I think this is good, but are you suggesting the core devs focus on the front end too or mainly be the backend blockchain & market engine and provide an SDK for other companies to build various UI/UX (ie. Etrade/Think or Swim/Tradestation/Bitfinex/Kraken etc.)?

Delegates can be hired to work on both the front end and back end.  Of course anyone could utilize the back end as a market engine for their platform. 

Bitshares hasn't taken off yet because there isn't a working product yet, IMO.  End users are not going to use a resource-intensive full client.  They will use a web or mobile client.  Only delegates need to run full nodes.  We are very close to the end user solution. 

I have used many exchanges:  bitstamp, bitfinex, coinbase, bter, poloniex, mtgox, btc-e, vircurex, mcxnow.  Bitfinex is by far the best as far as functionality and ease of use IMO.   Maybe I can explain this graphically:



1)  Direct exchange between assets.  From what I understand, this is tricky to do but it is absolutely necessary to compete with centralized exchanges.  A BTC/USD asset pair is essential and could be the focus to begin with for a real, working product.  Bitfinex alone had over 1.2 million bitcoin exchange volume in February.

2)  Advanced order types.  These order types are very useful to traders.  Coinbase exchange does not have these order types, only bare bones buy and sell, yet monthly volume in February was over 320,000 BTC - and this is only their 4th month trading.

3)  Deposit/withdrawal.  This is necessary and could go through direct links to on/off ramps such as metaexchange. 



As others have stated, leverage is something traders absolutely want.  Bitfinex uses 2.5:1 and OKCoin goes all the way up to 20:1.  Bitfinex uses a P2P style lending between users.  This may also be tricky to do in a blockchain-based system, but is necessary to compete.  A P2P lending market may be the easiest to implement.



A simple web-based platform for buying and selling bitcoin and USD would be a good start.  The key selling point would be that you are trading in a trust-minimized, blockchain-based environment with no third party risk.  A report as of April 2013 states that 45% of all bitcoin exchanges fail.  That rate may be higher by now.  If you percieve the risk of catastrophic systemic failure (where everyone loses all of their money) from bitshares at less than 45%, then the decentralized exchange is your best option, and bitshares has been in existence for nearly one year now without systemic failure in which you lose all of your money and that type of failure has never really been a threat.

This should lead to other markets being bootstrapped for trading.  Eventually, the web-based interface could have a similar user experience to something like TD Ameritrade, without the threat of third-party risk or censorship from using the system for any reason.  End user security is very important with 2fa or something similar being mandatory. 

Also, I don't like the rule requiring shorts to cover after 30 days.  This was done to increase liquidity in the system, but may be taking liquidity from the system as users don't like the time limit on their trade, therefore they are being discouraged from initiating a short in the first place.  I would like to see this rule removed completely or at least scaled back quite a bit.



tl;dr - We need to mimic the user experience of centralized exchanges such as bitfinex while using the bitshares blockchain as the backend to create a trust-minimized trading and asset storage environment.  We should start by bootstrapping the BTC/USD market, which had a monthly trade volume of over 15 million coins in February alone.  Just 0.5% of that market should be plenty to bootstrap the entire bitshares system with a healthy market cap and reasonable pay for developers.  Then, more functionality can be added.

Its psychology... patterns tend to repeat themselves.. this is a good find thanks. Human greed and emotions can be repeat in the same way.. price doesn't always reflect it.. usually rhymes though.

Exactly

The top image is a price chart of bitcoin in 2011.  The bottom image is a current price chart of bitshares.



Bitcoin experienced a 5.5 month, 94% decline in the second half of 2011.  Bitshares has so far experienced similar, although a bit longer and not quite as deep.  Bitcoin then embarked on a bull market and I believe bitshares could experience the same as it has by far the best model of any other 2.0 project out there, at least as far as market pegged assets go, which has enormous potential.  We may see another dip or two to complete the bear, but it looks like the worst is over.  We shall see.

Quote from: Helikopterben on March 13, 2015, 12:48:01 am

Quote from: starspirit on March 12, 2015, 11:42:16 pm

The central bank will not default, no matter the monetary manipulations on the USD required to accomplish this.

Monetary manipulations on the USD (money printing) IS default.  Debts are not repaid legitimately, therefore it is default on their obligations.

But it's true that those hurt savings stored in BitUSD just as much as they hurt other USD (except for yield).  There would be less need for an MPA tracking USD if USD itself were less unwieldy.  It would be more like BitBTC and BTC.

True.  Any form of fiat will only last until the central bank destroys it.  That is why the true innovation is assets such as bitgold, bitoil, ect.  Bitfiat is only intended to bridge the gap.

Has anyone got their withdrawal yet?  Mine still says processing.

Same here

You sold at the bottom.   $0.01 per bts is ridiculously cheap. 

I agree that liquidity, on/off ramps, ease of use and security are absolutely critical for future growth.  I would also add that rules that punish short sellers liquidity providers will have to be relaxed at some point.  Nobody wants to short gold or btc right now.  The 30 day buyback rule probably limits people from doing this.  I realize this rule was created to bootstrap these markets, but at some point it will have to be relaxed or done away with completey. 

We're working with metaexchange to achieve just this. It would really be the dream if we could one day get completely rid of our reliance of the centralized exchanges.

We need to mimic the user experience of a centralized exchange as closely as possible.  It will be interesting to see what the Web interface looks like.  A blockchain.info-style interface where users retain complete control of their assets with mandatory 2fa would be ideal... apart from that, users would interact with the system just as they would on a centralized exchange, only without third party risk.  I know the devs are hard at work on just that.  I can't wait to see it.