Follow-up from this thread: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3420.0

This past week I visited invictus. I got to know Dan, Stan, Pam, and Arlen, and also briefly met Dan N and Eric V. Here are my thoughts, from best to worst:

Major confidence boost: Future I3 DACs (not BTS X)

Dan worked on refactoring the BTS X code into a "shell DAC" which is easily extensible. While he did this I used this new shell to work on BTS DNS. The ease with which I was able to implement an MVP (well, not actually "viable" without tests/a client/CLI/RPC, but still) gives me great confidence that there will be a critical point after which we'll be seeing many new DACs in the same way we see tons of new BTC clones every month. Arlen will be working on the Lotto DAC while documenting the process to make it super easy for other developers to follow. Eric V and possibly another recruit both have networking experience and will be working on the hard parts (from my perspective) of the client which will be used by all DACs.


Minor confidence boost: Business Development & Marketing

This stuff is largely invisible to the outside community (as it should be - only engineering should have open WIPs IMO) and so hearing the stuff Stan, Brian, Greg, and Charles were working on was really reassuring. I'm not one to judge how effective all this work is going to be, but it suffices to say that if the rest of the team is half as good at what they do as Dan is at engineering then Q2 should be great for AGS/PTS holders.


Minor confidence loss: BTS X

This is by *far* the most complex DAC idea that invictus has and unforunately the community should not expect a feature-complete product in Q1. Since Dan has already mentioned it elsewhere, I suppose it's safe to say that you should expect XT to launch pretty soon but without any market functionality - this chain will test TAPOS and other non-market mechanics and will be the snapshot for BTS X chains with the real X functionality. The good news is that this means the chance of reset is very low so everyone can trade shares in future X chains without fear. Q2 went from "definitely" to "if nothing major goes wrong" for having a fully-featured BTS X chain.

Note that while this is a drop in confidence my confidence is still high - I will be buying XTS like crazy if the price drops below pre-snapshot levels after the shares are made liquid.


Major Minor confidence loss: Keyhotee

EDIT: Dan N has written a response here, it seems like I3 has switched gears to p2p client and blockchain code and I just missed the memo.

Previously, I had written:

This really left a bad taste in my mouth. We are approaching 3 months delay for having a blockchain launched. The scariest part is that Dan L agrees that having a blockchain + client is more important than having a UI with mail and chat system, AND thinks it would not take him very much time to do this. (I still would prefer he works on the DACs and not keyhotee though). What gives? There's gotta be some systemic problem within I3 that I could not deduce. Communication issues? Internal politics? Lack of trust? No idea, but it left me scared and confused.

I've brought this up a few times in the forum and by email and have been blown off every time. I have two suggestions for pressuring I3 on this, after which I'm giving up on Keyhotee.
1) This poll (also a chance to see if maybe my opinion is just wrong)
2) From now on, everyone make it clear whether you are talking about Keyhotee-the-ID-system or Keyhotee-the-app. For example:

"Why isn't KID ready yet?"
"Well there were some problems with the mail system..."
"No, I don't care about the app or extensions, I mean KID, why isn't it ready yet?"
"Well founder registration isn't done yet"
"Ah ok, how can we move that along?"

I know at least one outside engineer who wants to work on keyhotee integration but is blocked because there is no client. Given that I3 is short on talent this is a huge deal. For every skilled c++ network engineer there are 100 HTML5/JS engineers who can whip up a UI in no time. How long did BTC exist without a UI? My opinion is that starting Keyhotee App without a blockchain already launched was a huge mistake and I3 needs to cut their losses immediately and get Dan N's team on launching a blockchain with CLI/RPC access ASAP.

Questions from previous thread:

* Can we move part of the AGS funds into a multi-sig controlled by people outside of invictus?
* How are you going to most effectively allow proper utilization of the funds raised from AGS?

Discussed ad neauseam in other threads.

* Can we please get a response in this thread: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3349.0 ? I've emailed several I3 members asking to get Brian in here and there is no response. Read the whole thing!

After my visit and seeing the intensity of the planned marketing effort I am much more comfortable with the idea of letting Brian do "real-world" marketing and letting the forum self-organize marketing efforts for other online communities.

* A (realistic) timeframe for completion of Keyhotee
* A (realistic) timeframe for completion of BitShares X

Partially addressed above. My guess is this month for XT and Q2 for BTS X with a market. For keyhotee, I have no idea, see above.

* We need pretty and logical GUI's to make the software appealing to a broader audience

IDK, my personal opinion is that we should let 3rd parties do this.

* More details on DAC development kits / events / tutorials...Would be awesome to have a simple demo DAC to our disposal

Addressed above, Dan and Arlen are working on exactly this right now.

* More detail on the new website which should be launched this month as far as I remember

I think March 21st is still the target date, I saw a preview of the new site and it looks like a reasonable target.

* A roadmap of the marketing plan and activities

Not sure.

* ...Perhaps someone else can answer this, but: In one, easy to understand sentence; What is the competitive advantage BitShares has compared to all the other competitors? (i.e.Eethereum, colored coins, Mastercoin, ripple, NXT, Counterparty)

The short answer is, each DAC is specialized and profitable. CC, Ripple, MSC, and XCP are all just IOU trading platforms, BitShares Me is their competitor. Ethereum is like a DAC prototyping platform OR platform for non-profit-seeking DAOs to use without having to do lots of work. Any profitable business model will want to move off of their blockchain.

* How are Daniel and Stan related?
* From a philosophical perspective, what are the biggest challenges that keep you up at night?
* From a technical perspective, what are the biggest challenges that keep you up at night?

Answered by Stan in the other thread

* To each I3 employee - If you could have any mediocre superpower, what would it be?

I forgot to ask this, what a shame =P

* A lot more documentation
* A lot more specifications

Arlen is working on this.

* How many developers  are working full times for 3I ?

Right now - 3? 4?

* Any new employees hire lately ? 

Eric V, then there are 2 or 3 potential recruits

* What exactly Arlen del Castillo is working on right know ?

Documentation, mostly. Also some recruiting.


Conclusion:
Overall a very positive experience. I am glad I visited and am more excited than ever.

This topic has been moved to Press.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3492.0

What should a BTS X market-maker trading bot do? It's my highest-priority tool at the moment.

MVP is basically:

Input as many price feeds as you like, give each one a weight. Use these to calculate "true" price of, say, USD/XTS.
Input a spread (by %) and the bot will maintain bids/asks around the "true" price.

I'm sure someone has more experience with arbitrage bots can say what other critical features you'd need.

This topic has been moved to Marketing.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3490.0

I've seen lots of "DAC" ideas around here that seem to totally miss the point. The purpose of a DAC is to cause the emergent behavior of a large network of people to behave in a way that a centralized entity could not, while adding value for all participants. Most of what I've seen is just "let's take this business model and put it on a blockchain" - almost always it seems *worse* than a centralized solution.

So here's the litmus test: Which social dillemma is your DAC addressing, and which payoff matrix is flipped as a result of adding the blockchain?

For BTS DNS: Each individual benefits from having squatted a successful domain, while the collective as a whole suffers from the lack of available domains. By the auction/dividend model, it is now *more profitable not to squat than to squat*.

For BTS X: It is *more profitable* to participate in the market peg than to fight it.

For Bitcoin: It is *more profitable* to be an honest miner than a dishonest miner.

Positive time!

I think the last iteration swag doesn't appeal to the types of people you would find at bitcoin conferences. In a recent conversation, another forumite gave these characteristics:

-95%+ predominantly male
-higher education than average
-at the very least they already know about bitcoin and probably have general idea of the implications of blockchain technologies and decentralized systems
-have philosophical and political views that align more with libertarian and anarchist perspectives
-more than likely have a monetary incentive; or some variation of self-interest

My opinion is that you need a clean, simple t-shirt design with a company or product logo and your favorite from among these:

* Decentralize Everything
* Decentralized Solutions to Centralized Problems
* BitShares X: Decentralized Bank and Exchange
* BitShares ___: _______
* Life, Liberty, Property
* Reimagine Everything, with some visual aid to tell you what kind of things to reimagine

For a little while I couldn't understand why I was so unhappy about DAC builders who didn't want to honor the social contract, because the point is that they're free to try whatever you like and see what works.
I understand that technically the AGS/PTS social consensus is founded in the SCSL and so if you didn't use code there's no reason you have to honor it.

But AGS/PTS also represents your interest in *me*. By not honoring PTS/AGS properly and saying "I don't see the value of honoring PTS/AGS properly", you're saying "I don't see the value of working with *you personally*, Toast". That hurts my feelings! When I think of your DAC, I feel bad without even having examined what you are doing!

I think you will see this sentiment in others throughout the forum, but it would be expressed like "but look at all these advantages! community! network!". This isn't communicating the right message.

So, here is a safe space for whoever feels this way to say: