Big mistake. This seems like a half-assed political solution. I like consensus and I'm glad that the committee role functioned well in reaching a decision, but I have a strong feeling this is a temporary solution and we're going to find in a few months that it's wasted precious time. 

I am NOT convinced that:
(1) the low-fee crowd will be happy enough, given that the fees remain higher than they want for them to spread BitShares' use, or that
(2) the system will be profitable enough to drive any real marketing, or that
(3) we are serious about attracting any meaningful trading business, given the fees there.

I would have suggested picking a side and giving one of these groups what it needs to add a ton more users. We even could have pleased two out of three. Instead, what we have is a compromise that does not give any of these groups the tools it needs to succeed. In a few months, we're going to have to change this again, and by then we might be really sorry we wasted this time.

Hey, what's done is done. Everyone should come together now and help promote BitShares.

Low-fee group, are you happy enough? If so, then get out there and bring us some users!

I'm getting ready to go full steam ahead on referrals, thinking that the GUI will be in pretty good shape in the next week or two, but it looks like the referral system still is not fully functioning?

Yes, I understand the gift economy and it's a great ideal, but the crypto space has seen far too many scams for me to believe that people will willingly hand over their large BTS holdings to some trust, without a contract or expectation of any reward. I think it could use a kick in the pants to get started.

People did not donate to Angelshares purely out of the goodness of their hearts. We all saw that the money would be used to develop the software and that down the road, those who donated would be able to help share in the reward of that technology. This was backed by the Social Consensus. We also knew that PTS on its own was nothing unique and that it would end or be replaced at some point. AGS was sponsored by the core BitShares team and product; if we did not have faith in them, then we would not have bought PTS in the first place.

I don't know that any core team is going to do this one, so let's just imagine that two or three longtime community members start a BitShares Trust. And then begin asking big holders to deposit their BTS in trust for a period of time, maybe something like a CD. (Feel free to do it without contracts, but I think you'll have even less participation.)

The most trusting people are those of us involved in the BitShares community in one way or another. I'm not sure how much the active, trusting community overlaps with the large 5M BTS holders. I'd guess more members of this community have somewhere around 50,000 - 500,000 BTS. If you are Joe Forum Member and you have scratched your pennies to accumulate 120,000 BTS over a period of months/years as your crypto savings, you have done so largely because you believe in the future of this technology and currency. You think it's going to appreciate as this catches on. Are you really going to put your 120K into trust? 100K? I think the trust would be lucky to get 20K from that person. And that's a trusting individual who is engaged in the community.

You need to offer some suggestion of a reward or that the funds will appreciate (I can't say 'promised' but that's the word I want). Otherwise people will see it as a 'money for nothing' crypto scam. The reward must be offered in such a way that it is not a legal promise, yet it is enticing enough that people want to donate.

Working this expectation into the Social Consensus might be the best way to get the community's power behind a strong suggestion of reward. Have future sharedrops include a suggested x% drop to trust donors. If the whole community stands ready to welcome or to ostracize someone, then that's a pretty powerful reputation system. Can you see any other way to fund this and harness the community's power to support it?

Quote from: fav on November 16, 2015, 03:48:04 pm

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

If impossible, fine.  Although it seems it works just fine everywhere else, though I don't claim to know the technical implications.  If its just difficult, that is no excuse.

as for pegging to USD.  Why not peg to RMB or EUR?  is bitshares a US network for US business? I understand USD is "world reserve" currency but it does not make sense to be so.  Fee should be based on something neutral like BTS simply, or if you must, perhaps a basket of currencies/commodities.  How about the average of 20% the cost of a loaf of bread from around the world.  It might be $.20 here but how about India, Mexico, or China.

It doesn't matter what you peg it to. But I don't think pegging is a good idea at all. Those relative values can change over time and then you're stuck with something that is much too cheap or too expensive in fiat terms. Slave to the system from which you are trying to break free. People will set the market for BTS and its fees where they need to be. Perhaps some tweaking is still needed, but I'm getting quite comfortable with the present fee structure and I've seen good arguments to keep it.

How about having a cow patty faucet and loading every dummy-trading account with Brownie Points? People could experiment using those.

This discussion needs to continue. If we can get the right pieces in place, it could really help BitShares. Bond market would be best. But if we have to wait on that, it may be worth trying this through other means. As opposed as I am to doing anything meaningful in Brownies, I actually think that they could serve as a good test market for this.

What is the rationale of limiting this to holders with 5M net worth? If that's mostly exchanges, then not much is going to be locked up by doing this. Might it be possible to include ANY sized accountholder? If it must be limited to the larger ones, then I would think a 1M or 2M limit would create a good-sized group.