I think Bitcoin is unique and is more like a commodity & digital gold than crypto-equities. The less Bitcoin does the better so it's better if there aren't too many externalities that may change the 'use value' of it (ie. color coins). I've become more bullish on Bitcoin, but it's a tad boring like gold. I see crypto-equities as more of a complement to Bitcoin with value fluctuating based on business applications that can grow or shrink. There is some potential for crypto-equities to be used more like a currency in the far different future, but that's not my expectation.
Bitshares has a lot of potential to be a great complement to Bitcoin or any future currency. It is also currency agnostic so whatever asset becomes the future currency or unit of account (gold, silver, bitcoin, xyz asset) it can still provide monetary liquidity. Just like banks can create money to provide liquidity based on assets via loans (esp real estate), Bitshares is able to allow people and organizations to create monetary liquidity with BTS, real estate, businesses or almost any existing asset there is a market for.
I think that's a good analysis
I'm also more bullish on Bitcoin, seeing its performance, resiliency and how it's used in response to local currency problems during devaluations, capital controls and banking risks. I think there is a bright future for good crypto-currencies.
LTC also had a strong year, despite limited development, marketing and wasting tens of millions dollars on mining.
(Meanwhile BTS has lost 75% of it's value YTD doing the opposite...)
Bitshares has a lot of potential to be a great complement to Bitcoin or any future currency.
As a crypto-currency may be a compliment to BTS and not a threat & given there is a clear market demand for crypto-currencies, including as demonstrated through BTSX, perhaps Graphene/BTS could be leveraged in some way to benefit from it?
Option 1...
Thanks to FBA's and the Referral programme, personally I don't think BTS will be competitively hamstrung if it removes the reserve pool and commits to being a 1% inflation crypto-currency for eternity, with the amount not selected to be spent on basic blokchain maintenance & witnesses being given as POS rewards. (Thereby incentivising removing your BTS from exchanges.)
This commitment should, if adhered to over time, give something similar to sound money status, vs. a company which always has the threat of large dilution/merger.
Option 2...
Perhaps some elements of Graphene could be used to create some sort of POW/POS crypto-currency but with a referral programme and even a few BitAssets? Surely it would be superior to many other offerings and have some value?
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Beacause of lack of legal fallback and few sellable use-cases for decentralized blockchains besides crypto-currency to date, DACs seem to be fighting an uphill battle to gain value, while crypto-currencies with much less effort and much more waste are often making some gains. It seems a pity to miss out on that value when BTS has some of the best blockchain technology & there does seem to be a future for good crypto-currencies.