What if we let the registrars set the LTM price?

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

They are given full control and therefore full ownership and therefore full liability.

Full ownership of what?
I don't think you've understood my proposal.

The registrars already decide how much of their profits they share with the referrers.
All I propose is to give them one more option: decide how much LTM costs.

They do not get any ownership of anything.

The current situation gives registrars no control over the network..

I don't give them any control over the network.
I just let them choose a pricing strategy that suits their customers.

They own price control. Control = ownership.

Their profit margin is set by how much they make on the services they are 'selling' at a margin.

'Their customers' not Bitshares users.

[jakub]

They are given full control and therefore full ownership and therefore full liability.

Full ownership of what?
I don't think you've understood my proposal.

The registrars already decide how much of their profits they share with the referrers.
All I propose is to give them one more option: decide how much LTM costs.

They do not get any ownership of anything.

The current situation gives registrars no control over the network..

I don't give them any control over the network.
I just let them choose a pricing strategy that suits their customers.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

I think this structure change would put a HUGE amount of liability all on the registrar.

@BunkerChain Labs
Would you elaborate on this?
How can freeing up the LTM price "put HUGE amount of liability on the registrar"?

They are given full control and therefore full ownership and therefore full liability.

The current situation gives registrars no control over the network.. they are not the ones making any decisions other than what cut of the refer they are giving for providing a service to those that use their wallet. Otherwise they have zero involvement with the account holders and what is paid for because it is being handed by a decentralized body called a committee.

In your scenario.. they are front and center and are setting the price on everything, and therefore are sell all services. Therefore they are in the money transmitter and/or exchange business. It effectively gives every regulator a bullseye to take aim at. Our current structure does not.

[jakub]

I expect the fees taken by registrars to get very low longterm. Whithout a minimum fee for the network that would make the whole LTM thing pretty much obsolete.

You could be right *IF* the LTM reached the minimum price (i.e. $20) already.
But the opposite has happened: after more than 3 months, not a single business has tried to undermine OpenLeger's price of $100.

So there are no reasons to think we are even close to the possibility you describe.

[jakub]

I think this structure change would put a HUGE amount of liability all on the registrar.

@BunkerChain Labs
Would you elaborate on this?
How can freeing up the LTM price "put HUGE amount of liability on the registrar"?

[jakub]

The biggest problem that I have with this proposal, is that you are proposing to give a way one of the biggest sources of revenue of the network it self. It's not just the referral program that makes money out of it, but also the network itself. How would you compensate for that?

I think this is a misconception.
I'm not giving away "the biggest sources of revenue of the network".

Actually the opposite is achieved here: I'm trying to maximize for the network the revenue stream from sold LTMs .

What scenario would you choose?
- bitcrab treats the referral program as a "trouble maker" and sells 20 LTMs a year. Network's income: 20 * $100 * 20% = $400
- bitcrab embraces the referral program and sells 2000 LTMs a year (some of them for free but with an average price of $10). Network's income: 2000 * $10 * 20% = $4000

bitcrab will do his best not to give LTM for free, if he feels some of his customers could pay something for it.
So he'll most probably give away LTM for free only to those who would not buy LTM anyway.

[abit]

We can leave LTM fee unchanged, let it be the key to advanced features.

In the meanwhile, we give annual members more discount on basic features(it's currently 0% due to a bug), and give registrar a choice of how much they charge for it.

//Update: maybe we can provide more choices: not only annual membership, but also monthly, weekly even daily membership (for example for trials). When the users found that membership is good, they'll buy when needed.

Hi, anyone noticed my comments above?
I think short-term membership is more attractive and better for competitions .
Better if users can buy membership from any LTM's, but the seller are always need to split some to registrar/original referrer.
If the price not be driven to zero, all parties will happy.

//Update: I think it's OK to leave LTM and annual membership fees unchanged. Play with shorter period of memberships.

[Frodo]

As I stated before, we already have this problem.
I could "ruin" the OpenLedger business by offering 75% discount on LTM for all OpenLedger customers.

So let's face this problem and embrace the good side of it.

That is actually not a "problem" but the reason to start a competition.

The biggest problem that I have with this proposal, is that you are proposing to give a way one of the biggest sources of revenue of the network it self. It's not just the referral program that makes money out of it, but also the network itself. How would you compensate for that?

 

Just because we don't have a lot of competition right now doesn't mean it will be like that forever.
I expect the fees taken by registrars to get very low longterm. Whithout a minimum fee for the network that would make the whole LTM thing pretty much obsolete.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

I think this structure change would put a HUGE amount of liability all on the registrar.

They have gone from being just a hosted wallet to a decentralized network to being the owner/gateway of a network with a decentralized backend.

Because you have placed full control in the hands of the registrar they will effectively be viewed as money transmitters and will be subject to all applicable laws and regulations to this effect within the jurisdiction they are operating.

For this reason alone, I think the structure would be a detriment to the Bitshares network and would reduce availability of hosted wallet providers.

[xeroc]

As I stated before, we already have this problem.
I could "ruin" the OpenLedger business by offering 75% discount on LTM for all OpenLedger customers.

So let's face this problem and embrace the good side of it.

That is actually not a "problem" but the reason to start a competition.

The biggest problem that I have with this proposal, is that you are proposing to give a way one of the biggest sources of revenue of the network it self. It's not just the referral program that makes money out of it, but also the network itself. How would you compensate for that?

[jakub]

Why would I as a registrar not offer a LTM to my customers for free? Who prevents me from doing that?

As I stated before, we already have this problem.
I could "ruin" the OpenLedger business by offering 75% discount on LTM for all OpenLedger customers.

So let's face this problem and embrace the good side of it.

EDIT: It would be much smarter for me not to ruin OpenLedger but instead open a similar business and offer LTM with a 10% discount.
This way I would earn much more and the whole BitShares network would grow.

[EstefanTT]

Won't we upset our most loyal bts members who paid 100$ for them LTM ??

But the point is we have this problem already. If you give me a public key of your choice I can register a LTM account for you for just $25 (this is a serious offer).
Are you upset that you've paid $100 to OpenLedger? 

Would it be possible to do something similar but with "annual members" ? So LTM still have a valued product that anybody is giving for free and they also keep having part of the fee produce by the annual members and the basics accounts below ?

Absolutely, annual membership should be included in this solution.

It's just that it seems that we don't stop loosing loyal old members of this community with these kind of changes.
That said, I find the idea rather interesting and original ?

I wouldn't be upset as long as I perceive the long term benefit for BitShares but I not everybody is watching the far horizon of BitShares as I do. I'm not proposing any solution, just underlining a possible consequence.

I understand what you said about your proposition (25$). You are right !

I still feel that LTM and AM (annual) could be articulate in an interesting way with your proposal. I just don't have it very clear in my mind at the moment. I'll keep thinking about it. [emoji6]

[xeroc]

I might have got this wrong, this was my conclusion from this statement by bitcrab:

as discussed in committee, $0.018 is an acceptable flat fee.

Not sure what let him to post this, but the committee (at least those that are actively participating) have not agreed on $0.018 yet ..

[jakub]

And I've just realized that my offer to @bitcrab is actually much better than $0.018 he's managed to get from the committee.

He didn't actually get anything from the committee and the $0.18 is also not the current proposed transfer fee

I might have got this wrong, this was my conclusion from this statement by bitcrab:

as discussed in committee, $0.018 is an acceptable flat fee.

Anyway, if that's not the case, this only makes my offer to him more attractive.

[abit]

Won't we upset our most loyal bts members who paid 100$ for them LTM ??

Would it be possible to do something similar but with "annual members" ? So LTM still have a valued product that anybody is giving for free and they also keep having part of the fee produce by the annual members and the basics accounts below ?

This makes more sense for me.
We can leave LTM fee unchanged, let it be the key to advanced features.
In the meanwhile, we give annual members more discount on basic features(it's currently 0% due to a bug), and give registrar a choice of how much they charge for it.

//Update: maybe we can provide more choices: not only annual membership, but also monthly, weekly even daily membership (for example for trials). When the users found that membership is good, they'll buy when needed.