At least Tony is grounded enough to admit that the economic and social issues that arise from this proposal cannot be tested on a test net. Several valid concerns have been brushed aside. Hell, no one even responded to my post with at least a few very valid concerns. It is like an echo chamber in here. I wish BM would speak up and share his opinion, as to why he didn't think this proposal was a good idea, because I have a feeling he is smart enough to understand some of the issues I brought up better than I can.
Smartcoins are seen as risky, but they also the best asset of BitShares if they can be made to work.
I thought you are the guy all for MAS. If I am wrong, then ignore this. MAS is more risky than this. You say people won't take on the risk of bitUSD failing them within the hour it takes to purchase BTS, but somehow people will get into crypto (seen as risky) to try an unknown insurance (seen as risky) all based on a decentralized governance (seen as risky). People have to jump through many more faith hoops for MAS.
And a far as risk. Insurance is a gamble of sorts but meant to only pay off when you really need it. Insurance is the most risk sensitive of any investment people make. That is implicit in the definition of what insurance is. I'd love to see MAS as an experiment. It might gain traction..
Yes, there are issues with the proposal as there are with pretty much any proposal. I do not have much of a stake in BitShares anymore, but if I felt compelled to argue about this I would point out that BTS has had almost 0 adoption as a currency. Therefore it seems reasonable to believe that it won't be hurt that much by making BTS illiquid. It removes price feeds. That is great for marketing. It is now market driven directly.
You guys need something. The currency thing has failed. Why would anyone implement BTS as a payment option? If I had a storefront with BTS, people would first need to figure out what BTS is, then they'd need to find an exchange (not one of the easy to use BTC ones), then they'd need to get setup there, likely using BTC in between. On my site, I would need to implement a flow different from Bitcoin. Unless I was happy to stay with BTS, then I have to cash it out. The whole BTS economy was made with blinders on hoping bitassets carries us. (And yes I've had them on myself) At this point the assets are not working and we have 0 bts as a currency adoption, even bitUSD has 0. Ok... the useful Scape has a website somewhere... but nothing even close to serious.
The exchanges can force people to withdraw BTS or just freeze their internal market. That part isn't _that_ hard for them. Disable deposits, tell people to take their money. Hopefully they support bitUSD in place of BTS, that would be the biggest concern.