Author Topic: The future of Bitshare -- BTS development that includes a Chinese uniqueness  (Read 3952 times)

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Offline cube

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I currently just have no time for that as I need to finish my current work project (PhD thesis)

You perfect the art of structured procrastination xeroc :)

Haha..  this is a good gentle reminder to stop procrastinating. xerox, you can do it!  ;)
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Offline cube

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Thank you for this.  This article points out the unbounded opportunities opening up for entrepreneurs everywhere.  Since we obviously can't (and shouldn't) do everything ourselves, we hope others will seize the initiative and build on some of these ideas. 

We may know a lot about the core technology, but that's not what is required here.  What is needed here is domain-specific knowledge.  This is where opportunities for many more creative people will lie.  Pick an enterprise you know something about and get started!

Thanks for the reply.  yangsbo and the Chinese community are eagerly waiting to hear your views.  I will convey your reply (and others' in a summarised way) to them.  My Chinese is at a basic level. It may take awhile to translate.  :)

Edit: Translate and posted here https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9868.msg129422#msg129422
« Last Edit: October 12, 2014, 11:18:12 am by cube »
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Offline CLains

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I currently just have no time for that as I need to finish my current work project (PhD thesis)

You perfect the art of structured procrastination xeroc :)

Offline xeroc

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To be honest, I am a little afraid of the paper work that comes with being an entrepreneur ..
Also, I currently just have no time for that as I need to finish my current work project (PhD thesis)

Offline luckybit

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Thank you for the article. Definitely some very good ideas. But if I can play the devil's advocate I see some problems:

IF I understand correctly, the idea is that merchants will want to issue bitassets on BTSX blockain in order to attract new customers, people who use BTSX. As you said our customer base is not big and probably will never be as many as bitcoin users, so there are not real incentives for merchants to issue an asset in BTSX but rather accept bitcoin as method of payment.

So the question is why a merchant will want to issue a "top up" bitasset on BTSX and not use BTC as method of payment?

Our user base cannot increase if bitusd and bitbtc peg doesn't hold.

On the other side, if it was easy we would all be rich so keep it up! :)

we need to attract some service provider use BitUSD as payment,like translation company,script writing,programming,photoshop,online lawfirm,gaming....etc..

Since the fee of these companies no need to be excact , sometimes even do great discounts,so they don't really care about the BitUSD does not peg perfectly.
If they can get 90% USD value of BTSX for 1BitUSD,they'll be ok if it can bring customer worldwide.

When more and more this kind of service company accepts BitUSD as USD,then people would realized what a fool would be if there's a 10% gap in the BitUSD
and USD and not to take advantage of it.After all, 1 Bitusd can act as 1 USD in many online service.So they buy the discounted BitUSD and sell to the ones who actually want to use Bitusd as payment for online services.

So,the peg would be stronger,at this plan.

I think a better strategy is to make it easier and less costly to become an entrepreneur. We should all strive to become serial entrepreneurs in this space.

What are the missing ingredients?
https://metaexchange.info | Bitcoin<->Altcoin exchange | Instant | Safe | Low spreads

Offline mf-tzo

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Thank you for the article. Definitely some very good ideas. But if I can play the devil's advocate I see some problems:

IF I understand correctly, the idea is that merchants will want to issue bitassets on BTSX blockain in order to attract new customers, people who use BTSX. As you said our customer base is not big and probably will never be as many as bitcoin users, so there are not real incentives for merchants to issue an asset in BTSX but rather accept bitcoin as method of payment.

So the question is why a merchant will want to issue a "top up" bitasset on BTSX and not use BTC as method of payment?

Our user base cannot increase if bitusd and bitbtc peg doesn't hold.

On the other side, if it was easy we would all be rich so keep it up! :)

Offline Stan

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At the request of yangsbo from the Chinese community, I am posting a translated version of https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9868.msg128292;topicseen#msg128292 here.



Bitshare was launched several months ago. The market has opened up. As a long btsx, I see btsx's speed of development and potential. I also realised its hidden or not-easily discovered risks and danger areas.  This can be treated as Steven Xu's personal opinion. I am sharing this article with you and those who love to discuss our path of development.

BTS fan has undying support for it. They even made interesting quotes about it.  Indeed, these quotes have a certain degree of support to it, lasting a long R&D phase. As a BTS fan with a dream, I think we need to consider the core values. We explore BTS development direction, deriving from its core needs.

First point. We like to discuss bitcny and bitusd - these are 3i's recommended official assets. Steven's opinion is that we need to clearly identify who are the customers of bitusd and other virtual currencies. We need to find out what are the benefits these customers are looking for, analyse their needs and use the findings for targeted R&D and marketing. For simplicity, I will use two groups of customers for discussion sake.

Firstly - the Enterprises including IT companies and electronic merchants eg Dell and HP. Secondly - the end-user consumers. I categorise this way for simplicity and conciseness - easy to read.

For Enterprises:

Frankly, I do not see the possibility where the current bitusd and other bit assets will be used in a large scale manner. The main difficulty lies with enterprises need to comply with legal and regulatory rules. They cannot use bitusd (like USD) to pay suppliers nor use it for working capital and pay bank loans. From a legal standpoint, it is not possible to use bitusd. If Company A uses bitusd to pay Company B as a load repayment, Company B will say, how do companies issue invoices and pay tax with bitusd?  There are no answers to these questions. There are technical ways of improvement eg giving bitusd's holder interest.
But they cannot solve a fundamental problem. Indeed, enterprises find bitusd and other virtual currencies cumbersome. I do not see a solution to this problem. Let's tentatively see it as something that would attract the consumers.

For the Consumers:

Now lets looks at the consumers' end.  In the ecosystem, the producers' link is not connected. THe entire chain cannot operate. When one bought bitcny, it cannot be spent. Without an "exit path", bitcny has no practical use. No consumer will use it. Even if there came a day all enterprises accept bitcny, it would not have any competitive advantage unless there is some special offer to use it. What would be the competitive advantage over current paypal and unionpay network? Paypal has first-mover advantage and has established a trusted reputation. As a late comer, without innovative feature advantage, it is only a mean of payment. It does not help much with just 'trading market' thin advantage.  Users of bitcny are risk-averse or they would have use bts to spend rather than bitcny.  This is why internal trading of bitusd and bitcny are always far below 1 or even 0.8 of the real currencies - a weird phenomenon.   BM and 3i has been trying to force a peg through technical means. Steven believes this is a futile attempt and bound for failure. The will of the market cannot be changed. We cannot use the same way of the 90s China centrally-planned economy to "plan" bitcny's value. We should leave it to the market players to find its value.

At this point, are you (bts fan) being affected and feeling sad? Stay calm. Steven has no 'dark' thoughts on bts. Steven Xu and others - HackFisher, "咕噜" have in-depth exchanges of ideas. Steven Xu would like to recommend a bts's future development path to I3, Mr Stan and all bts fans:

Develop enterprise bitasset with practical interest and bts interest platform in a win-win solution.  Using this solution, it can indirectly support market discovery of bitusd's and bitcny's values.

At the moment, the seemingly uninteresting third-party issued bitassets contain limitless business opportunities. There was an article that mentioned about bitusd debit card a few days ago. I shall borrow this concept and expand the ideas on it. Let's take for example a big electronic company or a supermart with its own financial membership system. What can bts help them? What do they need? Their immediate concerns are their customer acquisition and sales revenue. Acquiring customers: We can use bts platform to divert some users to them. Although the user base in bts is currently not big and the value is not much, once the flow is established the situation would be different. How do we divert? We make use of bitasset distribution capability. Use it to help enterprises issue their debit cards. If electronic merchant A issued a billion bitassetA and it provides a top-up service, customers can top-up/buy bitassetA. The balance in the customers' accounts has equivalent values that can be used to buy merchant A's full range of products.

To acquire customers and improve sales, merchant A can use part of its sales profit to provide discounts and some promotional items. With these benefits, the consumers would naturally exchange fiat  for bitassetA. The needs for bitassetA's existence are formed. Bts now has a small 'exit path'.  BitassetA can be exchanged internally to btsx, then to bitCny, and lastly to fiat via third-party exchanges.

This completes the entire bitassetA market exchanges. Although the whole process can be abit tedious, the exchange can take place. In this chain of commercial exchanges, merchant A does not need to take legal risks because it only issues/sells bitassetA. It does not need to take responsibility for subsequent exchanges to fiat. There is no illegal raising of funds or fraudulent use of its customers' monies. It only has to fulfill its obligation of bitassetA to its products conversion. BitassetA exchanges are on the bts platform. So, does bts platform has any legal risks.  Fundamentally NO. This is because it exchanges bitassetA and btsx/bitcny.  This is not fiat. The only legal responsibility lies on third-party exchanges bitcny <-> fiat. I recommend let this heavy responsibility be taken on by btc38 or other similar exchanges.
They are in this trade. In fact, bter has started such trading.

Let's look at the other end. What are the benefits that bitassetA can bring to merchant A's consumers and bts. Merchant A sells bitassetA and acquire funds. The fund has valuable use. Bts can enable user diversion, expanding the user base and increase sales. This is what enterprise businesses want - in exchange of losing abit of the profit. The consumers get their discounts and gain from bitasset's interest.  In addition to payment processing, it provides for value-protection, value-add. Bts now has its 'exit path'. With more enterprises joining in and issuing bitassets, market volume increases. The consumers can freely buy/sell new bitassets. This brings in more demands for btsx and bitcny. Arbitrage activities increases demand for bitcny. Bitassets trading activities would bring the whole market to live!
The entire ecosystem can grow healthily. Our objective can be met.

I have narrated a grand vision and I hope you would be excited with. How can BTS proceed from here? Presently, bts does not have a professional team in China which does enterprises solutions R&D and promotion. I recommend organise and build up such a team soon. If this is not achievable in the short term, we can look into working with third-party companies. This is a gold mine. If HackFisher or others setup a enterprise-solution consulting firm in China. There is a huge market out there. Just imagine, China Unicom and China mobile phone cards can be bought and exchange in bts. Electricity usage fee can be bought and trade in bts.
Water utility bills..walmart membership card becomes bitasset. Consulting firms that focus on such solutions have a good future.

The above is a discussion on bitasset. If we are to go deeper to analyse and identify enterprises' needs, we can discover more bitasset distribution needs.Bitshare can in fact realise a part of the societ cash<->iou exchanges, attract the consumers and expanded the enterprises' customer base. How to further discover the bitasset's capabilities. This article is to initiate a discussion. Please share your views.

Thank you for this.  This article points out the unbounded opportunities opening up for entrepreneurs everywhere.  Since we obviously can't (and shouldn't) do everything ourselves, we hope others will seize the initiative and build on some of these ideas. 

We may know a lot about the core technology, but that's not what is required here.  What is needed here is domain-specific knowledge.  This is where opportunities for many more creative people will lie.  Pick an enterprise you know something about and get started!
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.

Offline ssjpts

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Offline cube

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At the request of yangsbo from the Chinese community, I am posting a translated version of https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9868.msg128292;topicseen#msg128292 here.



Bitshare was launched several months ago. The market has opened up. As a long btsx, I see btsx's speed of development and potential. I also realised its hidden or not-easily discovered risks and danger areas.  This can be treated as Steven Xu's personal opinion. I am sharing this article with you and those who love to discuss our path of development.

BTS fan has undying support for it. They even made interesting quotes about it.  Indeed, these quotes have a certain degree of support to it, lasting a long R&D phase. As a BTS fan with a dream, I think we need to consider the core values. We explore BTS development direction, deriving from its core needs.

First point. We like to discuss bitcny and bitusd - these are 3i's recommended official assets. Steven's opinion is that we need to clearly identify who are the customers of bitusd and other virtual currencies. We need to find out what are the benefits these customers are looking for, analyse their needs and use the findings for targeted R&D and marketing. For simplicity, I will use two groups of customers for discussion sake.

Firstly - the Enterprises including IT companies and electronic merchants eg Dell and HP. Secondly - the end-user consumers. I categorise this way for simplicity and conciseness - easy to read.

For Enterprises:

Frankly, I do not see the possibility where the current bitusd and other bit assets will be used in a large scale manner. The main difficulty lies with enterprises need to comply with legal and regulatory rules. They cannot use bitusd (like USD) to pay suppliers nor use it for working capital and pay bank loans. From a legal standpoint, it is not possible to use bitusd. If Company A uses bitusd to pay Company B as a load repayment, Company B will say, how do companies issue invoices and pay tax with bitusd?  There are no answers to these questions. There are technical ways of improvement eg giving bitusd's holder interest.
But they cannot solve a fundamental problem. Indeed, enterprises find bitusd and other virtual currencies cumbersome. I do not see a solution to this problem. Let's tentatively see it as something that would attract the consumers.

For the Consumers:

Now lets looks at the consumers' end.  In the ecosystem, the producers' link is not connected. THe entire chain cannot operate. When one bought bitcny, it cannot be spent. Without an "exit path", bitcny has no practical use. No consumer will use it. Even if there came a day all enterprises accept bitcny, it would not have any competitive advantage unless there is some special offer to use it. What would be the competitive advantage over current paypal and unionpay network? Paypal has first-mover advantage and has established a trusted reputation. As a late comer, without innovative feature advantage, it is only a mean of payment. It does not help much with just 'trading market' thin advantage.  Users of bitcny are risk-averse or they would have use bts to spend rather than bitcny.  This is why internal trading of bitusd and bitcny are always far below 1 or even 0.8 of the real currencies - a weird phenomenon.   BM and 3i has been trying to force a peg through technical means. Steven believes this is a futile attempt and bound for failure. The will of the market cannot be changed. We cannot use the same way of the 90s China centrally-planned economy to "plan" bitcny's value. We should leave it to the market players to find its value.

At this point, are you (bts fan) being affected and feeling sad? Stay calm. Steven has no 'dark' thoughts on bts. Steven Xu and others - HackFisher, "咕噜" have in-depth exchanges of ideas. Steven Xu would like to recommend a bts's future development path to I3, Mr Stan and all bts fans:

Develop enterprise bitasset with practical interest and bts interest platform in a win-win solution.  Using this solution, it can indirectly support market discovery of bitusd's and bitcny's values.

At the moment, the seemingly uninteresting third-party issued bitassets contain limitless business opportunities. There was an article that mentioned about bitusd debit card a few days ago. I shall borrow this concept and expand the ideas on it. Let's take for example a big electronic company or a supermart with its own financial membership system. What can bts help them? What do they need? Their immediate concerns are their customer acquisition and sales revenue. Acquiring customers: We can use bts platform to divert some users to them. Although the user base in bts is currently not big and the value is not much, once the flow is established the situation would be different. How do we divert? We make use of bitasset distribution capability. Use it to help enterprises issue their debit cards. If electronic merchant A issued a billion bitassetA and it provides a top-up service, customers can top-up/buy bitassetA. The balance in the customers' accounts has equivalent values that can be used to buy merchant A's full range of products.

To acquire customers and improve sales, merchant A can use part of its sales profit to provide discounts and some promotional items. With these benefits, the consumers would naturally exchange fiat  for bitassetA. The needs for bitassetA's existence are formed. Bts now has a small 'exit path'.  BitassetA can be exchanged internally to btsx, then to bitCny, and lastly to fiat via third-party exchanges.

This completes the entire bitassetA market exchanges. Although the whole process can be abit tedious, the exchange can take place. In this chain of commercial exchanges, merchant A does not need to take legal risks because it only issues/sells bitassetA. It does not need to take responsibility for subsequent exchanges to fiat. There is no illegal raising of funds or fraudulent use of its customers' monies. It only has to fulfill its obligation of bitassetA to its products conversion. BitassetA exchanges are on the bts platform. So, does bts platform has any legal risks.  Fundamentally NO. This is because it exchanges bitassetA and btsx/bitcny.  This is not fiat. The only legal responsibility lies on third-party exchanges bitcny <-> fiat. I recommend let this heavy responsibility be taken on by btc38 or other similar exchanges.
They are in this trade. In fact, bter has started such trading.

Let's look at the other end. What are the benefits that bitassetA can bring to merchant A's consumers and bts. Merchant A sells bitassetA and acquire funds. The fund has valuable use. Bts can enable user diversion, expanding the user base and increase sales. This is what enterprise businesses want - in exchange of losing abit of the profit. The consumers get their discounts and gain from bitasset's interest.  In addition to payment processing, it provides for value-protection, value-add. Bts now has its 'exit path'. With more enterprises joining in and issuing bitassets, market volume increases. The consumers can freely buy/sell new bitassets. This brings in more demands for btsx and bitcny. Arbitrage activities increases demand for bitcny. Bitassets trading activities would bring the whole market to live!
The entire ecosystem can grow healthily. Our objective can be met.

I have narrated a grand vision and I hope you would be excited with. How can BTS proceed from here? Presently, bts does not have a professional team in China which does enterprises solutions R&D and promotion. I recommend organise and build up such a team soon. If this is not achievable in the short term, we can look into working with third-party companies. This is a gold mine. If HackFisher or others setup a enterprise-solution consulting firm in China. There is a huge market out there. Just imagine, China Unicom and China mobile phone cards can be bought and exchange in bts. Electricity usage fee can be bought and trade in bts.
Water utility bills..walmart membership card becomes bitasset. Consulting firms that focus on such solutions have a good future.

The above is a discussion on bitasset. If we are to go deeper to analyse and identify enterprises' needs, we can discover more bitasset distribution needs.Bitshare can in fact realise a part of the societ cash<->iou exchanges, attract the consumers and expanded the enterprises' customer base. How to further discover the bitasset's capabilities. This article is to initiate a discussion. Please share your views. 
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