BitShares Forum

Why we start this series of articles?
This series of updates about BitShares is started because I miss the 'old times' when there were 'status updates' of every DACs when bitshares toolkit was under development. I could easily catch up news and progress of every aspect without tediously reading every article from every source then. When I wanted to discuss some news with others later, all I have to do is share the link of these status updates. Today when I discuss with someone else, frequently I just cannot remenber where I read about it. Therefore, I think we all need a series of articles that record briefly about 'who said what' with links to the orginal articles, so people can conviniently read and quote later.

So contents of this series is going to be mainly composed of 'quotes' and 'reports', rather than 'comments', and as brief as possible. People who want to know details about each topic can follow the link in the beginning of each topic.

Series #1 Date: 12/26/2014

#1 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11914.0;all
islandking asked about the the release of new bitshares client.
bytemaster answered:

QuoteWe are bundling a lot of new features in the next release.
It should be out by Christmas."
and he mentioned that this release is "Note 1.0, but will be close

joele said people can see the version milestone of bitshares here:
https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares/milestones

(http://i.imgur.com/yIjfeYW.png)
from this screenshot, we can see the v0.4.28 has 'past due by 3 days', and 'v0.4.29' is 42% complete

then bytemaster said about this delay:

Quote"What happened was an unexpected security issue and bugs that resulted from the fix.   We lost a week there.
What happened is what always does with software. "

#2 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12603.0
RenaudGagne was interested about p2p lending and asked 'how can we do this as a DAC?'
bytemaster answered 'collateralized lending is planned for BTS'. Also, the devs are developing a ' a global ID / reputation system' that could be used to uncolateralized lending.
bitsapphire mentioned that he wanted to implement this via 'IOU tokens()like bonds + erternal credit rating feeds'

#3 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12644.0
bluebit asked about the BitUSD on ramp because he doesn't really like Coindbase or Circle.
toast said he does not expect BitUSD onramps like coinbase or circle in short term, but on ramps for small amount of BitUSD is possible.

#4 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12629.0
cryptosile made two new video showing how to short bitAssets and how they work:
https://www.everydaycrypto.com/
bytemaster used his video to made a blog post 'How to short & cover a BitAsset':
http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/update/2014/12/23/How-to-Short-and-Cover-a-BitAsset/

#5 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12523.0
testz mentioned there is course about bitcoin basics:

QuoteThe Bitcoin Basics - Udemy
https://www.udemy.com/the-bitcoin-course

and he asked should we create something similar for BitShares.

#6 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12647.0
bytemaster revealed his plan to do a 'graph database on a blockchain'. He mentioned that the reason for this is because current common databases are not suitable for being blockchain-based databases. He also proposed some possible examples using this technology:

QuoteForum of linked Posts
Web of Trust
Facebook
Identity Management
Organization Membership
Voting
Domain Names

Then he said this technology will be the foundation for scripting language in BitShares. Finally, bytemaster said the bitshares library already have some features of this technology, and new features will be tested in devshares in advance.

In addition bytemaster said he was 'working with graph databases prior to starting bitshares'.

#7 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10608.0
toast mentioned that "DevShares was NEVER intended to be a sound investment or a good place to store your value. If you are complaining about DVS allocation, you simply don't understand its function!"
And he said in his title: 'You guys don't understand devshares.'
btswildpig quoted what bytemaster said before in here:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10608.0
which is different from what have happened actually.
So, toast replied that he is going to 'ask Dan and Stan to make an apology for not communicating with each other'.

Really like the version overview! Its one of those things that investors will love to be able to keep up with without having to go on github

Love it.  Thank you.

 +5%

 +5%
thank you
waiting for Chinese version

 +5% awesome

Thankyou! +5%

Really helpul! Thanks!  +5%

 +5% great effort ...

 +5%  ;)

great!

That's fantastic.

I wonder that versions of the client and gui could always be more obvious. Then having more of the same for each DAC would be ideal.. a clear set of what is progressing with links to milestones would be invaluable.

As work becomes more complex, it might become more important that it's obvious what focus there is, in order that others who might contribute can see what opportunities there are.

aboutBTS -- updates about BitShares #2

I modified the format, placed links in the references section in the end to improve readability.


#8 Step by step forum updates happening
bitsapphire announced he is going to gradually update forum without interference of usage patterns of anyone.



#9 The Benefits of a Contract Free Society
bytemaster said in his opinion ' contracts as we know them are the Achilles heal of attempts to form a libertarian society', and he listed several reasons:

- As contracts requires 'lawful object or purpose', you can not make a contract that is about anything that against the law.

- Also contracts are dependent on enforcement, and a contract without enforcement is 'nothing more than documentation of an agreement among honorable men'.

- On the other hand, 'There are many laws on the book governing contracts and what kind of contracts you may or may not enter into. You cannot sell debt or stock to the public because those contracts are regulated contracts and require SEC approval'.

And he proposed 'blockchain technology' as a better alternative:

- A distributed ledger is designed to track property rights in clear unambiguous terms. Rothbard's definition of a contract could be entirely encoded into a block chain because "all legitimate contracts implies theft of property". It is fairly easy to ascertain whether or not property has been transferred and who owes what when you have a public ledger.

- With smart contracts it is also fairly easy to automate the change of ownership in such a way that no one can "enforce" a contract and no one can "fail to enforce" the contract.

- BitShares is the foundation of a non-violent consensus on property rights that replaces the use of force to physically reallocate property.

Finally, in a contract-free society, 'no one is compelled to act. There is no need to force anyone into court. There is no need for government'.



#10 Stop the Crowd Sales! Long live Crowd Funding!
bytemaster used BitShares, which 'had one of the largest crowd funding campaigns and has had an opportunity to learn a lot from it', as an example to explain why he doesn't recommend doing it. It is because 'when a project attempts to raise money from the public through a straight sale of tokens it invites all kinds of regulatory uncertainty that is difficult to measure':

- Tax issue: 'The primary issue with crowd sales is whether or not you create a security and how should the money received be taxed. Almost the only way to accept funds without owing taxes on them is if you are claiming to sell equity in a startup and treat the funds as a capital infusion.'...' If you sell your tokens as digital property then chances are you owe income tax and/or sales tax. To avoid the income tax you need to make sure your expenses occur in the same tax-year as your crowd sale.'...'you have to sell your BTC immediately upon receipt of your crowd sale so that you can make sure you have enough money to pay taxes.'

- Security issuance issues: 'If you don't sell your tokens as digital property but as shares in your business then you could potentially fall under SEC guidelines. '...'Even if you attempt to sell your tokens as a pre-sale, a pre-sale becomes a liability and a debt.'...'You will only create a demand for transparency and a tendency toward public criticism of how you use the funds.'

- truse issues: 'A crowd sale, especially a large one, places a lot of trust on those that receive the funds. This is a massive target for government confiscation and or theft.'

-public perception issues: 'There have been hundreds of crowd sales and the default perception is that they are scams until proven otherwise.'...'In some cases the PR issues can be enough to kill a project or at least outweigh the value of the funds received. Nxt suffered from this issue to some extent.'

- liquidity issues: 'People that participate in crowd sales have learned the hard way that their "investment" is not liquid'...'This lack of liquidity hinders your ability to raise funds and creates unnecessary stress if your project is delayed.'

Finally he proposed how BitShares currently works as a beter alternative:

- 'Launch a proto-chain based on BitShares. Every BitShares network is self funding through 101 delegate positions that receive income just like Bitcoin miners. This income can be scaled as a percentage of the total issuance depending upon the project and allow an arbitrary amount of incentives to fund development.'

- 'Stop the crowd sales, pre-sales, IPOs, ICOs, and instead launch a product directly and fund upgrades to the product through the delegate pay.'

#11 follow up of #2
RenaudGagne asked that whether he could 'approach https://btcjam.com and others like that with BITUSD? ' As he mentioned in the end, 'btcjam and the like are probably hurting from bitcoin price volatility. BITUSD could solve their problem and benefit BitShares by growing the market cap.'

Mysto said that he is curious about how btcjam ' are able to issue loans everywhere like that (legally)'



#12 Clarification on terms: "official", "unofficial", and "3rd party"
alphabar said because of the merger/dissolution, the meaning of 'official/unofficial',  and '3rd party' should be clarified. He proposed that 'official' is about 'anything supported by a shareholder consensus of BTS', anything other than BTS should be tagged as "3rd party" (PTS, Sparkle, Music, etc.) and anything BTS-related that has not gained consensus is "unofficial".'


#13 the countdown for Crackix.com is over:
(http://i.imgur.com/bbNfh3W.png)

#14 Follow up of #5
charleshokinson said he is 'creating some bitshares content for my udemy course update'. bitmarket said his book 'BitShares 101' suffices this purpose and he could convert it into video easily.

#15 We've had a USD onramp this whole time.
toast said there is already USD on ramp at the CCEDK exchange, just that it only has tiny BTS trading volume:
(http://i.imgur.com/GTNHCWa.png)

However, they did change btsx to bts while being told by Gentso1. Furthermore, they had plan to support BitUSD:
(http://i.imgur.com/tTh53df.png)


#16 How to lure top devs into being hired by BitShares
fluxer555 asked how can we attract top developers to work with BitShares.  gamey said the average pay of developers in US is '95k which is around 8k a month.   AVERAGE.'

luckybit mentioned that 'Chinese people put most of the money into Bitshares and once their marketing side figures out how the delegate system works there are plenty of C++ programmers in China willing to work for that pay.  Honestly one of the good things about working for a blockchain is that you can move around and your job follows you.' He also said that 'The pay of developers or of any employee of a startup is supposed to be tied to the success or failure of the business. It's supposed to be a risk working for a startup vs working for an established company but also a chance to get rich.'...' These developers are rewarded when the share price rises and they become rich because the success of the business is what makes them rich.'...'If you pay developers 10k a month they will have no incentive to care about the business and you'll have developers who might not care as much about the vision as they care about making a quick buck.'

In addition, toast said 'there's not a chance in hell we will have scripting before ethereum is launched and popular among devs with a good toolset. We need infrastructure devs more than blockchain devs. The make-or-break app (bitassets) is already done.'

#17 Mobile Wallet - Testers needed
ElMato said 'in the beta version you will be able to register your name '. Also, there is testing wallet for iOS available. ' If you want to help us test PM you device UUID or go to https://github.com/latincoin-com/bitwallet/tree/dargon-dev-iosand build it yourself!'

#18 Monero CryptoNote Ring Signatures vs TITAN
islandkin asked if anyone could compare monero cryptonote ring signatures and TITAN. toast answered that 'CN provide an additional layer of anonymity. TITAN is just stealth addresses. Neither are "truly anonymous" and network analysis is still a huge problem for both.'

References

#8 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12648

#9 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12696.0

#10 http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2014/12/26/Stop-the-Crowd-Sales-Long-Live-Crowd-Funding/

#11 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12603.0;all

#12 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12689.0

#13 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12555.0;all

#14 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12523.0

#15 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12677.0

#16 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12645.0;all

#17 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11902.105

#18 https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12675.0