Keep in mind that I am managing 77M BTS that belong to a whale who was never an I3 stakeholder and could demand them at any time.     

Whats that whale's net worth? Anyone (who isnt completely invested here) who is willing to sit on $0.5 million worth of a risky cryptoasset is obviously worth millions more. He could probably increase our market cap just by revealing himself.

Great news.

Is it an already established exchange or a startup that has launched to focus on BitShares ?

Another example of the great network effects of having NOTE officially stay on the BTS chain.

How about it?

how about a blockchain that can do leverage/lending/bonds and has an exchange?
all without counterparty risk?!

Yeah but we just arent yet in a position to benefit from their problems:
  -bond market isnt ready yet
  -web wallet says "Assert Exception" when I clicked on the market: https://wallet.bitshares.org/#/market/BitBTC:BitUSD/guest/buy
  -and it has no liquidity
  -and it has no obvious deposit page

Yes I know Ive said all these things before, but we cant go advertising BitShares as a better alternative to BitFinex until its actually usable.

Just voted.

So you didnt leave after all?

I really like the CFD explanation of BitAssets.

When explaining BitAssets to Bitcoiners, the word "peg" has too much baggage. They look at a graph of BitUSD fluctuating 10% day to day, and they say "the peg doesnt work", when really the "peg" is just one side of a CFD contract. Of course its not going to be 100% accurate - it doesnt have to be.

Here is my biggest concern: Is the upcoming announcement just more technical improvements/features (however great they are), or will there be any big exchanges/banks who issue their assets on the BitShares blockchain?

Our technical features could be so clever that they pass the Turing test, and still most Bitcoiners wouldnt care because to them we are still just an altcoin. They can ignore us because our assets arent integrated into any big money, unlike Ripple.

Ive been thinking this for a while, wondering if its possible:

Would it be possible to create & market a bitcoin exchange website that takes Bitcoin deposits and immediately swaps them for BitBTC, using metaexchange or whatever? Then when the users are trading Bitcoin against $ they are really making orders on the BitBTC:BitUSD market.

Pros:
-Preexisting large userbase of BitShares users who can use that market.
-Once bond market is working, the website will have same features as BitFinex.
-Great for increasing usage of BitAssets

Cons:
-Website would have deposit & withdraw limits because it converts in & out of bitcoin (just like metaexchange).
-Some people might feel they are being cheated by this.

Ive been trying to think of ways that BitAssets could be used without people even realising it. People dont care what bank account their exchange stores dollars in as long as its safe. Might as well be BitShares. We need shortcuts to quickly sell our product.