Should BTS end merger vesting BTS early?

[mint chocolate chip]

Sorry for the simple question, but if nothing is done, when does vesting naturally end? What named accounts are receiving vesting funds, and in what amounts?

I don't think it should end early. To me, that seems like breaking an agreement.

The merger naturally ends on 5th Nov 2016 I think.

So not too long but it is a large amount, circa 50 BTC per week being released at current rates.

The merger gave 500 million BTS to holders of AGS, PTS, VOTE and DNS vested over two years. I think this was the final allocation...



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=844038.0

Other stakeholders 30 million BTS = Follow My Vote

[chryspano]

[Empirical1.2]

Sorry for the simple question, but if nothing is done, when does vesting naturally end? What named accounts are receiving vesting funds, and in what amounts?

I don't think it should end early. To me, that seems like breaking an agreement.

The merger naturally ends on 5th Nov 2016 I think.

So not too long but it is a large amount, circa 50 BTC per week being released at current rates.

The merger gave 500 million BTS to holders of AGS, PTS, VOTE and DNS vested over two years. I think this was the final allocation...



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=844038.0

[Chronos]

Sorry for the simple question, but if nothing is done, when does vesting naturally end? What named accounts are receiving vesting funds, and in what amounts?

I don't think it should end early. To me, that seems like breaking an agreement.

[tbone]

I have to give some credit to @Empirical1.2 for thinking about the greater good and putting this idea up for debate despite having a lot of vesting shares himself.  And same to @gamey and anyone else who has vesting shares and has at least tried to look at this idea objectively.  At the same time, I don't think cancelling vesting shares would be perceived very well, regardless of the fact that it would be a decision of the shareholders, not one person or even a committee. 

Although perhaps the idea someone had to extend the vesting period is something to seriously consider.  It could have multiple benefits.  Obviously slowing dilution would be positive.  A side effect of that could be that the anti-dilution crowd might become more agreeable at least to some of the obviously beneficial worker proposals.

Also, assuming that @bytemaster owns a lot of vesting shares, wouldn't passage of a proposal like this prove that he truly doesn't have enough stake to unilaterally control BItshares as some here have charged? 

[liondani]

I voted NO... but from the other side we could....



...could it be Dan's pennis? 


PS Well I could... steem it! 

[Thom]

Surprised nobody commented about the value these vested funds represent as I did. What good does delaying the vesting? The major point of vesting is to retain talent, and that aspect is mostly gone as empirical said. Same with deleting them. Sure that counters inflation, but how significant is that in the bigger picture? That primarily makes sense to the anti-dilution crowd, who offer zero input on how to pay for sustaining this ecosystem let alone improving it. They seem to loose sight of the fact their holding will become worthless if the ecosystem dies or cannot be maintained. Maybe the illusion of protecting their holdings is blinding them to the slow death that zero tolerance dilution will bring.

You could make the vesting period 5x longer and really slow the downward pressure.  You could also just stop the whole process for X years. 

What good would this do?  It would slow/stop the dilution that is apparently bleeding BTS.  My understand that is the objective of the suggestion in this thread. This would go further in the "good" it does.  It would keep people from saying their BTS was stolen from them.  Stolen from people who paid for the development of BTS2. My approach at least seems morally acceptable and is not blatant theft.

I see, that makes sense, total sense. I wasn't aware that the recipients of the vested BTS were selling them, or a significant portion of them, such that it has been negatively influencing the market. If that is indeed the case then delaying the vesting is a better solution, tho it is also changing the rules so is also quite controversial.

So much better than outright theft, whether that be to burn the unvested shares or use them for some other purpose.

The bottom line I think is the decision to do this is all about ethics and integrity, not about practicality.

Is self preservation ever an excuse for theft?

If self preservation is a rational basis for violence, even violence leading to the death of the aggressor,  which is the equivalent of theft of life, then it follows that the answer is yes, if survival is at stake theft is a rational response to what is threatening survival. Is it overly dramatic to apply that to the question at hand? If not there is no sound basis for the action proposed.

Although the case empirical made for eliminating the vesting and stopping future delivery of those shares is based on a failure of that vesting to achieve it's goal, that cannot be viewed as a good reason for taking the proposed action. As I said before, the contract was flawed, but it isn't reasonable to change the contract retroactively and that is exactly what this is.

Now that I've thought about this more and boil it down to the essentials, I find it difficult to see the present situation as one that threatens the survival of the ecosystem and so theft should be off the table IMO.

As to lengthening the vesting period, that retroactively violates the past agreement and this will negatively impact the integrity and trust others will have in BitShares and by induction the members of this entire community.

[pc]

Of course they're actual BTS, but you stimulated a question, are they already distributed, but have a lock, OR, are they not created until the "lock" (vesting period) expires?

Quite simple: all vesting balances are counted into the total supply. Remaining vesting balances from the merger count into the total supply of the BTS-2 genesis. IOW: BTS vesting balances exist while they're vesting, they are merely locked up.

[svk]

I'm curious as to what could possibly beat the merger here, what's your #1?

My #1 is the decision to distribute 50% of all BTS to PTS (and distribute based on simply holding said PTS and not actually donating those to the project(funding development). PTS being a weird combination of 90% fast mined coins held by a handful of miner whales, and 10% by small miners and buyers on the open market.

My #2 is the merger by I also include here (call it #2a) the "invention" of so called self funding chains. I believe only the self diluting chains was invented, for self funding we need another element...."funds"... money and not only a way to give a stake to what I call worker-speculators (aka devs that need the money so they can put food on the table the second they receive the new shares).

My #3 is Titan plus the general idea to  go with non standard chain and then to poorly design it to the point of needing to abandon it in what 6 mo.?... I call it playing Sony before the start-up has even learned how to walk (aka finance itself)

After those 3 there is a ton of other non-sense and or unwise decisions that I can not put in any particular order of impact...

Right, thanks, can't really argue with that list. I arrived after the Feb 28 snapshot myself so never had much interest in that distribution.

[mf-tzo]

I will try to keep my self cool with this thread and will try not to start saying bad words...But what a f..k are you guys smoking?? Do you really want to change again something that was agreed?? I can't believe that you guys are even discussing this..let the vesting finish and let's move on...

[gamey]

Surprised nobody commented about the value these vested funds represent as I did. What good does delaying the vesting? The major point of vesting is to retain talent, and that aspect is mostly gone as empirical said. Same with deleting them. Sure that counters inflation, but how significant is that in the bigger picture? That primarily makes sense to the anti-dilution crowd, who offer zero input on how to pay for sustaining this ecosystem let alone improving it. They seem to loose sight of the fact their holding will become worthless if the ecosystem dies or cannot be maintained. Maybe the illusion of protecting their holdings is blinding them to the slow death that zero tolerance dilution will bring.

You could make the vesting period 5x longer and really slow the downward pressure.  You could also just stop the whole process for X years. 

What good would this do?  It would slow/stop the dilution that is apparently bleeding BTS.  My understand that is the objective of the suggestion in this thread. This would go further in the "good" it does.  It would keep people from saying their BTS was stolen from them.  Stolen from people who paid for the development of BTS2. My approach at least seems morally acceptable and is not blatant theft.

[Empirical1.2]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

Apologies for the unclear question, the poll was to delete it,  merockstar has also declared his yes vote void.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22237.msg289902.html#msg289902

I don't like editing polls after but as a few have been unclear on this point I will put an edit in the OP.

deleting! what a terrible idea. i don't even want to think about this, why should we do this? srew me and others more then now?

Nearly all of my BTS are vesting BTS too, my reasons why this could be in the best interest of BTS are in the OP and my other replies in the thread.

[tonyk]

I'm curious as to what could possibly beat the merger here, what's your #1?

My #1 is the decision to distribute 50% of all BTS to PTS (and distribute based on simply holding said PTS and not actually donating those to the project(funding development). PTS being a weird combination of 90% fast mined coins held by a handful of miner whales, and 10% by small miners and buyers on the open market.

My #2 is the merger by I also include here (call it #2a) the "invention" of so called self funding chains. I believe only the self diluting chains was invented, for self funding we need another element...."funds"... money and not only a way to give a stake to what I call worker-speculators (aka devs that need the money so they can put food on the table the second they receive the new shares).

My #3 is Titan plus the general idea to  go with non standard chain and then to poorly design it to the point of needing to abandon it in what 6 mo.?... I call it playing Sony before the start-up has even learned how to walk (aka finance itself)

After those 3 there is a ton of other non-sense and or unwise decisions that I can not put in any particular order of impact...

[Thom]

It really comes down to how one sees the vested balances. Does one see them as actual BTS?

Of course they're actual BTS, but you stimulated a question, are they already distributed, but have a lock, OR, are they not created until the "lock" (vesting period) expires? If the former, it is undeniably theft. If the later, it's an unkept promise. Either way it's essentially the same thing.

From a security standpoint, is it easier to hack a wallet if the BTS were delivered but marked as "locked" until the vesting is over or wait until the vesting is over before actual delivery into the wallet? In either case it would require a deeper knowledge of the code than I have.

And again it's probably an irrelevant point.

Surprised nobody commented about the value these vested funds represent as I did. What good does delaying the vesting? The major point of vesting is to retain talent, and that aspect is mostly gone as empirical said. Same with deleting them. Sure that counters inflation, but how significant is that in the bigger picture? That primarily makes sense to the anti-dilution crowd, who offer zero input on how to pay for sustaining this ecosystem let alone improving it. They seem to loose sight of the fact their holding will become worthless if the ecosystem dies or cannot be maintained. Maybe the illusion of protecting their holdings is blinding them to the slow death that zero tolerance dilution will bring.

[Shentist]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

Apologies for the unclear question, the poll was to delete it,  merockstar has also declared his yes vote void.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22237.msg289902.html#msg289902

I don't like editing polls after but as a few have been unclear on this point I will put an edit in the OP.

deleting! what a terrible idea. i don't even want to think about this, why should we do this? srew me and others more then now?

[gamey]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

No one commented on my suggestion of just delaying the vesting. Freeze the vesting balances for years.  That would be far preferable to stealing them from people who paid to invest in BTS.

What is the date when all the vesting stops?

I will admit the more I think about it, the more I slide towards agreement but I don't think I'd ever find this a good idea. There is a definite cost in the loss of trust  for the chain. It would be hard to think of worse press than doing this..

[Empirical1.2]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

Apologies for the unclear question, the poll was to delete it,  merockstar has also declared his yes vote void.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22237.msg289902.html#msg289902

I don't like editing polls after but as a few have been unclear on this point I will put an edit in the OP.

[Shentist]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

[gamey]

It really comes down to how one sees the vested balances. Does one see them as actual BTS?

I do. I assumed they'll be there just like any other BTS in my wallet. I just am not allowed to access it because the slow drain is supposed to be better than a big dump.

Others apparently see them as something else besides on chain BTS that are temporarily locked up.



This will project has had so many firsts.  If this passes it'll now be the first project to steal funds from users.

If you guys could figure out how to take money from the Larimer clan and leave the rest alone I'd be all for it. As it is there will be far too much collateral damage.

[Thom]

I suspect a lot comes down to how one views the vested balances. I view them as just as legitimate as other BTS, fungible or not. Others seem to take the view that because these BTS are not liquid, then somehow they are in a second class. Obviously I disagree.

Part of the reason they were made vesting was to ensure we retained our devs.

The result is that as part of the merger many people (including the large Dev fund) are taking a long-term vested interest in things. 
Do you really want Toast, Adam, and I to have instant access to a large percentage of all new funds or do you want us vesting with a long time horizon? 

We failed to retain Toast, Adam/FMV is crowd-funding separately and BM is focusing on another DAC.

There is also speculation there has been a lot of selling by key parties...  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22098.msg287894.html#msg287894

So in addition to all of the above, by continuing the merger we may also be inadvertently (though I'm sure they will disagree) funding other DACs at our expense.

We are the single largest holder of PTS by far.  Giving a large stake to PTS and AGS would be massively in our favor.

I understand your POV and perhaps it is the correct one, but continuing the merger is not a competitive/successful business strategy for BTS at this stage imo so it is worth discussing.

I am highly conflicted by this proposal. My gut reaction is that ending the vesting early is breaking a contract, a breach of trust. On the other hand as is pointed out above the primary reason for vesting the ownership was to retain the people those shares were granted to. The contract was flawed, in that it didn't stipulate the retention of vesting rights were contingent on continued allegiance to the granting party (BTS chain).

Nobody can predict the future with perfect accuracy. I've been around since before the merger so I am well aware of the mistakes made along the way, as dannotestein, empirical and others have outlined here. BM / Stan / CNX have been between a rock and a hard place many times trying to keep the vision alive and sustain the team to carry it out. Major contributors have left the team along the way (Toast, Vikram, Nathan, ...) so their efforts in keeping the team together have their limitations, as does the patience of those who remain to see the BitShares vision of a truly decentralized DEX and platform for growth come to fruition and wider adoption.

Unlike other projects BitShares is highly transparent and the tough decisions are not hidden away from public scrutiny. That characteristic is a double-edged sword. I see the decision to end vesting early as a highly controversial move, and one with good points to consider on both sides. I have no stake in the vesting, just to provide full disclosure, so perhaps that taints my judgment. Can anyone claim total objectivity on this matter? Not very likely anyone reading this can.

It is clear that the source of funds have dried up to continue development and even maintenance to sustain the ongoing cost of the dev team. I see this decision as a matter of survival of the BitShares ecosystem, and as such the early termination of the merger vesting shares represents a significant resource (126Million BTS - 6 months @ 700K / day, or ~$500K @ $0.004 / BTS) that could be applied toward putting the crucial, final touches on the great work BM's team brought into existence, like funding xeroc's efforts to document this work so others can easily build on it.

I find empirical's points highly compelling, and although ending the vesting early will definitely have negative effects, so will allowing it to continue, such as funding work on other chains (tho not directly).

We also need to consider what can realistically be accomplished using this $500K pool if it becomes available. How will we organize to prioritize what work must be done to polish up this ecosystem to attract adoption? Marketing, development or maintenance? Who is qualified to do any development deemed necessary? I don't think it's healthy for the long term success of BitShares to look to an exclusive group of devs as the only ones who can contribute to the code base. We need to promote the opposite perspective, than anyone can contribute, and make it easy for them to do so. We need good conventions, practices of code review and procedures for proposing and adopting the contributions made. Much of that is already in place in the form of worker proposals. The community must step up to the challenge of organizing itself to set priorities, milestones and goals to achieve our objectives. We need solid project planing and a roadmap to rally the community and focus our resources. Can leadership like this emerge from within the community or will it languish and falter? Once again this community is given the opportunity to be responsible for itself and not rely on someone else to make decisions. It took quite awhile before a committee was wiling to take on the role of leadership. Will it be the same now, or will we embrace responsibility?

There are many projects that depend on the continuation of the BitShares ecosystem, each of which provides plenty of reasons to be hopeful for the future of BitShares. I feel the same about many of the people who continue to believe in the vision and promise of a freer future and remain dedicated to seeing that vision made into reality.

[btswildpig]

I was always opposed to the merger (even without understanding all the ramifications of it) and the way it was essentially "forced" on the community. And, IMO, it turned out to be in the top 3 or 4 "disasters" for bitshares (probably #2). It totally failed at its stated purpose (which was never adequately explained anyways), it wasn't decided very democratically,  it killed a number of funding opportunities, directly and indirectly cost BitShares two core developers (toast and Nathan), brought us another even more ineffective and expensive marketing manager that ultimately led the community to conclude that hiring an effective and reasonably priced marketing manager wasn't possible (something I don't think is true), introduced a lot of unnecessary inflation, and disenchanted a lot of loyal BTS followers.

On a personal level, it cost me some of my BTS ownership, as I wasn't a donator after the first BTS snapshot, since I thought most of the value proposition of AGS was tied to that snapshot. I liked a lot of the other plans in theory, but they were all high-risk long term plays, and I didn't see sufficient experienced manpower and funding to make those teams effective.

Despite the personal cost to me, I have to agree with gamey that changing the rules at this point would make us guilty of the same thing that was done to us, so I'm voting against this plan.

These undesirable side effects may be true, but people always leave out worse consequences of not doing anything.

We were out of funds to work on BitShares.  We were obligated to stop at BTSX and start working on the other chains with the remaining post 2/28 funds.  This would have resulted in multiple unfinished chains, none of which were likely to generate income before funding ran out and the team would have had to disperse in search of work.

The decision was made to get one really solid chain working and producing income before diluting dwindling resources into other new starts which, as you say, were much longer term plays - too long to solve the problem of keeping the team together.

That might have worked except for a down draft in crypto at the time which was generally interpreted as caused by the merger leading to a bigger downdraft caused by blaming the merger.  So BitShares wound up unable (or unwilling) to pay its developers.  We had to invent Graphene and now Steem to keep going. 

The one constant driver that we have always had to face is how to put food on the table while continuing to be available to support the prime vision.

Every single step forward along the way has been influenced by that fiscal reality.   If you are willing to ignore that constraint and imagine some parallel universe where dev paychecks don't matter, then sure, there were lots of more popular paths we could have taken.

Ah , the BTC down trend in 2014 must because of Stan blamed BTC miners's selling pressure , not the selling pressure itself .

[Empirical1.2]

I suspect a lot comes down to how one views the vested balances. I view them as just as legitimate as other BTS, fungible or not. Others seem to take the view that because these BTS are not liquid, then somehow they are in a second class. Obviously I disagree.

Part of the reason they were made vesting was to ensure we retained our devs.

The result is that as part of the merger many people (including the large Dev fund) are taking a long-term vested interest in things. 
Do you really want Toast, Adam, and I to have instant access to a large percentage of all new funds or do you want us vesting with a long time horizon? 

We failed to retain Toast, Adam/FMV is crowd-funding separately and BM is focusing on another DAC.

There is also speculation there has been a lot of selling by key parties...  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22098.msg287894.html#msg287894

So in addition to all of the above, by continuing the merger we may also be inadvertently (though I'm sure they will disagree) funding other DACs at our expense.

We are the single largest holder of PTS by far.  Giving a large stake to PTS and AGS would be massively in our favor.

I understand your POV gamey and perhaps it is the correct one, but continuing the expensive merger is not a competitive/successful business strategy for BTS at this stage imo so it is worth discussing.

[Stan]

I was always opposed to the merger (even without understanding all the ramifications of it) and the way it was essentially "forced" on the community. And, IMO, it turned out to be in the top 3 or 4 "disasters" for bitshares (probably #2). It totally failed at its stated purpose (which was never adequately explained anyways), it wasn't decided very democratically,  it killed a number of funding opportunities, directly and indirectly cost BitShares two core developers (toast and Nathan), brought us another even more ineffective and expensive marketing manager that ultimately led the community to conclude that hiring an effective and reasonably priced marketing manager wasn't possible (something I don't think is true), introduced a lot of unnecessary inflation, and disenchanted a lot of loyal BTS followers.

On a personal level, it cost me some of my BTS ownership, as I wasn't a donator after the first BTS snapshot, since I thought most of the value proposition of AGS was tied to that snapshot. I liked a lot of the other plans in theory, but they were all high-risk long term plays, and I didn't see sufficient experienced manpower and funding to make those teams effective.

Despite the personal cost to me, I have to agree with gamey that changing the rules at this point would make us guilty of the same thing that was done to us, so I'm voting against this plan.

These undesirable side effects may be true, but people always leave out the much worse consequences of not doing anything.

We were out of funds to work on BitShares.  We were obligated to stop at BTSX and start working on the other chains with the remaining post 2/28 funds.  This would have resulted in multiple unfinished chains, none of which were likely to generate income before funding ran out and the team would have had to disperse in search of work.

The decision was made to get one really solid chain working and producing income before diluting dwindling resources into other new starts which, as you say, were much longer term plays - too long to solve the problem of keeping the team together.

That might have worked except for a down draft in crypto at the time which was generally interpreted as caused by the merger leading to a bigger downdraft caused by blaming the merger.  So BitShares wound up unable (or unwilling) to pay its developers.  We had to invent Graphene and now Steem to keep going. 

The one constant driver that we have always had to face is how to put food on the table while continuing to be available to support the prime vision.

Every single step forward along the way has been influenced by that fiscal reality.   If you are willing to ignore that constraint and imagine some parallel universe where dev paychecks don't matter, then sure, there were lots of more popular paths we could have taken.

[gamey]

I agree with Julian. How exactly do we go through this whole merger fiasco and yet still end up losing BM to a competing chain? It's completely ridiculous. Reminds me of when the promise was to focus all efforts on BTS, but then BM goes and tries sharedropping Devshares to AGS/PTS. Then came the brownies. Now obviously Steem.

How hard is it to focus on just one damn project?

But be that as it may it seems pretty obvious that ending merger vesting early would cause more harm than good. Oh well.

So much like the no-dilution crowd, your take is ... BM screwed up, so lets just screw over the chain's potential by finding it acceptable for the majority to steal from the minority ?


edit - Actually the above is not what is going on with the no-dilution crowd. At least those guys are abiding by the accepted rules.

I would have never taken this proposal seriously, but then I noticed the votes. I am a fan of Empirical's work and his support of this project. I just think he got this one very very wrong. I wouldn't lose that much. My vested balance isn't huge or signficant by any stretch, but I assumed it'll be there if/when this project lands on the moon.

I suspect a lot comes down to how one views the vested balances. I view them as just as legitimate as other BTS, fungible or not. Others seem to take the view that because these BTS are not liquid, then somehow they are in a second class. Obviously I disagree.

[gamey]

Those balances *are* the property of their owners.   

That property interest was the equivalent of a royal grant made by the (former) developers of Bitshares who held merge rights on the Bitshares Github repository. The legitimacy of that act has always been in doubt, because it was never subject to stakeholder vote.

The quid-pro-quo for this gift was the alignment of the developer resources and chains (vote, dns, bitshares). Additionally there was an insight that having multiple dapps on the same chain has synergy and efficiency benefits compared with multiple dapps on different chains. (See BMs discussion on the cost of cross-chain transactions, or consult the Ethereum market cap for reference).
 
The Bitshares Royalty have now abdicated their position in favor of a new interest (Steem). It is natural to consider if Bitshares can afford to pay 700k/day with no benefit attached, and when the original terms of the arrangement no longer carry any meaning.

This is a load of verbose bullshit. The fact is that the vested stake paid the same as the others (minus the considerations of BTC/PTS price fluctuation). You can spin it however you wish, but it is nonsense.  This proposal here is less fair than deflating the existing fungible money supply proportional to the existing inflation. This proposal just robs a select group of people, so it is more acceptable to some.

I understand that some people supporting this will be also losing out in absolute terms. However it is a matter of the proportion people have of fungible stake vs vested. Yes, I sold my purchased stake some time ago, but I have yet to touch my vested balance.  Someone explain to me how I am not supporting the price vs others.

There is no Bitshares royalty. Using Dan's exit as an excuse to fuck those who donated is nothing more than that.  An excuse.

One of the biggest mistakes was Toast just acquiescing to BM's desires.  It is easy to say this with hindsight, so I am not criticizing Toast in this regard. I was never privy to any details. At that point I was still a believer in a lot of the positives from the merge. We learn.

Your selective choice of what was a "gift" is absurd.  There were lots of gifts, but in the end it was mainly BMs decision to move forward unilaterally and people believed what he said at the time. Those with vested balances "gifted" BM's labor to BTS 2.0,  but they can't take that labor back.  The ability to steal is actually possible in the other direction. The result of this constraint are nonsensical rationalizations like the above post.

[svk]

I was always opposed to the merger (even without understanding all the ramifications of it) and the way it was essentially "forced" on the community. And, IMO, it turned out to be in the top 3 or 4 "disasters" for bitshares (probably #2). It totally failed at its stated purpose (which was never adequately explained anyways), it wasn't decided very democratically,  it killed a number of funding opportunities, directly and indirectly cost BitShares two core developers (toast and Nathan), brought us another even more ineffective and expensive marketing manager that ultimately led the community to conclude that hiring an effective and reasonably priced marketing manager wasn't possible (something I don't think is true), introduced a lot of unnecessary inflation, and disenchanted a lot of loyal BTS followers.

On a personal level, it cost me some of my BTS ownership, as I wasn't a donator after the first BTS snapshot, since I thought most of the value proposition of AGS was tied to that snapshot. I liked a lot of the other plans in theory, but they were all high-risk long term plays, and I didn't see sufficient experienced manpower and funding to make those teams effective.

Despite the personal cost to me, I have to agree with gamey that changing the rules at this point would make us guilty of the same thing that was done to us, so I'm voting against this plan.

What are #1,#3,#4 and #5  *disasters* in your book?
[I have my own list and " 'THE merger' is close to #2 spot most of the time", just curious what are the rest/in what order]

I'm curious as to what could possibly beat the merger here, what's your #1?

BTW reverseflash is simply the name of a DC comics villain, the nemesis of The Flash. Though your idea was much funnier

Haven't voted but as much as I'd like to vote yes I'd probably vote no, for much the same reasons as Dan N.

[tonyk]

I was always opposed to the merger (even without understanding all the ramifications of it) and the way it was essentially "forced" on the community. And, IMO, it turned out to be in the top 3 or 4 "disasters" for bitshares (probably #2). It totally failed at its stated purpose (which was never adequately explained anyways), it wasn't decided very democratically,  it killed a number of funding opportunities, directly and indirectly cost BitShares two core developers (toast and Nathan), brought us another even more ineffective and expensive marketing manager that ultimately led the community to conclude that hiring an effective and reasonably priced marketing manager wasn't possible (something I don't think is true), introduced a lot of unnecessary inflation, and disenchanted a lot of loyal BTS followers.

On a personal level, it cost me some of my BTS ownership, as I wasn't a donator after the first BTS snapshot, since I thought most of the value proposition of AGS was tied to that snapshot. I liked a lot of the other plans in theory, but they were all high-risk long term plays, and I didn't see sufficient experienced manpower and funding to make those teams effective.

Despite the personal cost to me, I have to agree with gamey that changing the rules at this point would make us guilty of the same thing that was done to us, so I'm voting against this plan.

What are #1,#3,#4 and #5  *disasters* in your book?
[I have my own list and " 'THE merger' is close to #2 spot most of the time", just curious what are the rest/in what order]

[julian1]

Looks like Adam hasn't posted here since January. Here's a link to the new kickstarter, in case anyone missed out on investing the first time around.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamkalebernest/e2e-verifiable-blockchain-voting-software-follow-m

[nomoreheroes7]

I agree with Julian. How exactly do we go through this whole merger fiasco and yet still end up losing BM to a competing chain? It's completely ridiculous. Reminds me of when the promise was to focus all efforts on BTS, but then BM goes and tries sharedropping Devshares to AGS/PTS. Then came the brownies. Now obviously Steem.

How hard is it to focus on just one damn project?

But be that as it may it seems pretty obvious that ending merger vesting early would cause more harm than good. Oh well.

[tonyk]

I though this proposal was a joke...I still kind of do. The only reason why I decided to post is that several other people that usually do not post jokes/nonsense (unlike myself) seem to take the matter seriously.

No, I did not vote "No" cause the poll is a joke, in my view. Even proposing "yes" as a possibility is a joke as well.The tons of new BTS becoming available to dump are bad...real bad (but I have posted my take on that already numerous times). But stopping this is  a total REVERSEFLASH*



*It is probably my non-native speaker take on words here but...flash is when you flash you toilet.... reverseflash is when the stuff comes back up...
No?

Those balances *are* the property of their owners.   

That property interest was the equivalent of a royal grant made by the (former) developers of Bitshares who held merge rights on the Bitshares Github repository. The legitimacy of that act has always been in doubt, because it was never subject to stakeholder vote.

The quid-pro-quo for this gift was the alignment of the developer resources and chains (vote, dns, bitshares). Additionally there was an insight that having multiple dapps on the same chain has synergy and efficiency benefits compared with multiple dapps on different chains. (See BMs discussion on the cost of cross-chain transactions, or consult the Ethereum market cap for reference).
 
The Bitshares Royalty have now abdicated their position in favor of a new interest (Steem). It is natural to consider if Bitshares can afford to pay 700k/day with no benefit attached, and when the original terms of the arrangement no longer carry any meaning.

I get your point... but it is not fixable...taking real / perceived value from people to achieve another unachievable goal will not do much other than creating an even bigger mess.

[julian1]

Those balances *are* the property of their owners.   

That property interest was the equivalent of a royal grant made by the (former) developers of Bitshares who held merge rights on the Bitshares Github repository. The legitimacy of that act has always been in doubt, because it was never subject to stakeholder vote.

The quid-pro-quo for this gift was the alignment of the developer resources and chains (vote, dns, bitshares). Additionally there was an insight that having multiple dapps on the same chain has synergy and efficiency benefits compared with multiple dapps on different chains. (See BMs discussion on the cost of cross-chain transactions, or consult the Ethereum market cap for reference).
 
The Bitshares Royalty have now abdicated their position in favor of a new interest (Steem). It is natural to consider if Bitshares can afford to pay 700k/day with no benefit attached, and when the original terms of the arrangement no longer carry any meaning.

[dannotestein]

I was always opposed to the merger (even without understanding all the ramifications of it) and the way it was essentially "forced" on the community. And, IMO, it turned out to be in the top 3 or 4 "disasters" for bitshares (probably #2). It totally failed at its stated purpose (which was never adequately explained anyways), it wasn't decided very democratically,  it killed a number of funding opportunities, directly and indirectly cost BitShares two core developers (toast and Nathan), brought us another even more ineffective and expensive marketing manager that ultimately led the community to conclude that hiring an effective and reasonably priced marketing manager wasn't possible (something I don't think is true), introduced a lot of unnecessary inflation, and disenchanted a lot of loyal BTS followers.

On a personal level, it cost me some of my BTS ownership, as I wasn't a donator after the first BTS snapshot, since I thought most of the value proposition of AGS was tied to that snapshot. I liked a lot of the other plans in theory, but they were all high-risk long term plays, and I didn't see sufficient experienced manpower and funding to make those teams effective.

Despite the personal cost to me, I have to agree with gamey that changing the rules at this point would make us guilty of the same thing that was done to us, so I'm voting against this plan.

[gamey]

The promise that was made, was to align the various competing chains and interests (vote, dns, bitshares etc) under the one umbrella, and to retain developer resources.

This is the promise that was broken.

It's quite normal for agreements to set aside when the original intention of the agreement cannot be fulfilled or when one side to the agreement fails to perform.

(And in the real world, damages would ordinarily be paid for breach and loss).

It is also real normal for others to want to take money from others without their consent in the real world, but that doesn't make it right.

There is a selectivity at play. It is completely not fair and will give Bitshares such a bad rep. There are a dozen ways you can spin how people were screwed. This time intentional.  Those shares were paid for just as much as the shares that haven't been vested. All the shares are investments.

Those balances *are* the property of their owners.  If you can't agree by that simple principle any longer, then why would ANYONE ever invest in this cryptocurrency again?

I find it baffling that so many people support this. Truly utterly baffling. 

[unreadPostsSinceLastVisit]

I voted yes before understanding the proposition.

I thought it meant "let everybody claim all their stake now and pick up the pieces after one final gigantic burst of dilution" not "stiff people being compensated from the merger."

Please factor one vote out of the yes column and put it in the no column when considering these poll results.

The way I see it the merger was agreed to, then dns failed (vote is still in the works from what I understand). That's not a broken promise in terms of cryptocurrency development, that's people who bought PTS and AGS making a bad decision (I'm one of them). BitShares should stick to it's side of the bargain regardless.

[julian1]

The promise that was made, was to align the various competing chains and interests (vote, dns, bitshares etc) under the one umbrella, and to retain developer resources.

This is the promise that was broken.

It's quite normal for agreements to set aside when the original intention of the agreement cannot be fulfilled or when one side to the agreement fails to perform.

(And in the real world, damages would ordinarily be paid for breach and loss).

[Erlich Bachman]

THe people who vote yes are people who probably don't have any vested balances.

those are the people whom we are trying to get to support the current BTS Price.  not you and i who have vested balances

its the age old choice we have again:

do you want more shares with low value or less shares with more value and distribution question

[gamey]

If anything the vesting period should just be delayed .. so if BTS survives then these people are treated fairly and not robbed.  If it doesn't, well not as much harm done.

I no longer hold any BTS except my vesting balance which I hadn't planned on selling, but with the support in this thread it makes me think I should get moving ASAP.

[gamey]

if they are done developing, then yes, that's why the vesting period was created (to guarantee support for the duration of the vesting period). if the devs are  still developing, then no.

IMO it was done for serveral reasons. One was because it gave Bytemaster a way to not have to work on DNS and let him pursue what he really wanted to do. This was a huge mistake as he should have just left DNS alone.  I don't think censorship resistant applications hold much interest to BM. 

The main reason however is that it prevented people who donated and paid for development of BTS to not be 100% robbed. I don't think there was ever any 'guaranteed support'.

It would also be a huge blackeye on Bytemaster's reputation.  He could shuffle his feet around and go '.but ... if... not my fault ..... karma is a bitch'  but thats not how a lot of people will see it.

[gamey]

It would be a huge blackeye on the project further removing any faith in the project what so ever.  Exponential compounding of errors it would seem.

If you didn't donate to AGS post snapshot #1 for the original vision then I have no idea why anyone donated period.

THe people who vote yes are people who probably don't have any vested balances.

[Erlich Bachman]

if they are done developing, then yes, that's why the vesting period was created (to guarantee support for the duration of the vesting period). if the devs are  still developing, then no.

[Empirical1.2]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

That's ok, it's a controversial topic and may not be in the best interest of BTS overall. 

You don't have to vote to spend more on development if you don't want to, that's your choice.

But the merger is costing 700k a day, 5 million BTS a week. Do you think BTS can afford spending 50-60 BTC a week on it, even though it's not achieving many of the original outcomes?

Do you think people who paid much more for PTS/AGS/DNS would sell their vest shares at this low price ?

Yes,  it looks like a lot of the whales especially have been selling. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22098.0.html

It would be interesting to see how many merger shares are claimed and moved though.

[btswildpig]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

That's ok, it's a controversial topic and may not be in the best interest of BTS overall. 

You don't have to vote to spend more on development if you don't want to, that's your choice.

But the merger is costing 700k a day, 5 million BTS a week. Do you think BTS can afford spending 50-60 BTC a week on it, even though it's not achieving many of the original outcomes?

Do you think people who paid much more for PTS/AGS/DNS would sell their vest shares at this low price ?

[Empirical1.2]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

That's ok, it's a controversial topic and may not be in the best interest of BTS overall. 

You don't have to vote to spend more on development if you don't want to, that's your choice.

But the merger is costing 700k a day, 5 million BTS a week. Do you think BTS can afford spending 50-60 BTC a week on it, even though it's not achieving many of the original outcomes?

[pc]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting.

Oh yeah. Breaking promises has a great tradition here. I'm sure breaking another promise will let the BTS price explode.

Not.

Oh, btw, who should code that hardfork? Nobody wants to pay for a worker because that would be dilution, right?

[btswildpig]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

[Empirical1.2]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

[gamey]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

[fav]

Yes.

[julian1]

Support 100%. I don't be-grudge BM at all for needing to put food on the table, and launching a parallel chain with a bunch of insiders. But it's crazy, that BTS holders are continuing to pay for the merger (the point of which was to prevent fragmentation), under such circumstances.

[Empirical1.2]

The merger failed to prevent BM focusing on other, possibly competing projects, failed to retain Toast via merging DNS and failed to bring in FMV who are now crowdfunding separately.

The market would probably agree that you shouldn't continuing paying for a merger in these circumstances.

Currently I think over 700 000 BTS a day are being released, that would be a huge saving to BTS & also mean shareholders should be willing to spend more on development.

While most of my BTS is currently in the form of vesting merger shares, I think it would be better to end the merger early, does anyone else agree?

EDIT: Apologies for unclear question, poll is to delete/remove/void/cancel remaining merger shares.