Lets try again..


First of all, glad to see the post has generated interest and discussion amongst members. It seems I'm not the only one sensing a good opportunity here.

I'd like to propose a possible path forward for this.

First of, liquidity is absolutely essential. That should go without saying, so lets just assume (I know, big assumption) that's taken care of. What comes next?


It seems to me that we need to pen a bunch of articles in the right places (I can take a stab at doing the research and the writing), because few people outsite of the ecosystem are even aware of bitGOLD and bitSILVER.

Forum activity at bitcointalk (at the right time, and slowly dropping links to the articles we will have written in the step above over time) would also be welcomed.

After that, we can do is get some of our radio-voice guys interviewed at podcasts like Lets talk Bitcoin, The Ether Review, Epicenter Bitcoin, and of course, our own Beyond Bitcoin.

In the Bitshares-alien podcasts, we can spin it in such a way to make it attractive to the average crypto user, who wants some exposure to gold/silver price, either as a safe haven asset for the medium/long term, or simply to store profits between trades. All the advantages (and disadvantages!) outlined in the original post should be brought up and discussed.

By the way, unless it has changed, DGX has demurrage fees built in (to pay for the actual storage), which can be seen as an advantage for our bitMetals as well.


Now then, at that point we have:
  - Liquidity (easiest to begin with might be OPEN.BTC/bit{GOLD,SILVER} ? open to suggestions..)
  - Articles in prominent places.
  - A troll-filled thread in bitcointalk ()
  - A couple of interviews in a few podcasts.

.. which should mean that new users are arriving to try it out. It's more or less at this point (ideally, a bit before  ) that we write some tutorials over at steemit, because apparently it's a common complaint that the bitshares wallet "is confusing".

We don't want new users to come look and leave in disgust, which is what will happen if there's no liquidity, and if there's not a clear-cut procedure for people to follow in the beginning. Once they have hundreds of $fiat worth in bitMetals, then they're not as likely to leave .. essentially, it's necessary to make a good first impression.


So at this point there's a buzz, there's new users, the markets are active, and it's time to go to the major exchanges to get BTC/bitMetals, ETH/bitMetals (see what I did there) and (in Poloniex) USDT/bitMetals (ditto) listed.

Add another round of tutorials about how to deposit/withdraw/buy/sell bitMetals in the major exchanges, and voila.


Maybe I missed a step or two, but what do you think?

I agree that liquidity is the most important thing we need to get going in order to increase the BTS toke value... I think it can be done in a less aggressive way than what the OP is suggesting.

We need to focus on forex traders.  This is the demographic that the Dex is geared toward already.  There is a common belief that we need microscopic fee's to entice traders.  That's not true.  Traders demand liquidity and are HAPPY to pay a fee as long as there accounts are secure and there orders are filled immediately.  A fee of .10-.25 per filled trade is so small a trader wouldn't even blink an eye.  @Empirical1.2  has had a few good posts about increasing liquidity.

If we are able to increase liquidity on a few smartcoins then traders will come.  Once the traders start trading, bts will finally be generating a profit.  By generating a profit BTS becomes more like a company and its shares become more attractive.  Speculators enter the system and buy BTS while also trading and dabbling within the system therefore creating more liquidity for smartcoins.  More liquidity means more traders means more fees means more profit means higher BTS price.  It's a circle and can be done without a hardfork.

I do agree with some here, that a hardfork snaphshot that changes the supply would be the death knell for BTS.

One hundred percent.

https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@karnal/the-case-for-bitgold-and-bitsilver

Just in case things had changed in the mean time, I opened the bitshares client to confirm that the situation in these markets is still bleak.

(It is).

Some of you may not have noticed, but the people at https://digix.io/ have slowly been gaining traction in the ethereum space. If you don't know them, essentially they have a DGX token, which is backed by real gold, secured in a vault they control. There's some fancy proof of audit (by a 3rd party) scheme going on as well, not worth going into.

There's also the DGD token, which pays quarterly dividends (!) for hodlers, the funds come from DGX transfer fees.


They're aiming to use "gold as money" online, and being a frequent lurker in their slack, I can tell you that their concerns about fraud are keeping the company on edge -- just you wait until DGX begins being used for illegal activity .. in their case, there IS a central company the "authorities" can go after.

In fact, Digix recently announced that they'll be requiring KYC/AML documents (yet another company that can pull identity theft on you, fantastic!) for simply purchasing DGX at their exchange (https://app.digix.io) !

Now, of course, one can simply pull the DGX from another source (DGX will likely be available at shapeshift, poloniex, in the near (<3mo? guesstimation) future.

But it speaks volumes about the bind they've got themselves into.


Now, when people ask me about gold and silver, I give them the standard answer that unless you have the real physical deal, then you don't really own it. And to a large extent, I still stand by that.

But these tokenised assets in the blockchain do, I believe, bring something new to the game .. it is considerably different to own a gold etf, backed by empty promises, and which may or may not be redeemed for fiat at a time of your choosing, and owning a "gold etf-token" in the blockchain .. which, provided there is enough liquidity, traders can always get rid of, or acquire, at will.


I believe we're missing on a giant piece of the cake here, by not having these markets liquid. Sure, fiat currency mpa are also fine for this, but many people (yours truly included) like having some considerable hedging for them with metals.

We can position ourselves - favorably, even - against Digix. Other than dividends, Bitshares does everything their platform does, and at least as far as I can see, better. Our DGD is BTS, our DGX is bitGold.

If only BTS paid dividends But I digress.. and I don't think that by itself, that's enough reason to say Digix is a superior solution.

Of course there is no real gold behind bitGold, so there is that, some people will be turned off by that, others (who just want price exposition) couldn't care less. There's plenty of space for healthy competition, and while there is significant overlap in what DGX and bitGold can offer (mainly using gold for trading / saving online), each solution has its own unique advantages and disadvantages as well.

I do believe we are not making enough (any) of an effort to let this be known.

While Digix is gaining slow but very steady traction in the ethereum camp, how many people outside of Bitshares know of bitGold and bitSilver?
(also, can we have bitPalladium? :])


Hell, later on we can even get together and scheme for a shiny plastic gold card, and market it as "the gold-backed debit card!!oneone" .. people will go crazy. Crazy, I tell you.


I think OUR platform is much better for what they're trying to achieve (it has nothing to do with having been brainwashed by the cult of Bitshares! I promise!).

I think that if we mount a coordinated marketing campaign, make some pretty websites, and maybe get a few people together to brainstorm getting that plastic card going, there might be something here.

There's also liquidity, of course, but since we already have the bot infrastructure, it's "only" a matter of putting some pooled funds into them (could we obtain them from a worker proposal?)

Let me know what you think ..

IMO this is one of the killer apps for Bitshares.

"Bitshares, the Cryptobank".

I fully agree with this, and it's also part of my vision for Bitshares ..

It'll never take off without privacy, however. No matter how good the interface.

Quote from: karnal on June 08, 2016, 09:25:30 am

I don't have a steem account so posting here instead .. for some time now I've been pondering the best way to help out, see what can be done to bring bitshares to a wider audience.. so count me in!

Well one way to help out would be to post some names of people you appreciate for helping bitshares.  I am reaching out to other communities too, so if bitshares has 4 people and some other community has lots of activity compared to us it will only make bitshares look second rate.  So what everyone who wants to help can do is post the names and efforts of others in bitshares who you consider "leaders" of bitshares.

The usual suspects, of course! @xeroc @fav @fuzzy @kenCode @svk @ccedk @arhag .. it's late, maybe I'm forgetting someone..

I maintain that having no privacy on the blockchain at this stage is a massive blunder.

If stealth is fundamentally broken, then that's an ever bigger blunder.

Almost nobody interested in crypto will want a completely transparent blockchain. At least based on my experience around such communities.


Also, for 99.999% of our potential users, Tor is a no-go: the light client has no proxying support, and the default Tor browser configuration runs in private/incognito mode, so localstorage isn't available, so the wallet throws an error while starting up.

Besides, as discussed in another thread some days ago, the wss endpoint can correlate accounts to a wallet, even worse to all your wallets, since the connection the client establishes to the server isn't closed when switching wallet.


Mind elaborating on the issues with Dash? What is wrong with DarkSend (or whatever they've rebranded it to these days)

There is no way in hell that Cob scammed anyone.  If he could talk about whatever the issue is, he would. 

I wonder who is in fact controlling the project at the moment.

The reptillians, of course.