BitShares Forum

Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: Akado on March 02, 2016, 09:29:25 pm

Title: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Akado on March 02, 2016, 09:29:25 pm
tldr; BitShares has an identity crisis. We need focus and to find our own market. Imo our niche should be financial markets.

Imagine a boat, drifting in the middle of the ocean. Going around randomly, according to how the wind blows and water currents move. Then place a maze the size of the ocean on top of it with many dead ends. The boat needs to get to the other side. That boat is BitShares.

Exposing the Problem

BitShares has a major identity crisis. No one here can exactly answer the question "What is BitShares?". Well, maybe some can, even though they will most likely have different answers. Now from an investors pov, assuming you're a new user searching for info about BitShares, you can't find anything specific. What is it? What does it try to achieve?

These are the questions that keep people at bay. This is what causes most people to overlook BitShares. Consider the following projects. What do they all have in common?

I think a key difference is that they and the market are clear on what industry they will dominate in 'The New (Decentralized) World.'

Ethereum     - Decentralized Apps
MaidSafe     - Decentralized Data
Bitcoin          - Decentralized Gold   
Augur           - Decentralized PM (Gambling)   
BitShares    - Decentralized Bank & Exchange

A market, an objective, a goal. The industry they're aiming to disrupt and improve. If you ask most people in the crypto space about Augur or Ethereum they will immediately tell you what they're all about. It's easy.

Most acknowledged projects and the ones being taken into consideration and expected to be huge, can be easily identified via the industry they're in and their goals. It gives people a sense of security because they know what they're about.

Now onto BitShares. What is it? Like I said, most can't answer that, let alone new people. If you don't know what something is about, will you invest, will you feel motivated to go deep and discover what it has to offer? Most likely not. Even worse, from a business perspective: completely impossible to find new partners willing to build something using BitShares and to use it. They don't know what it is about, they don't know how it can be used to solve their problems and help them achieve better services, cut expenses and secure more profit.

I've seen on the forums arguments of the type: "BitShares can be whatever you want it to be." "It depends on how you look at it." "Everyone has their own interpretation" "It can do a lot of stuff" "Smartcontracts", etc

What? Are we talking about art? What did I just describe here? Something completely abstract with no sense or form, that no one will be interested on. Are you going to pitch that to investors and new businesses? Are you going to explain that to new people? The amount of info they have after you explained that to them, regarding BitShares is zero. They will still not be able to understand how it can be used. How they can use it. What is it for and what's the objective. At that very moment you will look exactly like someone who doesn't even understand Bitcoin, explaining Bitcoin a week after release. Some kind of crazy person talking about virtual stuff that in people's eyes, is useless.

Even when smart contracts are mentioned. Yes, they are the trend now thanks to Ethereum, but well, what can we do with them? What type of smart contracts will BitShares create and use? It's just a fancy word with no meaning behind it.

Perception is everything. This shows others we have a lack of focus and plan to grow, which consequently doesn't stimulate a sense of confidence and interest.


BitShares' path is a Maze

If we don't even know what BitShares is, if people who are looking for new stuff with potential can't understand BitShares, what path can we take? What will we do next?

Here comes the previous arguments once again "You can do everything, the sky is the limit". That kind of stuff. However, think about it. We can do everything and have no concrete path to follow. What will this cause? A maze. This is the perfect analogy for BitShares' development path if we don't solve this.

People will start worker proposals for this and that, some will get approved, some don't. However, in the end they might not even be related. They might not even complement each other.

Picture a company with an awesome product that has the potential to make a profit and be successful. Then the CEO, who has zero focus on what the objective of his company is, decides to experiment and develop all sorts of new products, essential killing the profit of that one single, awesome original product. All of this because he lacks a purpose, an objective, a goal. That is BitShares. If in the end all the worker proposals are for completely random different stuff, they, as a whole, are worthless, because they just don't add up. Not to mention worker funds, obviously, aren't infinite so they need to be carefully managed. What will happen when we build tons of "awesome" stuff, that together don't add up or make any sense? They will just be a bunch of random features and every cent spent on them will be for nothing.

We need focus and a purpose.

As for vision's like "Helping achieve financial freedom" ... I always think "And..." . That's the objective of all crypto, ever since the inception of Bitcoin. It doesn't even make sense to say it like that. Bitcoin was done for that in the first place. But that's not the worst. The worst is that it is just too subjective. Once again, go pitch that too investors and new people. Or rather I can just ask you a simple question: "How do you plan to achieve that?" Most likely your answer will end up not making sense or be satisfactory enough or you won't even be able to explain it.

It's too subjective. It will fail to get business people in. It will fail to attract investment.


What Should BitShares' Purpose Be Then?

The decentralized platform that will provide financial tools and aims to host the world's biggest financial markets. Basically, Financial Markets. At least now we seem to have an objective. It's now easier to explain our objective and what we aim to do. It can now be pitched easily by most people. It can now be understood more easily by other investors or new people looking for an interesting project.

"Ethereum makes Dapps, Augur Prediction Markets and BitShares aims to take on the Derivatives Market." That simple to share a rough idea of what we aim to do. Now we leave others thinking about how big the derivates market is. $$$. sure it can be hard as hell, far fetched, call it as you want, but well, who wouldn't like to take the chances of being an early adopter of a project who plans on taking on a $1.2 quadrillion  market? If you want to have an idea of the size of what we could be getting on check this link, which even compares it with Bitcoin  http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization/

(http://i2.wp.com/money.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/all-the-worlds-money-and-markets-dv.png?w=1130)

Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via
Stock Markets
Bond Markets
Commodity markets
Money markets
Derivatives markets
Futures markets
Insurance markets
Foreign exchange markets

I strongly believe with a plan like that we could attract several new people and see BitShares grow. Why? Because we would finally be acknowledged. People would immediately associate BitShares with financial markets and people would finally know what they would be getting themselves into. It would bring back confidence, security. People would finally understand what BitShares is about and what it tries to achieve.

If we did some kind of rebrand like updating the website with new info, advertise this, etc we would make news and make an impact. We time that with Rate Limited Fees for example and I believe it could give us that initial boost people are looking for.

Obviously this applies to any other plan or objective you may have, this is merely my opinion.

I just decided to post this when I was updating the road map thread with metatrader 4 integration and if you notice most plans there could be used and fit this niche. I don't know the feasibility of this, it's just what I would like to see.

BitShares would only need to focus on developing itself on that front and always maintaining scalability and performance as a top priority.

Imagine being acknowledged as the blokchain with the best performance and scalability who is going in for derivatives market! That's a pretty strong brand right there

A strong brand, a project with a clear direction and sense of what it aims to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_market
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_instrument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_%28finance%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivatives_market
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: yvv on March 02, 2016, 09:58:23 pm
Quote
Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via

This is not going to happen, because all of them need privacy among other things. They will rather wait when Hyperledger or whatever that IBM thing is called will be ready.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Akado on March 02, 2016, 10:07:32 pm
Quote
Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via

This is not going to happen, because all of them need privacy among other things. They will rather wait when Hyperledger or whatever that IBM thing is called will be ready.

Banks might, but hedge funds, speculators, can be just about anyone. The fact it is decentralized means its trustless, there is no need for identity to be known during trades.

On more specific cases maybe contracts could be done. Still, that's something far ahead and who knows if we or someone else can't come up with the tech to achieve that.

We are still in the very beginning.

Don't we have stealth? maybe it could be upgraded in the future and be used for whatever needs banks need.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Empirical1.2 on March 02, 2016, 10:20:42 pm
I don't know what exactly it is?

BitShares is a revolutionary new bank and exchange that could rival the value of the largest banks in the world such as JP Morgan and Bank of America in just a few years. How could this new upstart grow so quickly?  BitShares offers a bank account that earns 5% interest where funds can be transferred in minutes seconds anywhere in the world with more privacy and security than a Swiss bank account.  Your account can never be frozen, your funds cannot be seized, and the bank can never face collapse due to loan defaults or fraud.  All of this is made possible without requiring any employees, lawyers, regulatory compliance, vaults, buildings, and other infrastructure required by traditional banks.  Unlike existing banks, you can hold your balance denominated in gold, silver, oil, or other commodities in additional to national currencies while earning 5% interest. 

In addition to acting as a bank, BitShares also serves as an exchange where currencies, commodities, and stock derivatives can be traded with most of the features used by professional traders including shorts and options.     

If the largest banks can achieve deposits of over $1 trillion dollars with no meaningful interest, how many deposits could BitShares attract and what would that mean for the value of the bank?

 +5% That is some great stuff! If that first paragraph was a short advert we could send to friends, colleagues with a click-through at the end 'want to learn more' I think that would spread quickly!

While not a guaranteed  +5%, even the interest is do-able & self funding, https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21641.0.html
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: cube on March 02, 2016, 10:41:38 pm
We need focus and a purpose.

Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via
Stock Markets
Bond Markets
Commodity markets
Money markets
Derivatives markets
Futures markets
Insurance markets
Foreign exchange markets


While I would not term it an 'identity crisis', we do lack a clear goal/path and a sharp focus.  What do we want to achieve?
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: CLains on March 02, 2016, 11:16:30 pm
As I see it we're the global, open fin-tech platform that the world needs. Financial applications like,

Stock Markets
Bond Markets
Commodity markets
Money markets
Derivatives markets
Futures markets
Insurance markets
Foreign exchange markets

Even micro-finance, currency creation and MAS fits within this branding. We already have everything in line with this, industrial tps/low latency, smartcoins, assets/stocks with dividends, white/blacklisting, decentralized exchange, "share" in our name, and yield/bond market incoming.

The benefit of what Ethereum is doing is that it is much easier to get network effect with a "do fun stuff" platform, than a "serious financial business" platform, so we need to think about how we can engage serious developers,  entrepreneurs and businesses to go with our global, open fin-tech platform when they can go for private or big institution solutions.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: speedy on March 02, 2016, 11:30:55 pm
tldr; BitShares has an identity crisis. We need focus and to find our own market. Imo our niche should be financial markets.

Totally agree. People think we are just an altcoin and dont even realize BitShares is an exchange. How to change that?  :'(

Ive talked in r/Ethereum and they say things like:
"-I have no need for the smart contracts that BitShares offers"
"-So what smart contract are you waiting for from Ethereum"
"-I dunno, I just know that someone will write something that I will want"
"-Like CFD markets, prediction markets etc?
"-Yeah"
"-BitShares already has those..."
"-Yeah but Vitalik so handsome" (or some shit)

So frustrating.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: yvv on March 02, 2016, 11:52:20 pm
Quote
Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via

This is not going to happen, because all of them need privacy among other things. They will rather wait when Hyperledger or whatever that IBM thing is called will be ready.

Banks might, but hedge funds, speculators, can be just about anyone. The fact it is decentralized means its trustless, there is no need for identity to be known during trades.

On more specific cases maybe contracts could be done. Still, that's something far ahead and who knows if we or someone else can't come up with the tech to achieve that.

We are still in the very beginning.

Don't we have stealth? maybe it could be upgraded in the future and be used for whatever needs banks need.

I would vote for bitshares to stay a financial platform for small people. Those oligarchs already have one and they are happy with it. Things like micro-payments, micro-investments, crowdlending, crowdfunding etc could be in demand if implemented correctly. This is imo, of course.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: abit on March 03, 2016, 12:40:36 am
If we did some kind of rebrand like updating the website with new info, advertise this, etc we would make news and make an impact. We time that with Rate Limited Fees for example and I believe it could give us that initial boost people are looking for.
Hi @Akado ,

If I understood correctly, the Rate Limited Fees feature is super high priority? Would you like to write a feature definition document in the formal BSIP format for us? I'm a bit sick of requesting for deployment/hard fork without a detailed feature definition document.
Please refer to :
* BM's blog post: http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2016/02/10/How-to-build-a-decentralized-application-without-fees/
* BSIP example: https://github.com/bitshares/bsips/blob/master/bsip-0010.md
* my implementation post: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21462.0.html
* Github feature request: https://github.com/cryptonomex/graphene/issues/603

Thanks a lot!
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Thom on March 03, 2016, 12:57:43 am
Quote
People would immediately associate BitShares with financial markets...

I wouldn't exactly call that a "niche". I also think Empirical1.2 mis-characterized Bitcoin's niche saying it is "gold". It always has been currency, a payment system.

Akado you are expressing the same frustrations many of us here have had for a long time now. Your analogy of the CEO that lacked focus and liked to experiment is extremely apropos to how BitShares has been led so far. But in defense of BM & CNX nobody has figured out the crypto space for business yet, every single project has it's blindsides and failure points. The good news is despite such failures slowly but surely crypto is winning the infowar and waking people up. Bitcoin is far from perfect but it's working and has spawned the birth of a new era of freedom. It's truly exciting to be a part of this revolution, struggle tho we may.

I TOTALLY agree we need focus, and that correlates to strong leadership, but not like the CEO in your analogy. Stan & Dan have thus far failed to do what it takes to win hearts & minds of even the crypto enthusiasts let alone the bigger audience of the industry BitShares is trying to disrupt, "Financial Markets" with their inherent corruption and worship of regulation and authority.

I don't hold back my disappointment in Stan & Dan's leadership b/c their failure is obvious to almost everybody. Could I do better? Absolutely not. Are they grounded in sound principles and have a worthy goal. I believe their efforts are aimed at achieving it, or I wouldn't still be here, contributing as I can to make it happen. Have they given up yet or do they persevere and continue making attempts to attain that goal the best way they know how to? I give Stan & Dan major cudos in even starting BitShares, and even more for their stamina and unfaltering adherence to the core goal of building a true free market system for trading value without the heavy hand of regulatory compliance.

They could have ditched the principles and pivoted to a new goal, selling out to fully and totally embrace those espoused by Identibit but chose instead to draw a line of demarcation between total regulatory compliance and identity registration and the roots and foundation BitShares laid down from the start which is to provide a free market solution b/c that's what the world needs. Everyone serious in the crypto space that is awake to what is wrong in this world knows that and wants to disrupt the financial status quo to empower freedom loving individuals and dethrone the sick, corrupt oligarchs that only want to enslave mankind.

I am totally shocked at why BitShares continues to be the black sheep of crypto and overlooked for any consideration aside from disdain and ridicule.

As Rodney Dangerfield often complained, "What will it take to get some respect around here anyway?"

I just don't know.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: clemahieu on March 03, 2016, 01:14:42 am
FWIW my impression from BTS is it's centered around bells and whistles announcements from a small group rather than soliciting feedback from the broader audience and focusing on a beachhead use case.

Circling the wagons and trumpeting advertisements works for a time until people don't want to participate anymore.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: noisy on March 03, 2016, 01:17:22 am
What Bitshares is?

The simplest answer: Decentralized Exchange.

This is strong, simple, and... anyone from cryptocurrency world understand words like "decentralized" and "exchange". Everyone can pitch Bitshares with simple single sentence:

"Never Ever.... MtGox"

Bitshares is aiming to solve the real problem... and you have to remember that resolving a problem - a fear of loosing money on centralized exchange - is the easiest way to convinced someone to try a "solution for a problem".

So... where is the problem?

Bitshares NEVER had an MVP version.

You might be surprised, by the definition what a MVP actually is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product), because you actually do not now, I am sure about that. I thought that I knew a definition... but I had to run my own starup and lost all my saving and funding to really understand what a MVP is.

"Minimum Viable Product" is not an alpha or beta version which has "all cool features" which are going to be LE-GEN-DA-RY.

No.

- Predition Market
- Bond Market
- Lending
- etc...

and all that staff should never be developed before a completed MVP version.

So what a MVP actually is?

This is that 20% of product, which brings 80% of users and income. But this is not enough. MVP is the foundations for further development.

What are the most two important properties of foundation? Stability and Easy of use.

Then you have to ask, do we actually have any of that properties? Sadly, no. At least not yet.



Let's start from the beggining:

Easy of Use

What the bitshares is? Decentralize Exchange.

When I want to use an exchange, the first thing is: I have to deposit some funds.

Question number one:
How can I do that? I have some bitcoins and some dollars.

Current sad answer:
you have to send BTC... and then you will get some OPEN.BTC or META.BTC... What the heck is OPEN.BTC or META.BTC? How it is different from BTC. Why I cannot just deposit a bitcoin and get an normal BTC?

If you want to deposit USD... exactly the same happen. What the heck is OPEN.USD?

Another bad answer is.... you have to buy BTS fist on another exchange, to issue some BTC by borrowing. What that mean? What that issueing is? Why I have to borrow anything? Wait a minute... this BTC which I wanted to buy is not a real BTC? What a SCAM!!!

That is the reason why we actually need a Sidechain. Not because it will be fancy.. etc... but because then we will have real BTC... no more confusion!

BTW.. Do we even measuring what is our "sign up"/"first deposit" ratio? How many of 100 new users actually deposit anything? On which page they decided to leave an exchange? Even small startups use some tools like Google Analitics to analyse that. How we can improve something what we do not know how bad it is?

Stability

Today I have pitched one more time one of the most important player on the Polish CryptoCurrency market - InPay. To give you a little bit more context... this is the first and only company in Poland, which got individual TAX interpretation from Nationall Tax Office, that in InPay's case mean.. bitcoin can be treated as currency. Every other Polish cryptocurrency company... are actually registered abroad, to avoid not clear TAX interpretation.

(http://i.imgur.com/MT0YqLh.png)

Every serious IT project know... that if you want to have small amount of bugs you should test you project regularly and offten. Right now none of bitshares/CNX repository do have integrated automated runner of unittests. Unittests should be run after each commit.

There are some good sings.. that we actually started to tests things before a release... I mean Stealth Feature. But that would not be possible without a public testnet... which was not present till January!

But testing features just before a release is actually too late! There should be no possibility to merge anything to main branch without Pull Request. Each Pull Request should get a Code Review and confirmation that manual "Quality Assurance" were performed on test net without any problems.

Summary:

Let's build first Stable Decentralized Exchange and Stable and Easy to Use Wallet.

Bitshares has no identity crisis.. Bitshares is a Decentralize Exchange.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: giant middle finger on March 03, 2016, 01:27:45 am
Darkthereum!
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: noisy on March 03, 2016, 01:52:38 am
And... here we have just yet another example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitShares/comments/48o71s/im_quite_sure_this_project_will_go_to_shit_if_it/

people want to have simplicity first! MVP!
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: clemahieu on March 03, 2016, 02:08:22 am
My impression is I saw person A say [this is the problem I see] responded with [no everything is fine] and person B says [this is hard and inconsistent] responded with [were not perfect but getting better].

That doesn't seem like feedback is being listened to, that seems like hand waving and people just walk away.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Stan on March 03, 2016, 02:27:18 am
This is a fantastic thread full of thoughtful ideas presented in a constructive way.

I wish we had more of these.

:)

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: pam2 on March 03, 2016, 02:30:26 am
Quote
Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via

This is not going to happen, because all of them need privacy among other things. They will rather wait when Hyperledger or whatever that IBM thing is called will be ready.

Banks might, but hedge funds, speculators, can be just about anyone. The fact it is decentralized means its trustless, there is no need for identity to be known during trades.

On more specific cases maybe contracts could be done. Still, that's something far ahead and who knows if we or someone else can't come up with the tech to achieve that.

We are still in the very beginning.

Don't we have stealth? maybe it could be upgraded in the future and be used for whatever needs banks need.

I would vote for bitshares to stay a financial platform for small people. Those oligarchs already have one and they are happy with it. Things like micro-payments, micro-investments, crowdlending, crowdfunding etc could be in demand if implemented correctly. This is imo, of course.

I agree, we have a great product with extraodinary features. We should work on easy of use. I see BitShares as an open financial platform for Small Business, Communities, Cooperatives and this is huge as market since they are not serve. Going for big businesses would not be a good strategy. Most of our products and assets target small business (POS, UIA, Referal Program, Reward Base Program, MAS, Decentralize Exchange).  Other crypto-platform have not build something that can be sold/present to local or small business. Our target market will keep us focus. We don't have an identity issue, BitShares is moving, but lack marketing and user friendly solution. Next week I'm starting a BitShares meeting group here in Montreal to share with some bitcoin community some Bitshares features and what make it different...Will love to show a nice mobile apps and get attendees send/receive some BTS, unfortunately our mobile wallet still in beta. I like the idea of presentating BTS as a share in in Decentralize Corporation.  Bitshares is easy to sell to non-crypto users or communities but we neeed to have ease of use. Do any one know about the cost of developing a great mobile apps?  kind like this ethereum bitcoin wallet... http://jaxx.io/
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: noisy on March 03, 2016, 02:32:16 am
My impression is I saw person A say [this is the problem I see] responded with [no everything is fine] and person B says [this is hard and inconsistent] responded with [were not perfect but getting better].

That doesn't seem like feedback is being listened to, that seems like hand waving and people just walk away.

if you are referring to my answer on reddit... then you are absolutely right. I should handle this differently. Actually I deleted my old response and wrote a new one. Sorry for that and thank you that you remind me... that we should take care about quality everywhere.

:)
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: mike623317 on March 03, 2016, 03:56:19 am

With all of these pending bail-ins and negative interest rates, a decentralized bank is huge. If we just had a BitShares Bank with a sexy front end and some nice on-off ramps i'm sure that in itself would be absolutely huge.

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Pheonike on March 03, 2016, 04:20:09 am
We really need ui/ux team to go through are fix the wallet.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode on March 03, 2016, 05:47:05 am
My impression is I saw person A say [this is the problem I see] responded with [no everything is fine] and person B says [this is hard and inconsistent] responded with [were not perfect but getting better].

That doesn't seem like feedback is being listened to, that seems like hand waving and people just walk away.

You hit the nail on the head.. twice.. also with your last post. :)

Much of the discussion/feedback goes just like that.. no real feedback from real market research is done.. everyone just like to hear their ideas and validate them.

There are some good ideas sure.. but like you said.. its a handful of people validating their ideas among themselves deciding how the rest of the world works and what is a winning plan.

The identity problem as this thread hopes to solve is not something we need to fit what we have into.. it needs to be something people can identify with that we can then reach for. With a little business model canvasing and some real market research we could get it done right.

It's easier just to write on the back of a napkin though and declare it awesome. :) Easier often wins.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: liondani on March 03, 2016, 07:08:33 am
What Bitshares is?

The simplest answer: Decentralized Exchange.

I really think THAT is our problem!
Nobody believes we are DECENTRALIZED enough with only 23 entity's/witnesses the majority of them are controlled from somebody called... bytemaster (or at least they believe they are)...

simple as that...

PS try to think outside the box

(https://s14-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Frlv.zcache.com%2Fthink_outside_the_box_tshirts-r7054cdb9cfd24da599c9e9f90d063efe_wio57_324.jpg&sp=2f4aa4d08c65d7f09947884f0f84be22)
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Empirical1.2 on March 03, 2016, 08:03:19 am
What Bitshares is?

The simplest answer: Decentralized Exchange.

I think BTS should first and foremost be considered a Decentralized BANK & Exchange. The man in the street wants a safe place to store money but VERY FEW of them have ever used an 'Exchange'.

BitShares offers a bank account that earns 5% interest where funds can be transferred in minutes seconds anywhere in the world with more privacy and security than a Swiss bank account.  Your account can never be frozen, your funds cannot be seized, and the bank can never face collapse due to loan defaults or fraud.  All of this is made possible without requiring any employees, lawyers, regulatory compliance, vaults, buildings, and other infrastructure required by traditional banks.  Unlike existing banks, you can hold your balance denominated in gold, silver, oil, or other commodities in additional to national currencies.
 

(http://i.gyazo.com/71b7855e470f91969eb56ff7bddcdef1.png)


*It's highly likely, the actual Fort Knox is quite empty but the idea/metaphor of BTS being your own personal vault is a strong one imo.
*I've crossed out +5% interest but with a yield subsidy it's actually possible https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21641.0.html
*Also I'm aware there are legal issues with describing yourself as a bank. 




Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Akado on March 03, 2016, 08:41:09 am
We really need ui/ux team to go through are fix the wallet.

Moonstone is the answer for that, but until then... If they only deliver during the summer or later, we Will continue with this problem
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: betax on March 03, 2016, 10:24:11 am
Here are some thoughts:

BTS / Graphene is a great product and we all know it. We have a great community whom apart from the losses have stick here for 3 years.

My feedback apart from the provided, it is about the information, communication, transparency, community involvement and announcements.

Edit: Which deviates a bit from the original OP.

----------------------------------

I would like to see a single and simple source of information and communication, the Friday meetings are great, and expose great ideas, we then have the transcripts  and private chats, and other bits and bots. But there is not a single source of information, for Road Map, Vision, Ideas, Experiments, etc.

If we look at Ethereum and Dapps, their forum is not widely use, their channels are Reddit (general public / discussion), Slack (general chat), gittter (general development chat) and forum (announcements, support). But everybody knows the roadmap and what each component is doing, the current forum is a blurred of information, ideas and political (meeting room) discussions

I would love to see a slack for Bitshares in general, with channels for development like #plasma, and channels for current issues and ideas (ie pricing etc), this way things are not mixed.

No private channels.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The line between CNX and Bitshares is very blurred, I am avid promoter of CNX as I support the whole development team and recognise their major work. But this is a closed group, and I think it divides the community, you are in or out, and if you want to be part of Bitshares you need to create your own business.

We have the community token, which are brownies, maybe we could rename them, as they have bad connotation? If you are a community member / holder, this might make you feel you are part of CNX the same way as other members that joined in the first instance?

Ideally be more open of any internal decisions, no secret sauce.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree with Liondani, witnesses let's have more, what about 1000 if possible?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No more announcements of partnerships, just continuous feed of information. If a Company wants to announce they are working with Bitshares, they should do that themselves, this way if the project does not go ahead and/or is not worthy, this should not affect Bitshares in general or CNX.

-------------------------------------------

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: abit on March 03, 2016, 11:06:19 am

I agree with Liondani, witnesses let's have more, what about 1000 if possible?

Number of witnesses is not the key of centralized or decentralized in BitShares. Voting power is.

Our top proxies /stake holders are able to vote in as many as 1001 witnesses if they are willing to. It's already possible with current protocol.

On the other hand, currently only about 40 people are willing to run block producing nodes. Why? cost + difficulties + responsibilities V.S. return. IMHO the question "what about 1000 if possible" atm is nonsense. I appreciate what @Fox did about integrating BitShares node template into the M$ cloud platform recently, which will reduce the difficulty of running witness nodes.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: CLains on March 03, 2016, 12:58:10 pm
I would love to see a slack for Bitshares in general, with channels for development like #plasma, and channels for current issues and ideas (ie pricing etc), this way things are not mixed.

This slack is coming along great, I urge everyone to join in: https://bitshares2.slack.com/
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: EstefanTT on March 03, 2016, 01:26:17 pm
Maybe the administrator of the bts2.slack could create several channel of communication.
Each one for every aspect of the current problematic of bts ; GUI, free Tx, Stealth, side chains, marketing, announcement, ...
"Announcement" should be clean of conversations a only reserve to devs and contributors. If every important matter would be announce in the "announcement channel" (each new available beyond bitcoin hangout, each new GUI update, forks, updates on new features progress, new ideas,  ...) we could use the content of this channel to create a feed news on bts.org and give it more dynamism.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Akado on March 03, 2016, 02:12:46 pm
If we did some kind of rebrand like updating the website with new info, advertise this, etc we would make news and make an impact. We time that with Rate Limited Fees for example and I believe it could give us that initial boost people are looking for.
Hi @Akado ,

If I understood correctly, the Rate Limited Fees feature is super high priority? Would you like to write a feature definition document in the formal BSIP format for us? I'm a bit sick of requesting for deployment/hard fork without a detailed feature definition document.
Please refer to :
* BM's blog post: http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2016/02/10/How-to-build-a-decentralized-application-without-fees/
* BSIP example: https://github.com/bitshares/bsips/blob/master/bsip-0010.md
* my implementation post: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21462.0.html
* Github feature request: https://github.com/cryptonomex/graphene/issues/603

Thanks a lot!

@abit You want me to make a BSIP for Rate Limited Fees? I've never tried that and remember I'm not a technical member so I can't really go into much details without copy/pasting.

I can give it a try if you want, nonetheless
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: bitacer on March 03, 2016, 02:54:03 pm
A platform for local community currencies . IMO this will be a major market for such platforms. There are thousands of them popping up all around the world.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: abit on March 03, 2016, 03:05:21 pm
If we did some kind of rebrand like updating the website with new info, advertise this, etc we would make news and make an impact. We time that with Rate Limited Fees for example and I believe it could give us that initial boost people are looking for.
Hi @Akado ,

If I understood correctly, the Rate Limited Fees feature is super high priority? Would you like to write a feature definition document in the formal BSIP format for us? I'm a bit sick of requesting for deployment/hard fork without a detailed feature definition document.
Please refer to :
* BM's blog post: http://bytemaster.github.io/article/2016/02/10/How-to-build-a-decentralized-application-without-fees/
* BSIP example: https://github.com/bitshares/bsips/blob/master/bsip-0010.md
* my implementation post: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21462.0.html
* Github feature request: https://github.com/cryptonomex/graphene/issues/603

Thanks a lot!

@abit You want me to make a BSIP for Rate Limited Fees? I've never tried that and remember I'm not a technical member so I can't really go into much details without copy/pasting.

I can give it a try if you want, nonetheless
Yes @Akado I want someone to do some documentation work, just like @jakub has done for BSIP10. I'm not good at writing those papers. Imo it requires little technical knowledge but more knowledge about features of BitShares system. It's great if you can help, best try to understand it and write in a easier-to-understand language, but not just copy/pasting.
Thanks very much!

By the way it's a bounty job :)
Sure, I'll pony up 10k BTS for the bounty.  Let me know who to pay when it's finished.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Samupaha on March 03, 2016, 05:09:04 pm
I've been also pondering the question "what is Bitshares?" lately, especially from a marketing perspective. We should have a one simple answer to that, like "Bitshares is a financial platform build on blockchain".

But besides that one, we can have many different answers for different people. When you are telling somebody about Bitshares, you can choose the best point of view for each individual or group.

Bitshares is Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC)
- For people looking for investment opportunities. BTS is a share of a DAC that offers high quality financial services globally. Anybody can buy it without any restrictions.

Bitshares is a financial platform on a blockchain
- For people looking for alternative economic systems.
- For people looking for alternatives for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
- Fintech professionals.

Bitshares is a decentralized exchange
- For traders.

Bitshares is a decentralized bank
- For people looking for alternative economic systems.

Bitshares is a fast and versatile payment network
- For businesses.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Empirical1.2 on March 03, 2016, 05:16:37 pm
If you're interested in giving ideas on how to communicate BTS briefly as a brand you may wish to contribute ideas to FOX's community action request for Azure Baas Blog post...

Community Action Request: Content for Azure BaaS blog post. 

Background:
I've been in contact with Marley Gray, Director, BizDev & Strategy - Cloud and Enterprise, Microsoft on the on-boarding process for BitShares to Azure BaaS.  We are a pull request approval from being live. 

Request:
First, please review Mr. Marley's previous blog posts to see how other blockchain offerings are being positioned [1].  Then, please provide ideas on what you feel should be included in his upcoming blog post highlighting BitShares.  I have a skeleton contained within the metadata.json and README.md files within the GitHub repository [2].  If you choose to tweet this information, please mention @ryanRfox

Gratitude:
Thanks to all those that have tested the scripts and provided feedback thus far; please offer more. 

[1] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/blog/author/marleyg/
[2] https://github.com/ryanRfox/azure-quickstart-templates/tree/review/bitshares-ubuntu-vm

This was my contribution/attempt to help explain/market/position what BTS is very briefly...

BitShares is a Decentralized Financial Services Blockchain offering an industrial-grade asset exchange and specializing in Smartcoins. SmartCoins are price stable crypto-currencies innovated by BitShares that allow users to hold & trade balances denominated in commodities like gold, currencies like USD as well as popular stocks and indexes. They also offer additional tools such as User Issued Assets, Smart Contracts and recurring payment functionality. Their goal is to provide a financial safe haven for individuals & a cutting edge blockchain for business without the volatility.

If BTS does get added to Azure that will be great exposure for BTS. As I mentioned on the price speculation thread, DACs that have previously been added have risen quite a lot in value as a result and held on to a lot of those gains too.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Ben Mason on March 03, 2016, 06:52:15 pm
We have made the sound assumption that given access to absolutely secure storage and transmission of value, everyone on the planet would be interested. So what is stopping BitShares from spreading like a virus? It currently targets the wrong people....a niche within a niche. That's not an accusation because it's a highly motivated niche that has taken us this far.

I complete agree with everyone's comments about ease of use and simplicity of pitch being the biggest stumbling block. The fact is, BitShares is not particularly valuable because despite its promise, hardly anyone can use it. BitShares has the highest ideals for a secure, open transaction & value storage network but even if people can get to grips with the technology, their use of its native units can only be achieved with significant risk and complexity given that it is completely reliant upon other units, networks and exchanges as intermediaries.

We need to sell the vision of BitShares to communities of normal people and when we do, we need to show them an unbelievably simple method for changing FIAT to bitAssets or BTS and back again. At the same time the tools we introduce them to need to be highly targeted to them and very simple.

In an ideal situation we need teams of people who are all able to specialise in the marketing and refinement of major tools within the BitShares platform for particular groups of people or businesses. The most important group in my mind is ordinary people who could benefit from the most basic application of the BitShares tools.  It is the one group we seem currently to be the furthest from serving and in turn benefiting from gigantic network effect that would immediately drive everything else. I hope (so hard diamonds will be dropping out my butt soon) that we can adjust focus in this direction because we can still out-compete our competitors and those with far smaller dreams and make Bitcoin (with all due respect) look like a firework compared to our space-ship.

We should attempt to partner with anyone trying to do a similar approach. I know there is already a huge amount of effort going on within BitShares to accomplish these goals all the time. Massive respect and thank you for the hard work.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode on March 03, 2016, 07:28:31 pm
We have made the sound assumption that given access to absolutely secure storage and transmission of value, everyone on the planet would be interested. So what is stopping BitShares from spreading like a virus? It currently targets the wrong people....a niche within a niche. That's not an accusation because it's a highly motivated niche that has taken us this far.

I complete agree with everyone's comments about ease of use and simplicity of pitch being the biggest stumbling block. The fact is, BitShares is not particularly valuable because despite its promise, hardly anyone can use it. BitShares has the highest ideals for a secure, open transaction & value storage network but even if people can get to grips with the technology, their use of its native units can only be achieved with significant risk and complexity given that it is completely reliant upon other units, networks and exchanges as intermediaries.

We need to sell the vision of BitShares to communities of normal people and when we do, we need to show them an unbelievably simple method for changing FIAT to bitAssets or BTS and back again. At the same time the tools we introduce them to need to be highly targeted to them and very simple.

In an ideal situation we need teams of people who are all able to specialise in the marketing and refinement of major tools within the BitShares platform for particular groups of people or businesses. The most important group in my mind is ordinary people who could benefit from the most basic application of the BitShares tools.  It is the one group we seem currently to be the furthest from serving and in turn benefiting from gigantic network effect that would immediately drive everything else. I hope (so hard diamonds will be dropping out my butt soon) that we can adjust focus in this direction because we can still out-compete our competitors and those with far smaller dreams and make Bitcoin (with all due respect) look like a firework compared to our space-ship.

We should attempt to partner with anyone trying to do a similar approach. I know there is already a huge amount of effort going on within BitShares to accomplish these goals all the time. Massive respect and thank you for the hard work.

(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/64015603.jpg)
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Ben Mason on March 03, 2016, 07:45:57 pm
We have made the sound assumption that given access to absolutely secure storage and transmission of value, everyone on the planet would be interested. So what is stopping BitShares from spreading like a virus? It currently targets the wrong people....a niche within a niche. That's not an accusation because it's a highly motivated niche that has taken us this far.

I complete agree with everyone's comments about ease of use and simplicity of pitch being the biggest stumbling block. The fact is, BitShares is not particularly valuable because despite its promise, hardly anyone can use it. BitShares has the highest ideals for a secure, open transaction & value storage network but even if people can get to grips with the technology, their use of its native units can only be achieved with significant risk and complexity given that it is completely reliant upon other units, networks and exchanges as intermediaries.

We need to sell the vision of BitShares to communities of normal people and when we do, we need to show them an unbelievably simple method for changing FIAT to bitAssets or BTS and back again. At the same time the tools we introduce them to need to be highly targeted to them and very simple.

In an ideal situation we need teams of people who are all able to specialise in the marketing and refinement of major tools within the BitShares platform for particular groups of people or businesses. The most important group in my mind is ordinary people who could benefit from the most basic application of the BitShares tools.  It is the one group we seem currently to be the furthest from serving and in turn benefiting from gigantic network effect that would immediately drive everything else. I hope (so hard diamonds will be dropping out my butt soon) that we can adjust focus in this direction because we can still out-compete our competitors and those with far smaller dreams and make Bitcoin (with all due respect) look like a firework compared to our space-ship.

We should attempt to partner with anyone trying to do a similar approach. I know there is already a huge amount of effort going on within BitShares to accomplish these goals all the time. Massive respect and thank you for the hard work.

(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/64015603.jpg)
Lol!
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: mike623317 on March 04, 2016, 12:10:12 am

With all of these pending bail-ins and negative interest rates, a decentralized bank is huge. If we just had a BitShares Bank with a sexy front end and some nice on-off ramps i'm sure that in itself would be absolutely huge.

http://techcitynews.com/2016/02/09/62-of-people-would-switch-their-bank-account-to-a-fintech-provider/

62% of people ‘would switch their bank account to a FinTech provider’
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: yvv on March 04, 2016, 12:21:09 am

With all of these pending bail-ins and negative interest rates, a decentralized bank is huge. If we just had a BitShares Bank with a sexy front end and some nice on-off ramps i'm sure that in itself would be absolutely huge.

http://techcitynews.com/2016/02/09/62-of-people-would-switch-their-bank-account-to-a-fintech-provider/

62% of people ‘would switch their bank account to a FinTech provider’

And who is this "FinTech provider" would be?
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: JonnyB on March 04, 2016, 01:11:50 am
The front page of our website should just say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"


The text currently on the front page of bitshares.org is meaningless to new visitors.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: TravelsAsia on March 04, 2016, 01:45:41 am
The front page of our website should just say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"


The text currently on the front page of bitshares.org is meaningless to new visitors.

 +5% Something easy for people to visualize.  Simple as 1-2-3

1. Simple clean interface
2. Website targeting the Decentralized Exchange
3. Video on front page (Augur, Slock.it etc..) that talks about never getting Goxed again


4. Profit
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Akado on March 04, 2016, 04:34:13 pm
The front page of our website should just say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"


The text currently on the front page of bitshares.org is meaningless to new visitors.

 +5% Something easy for people to visualize.  Simple as 1-2-3

1. Simple clean interface
2. Website targeting the Decentralized Exchange
3. Video on front page (Augur, Slock.it etc..) that talks about never getting Goxed again


4. Profit

@JonnyBitcoin @TravelsAsia check it now, it was updated
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Empirical1.2 on March 04, 2016, 04:43:18 pm
The front page of our website should just say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"


The text currently on the front page of bitshares.org is meaningless to new visitors.

 +5% Something easy for people to visualize.  Simple as 1-2-3

1. Simple clean interface
2. Website targeting the Decentralized Exchange
3. Video on front page (Augur, Slock.it etc..) that talks about never getting Goxed again


4. Profit

@JonnyBitcoin @TravelsAsia check it now, it was updated

 +5% I sometimes think DEX only is a bit narrow, but underneath you've added

'BitShares 2.0 offers a stack of financial services including exchange and banking on a blockchain'

So it's an improvement imo.  (I think it should probably be 'financial services including an exchange..' )


Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: yvv on March 04, 2016, 04:48:56 pm
The front page of our website should just say     "Bitshares is a fully decentralised exchange"


The text currently on the front page of bitshares.org is meaningless to new visitors.

 +5% Something easy for people to visualize.  Simple as 1-2-3

1. Simple clean interface
2. Website targeting the Decentralized Exchange
3. Video on front page (Augur, Slock.it etc..) that talks about never getting Goxed again


4. Profit

@JonnyBitcoin @TravelsAsia check it now, it was updated

It would be good if download link for linux also included a link to ubuntu ppa

https://launchpad.net/~bitshares/+archive/ubuntu/bitshares
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: SolomonSollarsNSense on March 04, 2016, 06:29:13 pm
Bitshares is the Linux of Finance. Powering the Fin-Tech technologies of tomorrow. Giving investors and entrepreneurs alike a new way to achieve their financial initiatives and investment goals without the hassles of yesterday's banking technologies. Now creating assets, trading, banking and other activities can be achieved... etc etc

Key here is the first two sentences. My take as an entrepreneur. Lets not try to market like everyone else. Lets be ourself. Just my two $ense.

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: fuzzy on March 04, 2016, 06:47:05 pm
Bitshares is the Linux of Finance. Powering the Fin-Tech technologies of tomorrow. Giving investors and entrepreneurs alike a new way to achieve their financial initiatives and investment goals without the hassles of yesterday's banking technologies. Now creating assets, trading, banking and other activities can be achieved... etc etc

Key here is the first two sentences. My take as an entrepreneur. Lets not try to market like everyone else. Lets be ourself. Just my two $ense.

 +5%
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Empirical1.2 on March 04, 2016, 07:58:33 pm
3. Video on front page (Augur, Slock.it etc..) that talks about never getting Goxed again
4. Profit

This is a pretty catchy BitAsset video I did back in the day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCuXzQZAjPA&feature=youtu.be (I loaded it up again but as 'unlisted' as it's outdated/copyright issues/song author uncredited.) 

Realistically though BTS best interim bet might be to look at using some of this OpenLedger video with Ronny's permission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--CivEZvTxU
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: JonnyB on March 04, 2016, 11:11:34 pm
3. Video on front page (Augur, Slock.it etc..) that talks about never getting Goxed again
4. Profit

This is a pretty catchy BitAsset video I did back in the day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCuXzQZAjPA&feature=youtu.be (I loaded it up again but as 'unlisted' as it's outdated/copyright issues/song author uncredited.) 

Realistically though BTS best interim bet might be to look at using some of this OpenLedger video with Ronny's permission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--CivEZvTxU

nice
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Geneko on March 04, 2016, 11:12:25 pm
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode on March 05, 2016, 02:58:53 am
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Stan on March 05, 2016, 03:15:50 am
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)

Yes.  I made the same case at the Shanghai Blockchain Summit last fall and even in the original concept of a SuperDAC.  A DEX is a really good thing to have as part of the infrastructure of a digital business platform.  Like a bank as one of the anchor stores in a shopping mall.  BitShares offers an ecosystem with low economic friction in which businesses offering new products and services can thrive.  We need to market our platform services to businesses who in turn market their products and services to specific consumers. 

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Thom on March 05, 2016, 05:00:50 am
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)

Some interesting perspectives. I'm not sure I agree with a focus on businesses though. Perhaps it will work out that way, but IMO if we can build a product that appeals to a broader audience it could go viral. That's easier said than done of course. From the recent feedback offered here on the forum from people new to BitShares we don't seem to have a clue how to identify and adddress the needs of a customer base. I am here b/c of the vision, which is NOT plasma or Identibit or anything like that. I am here for decentralization, disruption and unsensored DNS. I am here b/c I realize the HUGE potential of blockchain tech to achieve those goals, to lay down the pavement to the Financial Superhighway, not some walled off, segregated, limited version of it. The free market baby, that's where the focus AND payout will be. That's the audience we need to connect with.

I find myself swayed by Andreaus Antonopoulus' analogy comparing the evolution of the Internet and blockchain tech. He equates efforts like plasma and private blockchains with companies like AOL & CompuServe, trying to offer their proprietary email, their walled off services to their customers. But they couldn't keep up with the innovation of the free market, freedom loving public Internet. When the Internet naturally evolved those same customers realized their isolated, "quarantined" / proprietary environment was inferior in almost every way to the open Internet. Why would they continue to pay for AOL or CompuServe email when they can get better and more numerous choices elsewhere for free? And just where are those companies today?

I can certainly see the value for companies in utilizing blockchain tech to improve their internal efficiency and reduce costs, and I can also see there may be a business opportunity to help companies employ blockchain tech, BUT THAT IS SO FAR FROM THE VISION AND MISSION OF BITSHARES TO EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS AND PROVIDE FINANCIAL FREEDOM TO FINANCIAL MARKETS I don't think it should be the focus of BitShares. CNX may see that as a viable way to make money, but how has that worked out so far? What horde of businesses are beating down the doors at CNX to help them implement their very own version of the blockchain? Like I said I can imagine there may be a business opportunity in that space but I don't see it as a sure thing. The current track record seems to indicate the opposite. 
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode on March 05, 2016, 05:13:20 am
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)

Some interesting perspectives. I'm not sure I agree with a focus on businesses though. Perhaps it will work out that way, but IMO if we can build a product that appeals to a broader audience it could go viral. That's easier said than done of course. From the recent feedback offered here on the forum from people new to BitShares we don't seem to have a clue how to identify and adddress the needs of a customer base. I am here b/c of the vision, which is NOT plasma or Identibit or anything like that. I am here for decentralization, disruption and unsensored DNS. I am here b/c I realize the HUGE potential of blockchain tech to achieve those goals, to lay down the pavement to the Financial Superhighway, not some walled off, segregated, limited version of it. The free market baby, that's where the focus AND payout will be. That's the audience we need to connect with.

I find myself swayed by Andreaus Antonopoulus' analogy comparing the evolution of the Internet and blockchain tech. He equates efforts like plasma and private blockchains with companies like AOL & CompuServe, trying to offer their proprietary email, their walled off services to their customers. But they couldn't keep up with the innovation of the free market, freedom loving public Internet. When the Internet naturally evolved those same customers realized their isolated, "quarantined" / proprietary environment was inferior in almost every way to the open Internet. Why would they continue to pay for AOL or CompuServe email when they can get better and more numerous choices elsewhere for free? And just where are those companies today?

I can certainly see the value for companies in utilizing blockchain tech to improve their internal efficiency and reduce costs, and I can also see there may be a business opportunity to help companies employ blockchain tech, BUT THAT IS SO FAR FROM THE VISION AND MISSION OF BITSHARES TO EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS AND PROVIDE FINANCIAL FREEDOM TO FINANCIAL MARKETS I don't think it should be the focus of BitShares. CNX may see that as a viable way to make money, but how has that worked out so far? What horde of businesses are beating down the doors at CNX to help them implement their very own version of the blockchain? Like I said I can imagine there may be a business opportunity in that space but I don't see it as a sure thing. The current track record seems to indicate the opposite.



http://www.bentley.edu/newsroom/latest-headlines/mind-of-millennial

That seems pretty dead on as far as "THE VISION AND MISSION OF BITSHARES TO EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS AND PROVIDE FINANCIAL FREEDOM TO FINANCIAL MARKETS"

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Thom on March 05, 2016, 06:04:01 am
Sorry, BCL, the dots from your link were too far apart to integrate into a picture that relates to what the BitShares vision is.

Granted, I didn't dig into the 18 page survey but instead read the enclosing summary. Just don't see how you're making a case for proprietary solutions and against unregulated ones. But then, I'm not sure the millennials mindset represents quality wisdom. I will admit it is a demographic I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of. I see extremes in that group (like any "group"), from those who are wide awake and anxious for meaningful change and are willing to help make it happen to those dumbed down from 13 years of public school indoctrination who know nothing BUT the status quo and hope "somebody" will fix it. Meanwhile they just want to hangout their parents place & let them worry about it, they created the mess anyway. That later attitude is obviously not the type that I have any trust in.

Another issue I have with that article is it's collectivist thinking. It's individuals that get shit done not some demographic "group" like millennials or baby boomers. Statistics have their uses but I don't see the point you're trying to make by citing that article.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Stan on March 05, 2016, 06:28:38 am
What horde of businesses are beating down the doors at CNX to help them implement their very own version of the blockchain? Like I said I can imagine there may be a business opportunity in that space but I don't see it as a sure thing. The current track record seems to indicate the opposite.

Actually, you might be surprised.  :)

Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: SolomonSollarsNSense on March 05, 2016, 06:48:37 am
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)

Yes.  I made the same case at the Shanghai Blockchain Summit last fall and even in the original concept of a SuperDAC.  A DEX is a really good thing to have as part of the infrastructure of a digital business platform.  Like a bank as one of the anchor stores in a shopping mall.  BitShares offers an ecosystem with low economic friction in which businesses offering new products and services can thrive.  We need to market our platform services to businesses who in turn market their products and services to specific consumers.

All of this ^^^^^^^^^  +5% That is exactly what I am doing. It is up to us now to take this technology to the appropriate demographics with the appropriate platform that utilizes it.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Empirical1.2 on March 05, 2016, 08:23:23 am
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)

Regards the DEX, as it doesn't allow people to deposit/withdraw alts 1-1 it hasn't really had the opportunity to compete with a CEX. As a platform due to the nature of crypto/open source, many features such as speed/other will be fairly indistinguishable to people outside crypto from one platform (NXT/BTS) to another, so it would come down to which platform is marketed the best, we can all agree BTS is not/unlikely to be the strongest in the room in terms of marketing.

Imo the horseless carriage is and has always been BitAssets and they've been designed at a time when horses (the banks) are about to be wiped out by the plague. The question is whether we can be the Henry Ford of Crypto and package them in such a way as they're accessible & attractive to millions of people.

Personally I think BTS is on the cusp of greatness, by making BitAssets attractive through offering yield and a $0.99-$1.01 range. (All self funding during the multi year growth/adoption phase of BitAssets.)

By focusing on that first you'll gain utility as merchants & businesses will want to serve that market and potentially be based on your platform to do it or even to use BitAssets themselves.



Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode on March 05, 2016, 01:38:22 pm
Numerous times such discussion starts with good point and then dissolves in brainstorming fashion.

One thing is obvious from the very beginning, this project lacks clear objective.
It is problem of a leadership. I have to admit that BM critics have proved its point.

Good leader would know one thing. He must become entrepreneur first. With all possibilities he might dream of he need at least one practical thing that is working to prove his point. To himself and to others. In such a way he build his momentum, his self confidence and his courage to persist in chasing his dreams no matter what. Henry Ford has dreamed about horseless carriage. Then he put all his knowledge and talent in to building one. It took him two years for finishing his first working prototype. With money and credibility he earned he build Ford Motor Company.
I think our problem is that Bitshare is internal combustion engine for BMs horseless carriage. Although critical component, without it horseless carriage surely couldn't exist as such, it is not a point of a dream. So what is our horseless carriage. Is it decentralized exchange for Bishares. It may be.

All things that we enjoy in our modern life, from electricity that drives it to this very forum, was ones a dream in someones head.
Difference is that someone put it for people to see, feel and enjoy benefits of using it.

The DEX is horseless carriage... it was perhaps a few months ago during a hangout that BM did bring up that the original goal of bitshares.. like the VERY beginning it was created.. was in response to MtGOX... they wanted to create a decentralized exchange where nobody would have to ever worry again about that happening. Back then it was also believed that bitcoin would never be regulated.. and therefore it would be open to such messes like that happening all the time.

He then went on to talk about how since then it is not as much of a concern now as it used to be. The government regulating bitcoin was unexpected.. and therefore now causes exchanges to be more accountable and having to follow certain government oversight.

So to continue with your comparison.. it is as though they set out to create the horseless carriage.. and came up with one about 10 years to late. Not quite the right fit comparison.. but you get the idea... certain assumptions that were made from the beginning turned out to go in another direction.

So fast forward to today and you see people wondering why people are not swarming to the DEX.. we call it an identiy crisis because where we began now while it does have a unique value proposition.. the pain that we were originally designed to solve is no longer present due to the market changes. The gains we offer are not high on the priorities of that customer segment.. but the task of trading that the exchange accomplishes it does it well.

So where does that leave us now? He tried to suggest i the same hangout that at potential target market we should look at might be freedom lovers as a niche that might be responsive to having an open ledger.

What I think  now is we have a DEX.. and yes.. there are other markets that can be served by it.. however I think bitshares overall future is really as a business blockchain platform.

The DEX can serve as a hub for settlements and currency exchange.

Businesses can build their smart contracts on Bitshares and get all the benefits the DEX has to offer in powering those contracts.

So when it comes to identifying what Bitshares is.. it is clear to me that we have product that is a DEX... that serves as a great DEMO of just one thing that can run on the bitshares blockchain.

What we need now is for those who are traders and those wanting to focus in that space to do so.

For the rest of what bitshares has to offer.. I would say we need to start identifying the most obvious verticals that will serve specific businesses and get those businesses building their apps on Bitshares.

Anyways.. my  +5% :)

Regards the DEX, as it doesn't allow people to deposit/withdraw alts 1-1 it hasn't really had the opportunity to compete with a CEX. As a platform due to the nature of crypto/open source, many features such as speed/other will be fairly indistinguishable to people outside crypto from one platform (NXT/BTS) to another, so it would come down to which platform is marketed the best, we can all agree BTS is not/unlikely to be the strongest in the room in terms of marketing.

Imo the horseless carriage is and has always been BitAssets and they've been designed at a time when horses (the banks) are about to be wiped out by the plague. The question is whether we can be the Henry Ford of Crypto and package them in such a way as they're accessible & attractive to millions of people.

Personally I think BTS is on the cusp of greatness, by making BitAssets attractive through offering yield and a $0.99-$1.01 range. (All self funding during the multi year growth/adoption phase of BitAssets.)

By focusing on that first you'll gain utility as merchants & businesses will want to serve that market and potentially be based on your platform to do it or even to use BitAssets themselves.


No.. I disagree.. the original vision was the DEX... the Assets were simply a part of that invention.. the crank-arm in the engine if you will. They were created out of the necessity to have tradeable assets that were collateralize instead of IOUs like everyone else... again attempting to create the vision of a decentralized exchange everyone could count on.

If consequentially an invention out of the original intent should take off as the bigger deal then so be it.. but in answer to the original quote I quoted.. it's certainly the DEX. However.. look at Bitcoin and blockchain... bitcoin was certainly satoshis horseless carriage.. but the invention out of that.. the blockchain has become far bigger than that.

Imagine what Henry Ford would think if you told him about horseless AND driverless carriages. :) Cue the Stan:

Think BIGGER Pinky!

@Thom  Sorry you didn't connect the dots there... it was an attempt to educate you on what the landscape of business means today... we are in a new paradigm shift and Bitshares is poised to catch the wave. That study not only debunks a lot of bad steriotypes, but it also identified that the future sees more and more BUSINESSES coming into being. From what you write you seem to equate this only to CORPORATIONS. I said businesses.. that means anybody with a dream and the gumption to create something. Where do all those BUSINESS in crypto go today? Right now seems they are going to Ethereum... they have the messaging of 'build on our platform' pretty clear.. never mind the semantics of turing complete or whatever.. they will go where they are welcome and they believe their dreams will grow.

Look at Rune... he didn't build MAKER on Bitshares.. they choose to build it on Ethereum... but when it came time for him to have a tradeable asset... who was it he came to?

All I am saying.. imagine if he had just built on Bitshares to begin with and could of had the entire Assets and DEX ecosystem to plug into his solution.... then he wouldn't have to deal with all the ethereum limitations when he becomes wildly successful.. think about that value proposition for so many other verticals.

Our value proposition as a blockchain business building platform in the new business world we have emerging today is MASSIVE... and if we can make that our clear messaging and understand that is what we are 'now'.. we could own the space and become the defacto for 3rd generation blockchain operations... then IBM and the hyperledger buddies will be looking to adopt to us instead of the other way around. While that sounds far fetched in our current iteration of identity and messaging.. it is possible with the right change.

Bitshares is a Blockchain Business Platform for the Win!

(http://i66.tinypic.com/x1y5u8.jpg)
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: JonnyB on March 05, 2016, 02:09:45 pm
Bitshares needs to attract 2 types of people. Investors and Users

Investors
We need to attract people who like me saw BTS as a good investment. Not day traders trying to make a quick buck.
We need them to increase the price of BTS market cap which benefits all aspects of the bitshares system.

Users
These are people who want to use the exchange but not necessarily buy BTS. This will grow our network effect and therefore our marketcap.
I would say there are 2 types of users.
1. Asset creators like Maker or BANX who want their asset as a native BTS token. (the most important and hugely positive for network effect)
2. Traders
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: cube on March 05, 2016, 02:16:17 pm
Bitshares needs to attract 2 types of people. Investors and Users

Investors
We need to attract people who like me saw BTS as a good investment. Not day traders trying to make a quick buck.
We need them to increase the price of BTS market cap which benefits all aspects of the bitshares system.

Users
These are people who want to use the exchange but not necessarily buy BTS. This will grow our network effect and therefore our marketcap.
I would say there are 2 types of users.
1. Asset creators like Maker or BANX who want their asset as a native BTS token. (the most important and hugely positive for network effect)
2. Traders

Well said.  In addition to the two types of people above, I think bts needs one more :-

Investors in CNX
1)  bts needs to be maintained - bugs to be fixed, features to be implemented eg sidechains, magin trading.  An external source of funding is much needed.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: liondani on March 05, 2016, 02:48:19 pm
Bitshares is the Linux of Finance.

wow !!! I like it !!!

 +5% +5% +5%
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: nomoreheroes7 on March 05, 2016, 03:16:35 pm
What horde of businesses are beating down the doors at CNX to help them implement their very own version of the blockchain? Like I said I can imagine there may be a business opportunity in that space but I don't see it as a sure thing. The current track record seems to indicate the opposite.

Actually, you might be surprised.  :)

...if I'm actually surprised, that'd be surprising. Here's to hoping a nice surprise awaits us I guess. We're overdue for a nice surprise.

Am I the only one noticing the subtle hint at something huge here? Or am I reading too far into Stan's vague wordplay? ???
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Thom on March 05, 2016, 06:31:31 pm
Quote
-Thom  Sorry you didn't connect the dots there... it was an attempt to educate you on what the landscape of business means today... we are in a new paradigm shift and Bitshares is poised to catch the wave. That study not only debunks a lot of bad steriotypes, but it also identified that the future sees more and more BUSINESSES coming into being. From what you write you seem to equate this only to CORPORATIONS. I said businesses.. that means anybody with a dream and the gumption to create something. Where do all those BUSINESS in crypto go today? Right now seems they are going to Ethereum... they have the messaging of 'build on our platform' pretty clear.. never mind the semantics of turing complete or whatever.. they will go where they are welcome and they believe their dreams will grow.

Click - thanks, @DSN, that did it. You're right, I was thinking big monopolistic behemith corps. Empowering the individual through small business is indeed right on the mark. I get the connection now.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Thom on March 05, 2016, 06:43:42 pm
What horde of businesses are beating down the doors at CNX to help them implement their very own version of the blockchain? Like I said I can imagine there may be a business opportunity in that space but I don't see it as a sure thing. The current track record seems to indicate the opposite.

Actually, you might be surprised.  :)

...if I'm actually surprised, that'd be surprising. Here's to hoping a nice surprise awaits us I guess. We're overdue for a nice surprise.

Am I the only one noticing the subtle hint at something huge here? Or am I reading too far into Stan's vague wordplay? ???

This is typical Stan - don't stare too long at his words or you may fall into a trance. Your words indicate a healthy skepticism, yet also indicate you're hopeful for the positive outcome Stan infers but fails to provide solid evidence of. If it's real it will happen. If not this is just positive hope hype. Time will tell, b/c Stan may not be able to yet.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: TravelsAsia on March 05, 2016, 07:34:49 pm
What horde of businesses are beating down the doors at CNX to help them implement their very own version of the blockchain? Like I said I can imagine there may be a business opportunity in that space but I don't see it as a sure thing. The current track record seems to indicate the opposite.

Actually, you might be surprised.  :)

...if I'm actually surprised, that'd be surprising. Here's to hoping a nice surprise awaits us I guess. We're overdue for a nice surprise.

Am I the only one noticing the subtle hint at something huge here? Or am I reading too far into Stan's vague wordplay? ???

This is typical Stan - don't stare too long at his words or you may fall into a trance. Your words indicate a healthy skepticism, yet also indicate you're hopeful for the positive outcome Stan infers but fails to provide solid evidence of. If it's real it will happen. If not this is just positive hope hype. Time will tell, b/c Stan may not be able to yet.

He said nothing about this actually benefiting Bitshares directly. It was a comment about 3rd part beating down the door to CNX.  I stopped hoping for for secret sauce since the day of B.Page. If CNX is able to remain profitable from contracts outside of core Bitshares, good for them.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: xeroc on March 05, 2016, 10:37:26 pm
Bitshares is the Linux of Finance. Powering the Fin-Tech technologies of tomorrow. Giving investors and entrepreneurs alike a new way to achieve their financial initiatives and investment goals without the hassles of yesterday's banking technologies. Now creating assets, trading, banking and other activities can be achieved... etc etc

Key here is the first two sentences. My take as an entrepreneur. Lets not try to market like everyone else. Lets be ourself. Just my two $ense.
Actually ... Ethereum compares better to Linux .. as it offers a "Kernel" to deploy user-space applications

BitShares is more like Apple, we've invented the "mouse" (read: dex) and have the GUI running smoothly (with 3 seconds blocks) and a bunch of other potential apps already running on our (RISC) CPU ..
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: cube on March 06, 2016, 06:41:47 am
BitShares is more like Apple, we've invented the "mouse" (read: dex) and have the GUI running smoothly (with 3 seconds blocks) and a bunch of other potential apps already running on our (RISC) CPU ..

Nope. Xerox came up with the first 'mouse'.  Bitshares is more like the early versions of Microsoft.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: xeroc on March 06, 2016, 10:40:31 am
BitShares is more like Apple, we've invented the "mouse" (read: dex) and have the GUI running smoothly (with 3 seconds blocks) and a bunch of other potential apps already running on our (RISC) CPU ..

Nope. Xerox came up with the first 'mouse'.  Bitshares is more like the early versions of Microsoft.
Oh .. wasn't sure about the mouse thing .. thanks for the info!
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: Geneko on March 06, 2016, 02:42:28 pm
Let us try for ones to resolve at least one issue. Regarding OP headline what we need is disciplined thought in order to find out possible solutions.  What I am trying to do is exactly that, b/c my knowledge of technology is very limited.

As I said Bitshares is a internal combustion engine (ICE). As such it is meaningless. What does this thing do? Nothing except providing torque and making noise. It could be used for building horseless carriage or for building flying machine as Wright Brothers did, but somebody else needs to chase that dream.  So we compete in market of ICE meant for enthusiastic dream chasers. Lets see how we stand there.

BitShares offers an ecosystem with low economic friction in which businesses offering new products and services can thrive.  We need to market our platform services to businesses who in turn market their products and services to specific consumers. 


Bitshares is the Linux of Finance.

Is it so, and are we the only viable option? I think not. Reading further discussion I find out this:
We are in the same market as Ethereum except the fact that they are offering their ICE for free with simple set of tools for customizing own solutions. Our is faster, more reliable, more stable....how about more user friendly, etc..?
In order to have solution by Bitshares you need CNX to customize your solution and you have to pay royalties, fees, etc... at least it is perceived like that. So for anybody who is trying to build that horseless carriage Ethereum seams like obvious choice. Current market price is reflecting that fact. Ethereum is maybe a gallon per mile machine but who cares. What people need is fulfillment of a dream, leather we could talk about efficiency.  As somebody pointed out, it is up to CNX business to struggle with that fact.

Let me rephrase the question. What is horseless carriage or flying machine where our ICE is only viable option? Second, whose dream is to build one? Third does it comply with laws of physics. Financial freedom and today state own money and taxes  doesn't comply each other.
It needs to be specific.
EMPOWERing INDIVIDUALS AND PROVIDEing FINANCIAL FREEDOM TO FINANCIAL MARKETS is specific as pointing out to clear night sky in chasing alien life in universe.
Title: Re: BitShares Reform: Solving its Identity Crisis and Establishing a Brand.
Post by: yvv on March 06, 2016, 03:37:23 pm
Quote
BitShares is more like Apple

LMAO