Now things start to get even more interesting.

It's not just exchanges that are joining the BitShares Network, but entirely different industries are beginning to see the advantages of being a member.  All they have to do is bring their existing users to our network and bam! a new revenue stream for them and more new users for BitShares from outside the current inbred crypto community. 

Here's the perspective of a startup incubator in Las Vegas, the Peak Venture Group, which is planning to leverage membership in the BitShares Exchange Network across nearly every one of its start-up businesses.


Here's the big one on Yahoo Finance!

There's so much to this relationship, you'll have to wait till later this month to hear Part 2.

Peak Venture Group specializes in affiliate marketing to promote those startups.
They have thousands of professional affiliates who, in addition to selling their hearts out, are incentivized to turn experts in specialty industries into more savvy home-grown affiliates.

And here sits BitShares with an affiliate incentive program unique to the entire lucrative crypto industry.


Welcome Steve Tiffany, Justin LaFountain, and the whole emerging Peak Venture Group family!

If you are looking for something to do, stop by and help answer questions on bitcointalk:

[ANN] BitShares 2.0

Be nice. 

Staff Meeting Notes - Until Further Notice

Well, I'm back from my wife's mandatory Atlantic crossing cruise to our ancestral homelands of Ireland, Belgium, France, and England having missed three Monday Staff Meetings in a row.

I've spent the past two days getting spun back up on everything.  Whew!

The short story is that over a dozen well-known BitShares Personalities are totally consumed right now getting ready for what we have planned for you this summer.  Unfortunately, that topic is restricted on a need-to-know basis at this time and I can't write about it.

I could report that I'm very excited about what I learned, but that would be dismissed as "Kool Aid."
I could post a statement that I have nothing to report, but that would be considered "infuriating".
I could not post anything at all but that would be dissed as "not too consistent on follow-through".

Seems like its become fashionable to post barrels of stale, dreary vinegar
while not one ounce of delicious, inspiring, hope-building Kool Aid will be tolerated.
 
Suit yourselves.  I'm enjoying a big old frosty mug of it all by myself tonight.

You should probably not expect any more staff reports from me until after June 8th.

We're kind of cojones-to-the-wall right now.

From internationalman.com

Redefining "Country"  by Jeff Thomas



“Will the Emerging Europe become an active participant in the construction of a new international order, or will it consume itself on its own internal issues?”

The quote above is from the book, World Order, by Henry Kissinger.

Of course, Mister Kissinger has been known for decades for his desire to create a New World Order, based loosely on the Westphalian system. On the surface, the quote seems reasonable enough, as he muses over the two choices that are given to mankind in going forward.

As a career diplomat, he offers us a choice between “A” and “B”—order and chaos. But then, every diplomat understands that it’s easier to convince others if “A” and “B” are the only possibilities offered. What he carefully does not suggest is that there are further possibilities.

The world is not at all limited to either an elite control over the entire world or chaos. In fact, in my view, the more choices of different types of countries, the better.

From the point of view of despots, the larger the country, the better it is, as it means increased power and wealth for the despot. From the point of view of the citizen, however, the opposite is true. The smaller the country, the closer the people are to their leaders in every way—and, by extension, the more control they have in the way the country is run.

Additionally, smaller countries have to be a bit more creative in attracting people. If they have no “City of Light,” no “Big Apple”, they may seem less attractive. Smaller also means less industry—certain types of jobs may not be available.

E-Residency

And so, smaller countries have to be more creative if they are to attract people. A case in point is Estonia. Recently, Estonia opened its digital borders. Anyone, anywhere in the world can now open a bank account or start a business there. It’s not necessary that the individual reside there; he can be an e-resident.

E-residents do not necessarily hold work permits, visas, passports, or other paraphernalia of nation-states, but then they don’t need them.

Estonia may be the first country to make this move, but it’s unlikely to be the last. As others create such opportunities, each will have its own twist on the theme.

John Clippinger, a digital identity researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has said, “This is the beginning of the erosion of the classic nation-state hegemony. It’s going to get whittled away from the margins.”

Unlike Mister Kissinger’s concept that all people must accept a government that they had no part in creating and no choice in accepting, the world would be a far better place for the vast majority of people if they could select whatever country offered the features that most appealed to them. Indeed, the ideal would be to cherry-pick the best opportunities from each country.

It’s the norm today for people to prefer to shop at a shopping plaza or mall, as the choices they may consider are far greater than in the general store of yesteryear. There is truly no reason why this concept cannot be extended to include countries.

Individuals who are shopping for countries that fit their needs might choose one country in which to live, another in which to do business, another for banking, etc. In fact, this is the very concept of internationalisation. However, the world has not yet made internationalisation a household word, and most people do not presently recognise that they can, in fact, shop for countries, like anything else they may need.

“We Try Harder”

Large countries (and dysfunctional conglomerates such as the EU) invariably think big, which means that one size is forced to fit all. Smaller countries tend to come under the heading of the Avis Rent A Car motto of bygone years: “We try harder.” Like Estonia, they have to come up with a better mousetrap if they are to attract people. With smaller countries, a greater variety of choices can be expected. Additionally, smaller countries can adapt more easily, changing their offerings as people’s requests change.

The question is what direction the world will take. There can be no doubt that leaders of the most powerful countries will continue to pursue greater power, with corresponding decreases in the freedoms and options of their people.

Will this mean that the leaders of the US, EU, Russia, and China will eventually sit around the table with a Bargain Bucket from KFC and make all the decisions for the world? Or might the opposite happen—the world would split further into an EU/US and BRICS polarisation, similar to George Orwell’s Oceania and Eastasia?

Or might there be a third possibility—certainly not taking the place of large nation-states, but offering a host of alternatives and, as Mister Clippinger suggests, whittling away at the margins?

Whatever the future, we might all ask ourselves what choice of “world” we seek for ourselves and our families. Certainly, there will be those who will identify with the attractions available in larger countries, with larger concentrations of people and a greater variety of opportunities.

And there can be no doubt that there will also be large numbers of people who wish to live under the wing of large countries, so that they can receive from the government largesse that they have not earned.

Size Matters

Large countries will always have their loyal supporters, those who could not imagine themselves in a more “boutique” country.

Read the rest...

Equity Crowdfunding for the Rest of Us

Crowdfunding—the fine art of raising money from thousands of strangers—has taken the Internet by storm in the past few years, generating an eBay-ish level of enthusiasm.

The major success stories, like Pebble’s and Coolest Cooler’s, have already become legendary. Pebble was the first mega-hit, raising over $10 million on Kickstarter.com in May 2012, to finance production of the original Pebble Watch. Coolest Cooler topped that in 2014, raking in more than $13 million for, well, a way cool cooler. Then, in March of this year, Pebble returned to the top spot with its fund-raiser for the new Pebble Time watch. That campaign obliterated every record in the Kickstarter book, pulling in a million dollars in the first 49 minutes, $7.4 million the first day, and $20.3 million by its campaign end date.

The early sites, like Indiegogo (founded in 2008) and Kickstarter (2009), established the model for reward-based crowdfunding. Under this setup, you offer your product or service to the world, and respondents get to offer different levels of financial support. As the value of the donation rises, so does the value of the reward the donor gets.

This May, however, a giant holding dam is about to break. It involves “unrestricted equity crowdfunding,” and it promises to unleash an enormous deluge of capital in the direction of the world’s budding entrepreneurs.

Transformative is the word for what’s about to happen.

The first equity crowdfunding regulations were implemented in September 2013, as a result of the provisions of President Obama’s JOBS Act, signed in 2012. Title II of JOBS permitted the sale of shares in a new company through crowdfunding, sort of like an IPO with no requirement to cut JP Morgan (or some other investment bank underwriter) in on the take. And it was a great success.  In its first year under Title II, equity crowdfunding brought in an estimated $250 million in seed capital.

However, there was a catch. The right to buy in was restricted to accredited investors, as is also the case with most private placements. An accredited investor is anyone who earned more than $200,000 (or $300,000 together with a spouse) in each of the past two years and expects the same for the current year, or has a net worth of over $1,000,000 (either alone or together with a spouse), usually excluding the value of his or her primary residence. This leaves a galaxy of smaller investors on the outside looking in.

Whether the right to participate should be extended to non-accredited investors has been a question before SEC regulators for three long years. On March 25, however, they finally moved, releasing new Title IV/Regulation A+ rulings. As of 60 days after publication, or around late May, virtually all restrictions will be lifted. The democratization of individual investment in startups and small businesses will arrive.

As Peter Diamandis, author of Abundance, blogged:

Now, if you have a strong community, and you need to raise money, you can sell shares (stock) in your company directly to your community of followers, users and raving fans.

Wow.

This is a huge development that could rattle the country’s financial structure to its core, given the immense size of the early-stage financing sector, which is where startup hopefuls go for money. Currently, they have three choices. The current VC investment market amounts to about $30 billion annually. The angel investment market adds about another $20 billion. And both are dwarfed by private placements, which total around $1.2 trillion each year in the US.

Heretofore, smaller investors were not permitted to participate in any of that except peripherally, through the purchase of shares in publicly-traded VC firms. Now, they’ll have direct access.

How much might they siphon off? That’s anyone’s guess, but even given the dollar caps on crowdfundings, it could be a substantial amount—to the detriment of investment banks, which will lose some percentage of their fat underwriting fees. Chances are, no one’s going to cry for you Goldmantina.

In terms of specifics, Regulation A+ is divided into two tiers:

Tier I allows companies to fundraise up to $20,000,000 from both accredited and non-accredited investors. Tier I will require companies to register the offering in each state where its securities are sold. However, while subject to review by state regulators, Tier I offerings will not be required to perform formal audits and annual reporting.

Tier II allows companies to raise up to $50,000,000 from both accredited and non-accredited investors. The companies do not have to be registered in each state where securities are sold. But they will be required to have audited financials and annual reports. The tradeoff looks to be worth it, and most observers believe Tier II will prove the most popular.

One obvious question is: What does this mean for angels and VCs?

Chance Barnett, CEO of Crowdfunde, takes a guess. Writing on Forbes.com, he says:

For the time being, equity crowdfunding will work best when the funding rounds are validated or led by experienced angels [and] VCs, as well as notable influencers & celebrity investors and entrepreneurs.

But with these new Title IV rulings, we’re about to see the birth of a new class of investors, as now everyone will have the opportunity to invest in what could be the next great startup, consumer product, feature film, or clean technology venture alongside experienced angels, VCs, and influencers.

This new class of investors will grow to become influential, powerful, important voices in the early stage ecosystem: they’ll validate new companies and ideas, fuel their early growth, and then late stage investors will have good reason to pay attention.

The most important thing here is that equity crowdfunding adds in the element of profit. If you invest in a normal Kickstarter offering, what you get back is simply a promised reward, like a Pebble Watch. You’re paying for it with your contribution and, if it’s relatively small, you get the product at a modest discount to the projected market price. No matter what, though, if the company is wildly successful you get nothing more. Oculus VR (maker of the Oculus Rift), to take an extreme example, raised $2 million on Kickstarter. When the company was later sold to Facebook for $2 billion, its 9500 early backers didn’t get a dime.

In the brave new crowdfunding world, however, you can be not just a backer, but an investor. You get a stake in the company, for better or worse. If you’re smart enough or lucky enough to buy into the next big thing, your shares will appreciate nicely—it’s estimated that if Oculus had been equity funded and had given real shares to its early supporters, they would have made a 200x return on investment.

All is not sweetness and light, of course. There will be a flood of capital solicitation as ever more folks with grand visions clamor for investor attention. As with any group of early-stage businesses, most will fail. Some will surely be scammers. Speculators will lose money. It cannot be otherwise.

But the good truly outweighs the bad. If equity crowdfunding works like it should, it represents a revolutionary opportunity, unique in human history. Thousands, and perhaps millions, of bright, risk-taking entrepreneurs will have at least a shot at capitalizing their dreams that they never had before. And millions of average investors will have the opportunity to tap into potential jackpots that were previously accessible only to the 1%.

Except for a few grumpy bankers, this is a win/win situation all around.

Staff Meeting Notes - Monday, April 13, 2015

Here is a summary of Monday’s developer staff meeting. Hopefully this will give everyone more time to get Fuzzy your questions where he can organize them rather than trying to respond to Bytemaster's opening statement in real time.

I spent 16 hours in a road trip with Bytemaster this weekend to visit Great Grandma Larimer (quite possibly the only forum-lurking BitShares HODLer in her generation).  Remember, when you post there, my mother is watching, so watch your manners!

Listening to Dan think out loud for 860 miles is not something that the faint-hearted should attempt.  However, I can assure you that great progress was made in no less than N orthogonal directions that, for gratuitous mnemonical reasons, all start with the letter "p": (performance, partnerships, profitability, product utility, and patron acquisition).  You may have noticed some of this leaking out in his recent posts.  The following N-dimensional tesseract animation illustrates the ease with which I was able to follow his thought processes.


BitShares once again has made the the Roanoke Times - nominated for the Blacksburg Technology Council’s TechNite 2015 Innovator Award.

Meanwhile, Nathan was continuing development on the light wallet. In addition to upgrading his light wallet server, He has also implemented the latest key derivation scheme and verified that the light wallet's accounts can be recovered on the web hosted wallet, and vice versa. These changes are available on the BitShares git repository. He plans to offer a stable release candidate with Windows and Mac binaries soon.  James and Valentine continued to polish their user interfaces.

Ben and Vikram continued testing features and practicing painstaking meatball surgery on the live system.  Ben's Monte Carlo system found a tasty bug - before anyone could get bit by it for real.  They are also working on a better way to set stable fees to ensure profitability independent of share price.  The bugs that caused the recent market log jam in BitUSD are fixed on the DevShares chain and should be deployable by the end of this week.  They also have been assigned some interesting new partner integration duties to ensure they don't inadvertently accumulate any unexpended energy reserves.

On the BitShares client, SynaptiCAD fixed some bugs they found in the market API and updated the the regression tests as needed for recent changes to the client. Most of these bugs were exposed by operations performed by the backend engine of BlockTrades. They also worked on compilation of the light wallet for windows.

Their BlockTrades work this week has mainly focused on adding support for user accounts. Simple user accounts are now functional, allowing a user to maintain a history of their transactions. They also updated the site to account for changes to the latest DevShares API. Currently they've taken a break from actively coding on the site to begin investigating various web technologies (React, Flux, Typescript, and many more) that they can use in future development work.

Finally, most of us got a lot of quality interaction time with the infamous Peer to Peer Road Trip guys last week.   Watch for those video interviews in the coming weeks.