I feel like people use "revolution" so much it can start to sound cheesy to some.  I also like "get your share".... "bitshares: get your share".

Different shirts will appeal to different people for different situations.  Sometimes something understated that just has a logo or graphic is nice.  It could have "bitshares.org" on the top of sleeve?

Our protection against this is that the registration fee is equal to about two weeks' worth of block production, so this attack will drain their stake. Each delegate's stats are visible in the client and eventually you will have the option to let your client auto-downvote misbehaving delegates.

Ok, maybe this is enough but it seems that people could still cycle through their old delegates that got voted down without paying new registration fees right?  People can't waste their down votes on old stale delegates that got voted out a long time ago.

This particular attack would only matter if the attacker had 51% of the delegates.   They get in power and the only thing they can do is 'not produce a block' or 'not include a transaction' and thus I do not see what they could gain.

I guess I'm thinking of it as much in political terms as in compromising the network.  There are other reasons to want to be a delegate other than to attack the network (profit) and other reasons to down-vote delegates (such as delegates that are returning fees only to people voting for them).

I haven't done any research regarding NEM but I intend to do so...Do you believe it is too late now? I think I read some posts from NXT forum saying that NEM is not a threat to NXT, that they bought cheap NEM and now are selling etc..So if NXTers got first NEM stakes and are dumping now their shares I don't think there is much potential with NEM but I might be mistaken ofcourse..

Something else that might sound silly to many people is the name "NEM" is not nice. "NXT" "Next generation bla bla" is much nicer...I can't believe that any cryptocurrency, equity will survive without a nice name...

PPC is obviously a better coin than bitcoin. But how on earth they came up with the name peerpeer coin? The could have just called it p2pcoin...

Black coin also could be a nice coin. Why on earth would you call a coin "black" and stigmatize it whith racism? Same applies to "Darkcoin"...oooo dark..drugs, anonymity, illegal activities....

Some people really should pay more attention how they name their coins...

I have my NEM stake.  I take bitshares more seriously, but I like NEM better than NXT at current price... mostly a gut feeling.  NEM stands for "New Economy Movement"  I actually like the name better than NXT.  I think they are auctioning off a good number of stakes after they release an alpha.  I'm not sure if it would be cheaper now or then, but you could wait for the auction to play it safer.  And of course nothing is released so it's speculation.  I like bitshares in the long run but lots of people are into NEM and I could see it going up a lot.

No offense luckybit, but you're not following the logic.  I want to make ROI as much as anyone else. I'm also not advocating that we delay bitshares X for this.

But keep in mind, companies do this because it works and it makes all the initial investors more money, you don't seem to be able to figure out why.

BTW: We can make you your very own copy of bitshares X that you own 100% and you can keep it all!!  Of course it will never be worth anything but rest assured you won't be diluted.

Anyway, I should probably stop because I don't know any other way to say this.  I suspect it will eventually be tried both ways and you can guess where my money will be going.

For there to be any dilution, the majority of stakeholders would have to want it.  To me it seems strange for us to say: "even if the majority of stake/shareholders want it, we know what's best for them better than they do, so we should protect them from themselves."  I don't think your co-owners want you to protect them from themselves, I think they want to be empowered and have their stake and voice respected.

A DAC that can issue shares attracts developers with fair compensation and customers with low fees.  A DAC that is waiting for the day they collect enough fees to start reinvesting in their growth would get SMOKED in comparison.  Or again, a DAC that is expecting volunteers/charity and creating all the wrong incentive structures is going to get SMOKED.  Not everyone with something to contribute has time to work for free; why would people volunteer to develop and promote this DAC when they can work for a reasonable DAC that is willing to compensate them for their time?

Taking a hard line against leveraged growth is like teaching your kid financial responsibility by making them work at Walmart until they've saved enough for college.

Do you think Zuckerberg could build Facebook into a company with 1000s of employees out of his dorm room by waiting for advertising revenue to come in to buy a couple more computers and maybe hire someone down the road? Not one chance in a million years.

The only companies paying dividends and not leveraging their market value are companies that are already peaking in their growth or have achieved market saturation or dominance.  Bitshares is a world away from this.

We talk about decentralization, empowerment, and creating the right incentives and then ignore it completely to trust that AGS funds controlled by a handful of people is enough to grow our "decentralized" businesses.

The devil is in the details and implementation. But rest assured someone will implement this and then watch out if they are HIRING while we are running on volunteer labor, transaction fees, and fumes.

I agree it's hard to market a product that hasn't arrived, which creates a difficult situation.

I think if we are confident we can get this right in a reasonable time-frame then there is no problem.  I also think Brian has been good in interviews and seems he would be an asset if we get something to market.

I also think we need to be very realistic about the potential delays and technical challenges ahead.  We have had unexpected delays and donations have slowed considerably.  It would be a horrible shame if we ever got to the point that developers had to stop work to look for other work or we had to pass up on hiring great developers because we ran out of money before the goals and vision were accomplished.

I don't know enough to do that calculus but I know it's very difficult to be realistic with people you have become friends with so it would be hard for bytemaster to get rid of people even if it was a necessary business decision, so the community needs to be brutally realistic. We can survive with just developers if we absolutely need to.  Of course we all hope this isn't the case and we will have products that need marketing soon.

Suggestion:

Try to make voting "anonymous".  I think it is not desirable if a delegate can buy votes (selectively give back transaction fees to those that vote for the delegate).

An attacking entity can operate at a loss and pay people to vote for their delegates.

Representation isn't equivalent to consent, and dilution with seignorage granted to someone else is just redistribution.... and shareholders have motivation to invest time and resources to grow the value of their investment voluntarily.

If transaction fees are insufficient I'd suggest convincing shareholders to reinvest directly and voluntarily.  Allowing even a majority of stakeholders the discretion to dilute the stake of the minority without their consent is problematic.

I think you are worried about some kind of tyranny of the majority if elected employees were allowed to issue new shares.  I think what you have to keep in mind is that there is very little motivation for a majority to try to take advantage of a minority or "redistribute" money to themselves because there is just nothing keeping the minority there.  It's just too easy for them to take there support to a DAC that isn't majority owned by stupid A*holes.  And then those majority owners become majority owners of a whole lot of nothing.

It's just like if the US government tried to buy up half of bitshares X and then control it.  All they would do is put a bunch of money in peoples pockets who would then proceed to fork the DAC without the government stake honored.

A DAC is a FREE ASSOCIATION of people who's interests are aligned.

Our current representative government has problems and opportunities for abuse and corruption but a huge part of that is because of the barriers to entry/exit/participation.  If you have to take time off work to vote and then sometimes stand in line for hours and then someone makes a law you don't like, what can you do?  You can't say well "count me out" I'll not be following these laws and will just join this other group instead.

I think the larger a DAC became the more you would find how ineffective relying on volunteers to do things to boost everyone's value would become.  If you own 1 millionth of a DAC are you going to take time out of your day to grow the market cap of that DAC just so you can get 1 millionth of the fruits of your labor?