Its time we lost a lot of our old thinking and look differently at what our offering can provide to the world. Its time we stopped talking about bitAssets as CFDs (of which its only a mutated version anyway). There is no need to invoke the requirement that currency is created by speculative shorts. There is no need for all currencies and assets to be based on a one-size-fits-all bitAsset structure. They had a place once, but the external world does not care for and may even fear these technical curiosities. It wants familiar and better services offering greater freedom and flexibility. BitAssets are so much more than these things, and thinking of them in this way is heavily constraining their required evolution, and our path to self-funding profitability.
What is a bitUSD? Its a transferable token that represents a collateralised USD loan to a set of borrowers. Anybody can borrow in bitUSD, for any purpose, by providing acceptable digital collateral (*i). Anybody can use their borrowing as a margin loan if they choose to buy other digital assets, including BTS (*ii). Anybody can use the funds for market-making income by switching between bitUSD and real USD(*iii). Anybody can use the transferable token as a substitute USD.
The bond market (to come) is a way to lend and borrow USD at different terms. Again these USD funds can be used for any purpose as long as collateral is provided (*iv).
Combined, these services provide competition against Bitfinex, Poloniex, and others, with the advantages of eliminating exchange risk, allowing general purpose loans, and allowing loan receipts to be used as a substitute stable currency.
The trading exchange (to come) is a way to take margined positions on speculative assets. These can either be done in derivative form (expiry of instruments) or traditional CFD form (with an intermediary taking a spread). But the current BitAsset structure is not ideal for these instruments and needs to be discarded (*v). For a start, bitUSD should be the currency of denomination, not BTS. This service would compete against every asset exchange in the world with the advantage of eliminating exchange risk and lowering costs.
Unshackle the existing bitAsset paradigm, and suddenly we may see whole new ways to compete and earn profit. I see the potential for a more rewarding roadmap. It's not constant and evolves. But I think a roadmap on the services we are striving to offer is critical to making the right choices about our product design.
(*i Self-create a bitUSD by depositing the required collateral, sell the bitUSD for real USD funds)
(*ii Want leverage to BTS? Use the real USD funds to buy more BTS. Or why not BTC or LTC or DASH....)
(*iii Self-create bitUSD, sell bitUSD for real USD at premium, buy back at discount, etc)
(*iv Self-create a bond by depositing the required collateral, sell the bond for bitUSD or real USD funds).
(*v Require bitUSD deposit/margin accounts, leverage and long/short symmetry.)