BitShares Forum

Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: bytemaster on October 26, 2014, 09:56:57 pm

Title: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: bytemaster on October 26, 2014, 09:56:57 pm
BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope

In a controversial move the founders of BitShares have decided to combine features formally divided among multiple competing systems including BitShares X, VOTE, DNS, and all other future features they can conceive under a single Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) that will go by BitShares.

BitShares X which was originally designed to be a single decentralized exchange trading in collateralized derivatives of major currencies will join forces with domain name auctioning and voting applications.   These currency derivatives known as BitAssets such as BitUSD and BitGLD have all of the properties of Bitcoin with the price stability of the underlying asset and are considered the killer app of the BitShares ecosystem.

Smart Contracts with turing complete scripting environment has been added to the BitShares roadmap to facilitate growth and prototyping of new features.  This feature combined with BitAssets should give Ethereum some serious competition in the smart contract market.

Until recently the BitShares ecosystem was known for promoting many competing block chains (DACs) each with their own development team.   Each DAC would have had its own variation on BitUSD and would have competed for the same users and market cap.   This setup was designed to promote decentralization and robustness, but in reality it meant that the development team was fractured and divided against itself.    Under the new arrangement the development teams behind BitShares DNS, VOTE, and X have combined forces to focus on a single unified product.

Similar to corporate mergers, the result of combining forces is the elimination of redundant marketing, development, testing, and support resources.   The developers have prepared a roadmap that would gradually introduce new features to BitShares.

To align incentives and bring the communities together BTSX has decided to give a two year vesting stake to people who had a stake in  BitShares PTS, DNS, and VOTE as well as recognize those who gave funds to support the BitShares ecosystem.  In total BTS will “air drop”  7% PTS, 7% AGS, 3% VOTE, and 3% DNS.  This air drop is not a buyout or merger but a no strings attached gift to these communities to encourage them to contribute to BTSX rather than their own competitors.    This air drop will be made based upon ownership as of midnight UTC.   Users should remove all PTS and DNS from exchanges prior the air drop deadline. 

The leads of VOTE and DNS have already decided to join the BitShares bandwagon.  PTS and AGS will continue in their role and 3rd parties such as BitShares Music, BitShares Play among a few others still intend to airdrop on these communities in recognition of their role in bootstrapping the BitShares ecosystem and the bitshares toolkit.

BitShares X owners will simply download an upgrade and the BTSX block chain will become the BitShares block chain and be known on exchanges as BTS.    Owners of PTS, VOTE, and DNS will be able to import their wallets to receiving their vesting stake. 

The core BitShares team behind the development of the BitShares toolkit has committed not to compete against itself, but instead to focus on making BTS the best system it can be and will have their undivided support.   This marks a major turning point in the development of BitShares and is potentially a game changer in the crypto-currency market space. 

FAQ:
BTSX will become BTS and will be the same blockchain, BTSX will remain liquid and trading will not be interrupted.

Exchanges are not expected to honor the November 5th snapshot because the positions will not be liquid, you should remove all DNS and PTS from exchanges prior to November 5th. 

The combined client with rebranding to BTS will be released toward the end of November

PTS, AGS, VOTE and DNS stakes will vest linearly over 2 years, meaning that each day users will get to claim some of their stake.

BTSX will not have a vesting period.

BitAssets such as BitUSD / BitGLD should be unaffected 

User names allocated in DNS will not be migrated to BTSX

PTS will continue to circulate and trade; however, without I3 planning any future snapshots its value will be based upon the speculative value of 3rd party DACs such as Music, Play, and others. 

PTS block intervals will probably grow significantly and mining may stop all together.  PTS is maintained by Testz and not I3. 

A new blockchain "DevShares" will be used for testing the upgrade of BTS and future hard forks as well as experimental features and economic experiments.   This blockchain will be a 40/40/20 snapshot AGS/PTS/X taken on November 5th.    DevShares will not be considered a "safe store of value" but non-the-less will have value for those wishing to test their smart contracts or BTS integration on a low-value chain.   Details on DevShares will be provided over the coming month.

PTS / AGS holders will effectively receive 20% stake in all PAST and FUTURE blockchain ideas built by the Invictus team through this air drop, plus a much larger cut in DevShares, Play, and Music among others.

There is too much to cover in a single press release, so I hope to have the press release focus on the high level "good" and then direct users to a wiki page with the FAQ details.   Please post any unanswered questions you have here. 


   
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: bytemaster on October 26, 2014, 09:58:25 pm
I know there are a TON of grammar issues... so if someone wants to help format the press release in google DOCs that would be very helpful. 
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: xeroc on October 26, 2014, 10:13:34 pm
+5%

Can you confirm that shorts do not need to be covered prior to the upgrade?
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: bytemaster on October 26, 2014, 10:15:30 pm
+5%

Can you confirm that shorts do not need to be covered prior to the upgrade?

Confirmed.. BTSX users have nothing to do prior to the upgrade..
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: matt608 on October 26, 2014, 10:17:59 pm
Nice!  +5%

A new blockchain "DevShares" will be used for testing the upgrade of BTS and future hard forks as well as experimental features and economic experiments.   This blockchain will be a 40/40/20 snapshot AGS/PTS/X taken on November 5th.    DevShares will not be considered a "safe store of value" but non-the-less will have value for those wishing to test their smart contracts or BTS integration on a low-value chain.   Details on DevShares will be provided over the coming month.

Is the 20 of the 40/40/20 devshares snapshot "X" BTSX? 

Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: onceuponatime on October 26, 2014, 10:20:12 pm
+5%

I found a few of the grammar changes that might be helpful:


BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope

In a controversial move the founders of BitShares have decided to combine features formally divided among multiple competing systems including BitShares X, VOTE, DNS, and all other future features they can conceive under a single Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) that will go by BitShares.

BitShares X which(,) was originally designed to be a single decentralized exchange trading in collateralized derivatives of major currencies(,) will join forces with domain name auctioning and voting applications.   These currency derivatives known as BitAssets such as BitUSD and BitGLD have all of the properties of Bitcoin with the price stability of the underlying asset and are considered the killer app of the BitShares ecosystem.

Smart Contracts with turing complete scripting environment has been added to the BitShares roadmap to facilitate growth and prototyping of new features.  This feature combined with BitAssets should give Ethereum some serious competition in the smart contract market.

Until recently the BitShares ecosystem was known for promoting many competing block chains (DACs) each with their own development team.   Each DAC would have had its own variation on BitUSD and would have competed for the same users and market cap.   This setup was designed to promote decentralization and robustness, but in reality it meant that the development team was fractured and divided against itself.    Under the new arrangement the development teams behind BitShares DNS, VOTE, and X have combined forces to focus on a single unified product.

Similar to corporate mergers, the result of combining forces is the elimination of redundant marketing, development, testing, and support resources.   The developers have prepared a roadmap that would gradually introduce new features to BitShares.

To align incentives and bring the communities together BTSX has decided to give a two year vesting stake to people who had a stake in  BitShares PTS, DNS, and VOTE as well as recognize those who gave funds to support the BitShares ecosystem.  In total BTS will “air drop”  7% PTS, 7% AGS, 3% VOTE, and 3% DNS.  This air drop is not a buyout or merger but a no strings attached gift to these communities to encourage them to contribute to BTSX rather than their own competitors.    This air drop will be made based upon ownership as of midnight UTC.   Users should remove all PTS and DNS from exchanges prior (to) the air drop deadline. 

The leads of VOTE and DNS have already decided to join the BitShares bandwagon.  PTS and AGS will continue in their role(s) and 3rd parties such as BitShares Music, BitShares Play among a few others still intend to airdrop on these communities in recognition of their role in bootstrapping the BitShares ecosystem and the bitshares toolkit.

BitShares X owners will simply download an upgrade and the BTSX block chain will become the BitShares block chain and be known on exchanges as BTS.    Owners of PTS, VOTE, and DNS will be able to import their wallets to receiv(e) their vesting stake. 

The core BitShares team behind the development of the BitShares toolkit has committed not to compete against itself, but instead to focus on making BTS the best system it can be and will have their undivided support.   This marks a major turning point in the development of BitShares and is potentially a game changer in the crypto-currency market space. 

FAQ:
BTSX will become BTS and will be the same blockchain, BTSX will remain liquid and trading will not be interrupted.

Exchanges are not expected to honor the November 5th snapshot because the positions will not be liquid, you should remove all DNS and PTS from exchanges prior to November 5th. 

The combined client with rebranding to BTS will be released toward the end of November

PTS, AGS, VOTE and DNS stakes will vest linearly over 2 years, meaning that each day users will get to claim some of their stake.

BTSX will not have a vesting period.

BitAssets such as BitUSD / BitGLD should be unaffected 

User names allocated in DNS will not be migrated to BTSX

PTS will continue to circulate and trade; however, without I3 planning any future snapshots(,) its value will be based upon the speculative value of 3rd party DACs such as Music, Play, and others. 

PTS block intervals will probably grow significantly and mining may stop all together.  PTS is maintained by Testz and not I3. 

A new blockchain "DevShares" will be used for testing the upgrade of BTS and future hard forks as well as experimental features and economic experiments.   This blockchain will be a 40/40/20 snapshot AGS/PTS/X taken on November 5th.    DevShares will not be considered a "safe store of value" but non-the-less will have value for those wishing to test their smart contracts or BTS integration on a low-value chain.   Details on DevShares will be provided over the coming month.

PTS / AGS holders will effectively receive 20% stake in all PAST and FUTURE blockchain ideas built by the Invictus team through this air drop, plus a much larger cut in DevShares, Play, and Music among others.

There is too much to cover in a single press release, so I hope to have the press release focus on the high level "good" and then direct users to a wiki page with the FAQ details.   Please post any unanswered questions you have here. 


 
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Method-X on October 26, 2014, 10:45:38 pm
Can you post a Google docs link please.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Tuck Fheman on October 26, 2014, 10:46:26 pm
tl;dr : "So moon."
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Rune on October 26, 2014, 10:49:28 pm
Looks great.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Thom on October 26, 2014, 10:56:12 pm
Been hearing this phrase turing complete mentioned lately, what does it mean?
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: tonyk on October 26, 2014, 11:06:13 pm
Been hearing this phrase turing complete mentioned lately, what does it mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: onceuponatime on October 26, 2014, 11:07:22 pm
Been hearing this phrase turing complete mentioned lately, what does it mean?



From wikipedia:

    Turing completeness, named after Alan Turing, is significant in that every plausible design for a computing device so far advanced can be emulated by a universal Turing machine — an observation that has become known as the Church-Turing thesis. Thus, a machine that can act as a universal Turing machine can, in principle, perform any calculation that any other programmable computer is capable of. However, this has nothing to do with the effort required to write a program for the machine, the time it may take for the machine to perform the calculation, or any abilities the machine may possess that are unrelated to computation.

    While truly Turing-complete machines are very likely physically impossible, as they require unlimited storage, Turing completeness is often loosely attributed to physical machines or programming languages that would be universal if they had unlimited storage. All modern computers are Turing-complete in this sense.

I don't know how you can be more non-technical than that except by saying "turing complete means 'able to answer computable problem given enough time and space'".
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Rune on October 26, 2014, 11:09:41 pm
Been hearing this phrase turing complete mentioned lately, what does it mean?

It means we are going to hire Vitalik ;)
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Thom on October 26, 2014, 11:14:46 pm
I figured it was some esoteric relation to a turing machine. Just another buzz word with little to add over just saying "we're adding a scripting lanuage" to the client. It that statement is incorrect, pls explain the difference between "turing complete" scripting and just scripting.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Riverhead on October 26, 2014, 11:26:11 pm
Quote
This air drop will be made based upon ownership as of midnight UTC.

Should have the date as well, though it is in the FAQ.

Reads well. I did not know about DevShares. Is this going be the, ah..resource, developers will need to acquire to test their new ideas? Always something new and cool around the corner :).
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Riverhead on October 26, 2014, 11:28:49 pm
I figured it was some esoteric relation to a turing machine. Just another buzz word with little to add over just saying "we're adding a scripting lanuage" to the client. It that statement is incorrect, pls explain the difference between "turing complete" scripting and just scripting.

Touring complete has more features. For example a scripting language without loops is not touring complete. By definition a script is said to be Turing complete if it can simulate any single-tape Turing machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: James212 on October 26, 2014, 11:44:02 pm
Can you post a Google docs link please.

 +5%  Method, would be very interested to see your version.  If this is a wide press release, I see a number of areas for improvement.  Ill be on Mumble. 
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Method-X on October 26, 2014, 11:48:08 pm
Can you post a Google docs link please.

 +5%  Method, would be very interested to see your version.  If this is a wide press release, I see a number of areas for improvement.  Ill be on Mumble.

Yup, I could definitely improve this but I need the Google docs link bytemaster referred to in the OP.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: infovortice2013 on October 27, 2014, 12:15:40 am
ags/pts/btsx 40/40/20
i read other proportions in other post like

pts 100
btsx 1
dns y vote 0.015

can make an official post with final data
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: James212 on October 27, 2014, 01:27:10 am
Can you post a Google docs link please.

 +5%  Method, would be very interested to see your version.  If this is a wide press release, I see a number of areas for improvement.  Ill be on Mumble.

Yup, I could definitely improve this but I need the Google docs link bytemaster referred to in the OP.

I did my own edits on goole doc (barely know how to use it  :). I'll pm and BM. you the link
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: fussyhands on October 27, 2014, 01:30:16 am
This is awesome news.  This is a *huge* improvement!  If the development community keeps making good decisions like this, BitShares might actually have a chance.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: joele on October 27, 2014, 02:01:33 am
With this merge, those who squat bitshares domains with X on it also affected.  :'(
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: 天籁 on October 27, 2014, 02:09:34 am
BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope


A new blockchain "DevShares" will be used for testing the upgrade of BTS and future hard forks as well as experimental features and economic experiments.   This blockchain will be a 40/40/20 snapshot AGS/PTS/X taken on November 5th.    DevShares will not be considered a "safe store of value" but non-the-less will have value for those wishing to test their smart contracts or BTS integration on a low-value chain.   Details on DevShares will be provided over the coming month.

What about the BTSX in the short?Is it snapshoted into the short account or into the BTSX platform?
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: joele on October 27, 2014, 02:34:06 am
I hope this smart contract with turing complete is built-in in the wallet and easy to setup, like with wizard for basic contracts.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: WildWex on October 27, 2014, 02:35:21 am
Like... "compute the last digit of pi?"   *just kidding*


Been hearing this phrase turing complete mentioned lately, what does it mean?



From wikipedia:

    Turing completeness, named after Alan Turing, is significant in that every plausible design for a computing device so far advanced can be emulated by a universal Turing machine — an observation that has become known as the Church-Turing thesis. Thus, a machine that can act as a universal Turing machine can, in principle, perform any calculation that any other programmable computer is capable of. However, this has nothing to do with the effort required to write a program for the machine, the time it may take for the machine to perform the calculation, or any abilities the machine may possess that are unrelated to computation.

    While truly Turing-complete machines are very likely physically impossible, as they require unlimited storage, Turing completeness is often loosely attributed to physical machines or programming languages that would be universal if they had unlimited storage. All modern computers are Turing-complete in this sense.

I don't know how you can be more non-technical than that except by saying "turing complete means 'able to answer computable problem given enough time and space'".
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Ander on October 27, 2014, 03:11:43 am
After the words "midnight UTC" you should add "Nov 5".
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: starspirit on October 27, 2014, 03:18:07 am
The draft statement reads well enough for those familiar with BTS and related DACs, but I think more opportunity could be taken to promote to others less familiar why they should come join the ecosystem.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Tuck Fheman on October 27, 2014, 03:21:24 am
DevShares will not be considered a "safe store of value" but non-the-less will have value for those wishing to test their smart contracts or BTS integration on a low-value chain.   

nonetheless
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: pc on October 27, 2014, 08:31:04 am
I figured it was some esoteric relation to a turing machine. Just another buzz word with little to add over just saying "we're adding a scripting lanuage" to the client. It that statement is incorrect, pls explain the difference between "turing complete" scripting and just scripting.

You may not be aware of it, but Bitcoin transactions use a scripting language that is *not* turing complete. So, "turing complete" in this context is more than just a buzzword because it highlights an important conceptual difference.

Btw, more than just a few people see the lack of turing completeness as a good thing. Turing-complete languages make it possible to do virtually anything - including everything evil.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: xeroc on October 27, 2014, 08:48:57 am
Btw, more than just a few people see the lack of turing completeness as a good thing. Turing-complete languages make it possible to do virtually anything - including everything evil.
skynet would be an example people often use .. however .. skynet would require huge fees to run :) lol
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: BTSdac on October 27, 2014, 08:55:50 am
HI , BTS will become the killer app of ecosystem with block chain technology.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: pc on October 27, 2014, 10:22:29 am
I think the paragraph about turing-complete scripting and ethereum should be removed. It's off topic for the rebranding.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Mysto on October 27, 2014, 10:42:31 am
This air drop is not a buyout or merger but a no strings attached gift to these communities to encourage them to contribute to BTSX rather than their own competitors.    This air drop will be made based upon ownership as of midnight UTC.
To me a "merger" sounds much better than a "gift".

Plus this...
I think the paragraph about turing-complete scripting and ethereum should be removed. It's off topic for the rebranding.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Empirical1.1 on October 27, 2014, 10:53:08 am
The draft statement reads well enough for those familiar with BTS and related DACs, but I think more opportunity could be taken to promote to others less familiar why they should come join the ecosystem.

Yeah I think it looks good for those very familiar with BitShares.

You could do a shorter more promotional press release when the change actually happens with a link to this one if people want more detail.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: James212 on October 27, 2014, 02:07:56 pm
I think the paragraph about turing-complete scripting and ethereum should be removed. It's off topic for the rebranding.

Any mention of Ethereum should definitely be removed.  You do not want to mention your competitor in a press release.  It only gives them legitimacy as the leading contender.   
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: xeroc on October 27, 2014, 02:18:28 pm
I think the paragraph about turing-complete scripting and ethereum should be removed. It's off topic for the rebranding.

Any mention of Ethereum should definitely be removed.  You do not want to mention your competitor in a press release.  It only gives them legitimacy as the leading contender.
*agreed* .. there is still alot to be learned .. in either direction .. and I wouldn't want to mess with a well-established friendship relation ..
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: spoonman on October 27, 2014, 02:35:14 pm
What will the daily vesting rate be?
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Riverhead on October 27, 2014, 02:40:54 pm
What will the daily vesting rate be?

BM said it would be linear so:

365*2 = 730. 1/730th = 0.137 %/day. That would be about 685k BTS/day for the 500,000,000 BTS that is subject to vesting.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: sschechter on October 27, 2014, 03:49:19 pm
I think the paragraph about turing-complete scripting and ethereum should be removed. It's off topic for the rebranding.

Ethereum should be removed, but mentioning turing complete scripting is ok
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Thom on October 27, 2014, 07:58:19 pm
I figured it was some esoteric relation to a turing machine. Just another buzz word with little to add over just saying "we're adding a scripting lanuage" to the client. It that statement is incorrect, pls explain the difference between "turing complete" scripting and just scripting.

Touring complete has more features. For example a scripting language without loops is not touring complete. By definition a script is said to be Turing complete if it can simulate any single-tape Turing machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness

This is a nuance distinction, as in my experience the majority of scripting languages implement loops. Those you might name that don't are rather obscure and are not used for general programming tasks.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Riverhead on October 27, 2014, 08:33:17 pm
Or security reasons. Bitcoin for example.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: pc on October 27, 2014, 10:37:56 pm
Those you might name that don't are rather obscure and are not used for general programming tasks.

Erm. Yes. That's the point. With a non-turing-complete language you cannot perform general progamming tasks.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: luckybit on October 27, 2014, 10:39:45 pm
I figured it was some esoteric relation to a turing machine. Just another buzz word with little to add over just saying "we're adding a scripting lanuage" to the client. It that statement is incorrect, pls explain the difference between "turing complete" scripting and just scripting.

Python is Turing complete. Turing complete just means it's a complete language that you can do anything with. Some languages aren't complete languages so you're limited to what you can do with it.

Javascript is Turing complete. You can do more than just make web pages.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: starspirit on October 28, 2014, 12:52:53 am
What market are we speaking to when we talk about Turing complete? Most people will scratch their heads. The purpose of communication is not to be complete in one's message, its getting the audience to understand the meaning of the message, to perceive and act on something.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: neo1344 on October 28, 2014, 07:44:02 pm
if exchanges are not expected to honor the November 5th snapshot,why Bter keep saying they will redeem BTS for their customers?
Thanks
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: bytemaster on October 28, 2014, 07:47:05 pm
if exchanges are not expected to honor the November 5th snapshot,why Bter keep saying they will redeem BTS for their customers?
Thanks

Exchanges are free to do what they want for their customers...
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: cn-members on November 06, 2014, 04:13:52 am
BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope

In a controversial move the founders of BitShares have decided to combine features formally divided among multiple competing systems including BitShares X, VOTE, DNS, and all other future features they can conceive under a single Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) that will go by BitShares.

BitShares X which was originally designed to be a single decentralized exchange trading in collateralized derivatives of major currencies will join forces with domain name auctioning and voting applications.   These currency derivatives known as BitAssets such as BitUSD and BitGLD have all of the properties of Bitcoin with the price stability of the underlying asset and are considered the killer app of the BitShares ecosystem.

Smart Contracts with turing complete scripting environment has been added to the BitShares roadmap to facilitate growth and prototyping of new features.  This feature combined with BitAssets should give Ethereum some serious competition in the smart contract market.

Until recently the BitShares ecosystem was known for promoting many competing block chains (DACs) each with their own development team.   Each DAC would have had its own variation on BitUSD and would have competed for the same users and market cap.   This setup was designed to promote decentralization and robustness, but in reality it meant that the development team was fractured and divided against itself.    Under the new arrangement the development teams behind BitShares DNS, VOTE, and X have combined forces to focus on a single unified product.

Similar to corporate mergers, the result of combining forces is the elimination of redundant marketing, development, testing, and support resources.   The developers have prepared a roadmap that would gradually introduce new features to BitShares.

To align incentives and bring the communities together BTSX has decided to give a two year vesting stake to people who had a stake in  BitShares PTS, DNS, and VOTE as well as recognize those who gave funds to support the BitShares ecosystem.  In total BTS will “air drop”  7% PTS, 7% AGS, 3% VOTE, and 3% DNS.  This air drop is not a buyout or merger but a no strings attached gift to these communities to encourage them to contribute to BTSX rather than their own competitors.    This air drop will be made based upon ownership as of midnight UTC.   Users should remove all PTS and DNS from exchanges prior the air drop deadline. 

The leads of VOTE and DNS have already decided to join the BitShares bandwagon.  PTS and AGS will continue in their role and 3rd parties such as BitShares Music, BitShares Play among a few others still intend to airdrop on these communities in recognition of their role in bootstrapping the BitShares ecosystem and the bitshares toolkit.

BitShares X owners will simply download an upgrade and the BTSX block chain will become the BitShares block chain and be known on exchanges as BTS.    Owners of PTS, VOTE, and DNS will be able to import their wallets to receiving their vesting stake. 

The core BitShares team behind the development of the BitShares toolkit has committed not to compete against itself, but instead to focus on making BTS the best system it can be and will have their undivided support.   This marks a major turning point in the development of BitShares and is potentially a game changer in the crypto-currency market space. 

FAQ:
BTSX will become BTS and will be the same blockchain, BTSX will remain liquid and trading will not be interrupted.

Exchanges are not expected to honor the November 5th snapshot because the positions will not be liquid, you should remove all DNS and PTS from exchanges prior to November 5th. 

The combined client with rebranding to BTS will be released toward the end of November

PTS, AGS, VOTE and DNS stakes will vest linearly over 2 years, meaning that each day users will get to claim some of their stake.

BTSX will not have a vesting period.

BitAssets such as BitUSD / BitGLD should be unaffected 

User names allocated in DNS will not be migrated to BTSX

PTS will continue to circulate and trade; however, without I3 planning any future snapshots its value will be based upon the speculative value of 3rd party DACs such as Music, Play, and others. 

PTS block intervals will probably grow significantly and mining may stop all together.  PTS is maintained by Testz and not I3. 

A new blockchain "DevShares" will be used for testing the upgrade of BTS and future hard forks as well as experimental features and economic experiments.   This blockchain will be a 40/40/20 snapshot AGS/PTS/X taken on November 5th.    DevShares will not be considered a "safe store of value" but non-the-less will have value for those wishing to test their smart contracts or BTS integration on a low-value chain.   Details on DevShares will be provided over the coming month.

PTS / AGS holders will effectively receive 20% stake in all PAST and FUTURE blockchain ideas built by the Invictus team through this air drop, plus a much larger cut in DevShares, Play, and Music among others.

There is too much to cover in a single press release, so I hope to have the press release focus on the high level "good" and then direct users to a wiki page with the FAQ details.   Please post any unanswered questions you have here. 


 


is this final yet? cause we plan to translate this article once it is finished.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: bitmarket on November 06, 2014, 08:35:30 am
What is the purpose of this ?  If it is for a mass PR release we should dress it up a lot.  The merger is really cool and a world first.  We can get a lot of eyes on it if we choose.   But this format is not PR style.  If you want a Press Release I am happy to write one and get it out.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: jae208 on November 06, 2014, 09:59:42 am
What is the purpose of this ?  If it is for a mass PR release we should dress it up a lot.  The merger is really cool and a world first.  We can get a lot of eyes on it if we choose.   But this format is not PR style.  If you want a Press Release I am happy to write one and get it out.

I think it is good enough for our purposes. Maybe your press release in addition would be great too?
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: bytemaster on November 06, 2014, 01:32:38 pm
News letter has replaced this. 

Pr coming with launch of new wallet
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: xeroc on November 06, 2014, 01:43:01 pm
News letter has replaced this. 

Pr coming with launch of new wallet
release date: classified

8)
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: FreeTrade on November 09, 2014, 05:56:20 am
Some sort of graph or flowchart showing where equity originated, how it flowed through the various dacs to reach the merged bitshares would be helpful. We're going to face a lot fud about the fairness of origin of equity, and a complex genesis muddies the waters, so a clear chart to point people to would be helpful.

Also seeing this statement saying there might be up to 8% pa dilution of bts. Assuming this is incorrect, but can't find the authoritative statement about this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=850913.0
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Ander on November 09, 2014, 06:27:59 am

Also seeing this statement saying there might be up to 8% pa dilution of bts. Assuming this is incorrect, but can't find the authoritative statement about this

Bitshares now allows voters to elect paid delegates.  Paid delegates get Bitshares with each block that they sign, up to a max of 50 BTS (voters must elect them at that pay rate for this to happen).  This results in inflaiton of BTS.

This means that bitshares is now self funding.  It can pay for its continued development, for marketing, and to recruit more developers, once the original I3 funds are gone.  No matter what happens, bitshares can continue on and support itself.


The maximum possible inflation rate is 6.3% for next year.  (50 BTS a block, for every block for a year is 157,680,000 BTS a year.  157,680,000 / 2.5 billion is 6.3% inflation).


However, that is the MAXMIUM.   In order for that to occur, there must be 101 paid delegates all receiving max pay rate. 
Thats not going to happen.  What is actually going to happen is that voters are only actually going to vote for paid delegates for the dev team, marketing delegate, and a few others who are showing that they are adding value to bitshares.  So in reality, with maybe 20 or so paid delegates, inflation will be about 1-2% a year.



In the case that bitshares were to actually hire 101 paid delegates, and have 6.3% inflation, what would that mean?  It would mean we actually have 101 people working on coding and marketing of bitshares, that voters think are providing positive value.  For example, maybe we hire all the devs in the crypto space, because we can actually pay them!   IF that happened, and we had 6.3% dilution, it would probably be a good thing, because bitshares would grow a TON if that happened.


Once the market cap increases a lot, voters will not want to vote for full pay delegates any more, because it will be too much money.  One full pay delegate would actually be able ot hire a whole team of devs, or fund a big marketing campaign, if the bitshares share price went up significantly. 

At that point, we could expect dilution would be even less (or growth would be even greater!)



To summarize:

Max possible inflation is 6.3%
All of the inflation results in ACTUAL VALUE being created.  It goes to developers and marketers who GROW bitshares.
Inflation is less than in bitcoin.  Bitcoin uses "proof of waste", simply burning hundreds of millions of dollars a year to secure the network.

Bitshares uses REAL proof of work!  Work for bitshares, and you get paid!  This money results in real value being created, as opposed to bitcoin's mining which simply demonstrates that miners have wasted money.


This change is an extreme positive long term for bitshares, imo.  And yet it has resulted in a massive selloff, because people dont understand yet, and they see dilution as strictly a negative thing, not seeing the potential.   This is why now is an excellent time to be buying bitshares.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: thisisausername on November 09, 2014, 06:38:46 am
It's also worth noting that barring any hardforks (that allow for more delegates) the inflation is self-limiting, since the number of new coins per time period remains fixed while the supply approaches infinity.

e.g. If 101 delegates all took max pay for the first ten years, the maximum possible inflation would've dropped to 4%.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Ander on November 09, 2014, 06:44:23 am
And its also worth noting that all transaction fees burn BTS, and thus help counteract the inflation.  As well as any future features which make a profit by burning shares also counteract inflation.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: teenagecheese on November 09, 2014, 02:36:17 pm
All this is great, but I feel like for shares in a company, inflation (dilution) is only successful as a short term solution. Continuous inflation may be okay for a currency (which is a whole other conversation), but is it sustainable for a company?

I would hope that ultimately everything can be paid for via transaction fees or some other mechanism. That's what VISA and Mastercard do, right? How else do they make money? I wonder what transaction volume this would require.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: fluxer555 on November 09, 2014, 02:59:03 pm
All this is great, but I feel like for shares in a company, inflation (dilution) is only successful as a short term solution. Continuous inflation may be okay for a currency (which is a whole other conversation), but is it sustainable for a company?

I would hope that ultimately everything can be paid for via transaction fees or some other mechanism. That's what VISA and Mastercard do, right? How else do they make money? I wonder what transaction volume this would require.

I actually think this is the opposite.

When the company is small, inflation-pay is the *LEAST* effective. It takes much more inflation to pay a delegate a fair salary. When the company has a very large market cap with high liquidity, a 1% inflation-pay delegate could be earning $1 million per year. We would, of course, need much less than 1% of inflation in that case.

This is why I stress that we use AGS funds to grow our market cap as fast as possible, so we can sustain inflation reasonably and responsibly:

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10845#msg142799 (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10845#msg142799)

Keep in mind that we only elect delegates that increase the value of the company many times more than the rate at which the dilution devaluing each share. This will only get easier the bigger we are.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Troglodactyl on November 09, 2014, 03:14:52 pm
All this is great, but I feel like for shares in a company, inflation (dilution) is only successful as a short term solution. Continuous inflation may be okay for a currency (which is a whole other conversation), but is it sustainable for a company?

I would hope that ultimately everything can be paid for via transaction fees or some other mechanism. That's what VISA and Mastercard do, right? How else do they make money? I wonder what transaction volume this would require.

I actually think this is the opposite.

When the company is small, inflation-pay is the *LEAST* effective. It takes much more inflation to pay a delegate a fair salary. When the company has a very large market cap with high liquidity, a 1% inflation-pay delegate could be earning $1 million per year. We would, of course, need much less than 1% of inflation in that case.

This is why I stress that we use AGS funds to grow our market cap as fast as possible, so we can sustain inflation reasonably and responsibly:

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10845#msg142799 (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10845#msg142799)

Keep in mind that we only elect delegates that increase the value of the company many times more than the rate at which the dilution devaluing each share. This will only get easier the bigger we are.

The key here I think is that dilution eliminates the need for centralized cash on hand to pay salaries and business expenses.  With burnt fees and dilution to cover costs, the shareholders directly hold all the value of the network.  They directly lose value to cover expenses, and they directly gain value when fees are paid and when the network grows.

Once the Bitshares potential market is saturated (when everyone in the world is using it for everything, all the time...) the network will stop growing, and fees will need to exceed dilution or it will become unprofitable.  I don't expect this to be a major problem.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: teenagecheese on November 09, 2014, 03:18:41 pm
Edit: Troglodactyl, just read your post, I think we agree.

I think what you're saying is only right during the growth phase of the company, while you are still attracting new users. It's sort of like a ponzi scheme; it doesn't work if you don't keep having new people (money) come. Once this is a steady-state ecosystem inflation will simply be draining people's money because the share price is not rising enough to counteract it. I can't help but thinking I'm right because no real company operates on an inflation model. Investors want money from customers, not themselves. They want to maximize profit.

...With that said, I suppose at that steady-state point we don't need many marketers/devs/janitors etc., and we will be able to maintain the network with just transaction fees.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Troglodactyl on November 09, 2014, 03:32:55 pm
Edit: Troglodactyl, just read your post, I think we agree.

I think what you're saying is only right during the growth phase of the company, while you are still attracting new users. It's sort of like a ponzi scheme; it doesn't work if you don't keep having new people (money) come. Once this is a steady-state ecosystem inflation will simply be draining people's money because the share price is not rising enough to counteract it. I can't help but thinking I'm right because no real company operates on an inflation model. Investors want money from customers, not themselves. They want to maximize profit.

...With that said, I suppose at that steady-state point we don't need many marketers/devs/janitors etc., and we will be able to maintain the network with just transaction fees.

I suspect that fees will outpace dilution well before the end of the rapid growth phase.  There will be a lot of ecosystem growth from peripheral businesses that are self funding without dilution, like gateways.

Bitcoin doesn't have the feature set to reach a wide market, but looking at its growth dynamics with the businesses that have sprung up around it is encouraging.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Ander on November 09, 2014, 03:36:59 pm
I think what you're saying is only right during the growth phase of the company, while you are still attracting new users. It's sort of like a ponzi scheme; it doesn't work if you don't keep having new people (money) come. Once this is a steady-state ecosystem inflation will simply be draining people's money because the share price is not rising enough to counteract it. I can't help but thinking I'm right because no real company operates on an inflation model.

Shares in a company are, literally, issuing of company equity in order to grow.

Every single publically traded company in the world has issued stock in order to get money in order to grow.  Thats what stock is.
Tons of companies continually issue more stock every year in order to fuel growth.  Every company in the world that gives its employees stock options or stock is inflating its share supply in order to hire talent, in order to grow.

An increasing share supply is the *normal* state of companies.  Normal, every day companies that you see listed on the stock exchanges.



That said, yes, of course we would like for the supply of bitshares to eventually be shrinking!  Most companies would love to reach a state where they are able to buy back more shares than they issue, and reduce share counts overtime.  This is the goal once we become big, and the amount of dilution needed to grow is small because the market cap is big, and shares are being burned due to transaction fees, etc.  We want to reach that point eventually.  But for now, it is better to inflate a little to grow fast, than to not inflate and grow slowly or not be able to pay for developers.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: teenagecheese on November 09, 2014, 03:42:30 pm

I suspect that fees will outpace dilution well before the end of the rapid growth phase.  There will be a lot of ecosystem growth from peripheral businesses that are self funding without dilution, like gateways.

Bitcoin doesn't have the feature set to reach a wide market, but looking at its growth dynamics with the businesses that have sprung up around it is encouraging.

Great point! Now we wait and see I guess.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: teenagecheese on November 09, 2014, 03:52:41 pm

Shares in a company are, literally, issuing of company equity in order to grow.

Every single publically traded company in the world has issued stock in order to get money in order to grow.  Thats what stock is.
Tons of companies continually issue more stock every year in order to fuel growth.  Every company in the world that gives its employees stock options or stock is inflating its share supply in order to hire talent, in order to grow.

An increasing share supply is the *normal* state of companies.  Normal, every day companies that you see listed on the stock exchanges.



That said, yes, of course we would like for the supply of bitshares to eventually be shrinking!  Most companies would love to reach a state where they are able to buy back more shares than they issue, and reduce share counts overtime.  This is the goal once we become big, and the amount of dilution needed to grow is small because the market cap is big, and shares are being burned due to transaction fees, etc.  We want to reach that point eventually.  But for now, it is better to inflate a little to grow fast, than to not inflate and grow slowly or not be able to pay for developers.

Interesting, I was not aware companies regularly took share issuance to that extent. Either way, I feel good about this now after both your and Troglodactyl's comments. Thanks
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: starspirit on November 10, 2014, 01:30:36 am

The key here I think is that dilution eliminates the need for centralized cash on hand to pay salaries and business expenses.  With burnt fees and dilution to cover costs, the shareholders directly hold all the value of the network.  They directly lose value to cover expenses, and they directly gain value when fees are paid and when the network grows.


This point finally makes a lot of sense to me. I have been trying to work out how dilution offers any growth advantage over paying people already existing BTS (which is the big benefit I've commonly seen suggested), while I keep thinking they are economically equivalent in power. But what you are saying here is that the dilution mechanism simplifies the process considerably by forcing equal participation, removing the need for any stakes or payments to change hands.
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: Ander on November 10, 2014, 01:35:36 am
Also, everyone should remember, if there is no company that is paying dev salaries, and everything is being paid for by the blockchain itself, then there is nothing that any government agency can attack! 
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: donkeypong on November 10, 2014, 04:24:37 am
Also, everyone should remember, if there is no company that is paying dev salaries, and everything is being paid for by the blockchain itself, then there is nothing that any government agency can attack!

Worst case, a government could go after some of the delegates, since that is the only institution left in BitShares. And they could lock down the banks even tighter. I think any prosecution would be so troublesome for a government that they'd probably give up. They'll be watching and learning, though, as this gets bigger. They'll follow certain addresses, transaction patterns, and websites. They'll gather information from the tax returns of people filing and those they choose to audit. And for anyone using regulated exchanges and banks, they'll have access to all the info they need on that side of things. A few people they're focused on may eventually make mistakes and they'll be ready.

For those interested in beating the government, the creation of a BitUSD (or BTS or any BitAsset) online economy would make the government's job very difficult indeed. If they can't track the money coming in OR out, then they're stuck with the blockchain.

To them I say, if you can't beat us, join us!
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: FreeTrade on November 10, 2014, 09:28:21 am
This means that bitshares is now self funding.  It can pay for its continued development, for marketing, and to recruit more developers, once the original I3 funds are gone.  No matter what happens, bitshares can continue on and support itself.


The maximum possible inflation rate is 6.3% for next year.  (50 BTS a block, for every block for a year is 157,680,000 BTS a year.  157,680,000 / 2.5 billion is 6.3% inflation).


However, that is the MAXMIUM.   In order for that to occur, there must be 101 paid delegates all receiving max pay rate. 
Thats not going to happen.  What is actually going to happen is that voters are only actually going to vote for paid delegates for the dev team, marketing delegate, and a few others who are showing that they are adding value to bitshares.  So in reality, with maybe 20 or so paid delegates, inflation will be about 1-2% a year.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'm on-board - no-one believes more than me in the need for ongoing funding for dev, marketing, legal etc.

However, we're going to see constant FUD about BTS being inflationary at a rate of 6.3% an annum.

In effect, I think what we're seeing is a more like a decentralized 'central' bank that is setting an inflation rate. That might be an easier sell than 'dilution to fund devs'.
 
Title: Re: BitShares X rebrands itself as BitShares; adopts greater scope [DRAFT]
Post by: xeroc on November 10, 2014, 09:51:02 am
However, we're going to see constant FUD about BTS being inflationary at a rate of 6.3% an annum.
Once the system is up and running .. people will see that the stakeholders CAN VOTE on the anual inflation rate and that the real inflation will be WELL BELOW the max of 6.3%