As long as there is barely any volume in bitUSD I see no point in spending effort on getting volume in these other commodities.
I am wondering if there is some sort of plan for BTSX going into the future to increase utility, the potential user base, or increase the DACs profits. I would rather BTSX plan its future than to "wing it." I feel like the current slate of Bitassets is only utilizing a part of the potential of the DAC, and it is wasteful of the time spent developing the decentralized market place and market peg mechanism. Most of the derivatives would be trivial to add.. just a matter of updating the delegate price feed script and issuing new bitassets. We as shareholders could be making profits in the form of burned fees from these other derivative markets. Why not do it now compared to later... at least the ones that are easy to implement. Even if they initially had low volume or liquidity until the markets see better adoption, profit is profit and it would increase the profitability of the DAC. Volume and liquidity in the bitassets market will come when the infrastructure is developed fully along with adoption, and adoption can be furthered by giving users more options within the BTSX DAC. I think adding different types of derivatives is a huge selling point which will help adoption.
In my opinion I don't think the BTSX company should decide which derivatives are more important than others. I don't understand the obsession of bitUSD, as it is only one market in the dozens of markets we could be serving with more derivatives. Why not let the userbase and markets figure out which Bitassets are more important on their own? I think being able to diversify one's BTSX portfolio further would be a huge selling point. If we can pull in people's money that they would have invested elsewhere, I don't see any bad that can come of it speaking in terms of what is good for the company and burning as many shares as possible.
IMHO, I think the focus should be strengthening the peg and increasing the volume for the major currencies - USD, EURO, CNY by getting more players in. Once you have the volume, the other currency-type/commodity players would be attracted to come in. And of course, the wallet needs to be user-friendly, stable and less bugs.
- my bitUSD0.02
I think the market peg is quickly approaching being as accurate as possible without completely centralizing the service, or restricting it to the point we can't call it a free market approach anymore (maybe it's already there I dunno.) There are only so many tweaks that can be made. As far as I know these tweaks- or market restrictions- are the same across every bitassets, so if we do come up with a better system it could be easily implemented across the board. Last I looked at it, Bitassets were tracking at something like 99.5%.. I called it a success a long time ago. I think tweaking it more seems unnecessary, because the more restrictions that are placed on the market the less the term "free market approach" is applicable.
Volume and liquidity will arrive when the infrastructure (exchanges, payment processors, services) are fully developed and BTSX is further adopted. I think it is unrealistic to want this now or in the immediate future. Bitcoin wasn't adopted in a matter of months, it took years to get to where it is at. I think we are being impatient in terms of adoption and marketing, and too patient in terms of issuing new bitassets or getting the ones that are already created running. While waiting on BTSX to be adopted further, we should focus on improving the service and product. Then the users will come eventually once they see the value in BTSX, proper marketing is done, and the network effect kicks in. They might not see the true value of BTSX without us pushing BTSX to be all that it can be, and part of that (including what you mentioned.. Fixing bugs, user friendly, stable) is giving users more options as to what derivatives they can diversify into.
Most of the things I am suggesting should not take much time away from the developers developing, as the market and trading mechanics already in place. They can continue fixing bugs and making the wallet more user friendly and stable. Most of this is low hanging fruit.. IE. it could be implemented quickly with little effort because the necessities for which are already in place. We are not using the software to its fullest potential and missing out on profit that can be easily obtained by simply issuing new bitassets and updating the delegate price feed script. What sane company does not go after the low hanging fruit?
By pushing bitUSD, we are only cornering one market.. a stable cryptocurrency market. I agree that is an important market, and one in which BTSX mainly has been designed to solve, but why not corner multiple markets in the meantime since it would be so easy to implement them? It will expand the possible user base and thus help speed up adoption rates. Judging by the amount of people already invested in crypto currencies, there are a lot of people that don't care about the volatility. By issuing these other derivatives and allowing them to diversify outside of cryptocurrencies while technically staying inside of cryptocurrencies will certainly convert at least a few of these people.