Bitcoin is in disarray due to an inability to set new rules

[Samupaha]

If we thought of these blockchains as governments or as states, would you expect most people to choose to be the citizen of the state that doesn't give people a vote, which is designed to centralize to the point of absolute monarchy? Which can't change it's constitution or amend it?

Why would we design something which isn't at least as good at the nation states we have? Shouldn't we be trying to design something far better than what we already have?

Unfortunately Bitcoin seems to be taking us backwards, almost to point where developers are the high priests, and combined with a bunch of other unelected officials who can try to manipulate through censorship, bans, etc.

If we want a government or a DAC that works well, we need to focus on two things:
- It has to have a well defined decision making process. Right now Bitcoin is suffering because it doesn't have this. Bitcoiners can't decide how to direct the development so they have to waste their time and resources to fight against each other. And important questions like "how to fund the development" are still completely without an answer. Developers are mostly funded by charity and that's not a good way in the long run.
- People who take part in the decision making process have to have good incentives. Democratic states have bad problems because politicians have incentives to promise a lot of stuff for everobody. That can't go forever and countries like Greece are little by little understanding this. Money just runs out eventually.

As far as I can see, Bitshares is the best DAC at this moment (I'm counting on that 2.0 comes out as promised). It has a clear way of decision making and developing. It has good incentives for people to actually do the development, build infrastructure and use the platform. Time will tell if the incentives are really great, but if they aren't, with the decision making process we can probably change them for better (unless there are some really bad incentives that prevent this).

[CLains]

Amara's Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.

[topcandle]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

Bitassets?

not when $1 = 1.06 bitUSD

it's better you loose 30% minimum holding bitcoins  or whatever...  ( because you can not withstand 6%)

This was kind of my point.  He mentioned hedging, which to me is minimizing your losses /exposure to risk.  Even if BITUSD is at 1.06, it is still a solid hedge against the drop in bts price overall.

Bitusd has such low liquidity its useless.  Hedge is only as good as the exposure your able to hedge out. 

[fuzzy]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

Bitassets?

not when $1 = 1.06 bitUSD

it's better you loose 30% minimum holding bitcoins  or whatever...  ( because you can not withstand 6%)

This was kind of my point.  He mentioned hedging, which to me is minimizing your losses /exposure to risk.  Even if BITUSD is at 1.06, it is still a solid hedge against the drop in bts price overall.

[liondani]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

Bitassets?

not when $1 = 1.06 bitUSD

it's better you loose 30% minimum holding bitcoins  or whatever...  ( because you can not withstand 6%)

[xeroc]

I very much agree. And if that is the case then what kind of DAC is Bitcoin?

It's the (arguable) still a DAC and in particular the "first one"
* it does not make profit for shareholders .. but those businesses do exist in the "real" world too
* per stake voting could also exist .. but people are not doing it .. and (most importantly) no one can enforce the results!!

In the end, not leveraging all the power of the blockchain tech .. is not bitcoin or the bitcoin devs fault.. it's simply an evolution ..

For that reason we shouldn't call BitShares a Bitcoin2.0 technology ..
In fact it would compare more like GSM to LTE ..

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

This may surprise some people but I don't hold many Bitcoins now. I'm looking to only put my faith in platforms which are democratic or which have ways of deciding on new rules.

If we thought of these blockchains as governments or as states, would you expect most people to choose to be the citizen of the state that doesn't give people a vote, which is designed to centralize to the point of absolute monarchy? Which can't change it's constitution or amend it?

Why would we design something which isn't at least as good at the nation states we have? Shouldn't we be trying to design something far better than what we already have?

Unfortunately Bitcoin seems to be taking us backwards, almost to point where developers are the high priests, and combined with a bunch of other unelected officials who can try to manipulate through censorship, bans, etc.

In my humble opinion, the current outcome proves that the Cato Institute was right. Bitcoin can't scale and will only get worse as it gets bigger, more centralized and more entrenched.

Same thing here .. I don't even recommend bitcoin to people any longer .. not only because of POW but also because of shitty (non-existent) governance ..

For me, it really makes sense to interpret decentralized systems as a DAC which also leads to:
 * the possibility of profit for shareholders
 * per-stake voting for the future direction
 * per-stake voting for expenses

^ This..  Bang on.

[luckybit]

This may surprise some people but I don't hold many Bitcoins now. I'm looking to only put my faith in platforms which are democratic or which have ways of deciding on new rules.

If we thought of these blockchains as governments or as states, would you expect most people to choose to be the citizen of the state that doesn't give people a vote, which is designed to centralize to the point of absolute monarchy? Which can't change it's constitution or amend it?

Why would we design something which isn't at least as good at the nation states we have? Shouldn't we be trying to design something far better than what we already have?

Unfortunately Bitcoin seems to be taking us backwards, almost to point where developers are the high priests, and combined with a bunch of other unelected officials who can try to manipulate through censorship, bans, etc.

In my humble opinion, the current outcome proves that the Cato Institute was right. Bitcoin can't scale and will only get worse as it gets bigger, more centralized and more entrenched.

Same thing here .. I don't even recommend bitcoin to people any longer .. not only because of POW but also because of shitty (non-existent) governance ..

For me, it really makes sense to interpret decentralized systems as a DAC which also leads to:
 * the possibility of profit for shareholders
 * per-stake voting for the future direction
 * per-stake voting for expenses

I very much agree. And if that is the case then what kind of DAC is Bitcoin?

[xeroc]

This may surprise some people but I don't hold many Bitcoins now. I'm looking to only put my faith in platforms which are democratic or which have ways of deciding on new rules.

If we thought of these blockchains as governments or as states, would you expect most people to choose to be the citizen of the state that doesn't give people a vote, which is designed to centralize to the point of absolute monarchy? Which can't change it's constitution or amend it?

Why would we design something which isn't at least as good at the nation states we have? Shouldn't we be trying to design something far better than what we already have?

Unfortunately Bitcoin seems to be taking us backwards, almost to point where developers are the high priests, and combined with a bunch of other unelected officials who can try to manipulate through censorship, bans, etc.

In my humble opinion, the current outcome proves that the Cato Institute was right. Bitcoin can't scale and will only get worse as it gets bigger, more centralized and more entrenched.

Same thing here .. I don't even recommend bitcoin to people any longer .. not only because of POW but also because of shitty (non-existent) governance ..

For me, it really makes sense to interpret decentralized systems as a DAC which also leads to:
 * the possibility of profit for shareholders
 * per-stake voting for the future direction
 * per-stake voting for expenses

[mike623317]

We need to use this moment to highlight BitShares build in development consensus model.

Indeed. We need to get it out there (only 6 or 7 weeks now). Its such a good concept, but its time to drive this advantage home with a good user experience.

[Pheonike]

We need to use this moment to highlight BitShares build in development consensus model.

[luckybit]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

Bitshares hasn't been hit that hard actually. In fact the disarray in Bitcoin should cause really smart investors to diversify out of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been over funded for a long time, where you have people who seemingly put everything into Bitcoin but only 1750 BTC or so are in Bitshares.

This means most Bitcoiners took their money out of Bitshares when Bitcoin was rising, and now that it has fallen again, and also due to the fact that Bitcoin is forking, the investors have to go somewhere else.

If Bitshares 2.0 were ready today then we'd know it could go to Bitshares but more than likely it will go to Ethereum or whatever has the current hype while Bitshares might get some portion of it.

Bitshares is currently at the floor, it isn't going to get much cheaper.

[Akado]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

Bitassets?

not when $1 = 1.06 bitUSD

[fuzzy]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

Bitassets?

[topcandle]

Ahhh!  Bitshares is so useless in hedging out Bitcoins risk.  All coins have been hit!

[fuzzy]

This may surprise some people but I don't hold many Bitcoins now. I'm looking to only put my faith in platforms which are democratic or which have ways of deciding on new rules.

If we thought of these blockchains as governments or as states, would you expect most people to choose to be the citizen of the state that doesn't give people a vote, which is designed to centralize to the point of absolute monarchy? Which can't change it's constitution or amend it?

Why would we design something which isn't at least as good at the nation states we have? Shouldn't we be trying to design something far better than what we already have?

Unfortunately Bitcoin seems to be taking us backwards, almost to point where developers are the high priests, and combined with a bunch of other unelected officials who can try to manipulate through censorship, bans, etc.

In my humble opinion, the current outcome proves that the Cato Institute was right. Bitcoin can't scale and will only get worse as it gets bigger, more centralized and more entrenched.

^^this
I've been saying this for so long when I describe the dangers of bitcoin. I believe that coupled with the centralization around its infrastructure (ASICs), makes a true technocratic regime that would make Brezinski wet his pants in happiness.

I sought out chains that give people the power...and that led me here. 

[luckybit]

This may surprise some people but I don't hold many Bitcoins now. I'm looking to only put my faith in platforms which are democratic or which have ways of deciding on new rules.

If we thought of these blockchains as governments or as states, would you expect most people to choose to be the citizen of the state that doesn't give people a vote, which is designed to centralize to the point of absolute monarchy? Which can't change it's constitution or amend it?

Why would we design something which isn't at least as good at the nation states we have? Shouldn't we be trying to design something far better than what we already have?

Unfortunately Bitcoin seems to be taking us backwards, almost to point where developers are the high priests, and combined with a bunch of other unelected officials who can try to manipulate through censorship, bans, etc.

In my humble opinion, the current outcome proves that the Cato Institute was right. Bitcoin can't scale and will only get worse as it gets bigger, more centralized and more entrenched.

[luckybit]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-18/bitcoin-is-having-an-identity-crisis

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/discussion-of-bitcoin-xt-banned-from-bitcoin-subreddit/

One of the major advantages Bitshares has that Bitcoin will never be able to have is flexibility. Bitcoin is static, it is a hard coded fixed protocol, it is at best a constitutional monarchy, and we see in this example the limitations of that when we look at the disarray over a fork.

Nomic is a game which the current players have a mechanism to change the rules.

Nomic is a game created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber in which the rules of the game include mechanisms for the players to change those rules, usually beginning through a system of democratic voting.[1]

Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed.
—Peter Suber, The Paradox of Self-Amendment[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic

This ability is critical for evolvability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolvability . Bitcoin has low evolvability because there is no democratic process, there is no futarchy, there is no rules within Bitcoin left by Satoshi Nakamoto on how create rules for changing the rules.

Bitshares has a long term advantage over Bitcoin which will continuously become more apparent. If we look at species, or at life in general, the lifeforms which are able to adapt the fastest, and the best, are the species most likely to survive. Bitcoin has low evolvability, which means in a Darwinian battle for dominance it will not be able to keep up with the rate of change.

Bitcoin has the first mover advantage, but due to it's limited flexibility, limited evolvability, it is unlikely to last. I expect my post to be controversial, but you can see for yourself as it plays out.

http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/unfortunate-future-bitcoin
http://www.alt-m.org/2014/11/18/bitcoin-will-bite-the-dust/