Bitcoin is trustless, bitshares is not.
That quote is IMHO not correct ...
BitShares makes a trade-off .. it reduces the trustlessness and gains efficiency ..
but when you compare the "trustlessness" of bitcoin you will notice that pooled mining killed it for bitcoin ..
if everyone was solo-mining bitcoin would be unbeatable in terms of trust ..
My current thinking is that bitcoin is indeed trustless, and therefore has a market in which bts cannot compete.
A single mining pools does not currently control >51%
A single honest node on the network should detect any cheating.
Another thing to consider is that hosting a full-node has the greatest benefit to large entities with big business dependent on the bitcoin blockchain, and these entities are still yet to move into the space. The cost of a full node isnt worth it to most bitcoiners, but it certainly will be to players yet to enter.
BitShares makes a trade-off .. it reduces the trustlessness and gains efficiency ..
This is why I think bts will dominate consumer finance. There are lots of financial applications that
dorequire trust, if bts is the most efficient in any one of them then it's got a very bright future.
Bitcoin cannot both remain trustless and include price-feeds and contract enforcement at the protocol level. Prices require an external entity, and can therefore never be trustless.
I believe there are two key markets that will be disrupted by cryptocurrency.
The store of value market and the investment market.
For reasons I shall explain I do not believe a single system can efficiently fill both of these niches.
Two cryptocurrencys, one in each market, will become the major systems in the future. Bitcoin (store of value) and BitShares (investment).
I do not think that BitShares will "kill" Bitcoin due to the tenets of Game Theory, the foundations upon Bitcoin is built.
If the first game-theory-dependent cryptocurrency fails, what does that say of the prospects of an alternative?
Therefore an external exchange is required for a decentralized derivatives market. The prevailing exchange will be the one that is most efficient and least risky.
Maximum efficiency will come from a cryptocurrency with settlement and price finding mechanisms at its core.
Fractions of a second count in derivatives markets and the trade-execution time saved by implementing these features at the protocol level is a huge advantage. Traders need assurances that their trades cannot be reversed, so the quicker the network can come to a consensus and finalize all transactions the better. A purpose-built cryptocurrency for a derivatives market will come to this consensus much faster than bitcoin can and be publicly auditable on a blockchain in real time.