Another possible variation to help fund development and speed growth, without diluting BTS supply, is to issue a new token that has preference over network revenue. Let's call this a BTSP, short for "BTS Preferred".
Suppose BTSP are sold and raise funds of X. X can be used to fund a level of project development in excess of delegate based pay. The BTSP capital is repaid by having first preference over bitShares network revenue, until full repayment of [X+accumulating interest], has been completed. By structuring BTSP in this way, there is no impact at all on BTS supply - however, BTS owners are giving away the first cut of profits as a trade-off for faster development of the network.
As with any such structure, there are a number of variables that can be played with. For example:
Denomination - X can be denominated in BTS. Or it could be denominated as a fiat currency equivalent value of BTS.
Interest - can be preset, or subject to market bidding when capital is raised
Profit cut - could be a meaningful proportion of network revenue (100% or less), and/or subject to a ceiling, or if project specific, might even relate to specific types of revenues
Performance triggers - repayment only begins if pre-specified development outcomes are met, or adopted into the protocol
Payment - could occur by using buybacks, settlements, or distributions.
If BTS owners were to accept the idea of sharing network revenue in order to allow deeper funding pools and faster network development (presumably subject to some sort of BTS vote), then it is also possible to invite alternative development teams to share in the development of the core protocol, and find community segments willing to fund them. This would require sound profit models, and the license arrangements with CNX might need some modification to deal with this flexibility.
If people are happy with the rate of development coming through on 2.0, this might not be considered necessary right at this point. In future I do think bitShares ultimately retains more control over development if it has a number of means to fund itself.