law of the Crypto Currency" and  figured if there was a 2.0 Crypto Currency, it could take over the growth were Bitcoin left off, just as Kurzweil predicts will happen with new paradigm shifts, in his generalized law of accelerating returns.

Sure, long term, the first non quantitative arguments I pointed out seem very powerful to me.  But there is nothing quantitative about those long term predictions.  To me, this Mores law is a very powerful argument, and not only that, it is a very quantitative argument, that puts some real numbers to things.  It is just a general observation that very improbably things, when there is enough of these kind of  megatrend things like this, they can become Law like.

And, disclaimer, this "Canonized law of Crypto Currency" http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/154/2 is not tied to Bitcoin, Bitshares or any individual currency.  Just as Moore's Law didn't only apply to Intel Chips.  It is just the decentralized peer to peer technology in general, and includes the market cap of all of them, combined.

I'd be interested if anyone else besides me thinks this could be a very powerful quantitative predictor of the future total value of all Crypto Currency, just as Moore's law still accurately and quantitatively predicts Chip densities.

very nicely written.

we need that one on a shirt:

THE bytmaster prefers to say: "Go to Mars, or even Pluto"

[xeroc]

Just having that nuclear option means it'll likely never need to be used.

can you please elaborate on how it could happen. I read what you and bytemaster said. But can you describe it in more detail please

what he means is basically a hard fork of the network ... if someone screws up the network miserably .. then DacSunLimited might need to do a hardfork to fix the issue and or block an attacker .. probably will never happen .. but has happend to bitcoin in march 2013 by a software bug and resulted in a hardfork

[serejandmyself]

Just having that nuclear option means it'll likely never need to be used.

can you please elaborate on how it could happen. I read what you and bytemaster said. But can you describe it in more detail please

[Brent.Allsop]

Through most if Bitcoin's history, it increased in value an order of magnitude in price 7 times, and all but one of those was in almost exactly 6 months.

See this historical graph:

http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/154/2

I'm assuming the reason it has stopped this progression is because of Bitcoin 2.0, primarily BitsharesX.

And it seems that Bitshares is taking up this 10 times increase every 6 months where Bitcoin left off.

After all, most of us purchased our Genesis block Bitshares at around $0.005 per share right?  And the first bubble easily made it past $0.05 in about 6 months time.

My prediction is that it will hit $0.50 per share in less than 6 months, and that this rate will continue for some time.  Anyone have any arguments for a different view?

Also, just as I've been predicting, the price of Bitshares would be depressed until the Either sale ended, many people taking their 10 times profit and rolling into Either.  Now that is over, the price looks like it is starting to move again.

I want to believe that BTSX will be 0.50 in 6 months, but is there anything tangible backing this claim other than speculation at this point?

If you do not know some of the powerful arguments for why it could be worth $0.50 in 6 months, you must be new to this forum.  A few of the very powerful (though not quantitative) arguments I know about, which are most convincing to me, are the fact that everyone always talks about how Bitcoin is just the first draft of this decentralized technology, and that something far superior will eventually replace it, long term.  Hence the term Crypto Currency 2.0.

Also, BitsharesX, as far as I can see, is vastly superior not only to Bitcoin, but to everything else out there, or even on the horizon.  The second most powerful argument to me, is the fact that there is a critical need (i.e. HUGE demand) for a crypto currency that is Stable in price.  BitUSD is the first technology that has now proven that this is possible.  In other words, BitUSD, once sufficiently proven to everyone, could replace the US government as the largest distributor of USD denominated currencies or stores of value (i.e. more than all T-bonds issued by the US Governement).  And even if only .0001% of that happens, the price of BTSX cold literally "go to the moon", or as THE bytmaster prefers to say: "Go to Mars, or even Pluto" simply because of all the BTSX collateral requited to enable that to happen.  And I can think of a whole shitload of other arguments that are near as powerful as these, but there isn't space for all that here.  If there are any  BIG (as in convinces lots of people) arguments for anyone I've messed, I'd like to hear them.

Finally, are you familiar with exponential laws like Moore's Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law and the more general Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns?  Gordon More helped Intel grow as much as they did by predicting the growth rate of Integrated Circuits with his very accurate predictions that came to be known as Moore's Law.

When I saw Bitcoin doing a very similar law like thing, over a very surprisingly long period of time, especially the last 10 times increase in 6 months, for a total of 7 times, (and now Bitshares repeating this) I couldn't believe that could happen, so consistently, with something like Bitcoin.  So I started thinking of this as the "Canonized law of the Crypto Currency" and  figured if there was a 2.0 Crypto Currency, it could take over the growth were Bitcoin left off, just as Kurzweil predicts will happen with new paradigm shifts, in his generalized law of accelerating returns.

Sure, long term, the first non quantitative arguments I pointed out seem very powerful to me.  But there is nothing quantitative about those long term predictions.  To me, this Mores law is a very powerful argument, and not only that, it is a very quantitative argument, that puts some real numbers to things.  It is just a general observation that very improbably things, when there is enough of these kind of  megatrend things like this, they can become Law like.

And, disclaimer, this "Canonized law of Crypto Currency" http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/154/2 is not tied to Bitcoin, Bitshares or any individual currency.  Just as Moore's Law didn't only apply to Intel Chips.  It is just the decentralized peer to peer technology in general, and includes the market cap of all of them, combined.

I'd be interested if anyone else besides me thinks this could be a very powerful quantitative predictor of the future total value of all Crypto Currency, just as Moore's law still accurately and quantitatively predicts Chip densities.

[Riverhead]

Just having that nuclear option means it'll likely never need to be used.

[bytemaster]

UPDATED: You only need the bottom 51, not the top.

Now that market cap of BTSX is reasonable high and the top 51 delegates have over 10% of the voting shares it's an interesting exercise figuring how much it would cost to unseat the top 51.

So with a market cap of $70MM USD the cost of unseating the 51 delegates would be:

50th delegate has 10.11% and the 101st delegate has 9.2% of the share votes for an average of say 10% of shares voted.

$70MM USD market cap. 10% is $7MM USD to buy enough votes to unseat all 51. That is of course assuming you could amass $7MM USD worth of BTSX without raising the price at all.

That leaves the attacker to ponder how they could net more than $7MM USD out of the attack.

I think it would be a major bonus for the entire network if someone did that... here is what would happen:

1) people would organize to vote them out...
2) if the attacker stopped transactions that voted for other people then DAC Sun would release a hard fork that burned the attackers shares and the network would continue... instant 10% dividend

[Riverhead]

UPDATED: You only need the bottom 51, not the top.

Now that market cap of BTSX is reasonable high and the top 51 delegates have over 10% of the voting shares it's an interesting exercise figuring how much it would cost to unseat the top 51.

So with a market cap of $70MM USD the cost of unseating the 51 delegates would be:

50th delegate has 10.11% and the 101st delegate has 9.2% of the share votes for an average of say 10% of shares voted.

$70MM USD market cap. 10% is $7MM USD to buy enough votes to unseat all 51. That is of course assuming you could amass $7MM USD worth of BTSX without raising the price at all.

That leaves the attacker to ponder how they could net more than $7MM USD out of the attack.

[oldman]

And if someone manages to get 51% of the delegates, they can simply choose to stop including transactions that allow holders to choose different delegates and suddenly BTSX is dead.  Which is easier and cheaper when you only have to get 50 delegates by convincing people to vote for them without needing to actually buy 51% of the stake.  I definitely suspect that something like that will start being used to try to scare people from BTSX and it will affect price.

What does 'someone manages to get 51% of the delegates' even mean?  And what does someone have to gain by breaking the network?  Even if a 51% attack occurred, at that point BTSX would be forked and the 49% could say "have fun by yourself, dumbass" and continue as normal.  Besides, 51% attacks are possible on all systems.. saying BTSX is more vulnerable that any other system is completely unfounded FUD.  I'd be more fearful of majority NXT holders colluding on their forge than delegates being thwarted. 

I think this is a very good point and should be addressed by the Bitshares marketing team.

Bitshares needs to educate the public on just how resilient the platform is to centralized collusion/corruption.

Mining/POW was a red herring and much more suited to centralization than was anticipated. Proof is in the pudding - Bitcoin has become a 'global' currency with what amounts to three controllers. The only thing that is more centralized... fiat.

Bitshares has acknowledged and accepted that no system that has to interface with humans can be free of human governance.

The trick is not to eliminate human control but to automate the checks and balances; DPOS has found a way to do this and do it well.

This semi-mechanized governance is something that most investors will understand intuitively.

So hughmanwho's concerns are valid and the sentiment will be shared by many.

Bitshares should prepare marketing materials accordingly.

[smiley35]

Right when I heard of Nxt I dismissed it because of its name simple as that... its not going anywhere.

Bitshares = bitcoin but with shares... its an easy transition from bitcoin. Sorry but no matter how innovative nxt is its not going to achieve a household name with the silly title. Anyways it was enough for me to dismiss it and not buy or want to develop, and im sure many others... in your own words not trying to spread FUD just speaking the truth. Gluck!

Same here, I decided not to invest after reading through their IPO...... Wish I would have invested..... could have bought a lot of AGS