Don't worry I understood the principle of bitshares being "bets" instead of IOU's, but as was mentioned by MolonLabe I'm having some issues grasping how the price is determined and how the bets are refereed by the system. I'm a bit worried that since we're not talking IOU's and the price of for example gold is not referenced from any external average price index, that prices may get a bit wild.

As I said I'm new to this kind of trading and have no experience in how these markets usually work, maybe it's just me being confused by multiple floating data-points (both bitshares and bitgold fluctuating in price separately, which suggests having to do a lot of corrective calculations manually if those prices aren't deduced automagically). I'm trying to understand how the system comes to a consensus and trying to figure out what's keeping everyone on the same page, so to speak. As I understand it all prices are dictated by the human participants, so I was wondering if widespread confusion about the unit of measure could lead to problems. Then again, how could you trust a 3rd party price index? I'm trying to work out how the system remains honest and secured from exploits by less trustworthy people.

I'm working my way through the white-papers, but exhaustion is having it's toll. My brain, which is allready rickety to begin with, is now firing on less cylinders than usual.

BitGoxGold, BitKitcoGold, BitBob'sMattressGold, etc. would all be different assets that should reflect market participants' trust in Gox, Kitco, Bob, etc.

I'm taking special note of the "should" in that quote. I take it that the social consensus is that BitBob'sMattressGold would be 1:1 interchangeable with real Bob'sMattressGold should Bob ever want to trade the comfort of his physical version for some of the advantages of its digital representative.

I had a similar question. What mechanism is used to determine the price for use in bitgold etcetera? Is for example the price of gold versus bitcoin taken from some price-index average or is it something decided on by the majority on the network?

I'd be interested to know how those exchange rates get fed into the system, for short- and long-positions to be evaluated. Could be that this has already been answered, but I can't remember if an official plan or decision on that matter has already been made.

agreed...and then you get into the fact that one of the main people hyping Ethereum actually left Invictus to do so...and there are questions as to why that I have resigned to admitting will likely never be answered.  I won't get into it again on here, but one should definitely research this on their own--and see my angry rant (somewhere on this forum).

Lol, seems I'm not alone with my suspicions. To be perfectly honest I started out by being very enthusiastic when hearing Vitalik announce Ethereum and started researching it (which lead me to discover Invictus and it's fundraising) and freeing up funds to invest in both projects. But then I heard some interviews with Hoskinson and it completely killed off all enthusiasm for Ethereum. He has said some very, very disturbing things; calling alts and experimentation signs of a disease and talking shit about bitcoin and all other projects and putting words in Satoshi's mouth as if he actually wanted to make Ethereum but was afraid to do so, while Satoshi in actual fact said the exact opposite since he was a proponent for separate block-chains using merged mining.

I get a very bad feeling of deja vu (reflections of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs) whenever he says something (actually I've heard him referencing Microsoft shareholders and app-stores almost bursting out in jubilation, when talking about Ethereum, leaving very little to the imagination as to his real motivation). Now instead of enthusiasm I've gotten the distinct impression that some key members of the  Ethereum-team want to build a centralized walled garden app-store, but without even bothering building the eco-system around the app-store in the first place, just purely profiting on other peoples previous efforts. Even worse Ethereum itself seems to have no goal/reason to exist other than to profit from the work of others. Keep in mind I don't know the man personally and I might be completely wrong about him, but so far he has been very consistent in his remarks and they are consistently disturbing. I seriously hope I'm wrong, I do not want to wait another couple of decades for innovation to continue, because of another 19th century style monopoly.

Larimer gives off a completely different vibe. Nevertheless they are really hurting themselves with the lack of easy accessible information and communication in my opinion. For example the vimeo-explanations of the concepts are actually pretty good, but incredible hard to find even if you know what you're looking for. Why are they hiding them instead of putting up a gallery for them on the site. Hell if writing out all the documentation is too time consuming, it would probably be enough to post a weekly/monthly youtube show in which you give a quick sitrep and maybe explain a few things and put a link to the forums for questions where the community might take care of the rest. White-board drawings with stick-figure representations of us shareholders for scale are very much appreciated.

Maybe something like a periodical reddit-style AMA, where Invictus addresses some of the top-voted questions/issues should be in the realm of possibilities until all websites, education and communication channels are up and running.