fact is nearly all coins are in a downtrend, and fact is nxt, counterparty, mastercoin, ethereum, bitcoin foundation, etc. are struggling as much if not more than we are.. fact is everyone in crypto have underestimated the cost associated with revolutionizing finance. fact is if we all go up again to 150 million, bitshares devs would be making $10k a month. fact is there is a good chance the whole space, bitcoin included, is in its deceptive phase. fact is even at this price things are getting done that wouldn't have been without the delegate system. fact is most of the vc cash flowing into this space is going to solutions that break with honest principles, and they will suffer from centralized control down the line, just like gox did, just like ripple did, just like the bitcoin foundation did. fact is most people don't "get it" yet, and they won't until there is a new bubble, and by then we are ready with a decentralized, sound economically viable system.

Privacy is about access control not secrecy. It's not important that we have secrets but it is important that we limit access to sensitive information about ourselves.

Limited access meaning you can programmatically select who can access what and under what circumstances. Secrecy on the other hand breeds corruption and allows for government agents to get away with bad deeds.

To protect ourselves we need transparency and privacy. The way to have both is programmable privacy (access control) instead of total secrecy (where you're the only one in the world with access). The same way multi-sig or split shared secrets are more secure than to give one person a private key to everything.

I want control. I think all participants should have control over their data. I don't think secrecy protects participants because no one trusts a person who keeps secrets from all but I do think if you selectively give access then you can both be trusted and private. In the situation where you want to rule yourself out as not being involved with terrorism wouldn't it be nice if you had an identity to link your transactions to? Wouldn't a receipt suddenly come in handy at that moment?

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Before you rush to build an identity registration system, or, to submit your face, fingerprint or DNA to such a system, please, please please take a moment to think what your decision may do to your future, and that of the people in your life. I get a major chill when I think of VOTE and government involvement in identity registration.

Having an identity, a reputation, are good things. The problem with how it's done today is you're not in control of who can access your information. You don't own your digital self.

By giving people control and ownership back of their digital self then they can share themselves with the people they designated as trusted. If a person is anonymous with no reputation, no one anywhere knows their identity, no way to confirm they are who they say they are, what good is that? The person could easily be a terrorist or undercover corrupt government agent and we would have no way to know.

On the other hand if an entity of their choosing has their identity then that entity could verify them as a "stand up" person or a "legitimate" person.

To put it into perspective Alice and Bob seek to communicate pseudo-anonymously, privately, but they want to be able to know that they are dealing with a "stand up" / "legitimate" individual. To accomplish this Alice would register her identity with a peer to peer identity verifying DAC and Bob would also register his identity with a peer to peer verifying DAC. As long as that decentralized entity knows and verifies their identity then some people in the world are on record vouching for their authenticity.

Now why is this important? Let's say it's 2025 and now there are civil wars, terrorist attacks going on, and anonymous groups are abusing the technology we've helped to create. Wouldn't it be useful in that context to have an ability to have people know you're vouched for? This isn't the same as a government ID because in this case there might not need to be a centralized service which has your identity information.

This is good for your privacy because it means no one can attack the central identity service to hack everyone and steal their identities. But it also would give you the ability to have a reputation and identity when having that can come in handy. Anonymity is nice when you want free speech but if you want to be taken seriously, and you want to be trusted, then being anonymous may be in your detriment. Additionally in the situation of a conflict or war it would definitely be in your best interest to have an identity so long as you have complete control over who can access it.

When I'm experimenting with marketing slogans, I'm presuming the thing we are marketing is Ready for Prime Time.  I am not advocating telling people that a beta product is Safer than a Swiss Bank while it is still under development.
(Although, knowing what I know about the global banking system, it may well be)

It's always hard to separate "what is" from "what surely will be".

A major reason to use BitShares for the average person is because it will compete favorably against complacent financial institutions that no longer serve them well.  If that were not true, there would really not be a need for smart currencies and decentralized exchanges.

So, to me, it is important to dramatically highlight that difference as our target audience slowly wakes up to the fact that their savings are not all that safe in the legacy global banking system any more.  We are just about one more Cyprus away from that Great Awakening.

As my possibly fictitious great, great, great granddaddy always used to say, "Play the game for when the dust settles."