Dilution + The Merger is releasing up to 800 000 BTS per day onto the market. Looking at the buy walls on BTC38, it’s possible that could be having some impact on the price.
My personal view is the following…
When viewed purely as a form of money, BTSX was the strongest on the market, even if you didn’t understand BitAssets. Despite the sometimes abrasive personalities of key actors, it was very easy to develop network effect and build a supportive community because it was very hard to argue that any other offering was superior. (No inflation, profitable, best blockchain, most effective decentralisation, money in the bank to get to 1.0 and the best developers.) As a result a lot of our popularity, growth and valuation was derived purely from the fact that we could be a crypto-currency that challenges Bitcoin.
The new BTS has variable dilution decided by shareholders and an expensive merger to pay for. ‘Decided by shareholders’ is great for a company but never popular as a form of money. As a result we’ve lost a lot of our popularity, growth and BTC Challenger (As a widely adopted money) value. You can view BTS as a money, just the nature of DPOS, variable dilution and the merger to pay for make it one of the weakest on the market from that perspective. The new BTS is now viewed as a crypto-company exactly as Stan recently described.
BitShares is a profitable company that produces smart-currencies as its products. Products that are better in every way with none of the drawbacks you mention. There is no inflation in BitAssets at all (relative to their underlying peg) and the underlying BTS can produce those stable currency products whether is gaining or falling in value. BTS is not intended to be a currency itself, so a tiny amount of dilution has zero affect on the value proposition of its smart currency products.
This new company BTS is valued very much the same way a BitReserve would be valued & you can see they’re solely interested in their BitAsset growth and metrics.
https://changemoney.orgIf you track our BitAsset growth month over month there is very little. So our valuation is fair considering our product is not selling.
So BTS is in a position where it will trend to zero if the product doesn’t sell whereas as crypto-currencies have values independent of that and they can choose to add a BitAsset this year if they wish.
Also people didn’t like the way the merger was handled. Personally I feel ‘Vote’ was presented as a threat because it was more competitive. But I never felt it was more competitive, the market valued it at <$1 Million at snapshot time, the product was not popular and there was no secret sauce. It was only a threat because the lead BTSX developer and largest shareholder was keen to work & spend money on it and add a competing BitAsset before BTSX was at 1.0 stage, which would have crippled BTSX. A low value DAC using dilution to pay bills was no threat to BTSX imo and BTSX was already earning a comparable amount in fees that BTS is currently accessing through dilution. (But the dilution is more expensive as it represents a bigger % of the CAP than fees at a higher valuation did.) There were no easy answers though.
Ideas
- Wait for moonstone, 1.0, CryptoSmith and other upcoming developments to see if they can reverse the adoption trend.
- Liquidity - consider all possible options for ways to add liquidity even using the DAC as the market maker in a limited capacity if the downtrend continues.
- Give people something to do with BitAssets. Music/Gaming/Gambling/DNS auctions or even a prediction market might be worth a shot too.
Other:
World Events - Banks confiscations and charges on bank deposits are becoming more and more widespread, there are still no decentralized BitAsset competitors on the market, so the world may give you an opportunity that makes BitAssets worth the risk to more people.
If all else fails, consider raising funds for a no inflation crypto-currency that also honours BTS.