31
Random Discussion / Looky what I found...
« on: October 17, 2014, 01:52:33 am »
Next to University of Waterloo at a trendy grocery store.
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32
General Discussion / Introducing whatisbitusd.com
« on: October 16, 2014, 05:19:05 am »
http://whatisbitusd.com
I thought a site like this was necessary. If you want to quickly explain to someone what BitUSD is, send them here.
It's not 100% done yet, but your input is still very much appreciated.
I thought a site like this was necessary. If you want to quickly explain to someone what BitUSD is, send them here.
It's not 100% done yet, but your input is still very much appreciated.
33
General Discussion / BitUSD Slogans & Memes
« on: October 10, 2014, 03:30:52 am »
Lets come up with some catchy BitUSD slogans and memes!
34
General Discussion / BitUSD on OpenBazaar would show the VALUE of a non-volatile crypto.
« on: October 03, 2014, 10:46:20 pm »
All the discussion about a referral program going on has really got me thinking deeply about how organic adoption can be sped up.
I've come to the conclusion that we need to very publicly demonstrate the uniqueness/value of BitUSD. We need to display the strengths it has over every other crypto. So what's the best way to do this? Allow merchants on OpenBazaar to accept BitUSD. I can't think of any use case that showcases the value proposition of BitUSD better than a marketplace that deals only in volatile crypto. A stable crypto would allow an open marketplace like OB to attract a user base that goes far beyond drug users. Average users who want nothing to do with drugs currently don't have many reasons to use OB because it exposes them to Bitcoins massive volatility. Now, if OB accepted a non-volatile crypto, an average user would be much more likely to use the service for legitimate reason to save on fees (vs. eBay). BitUSD would allow for an entirely legitimate demographic.
How do we make this happen?
I've done some digging and found this thread on the official OB forum. I also started this thread on /r/OpenBazaar
EDIT: Bytemaster has confirmed we already support multi-sig.
Based on the digging I've done, it seems the OB team is very willing to work with alt developers on integration.
Bottom Line
BitUSD on OB is the catalyst we need. It will get BitUSD massive publicity, create demand and showcase its value proposition. Once introduced to BitUSD, merchants and consumers using OB won't want to transact in anything else! This is the perfect opportunity to strategically seed BitUSD in the right place at the right time. When it's inevitably a success on OB, BitUSD will spread to other marketplaces, creating more demand and likely explode in direction we can't anticipate.
Lets make this happen before OB is associated with drugs and other illegal activity. The time is now!
I've come to the conclusion that we need to very publicly demonstrate the uniqueness/value of BitUSD. We need to display the strengths it has over every other crypto. So what's the best way to do this? Allow merchants on OpenBazaar to accept BitUSD. I can't think of any use case that showcases the value proposition of BitUSD better than a marketplace that deals only in volatile crypto. A stable crypto would allow an open marketplace like OB to attract a user base that goes far beyond drug users. Average users who want nothing to do with drugs currently don't have many reasons to use OB because it exposes them to Bitcoins massive volatility. Now, if OB accepted a non-volatile crypto, an average user would be much more likely to use the service for legitimate reason to save on fees (vs. eBay). BitUSD would allow for an entirely legitimate demographic.
How do we make this happen?
I've done some digging and found this thread on the official OB forum. I also started this thread on /r/OpenBazaar
Quote from: brian
I'm not going to make some penultimate statement, but generally coins that support multisig transactions could be added in the future. Our plans don't currently involve it due to resource constraints and testing support, but it wouldn't be that hard to add it on.
EDIT: Bytemaster has confirmed we already support multi-sig.
Quote from: SamPatt
Yes, that's correct. It would also require having notaries that are willing to use the alt-coin as well, all three parties need to have a key to the multisig.
Quote from: SamPatt
The only thing I think you'll need to put more thought into is if you're talking about putting alt-coins into the existing OB network then you need to make sure that all parties are capable of doing multisig with that coin (all parties being buyer, seller, and notary). So we'll need some way of clarifying which notaries can be used for alts, that type of thing.
Based on the digging I've done, it seems the OB team is very willing to work with alt developers on integration.
Bottom Line
BitUSD on OB is the catalyst we need. It will get BitUSD massive publicity, create demand and showcase its value proposition. Once introduced to BitUSD, merchants and consumers using OB won't want to transact in anything else! This is the perfect opportunity to strategically seed BitUSD in the right place at the right time. When it's inevitably a success on OB, BitUSD will spread to other marketplaces, creating more demand and likely explode in direction we can't anticipate.
Lets make this happen before OB is associated with drugs and other illegal activity. The time is now!
35
General Discussion / BitUSD volume?
« on: September 30, 2014, 12:36:15 am »
Why is BitUSD volume so abysmally low the past few days?
http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/bitusd/#markets
http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/bitusd/#markets
36
General Discussion / Why I Left Bitcoin
« on: September 29, 2014, 05:35:09 am »
I posted this on Reddit.
Price volatility has prevented widespread adoption.
There are two kinds of people who use Bitcoin: people who use it and people who speculate on its future value. The former group wants stability so they can hold it and transact in it. The latter group wants volatility so they can make money off it. These two groups cannot coexist in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Other altcoins have solved this problem with market pegged assets. BitUSD and NuBits are two such examples.
Bitcoin has become a tribal religion.
Being a bitcoiner is starting to feel like being a New York Yankees fan. It's like we're a sports team playing against other teams. After people put money on their "team", their mind becomes closed to everything going on around them. Nobody seems to understand the major innovation Bitcoin introduced was the idea of a distributed ledger and that idea is still thriving in extremely innovative new ways if you would just take the time to do some research.
Altcoins are no longer all clones of Bitcoin.
It was once true to say altcoins were basically clones of Bitcoin / pump and dump scams. In 2014, this is no longer true. I'm not here to push any particular alternative blockchain tech down your throat but I DO want to encourage you to start doing research if you've been out of the loop for awhile.
Proof of Work is not a good consensus algorithm.
Last year, Bitcoin spent $600,000,000 buying security for itself via Proof of Work mining. There are other ways to secure a blockchain. Delegated Proof of Stake uses the blockchain to let token holders vote on who "mines" (called delegates). I'm sure many other alternative consensus algorithms are in the works. A blockchain does not require Proof of Work.
Blockchains are analogous to websites.
There isn't going to be one chain that dominates the world in the same way there is one Internet. Blockchains are the new websites (HTML). There will be millions of them coexisting. Each of them just as secure as the rest. For a website to have value, it has to have users and generate revenue. Blockchains are no different.
The bubble will happen in an altcoin.
The bubble everyone is waiting for will happen in an alternative crypto, not Bitcoin. I'm not going to say what one I'm personally investing in but I will encourage you to take a look at the altcoins introduced in 2014 and draw your own conclusions. At the very least, I can guarantee you the knee jerk objections you have to altcoins are no longer true.
Price volatility has prevented widespread adoption.
There are two kinds of people who use Bitcoin: people who use it and people who speculate on its future value. The former group wants stability so they can hold it and transact in it. The latter group wants volatility so they can make money off it. These two groups cannot coexist in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Other altcoins have solved this problem with market pegged assets. BitUSD and NuBits are two such examples.
Bitcoin has become a tribal religion.
Being a bitcoiner is starting to feel like being a New York Yankees fan. It's like we're a sports team playing against other teams. After people put money on their "team", their mind becomes closed to everything going on around them. Nobody seems to understand the major innovation Bitcoin introduced was the idea of a distributed ledger and that idea is still thriving in extremely innovative new ways if you would just take the time to do some research.
Altcoins are no longer all clones of Bitcoin.
It was once true to say altcoins were basically clones of Bitcoin / pump and dump scams. In 2014, this is no longer true. I'm not here to push any particular alternative blockchain tech down your throat but I DO want to encourage you to start doing research if you've been out of the loop for awhile.
Proof of Work is not a good consensus algorithm.
Last year, Bitcoin spent $600,000,000 buying security for itself via Proof of Work mining. There are other ways to secure a blockchain. Delegated Proof of Stake uses the blockchain to let token holders vote on who "mines" (called delegates). I'm sure many other alternative consensus algorithms are in the works. A blockchain does not require Proof of Work.
Blockchains are analogous to websites.
There isn't going to be one chain that dominates the world in the same way there is one Internet. Blockchains are the new websites (HTML). There will be millions of them coexisting. Each of them just as secure as the rest. For a website to have value, it has to have users and generate revenue. Blockchains are no different.
The bubble will happen in an altcoin.
The bubble everyone is waiting for will happen in an alternative crypto, not Bitcoin. I'm not going to say what one I'm personally investing in but I will encourage you to take a look at the altcoins introduced in 2014 and draw your own conclusions. At the very least, I can guarantee you the knee jerk objections you have to altcoins are no longer true.
37
General Discussion / BitGLD has 49 valid feeds. Here we go!
« on: September 28, 2014, 09:18:49 pm »38
General Discussion / "Ideal Money" proposed by John Nash in the 1970s
« on: September 27, 2014, 03:41:04 am »
I recently began reading up on "ideal money", an idea proposed by John Nash decades ago. I'm in awe at the similarities to what we're trying to achieve here...
Ideal Money is a theoretical notion promulgated by John Nash, to stabilize international currencies. It is a solution to the Triffin dilemma. He proposed that international exchange rates be fixed by pegging the value of each currency to a standardized basket of commodities, called the industrial consumption price index. Such a policy would curtail the ability of central banks to make monetary policy.
http://sites.stat.psu.edu/~babu/nash/money.pdf
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/cs286r/courses/spring02/papers/nash50a.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je22xKQekCk
Ideal Money is a theoretical notion promulgated by John Nash, to stabilize international currencies. It is a solution to the Triffin dilemma. He proposed that international exchange rates be fixed by pegging the value of each currency to a standardized basket of commodities, called the industrial consumption price index. Such a policy would curtail the ability of central banks to make monetary policy.
http://sites.stat.psu.edu/~babu/nash/money.pdf
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/cs286r/courses/spring02/papers/nash50a.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je22xKQekCk
39
Technical Support / RPC Server Error: In method 'wallet_get_transaction_fee': Assert Exception (10)
« on: September 26, 2014, 03:43:59 pm »
When I click on my account I get the following error:
Code: [Select]
RPC Server Error: In method 'wallet_get_transaction_fee': Assert Exception (10)
40
Random Discussion / Recordings of conversations between the FED and Goldman Sachs leaked.
« on: September 26, 2014, 02:44:29 pm »41
General Discussion / What will happen when bitcoins reward halves to 12.5 BTC?
« on: September 22, 2014, 10:18:34 pm »
Just wanted to get some thoughts on bitcoins 2016 reward halving.
Right now, bitcoin is paying 25 BTC per ~10 minutes in the form of inflation to keep its network secure. When the reward halves to 12.5 BTC in 2016, the price has to increase dramatically to maintain the same level of security. If the price doesn't continue up, hashing is likely to decrease significantly. It's possible that 95% of mining hardware will be rendered obsolete, causing hash rate to plummet and difficulty to readjust.
Seems like a really big unknown. What will happen?
Right now, bitcoin is paying 25 BTC per ~10 minutes in the form of inflation to keep its network secure. When the reward halves to 12.5 BTC in 2016, the price has to increase dramatically to maintain the same level of security. If the price doesn't continue up, hashing is likely to decrease significantly. It's possible that 95% of mining hardware will be rendered obsolete, causing hash rate to plummet and difficulty to readjust.
Seems like a really big unknown. What will happen?
42
Random Discussion / Hayek Money: The Cryptocurrency Price Stability Solution
« on: September 22, 2014, 04:24:49 am »
Bitcoin has enabled competition between digital cryptocurrencies and traditional legal tender fiat currencies. Despite rapidly increasing acceptance, so far the affirmation of cryptocurrency as better money has been thwarted by dramatic deflationary price instability. Successful at disposing of any central monetary authority using the Bitcoin protocol, the bitcoin currency has accidentally thrown away the flexibility of a fully automatic algorithmic non-discretionary monetary policy allowing for elastic supply of money. Price stability can be achieved by dynamically rebasing the outstanding amount of money: the number of currency units in every digital wallet is adjusted instead of each single unit changing its value. The apparent awkwardness of this unfamiliar paradigm is discussed at length, proving that its only real novelty is about fairness and effectiveness. Furthermore, suggestions are provided about how to ease the effect of contractionary monetary policy. The proposed monetary base adjustment has neutral impact on the overall wallet wealth, as it does not introduce any arbitrary distortion into the intrinsic value dynamics of the wallet. The adjustment is based on a commodity price index determined with a resilient consensus process that does not rely on central third party authorities. It is posited in this paper that a digital cryptocurrency adopting elastic monetary standard is Hayek Money, so named from the Nobel Prize-winning economist: possibly the best money ever devised, a good money standard providing stable prices for a new economic era.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2425270
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2425270
43
General Discussion / HELP! This thread needs reason!
« on: September 20, 2014, 02:38:55 pm »
I started this thread so people can post threads (from other forums, reddit, etc) that need a voice of reason. There's a TON of misinformation floating around in regards to PoW, DPoS, BitAssets and BitShares in general. Instead of making a new thread every time we see misinformation, just post it here.
44
General Discussion / Glad I got out of bitcoin...
« on: September 19, 2014, 01:14:04 am »
Price is at $422 as of this post.
All in BTSX.
All in BTSX.
45
General Discussion / DAC + Referral Program = Viral Gold
« on: September 17, 2014, 02:24:10 pm »
Once a DAC is created, how will people find out about it? For most DACs, it won't be enough to rely on the "if you build it, they will come" strategy. So why not leverage the religious community cryptos tend to create and transform them into an army of affiliate marketers?
A referral program (otherwise known as an affiliate program) is a performance based commission system that allows anyone to promote a product and make money proportional to their ability to continuously generate new business.
Since running a DPoS blockchain is extremely cheap, income generated by the DAC can be reinvested in referral payouts, as opposed to burning it. A decentralized autonomous marketing scheme for a decentralized autonomous company, allowing a DAC to autonomously perpetuate itself virally.
If the DAC is selling goods for BitUSD (i.e. decentralized marketplace like Open Bazaar), this would allow for a completely traditional referral program to be implemented. If the user makes a purchase within X number of blocks, the referrer gets a percentage of the fees incurred from the sale.
From a technical perspective, this would be no different than how any other referral program is implemented. I can't think of any way this could be abused other than users buying goods through their own affiliate link, which is easy to prevent and has never been a problem in real world use cases.
The point of PoW mining is to distribute tokens fairly and buy security for the blockchain. Since DPoS solves the security problem, that allows us to think of creative ways to distribute tokens and possibly use inflation to buy things other than security.
For example, inflation could be used to buy marketing. The better you are at generating sales for the DAC, the more shares you'll receive; analogous to block rewards for providing security. This makes for a much better value proposition than mining with useless hashing power. Inflation is, of course, optional. Income generated in the form of fees could be used exclusively.
Not all DACs will be as lucky as BitShares X. They won't have as strong an incentive to use them as BitAssets and BitYield allow for. When viewing a DAC as a company and not a coin, it makes perfect sense to incentivize and automate the marketing process. Generating new business is an essential part of any company, DAC or otherwise.
The importance of referral marketing on the Internet cannot be understated. Ads and referral programs are the incentive structures that make for sustainable online businesses. If a DAC is ever expected to compete with traditional online companies, it needs an autonomous mechanism to spread itself virally. At the very least, this is an idea worth putting more thought into.
If you're a developer and wish to speak privately, contact me @ methodx[at]gmail[dot]com
A referral program (otherwise known as an affiliate program) is a performance based commission system that allows anyone to promote a product and make money proportional to their ability to continuously generate new business.
Since running a DPoS blockchain is extremely cheap, income generated by the DAC can be reinvested in referral payouts, as opposed to burning it. A decentralized autonomous marketing scheme for a decentralized autonomous company, allowing a DAC to autonomously perpetuate itself virally.
If the DAC is selling goods for BitUSD (i.e. decentralized marketplace like Open Bazaar), this would allow for a completely traditional referral program to be implemented. If the user makes a purchase within X number of blocks, the referrer gets a percentage of the fees incurred from the sale.
From a technical perspective, this would be no different than how any other referral program is implemented. I can't think of any way this could be abused other than users buying goods through their own affiliate link, which is easy to prevent and has never been a problem in real world use cases.
The point of PoW mining is to distribute tokens fairly and buy security for the blockchain. Since DPoS solves the security problem, that allows us to think of creative ways to distribute tokens and possibly use inflation to buy things other than security.
For example, inflation could be used to buy marketing. The better you are at generating sales for the DAC, the more shares you'll receive; analogous to block rewards for providing security. This makes for a much better value proposition than mining with useless hashing power. Inflation is, of course, optional. Income generated in the form of fees could be used exclusively.
Not all DACs will be as lucky as BitShares X. They won't have as strong an incentive to use them as BitAssets and BitYield allow for. When viewing a DAC as a company and not a coin, it makes perfect sense to incentivize and automate the marketing process. Generating new business is an essential part of any company, DAC or otherwise.
The importance of referral marketing on the Internet cannot be understated. Ads and referral programs are the incentive structures that make for sustainable online businesses. If a DAC is ever expected to compete with traditional online companies, it needs an autonomous mechanism to spread itself virally. At the very least, this is an idea worth putting more thought into.
If you're a developer and wish to speak privately, contact me @ methodx[at]gmail[dot]com
