BitShares Forum

Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: AAdamsDL on August 05, 2014, 01:36:30 am

Title: Bitshares Killer App
Post by: AAdamsDL on August 05, 2014, 01:36:30 am
I've been watching Bitshares pretty closely for a while now and wrote an article about it back in April. I feel I've got a pretty good understanding of what you plan to achieve (despite the crazy maze of branding that new users have to navigate their way through!)

Bitshares looks pretty promising but I still haven't invested, although I did get tipped some pts at some point (cheers fuznuts!) Now I don't want to get put on the stake here, but lately all my 'bitcoin 2.0' investment capital has been flowing into Nxt. Despite this, Bitshares still holds my interest. DPOS and corresponding block/confirmation time sounds great and could very well be a superior system to Nxt and its planned transparent forging. It's excellent that Bitshares has some implementation of pure proof of stake as the basis for all its projects, something we can all agree on is that POW and associated meta-coin projects (Counterparty, Mastercoin) are supremely disadvantaged by riding on antique chains.

But I don't want to discuss different POS implementations, it's insignificant in comparison to what you might have in the pipe. I want to write an article about how Bitshares X plans to track real world asset values in a completely decentralized way. That's your killer app if you can achieve it! I must admit (with my limited understanding) I don't think it can be done without the use of a centralized oracle/data feed.

I have done some research to see what I can find on the subject, but there is limited information available, Bitassets get loaned into existence by users pledging collateral (in the native coin/currency/share) the value of that asset (denominated in the local unit of value) is given by other users bids and asks. What is the incentive for order books to track the true value of a real world asset? Is it an issue that 2x of equity must be pledged to get 1x of a particular Bitasset? What is the effect of a liquidations due to volatility? (and many other questions). I get the feeling everyone thinks asset value tracking will be awesome, but no one understands how it is supposed to work and what its chance of success is.
Enlighten me!
Title: Re: Bitshares Killer App
Post by: fuzzy on August 05, 2014, 05:49:29 am
Oh adam.  You know I have to bump this... 

This subject has been covered extensively on the forums, so I'm sure someone can provide a link.  Anyone intimately involved in one of those threads who wants to post it?
Title: Re: Bitshares Killer App
Post by: merockstar on August 05, 2014, 07:37:05 am
This is my understanding, it may not be perfect. (or what your asking might have gone over my head)

but fuck it I'll give this a shot.

What is the incentive for order books to track the true value of a real world asset?

There is no incentive, everyone knows that everyone else is going to expect the price to follow whatever asset it's pegged to, so if they catch it on a fluctuation they will buy or sell accordingly in anticipation of profit.

Quote
Is it an issue that 2x of equity must be pledged to get 1x of a particular Bitasset?

The person shorting it is who puts up the collateral. Unless they let it ride long enough for a margin call, they get all their collateral back when they buy some bitAsset from where ever and repurchase their collateral.

They don't get the bitAsset though, that's what they're shorting. The system just creates it when they short it, and matches it to somebody who wants to buy the bitAsset from the person doing the shorting (so they get half their collateral back on the spot). so they're really only putting up 1x collateral. (then if the bitAsset price drops they can buy the amount of bitAsset necessary to cover their short position for less than it would have cost to buy when they shorted, and wind up with 2.5x more btsx than they would have, but they also risk losing that much if bitAsset price rises)

Quote
What is the effect of a liquidations due to volatility?

price temporarily drops, people crap their pants that they can buy a dollar for less than a dollar, price goes up from those people buying.

in the early stages, there wont be enough market depth for the peg to track the price consistently because it'll be so easy to alter the market, so a feed will need to be temporarily implemented to halt trading at 30% above or below the asset's price... until market depth is such that the bitAsset will be able to stand on it's own. think of that as bitAsset training wheels.

Quote
I get the feeling everyone thinks asset value tracking will be awesome, but no one understands how it is supposed to work and what its chance of success is.

I think it will be awesome. After struggling back and forth with toast and tonyk in a different thread I think I finally wrapped my head around it. Chance of success? well it IS experimental, but BM mentioned in a thread that an accredited professor of economics has evaluated his ideas on this and declared them sounds (not that he needed that, he explained, but he wanted to silence the critics who would tell him that he's no economist)

edit: I actually tried to write an article about this. here it is (http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=bitshares_-_market_pegging).

also this thread (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4563.0) will show you all the beating of my head into the keyboard I had to do to understand.
Title: Re: Bitshares Killer App
Post by: valtr on August 05, 2014, 07:40:30 am
I've been watching Bitshares pretty closely for a while now and wrote an article about it back in April. I feel I've got a pretty good understanding of what you plan to achieve (despite the crazy maze of branding that new users have to navigate their way through!)

Bitshares looks pretty promising but I still haven't invested, although I did get tipped some pts at some point (cheers fuznuts!) Now I don't want to get put on the stake here, but lately all my 'bitcoin 2.0' investment capital has been flowing into Nxt. Despite this, Bitshares still holds my interest. DPOS and corresponding block/confirmation time sounds great and could very well be a superior system to Nxt and its planned transparent forging. It's excellent that Bitshares has some implementation of pure proof of stake as the basis for all its projects, something we can all agree on is that POW and associated meta-coin projects (Counterparty, Mastercoin) are supremely disadvantaged by riding on antique chains.

But I don't want to discuss different POS implementations, it's insignificant in comparison to what you might have in the pipe. I want to write an article about how Bitshares X plans to track real world asset values in a completely decentralized way. That's your killer app if you can achieve it! I must admit (with my limited understanding) I don't think it can be done without the use of a centralized oracle/data feed.

I have done some research to see what I can find on the subject, but there is limited information available, Bitassets get loaned into existence by users pledging collateral (in the native coin/currency/share) the value of that asset (denominated in the local unit of value) is given by other users bids and asks. What is the incentive for order books to track the true value of a real world asset? Is it an issue that 2x of equity must be pledged to get 1x of a particular Bitasset? What is the effect of a liquidations due to volatility? (and many other questions). I get the feeling everyone thinks asset value tracking will be awesome, but no one understands how it is supposed to work and what its chance of success is.
Enlighten me!

These are good posts to start with.
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12.0
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=13.0

wiki is here http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/Main_Page
Title: Re: Bitshares Killer App
Post by: Markus on August 05, 2014, 08:30:00 am
If you believe that the price of BitUSD will track USD, then you can arbitrage between them. Making a profit by increasing the sum of your holdings in both. If everybody does enough people do this, then the price will track.

As long as you can't trade BitUSD directly for USD then you can still do this trade via intermediate stages like BitsharesX, or even via BitCoin and BitsharesX.