BitShares Forum

Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: alphaBar on November 02, 2014, 06:09:57 pm

Title: III assets (AGS/PTS Funds, etc.) to be "granted" to developers? Please clarify..
Post by: alphaBar on November 02, 2014, 06:09:57 pm
I just had a chat with Stan that I think should be an open discussion. As far as I know these are the assets that III holds:

* BTC donated to the AGS Fund.
* PTS donated to the AGS Fund.
* Sharedrops in other DACs that were granted to the PTS Fund address. For example, the Bitshares Trust should own around *6% of all BTSX in circulation. They will continue to own proportional amounts in the merged BTS.
* Cash converted to cover the costs of operation.

After the merger I assumed the funds would still be held by the Bitshares Trust to ensure that they will be used only for development, but it appears I may be wrong. Can someone please explain the plan for these assets and also explain how we can be sure that they will continue to be used for development/marketing of the platform?

*Edit: updated the percentage of BTSX to 6% based on this link:
http://www1.agsexplorer.com/balances/PaNGELmZgzRQCKeEKM6ifgTqNkC4ceiAWw
Title: Re: III assets (AGS/PTS Funds, etc.) to be "granted" to developers? Please clarify..
Post by: xeroc on November 02, 2014, 07:55:34 pm
13% sound a little to high to me .. but I have no clue :(

More info about the BitShares Trust would be nice
Title: Re: III assets (AGS/PTS Funds, etc.) to be "granted" to developers? Please clarify..
Post by: Rune on November 02, 2014, 08:38:27 pm
It would be nice if each developer could hold their part transparently in bitUSD in public addresses on the blockchain, so everyone could see whenever a withdrawal was made.
Title: Re: III assets (AGS/PTS Funds, etc.) to be "granted" to developers? Please clarify..
Post by: Empirical1.1 on November 02, 2014, 08:56:15 pm
I've not heard about a 13% number. I've seen I3 stated funds at circa 5% & that they are going to be split up in a plan tba.



The BitShares community is a contract-free zone where at no point in time shall there exist a legal obligation for any party to behave any way in the future.   We shall stick to these principles and rely on reputation and community coordination to facilitate efficient commerce with low overhead. 

To this end the funds held by I3 for development will be divided among the core developers who will work together as independent parties to grow the community.  Details of this plan are still under review, but at the end of the day the result will be that no one developer will have "king making authority" for delegates.    People have stated that I have "too much power", but I do not wish to rely of fiat to get things done, but instead on my ability to persuade the community.   I also wish for the development of BTS to continue regardless of what the SEC or government attempts to accuse I3 of.   BTS is bigger than any one of us and has the potential to unite everyone under a fully voluntary society. 

Lets make this happen... lets change the world and reimagine BitShares.
Title: Re: III assets (AGS/PTS Funds, etc.) to be "granted" to developers? Please clarify..
Post by: alphaBar on November 03, 2014, 01:21:38 am
I've not heard about a 13% number. I've seen I3 stated funds at circa 5% & that they are going to be split up in a plan tba.



The BitShares community is a contract-free zone where at no point in time shall there exist a legal obligation for any party to behave any way in the future.   We shall stick to these principles and rely on reputation and community coordination to facilitate efficient commerce with low overhead. 

To this end the funds held by I3 for development will be divided among the core developers who will work together as independent parties to grow the community.  Details of this plan are still under review, but at the end of the day the result will be that no one developer will have "king making authority" for delegates.    People have stated that I have "too much power", but I do not wish to rely of fiat to get things done, but instead on my ability to persuade the community.   I also wish for the development of BTS to continue regardless of what the SEC or government attempts to accuse I3 of.   BTS is bigger than any one of us and has the potential to unite everyone under a fully voluntary society. 

Lets make this happen... lets change the world and reimagine BitShares.

It appears the actual percentage of BTSX owned by the Trust is ~6% (I've updated the post):
http://www1.agsexplorer.com/balances/PaNGELmZgzRQCKeEKM6ifgTqNkC4ceiAWw

I think the idea of simply "granting" (not sure what the exact meaning of this is) this money to developers and trusting each of them to use the funds for their intended purpose is frankly scary. I trust III because I trust Dan, but I can't say the same for everyone else. In other words, Dan is right that he probably holds too much power by keeping the funds under his control. But the alternative, trusting 10 developers as shepherds of the community dev funds, could actually be worse. When it comes to community assets I think it is okay to have a little trust if the trusted entity is transparent and provides a full accounting of both past and future use of the assets. Spreading out the assets to less-trusted members may appear to reduce the risk of centralization, but not really in the case of Bitshares. The reason this doesn't really work for Bitshares is that there are three main risks to be contended with:

1) Dan runs away with the money and wastes it away on drugs and strippers ;)
2) Government agency confiscates the money
3) Attacker steals the funds

I think we all agree that Dan is smart enough to store the funds securely and that #3 is not a huge risk either way. If #1 were to happen I would argue that the amount of money lost would be irrelevant and that Bitshares is unlikely to survive regardless (in the short to medium term). So far there is no benefit to "spreading out" the assets. Now, #2 is the wildcard. I argue that because the entire dev team is public and resides in the US, it is just as easy for the funds to be confiscated from 10 people as it is from just one. So, we can see that none of the major risks of "trusting" the funds to Dan have been mitigated by spreading them out to multiple devs. On the other hand, here is what we lose by distributing the community's funds:

1) Risk of less trusted entities running away with the money ouright.
2) Lack of oversight and performance management with less trusted entities.
3) Possibility of different developers prioritizing funds differently (this may not be bad).

To me it appears there is little to be gained and much to be lost in distributing community funds in such a way, especially since these types of funds are really only necessary in the short to medium term (as dilution was supposed to be the sustainable solution).

Lastly I want to mention that it is critical to have a detailed, publicly disclosed, and binding divestment plan in place for these funds (regardless of the chosen stewards). This should not be treated as a perpetual asset or some type of investment vehicle that trusted parties can pass around for decades. I personally like the analogy of using these as "booster engines" that provide the extra resources that we need while our network effect is small (1-3 years). As the network effect grows and the main engines start firing, the boosters can fall off and let the sustainable decentralized solution take hold. The divestment plan would also help our brand image and marketing efforts which depend so heavily on these funds.