It seems like a lot of what you have is what came from others. People gave to you for their own benefit with a goal of truly helping. It is refreshing to see someone so open about their modest situation, and it is perhaps from that nature that people tend to give to you. Gifts of that nature diminish over time, they have to. The more you live off the charity of others the more you learn to depend on it. Of desperation you've learned to worship money more than they've learned not to. To truly help you it is necessary to withhold charity so that you learn to give of yourself rather than consume from others. People want to help you, but only if it truly helps you (and more importantly them, in often non-financial ways). If you give then you shall receive.

You cherish money more than your own time. Money is a form of stored time. You are wealthy with time, but your time has modest value. The jobs you've had were simple exchanges of time for money. It appears you have not put effort into making your time worth more money (by education or trust development).

Think of what you would enjoy. If you do what you enjoy then you can develop your strengths. If what you do is of service to others then people will reward you. You say you are pleased with ideas that will get you to stop thinking about your situation. That is a search for relief, not joy. Relief from discomfort isn't likely to grow to strength. You are depressed and looking for ideas. You can sense that a change must come, make it a positive change. Can't think of what you truly enjoy? I suggest looking for a way to help the people around you. Give of yourself. You are wealthy with time to give. If you can save people time then they often want to reward you with money. Once you start a process of giving then you'll learn what brings you joy and money will flow to you naturally.

What can you do with the $1000? Not much. You likely owe more than that to others. Don't let the money be your primary concern. The wealth you need to develop is in your time.

I wish you the best.

Quote from: Liberty on February 24, 2014, 05:39:09 am

You can also glean ideas by searching for post-crash proposals to avoid flash crashes in markets.

Can you give a few starting points?

Here is a detailed analysis of the May 5, 2010 "flash crash":

http://www.sec.gov/news/studies/2010/marketevents-report.pdf

YouTube is a source for many congressional hearings. The video series "Federal Regulation of Financial Markets" is close. I don't have links for the testimonies that I'm familiar with. The ones you are interested in are the videos of exchange executives speaking about the systems already in place and in development to avoid problems (and thereby encouraging legislation that makes their solution a costly compliance requirement for competitors). To see the truly useful recommendations it helps to start with an understanding that everything seen there (especially from the politicians running the show) is posturing for increased theft from someone.

A Google search for "Interval Price Limits" and "Reasonability Limits" will get you to information about one solution that has spread to other exchanges. The basic idea is to impose artificial trade limits on price volatility. I'm not going to risk giving examples of how I think trade limits could be implemented by III. I doubt any technical solution will be immune to dedicated manipulators with resources, but there are ways to make it more difficult. Volatility diminishes as the number of participants increases. An incentive that creates high market participation is a better approach than price limits, but markets still evolve to have whale participants that can use their influence to direct price movements for their gain. I like how derivatives provide a reward for finding market consensus (and punish those that stray), but first you need markets with higher participation than the derivatives themselves can influence.

I solved a major issue in the design of BitShares X as it relates to how we handle the case where the collateral is insufficient to back the short position and thus the result is unbacked BitUSD in circulation.    Considering the value of BitShares X is directly related to the degree to which the holders of BitShares X are willing to guarantee the purchasing power of BitUSD it seems that a decentralized Bank should take the same approach as their centralized counterparts...   Sell new shares in the bank to raise capital to cover the losses.   In effect all BTS holders would provide 'insurance' against the 50% discontinuity event that would blow out a short position and leave unbacked BitUSD.  The reason why BTS longs would insure the BTS shorts is because the entire value proposition of BitShares X is derived from the promise of BitUSD remaining pegged.   If the BTS holders can increase the value of BTS by providing this insurance against a very rare event, it should in turn increase confidence and thus increase the value of BTS.

This change would shift the losses that BitUSD holders would currently pay to the BTS holders and thus collectively BTS holders are backing all BitUSD and BitUSD holders have something with much lower risks in these rare events.

It is curious to see a proclaimed student of Austrian Economics turn to central bank intervention of markets. A liquidity problem seems like the real risk, and that is a market participation problem. Is it still correct that people get to own BitUSD from ownership of PTS (and now also AGS) at time of fork, and purchasing power increases 5% per year even though they never participate in the markets? If that is true then it seems natural that market participation would be a problem. People would hoard the stronger form of a currency (BitUSD) and trade the weaker one (USD). I presume I don't understand your plan because I don't see a market incentive to sell BitUSD as the market discovers it to have greater value than real USD.

Many replies to your post indicate a general understanding that your central bank intended to create new BTS as necessary to fund the taking long positions by the bank. It was interesting to see that some even liked the idea of devaluing BTS (which imbalances all other products) to attempt to balance one product. The way I read your post however is that you intend to create a central bank that people can invest existing BTS into. I much prefer that idea, but wonder how that too would work. Investment in this bank subjects capital to more risk; do you have a reward in mind for this risk, and where does this reward come from? Do you intend for the actions of this bank to be automated and not otherwise subject to moral hazard? How do you imagine events would play out if Gresham's Law causes BitUSD to become systemically more valuable than USD in a way that the bank can not compensate for? Do you imagine a bank for each product, or one bank for a group of products?

You may find this a useful perspective on central banking: http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/31st-annual-monetary-conference-panel-1-100-years-fed-what-have-we-learned.

My analogy will not use fewer words. Perhaps someone else will feel inspired to reduce it to compete for the bounty.

Chuck E. Cheese's (http://www.chuckecheese.com/) uses tokens for the sale of entertainment and food. I'll use hypothetical changes to their business model to show how BitUSD tokens have a natural incentive to stay close to the value of a dollar. I'll call this hypothetical 'Mr.Cheeze'.

Mr.Cheeze's video game tokens can be purchased for a quarter and are given generously as participation incentives. You can exchange the tokens or hold them, but there is no incentive to hold them since the value will never increase to be more than a quarter and they have limited utility value elsewhere. There are fewer video game tokens than quarters, but that doesn't affect token value because there is a high recirculation rate that causes tokens to re-enter the market at what is perceived as an unlimited supply. Tokens circulate quickly because they only have value for specific games that consume the tokens entirely; they are treated as consumables because the game options only allow consumption. If the token supply were to become limited then people would still not pay more than a quarter because a quarter will buy the same amount of entertainment elsewhere.

Suppose Mr.Cheeze were to replace games with betting machines that divide tokens between game participants rather than consume them. Participants discover it is now entertaining to defer consumption and also to exchange tokens. If there is demand for a limited supply of tokens then that is an incentive for the price of a token to exceed a quarter; however, holders of tokens come to realize that few really offer more for a token than what a quarter will buy of similar entertainment elsewhere. Potential buyers go elsewhere. Holders eventually sell for a quarter to purchase other things as there still isn't much incentive to hold tokens.

The market price for a token is inelastic because there is a maximum price for demand. Small quantities of tokens will sell for close to a quarter and larger quantities could be purchased at a premium for inelastic demands like a large birthday party for kids like Johnny who only likes Mr.Cheeze stores. If tokens are hard to acquire then fewer kids like Johnny would ever come to know of Mr.Cheeze to desire it. The limited supply of tokens for sale would over time prevent even large quantities of tokens from being sold for more than a quarter; in fact, there is now risk that tokens will sell for less than a quarter each due to decreased market participation and greater profit incentives elsewhere. Liquidity would come at a large premium, and therefore there would be low liquidity and sudden price fluctuations. The value of a token would be defined by other ways to spend a quarter. The market value for a token would naturally approach a quarter, but low liquidity discourages participation. Mr.Cheeze would sell less pizza and entertainment, and profits would go elsewhere. Mr.Cheeze would need to do something quickly to say in business.

Mr.Cheeze caused tokens to be treated as assets, so why not allow lending and borrowing like other assets? If a person lends their tokens then they can earn interest. If a person has an interest in holding tokens then they'll pay interest. The interest rate is an incentive to put tokens into circulation. Loan instruments make it easier for people to acquire tokens to spend on entertainment. People could then consume a large supply of tokens at close to a quarter. They could purchase tokens for a quarter and then loan them out for interest. The value of a token would only drop below a quarter if greater returns are offered elsewhere. The value of holding a token is the interest that it can return for lending it into circulation.

Loans aren't the only opportunity, Mr.Cheeze also introduces futures contracts on the price of tokens. These games are now built around the trading of tokens themselves. The futures contracts are a leveraged financial incentive for avoiding price fluctuation. A vibrant economy has grown around the exchange of tokens. Everyone is talking about the tokens, the industry had changed. Competitors give up or are pushed out by taxes and regulations that Mr.Cheeze drafted to regulate his token exchange industry. Any "failure" becomes a need for more regulation. Mr.Cheeze is happy again for a while.

Mr.Cheeze soon realizes that pizzas are still not selling as quickly as they once had. He begins to lament that he can no longer easily give tokens as participation incentives. It is harder to increase entertainment value for some customers while maintaining value for those who are willing to pay more. Mr.Cheeze dislikes that others are getting the profits that he once had for himself, and that he has lost control over his tokens. Because he can, he decides to change more rules for his benefit.

Mr.Cheeze decides to mint more tokens and keep the profits. But calling it "profit" would be unpopular so he says that he is doing it to maintain sound monetary policy (much like the Federal Reserve) and that he will not personally benefit (except for the generous salary he pays himself and staff). The idea is sold as "necessary and prudent" to encourage token liquidity and price stability. The idea sells well. It is suddenly much easier to acquire tokens and more people are consuming tokens and pizza again. The tokens are now closer to currency than asset. There is less incentive to hold tokens, and people hold them until better forms of money are available. Mr.Cheeze actually likes it if people sell their tokens because it just means more for him to control. He learns to maximize his profits by adjusting the token supply, and over time he naturally acquires most of the token supply again. All is good for Mr.Cheeze, he inspired others to work to build an economy that became his gain over time. Through exclusive control over the idea of token exchanges, Mr.Cheeze decides to expand into more markets.

Mr.Cheeze redefined the industry in a way that removes competition through excitement of a new token use. The token value still needs to compete with other entertainment uses for quarters, but few dare to compete in the same markets. The only thing Mr.Cheeze has to fear now is competition from a token use that avoids his regulatory monopoly and provides a better return on investment. Mr.Cheeze still likes to convince himself that he cares for open markets and competition though. He'd probably pause for a moment or two before cracking heads when new technology threatens his monopoly. Come to think of it, none of these ideas really are new. 

Compliance is still not defined by all state money transmitter laws and the companies know they have to be regulated and they go to every full measure they can to make sure they are safe and compliant.  Coinbase started with an AML policy and careful compliance to Fincen/MSB they did not start out allowing wire transfers without any details and blatant money laundering. I don't know how you got this idea that these companies just started out with these completely idealistic ideals that they were above all regulation, they instead got every compliance they were advised to and have kept away from ones that aren't "legally required" yet. The businesses are regulated and they are compliant with current laws. Thank you for your argument.

Any smart company or individual would act to avert legal harm and would not claim to be above a law. You are correct in that you do not know my familiarity with these companies. There was delight in the furthering of technologies that are beyond regulation. That is not to say that the companies ever acted to willfully violate any law. The draw to decentralized autonomous corporations is that they are decentralized autonomous corporations that can avoid oppressive regulations as necessary. I3 began with some lofty ideals too.

I3 is a company that is creating both technologies and companies. Traditional companies (like I3 itself) are easily forced to comply. The technologies can be forced to comply to the extent that they are managed by an entity that can be controlled. I3 sold an ideal that is disruptive to the notion of how companies may be formed and regulated, but is implementing what is practical within the rules it must comply with. Rules get modified as necessary to change what disruption to established interests is practical. I3 is not beyond the law but can act where laws do not yet restrict.

Everyone would agree that it is beneficial to have businesses that can act in compliance with laws. The question here is if the creator of the technology should be the one financing compliance for users of the technology. I doubt it is possible to spend enough to accomplish that without also sacrificing ideals.

I'm with it. I think the key to getting community support is offering a good crowd funding bargain.
If you're going to seek investment via crowd funding you have to offer some promise of a return on investment and that part is going to be difficult initially. Neo Bee seems to be doing a good job as a payment network and they were crowd funded so it's possible but it's hard.

I think something like Bitshares really needs a fiat -> BTS exchange.

Neo Bee is doing a good job because they are a full reserve bank. They are more solvent and traditional than the fractional reserve banks that regulations exist for. They bypassed most of the regulatory obstacles. The profits of a fractional reserve banking system had driven full reserve banking out of the market. Neo Bee will do well because they stand alone as people lose confidence in fractional reserve banking and the fiat that they are based upon.

If using rationals was an option I could simply switch to 128 bit representation as it would have identical storage requirements and move the rounding errors so that they are so small as to not even matter.

Rationals are inherently imprecise no matter how many bits they are represented in. A value like 0.125 behaves as if it were 0.124999999999999992 because of this representational imprecision. Consider how rounding and truncating operations will not behave as expected due to this imprecision. You can only round as expected by reducing the precision each time. The problems with rationals are worse than with integers. You will still be off by satoshis even if you use rationals, but rounded and truncated rationals carry imprecision into subsequent computations in ways that are more harmful for accuracy of comparison operations. The common way to deal with the extra is have a rule for which side gets them. Yes you could siphon the rounding imprecision into a separate account as a "fee" (like in the movie Superman 3), but that is less fair than having a standard way to decide which participant gets them. It was genius that Satoshi Nakamoto knew to use integers.

Thank you for the links. I'll have to follow up on that to see if Rothbard had spoken in favor of the mob rule of a pure democracy. At first read it seems like you prefer pitchfork resolution over the judgement of a court, or at least the ability avoid impartial judgement for non-performance. It is as if the main problem with your proposal to devalue ProtoShares was that laws exist to hold Inviticus accountable for promises made to investors. If such changes had been forced a year from now and without "contract" then Inviticus could have used market dominance to violate the social contract without fear of market reprisal. A system of laws attempts accountability in a way that respects your rights; you should not be so quick to abandon that.

"The reality is that Invictus does not have the ability to either honor or not honor the social contract because the initial allocation in the genesis block is beyond our control. "

Inviticus wrote the rules and was proposing a hard-fork to change them. Please explain which rules Inviticus is now unable to honor, and more details about why. A hard-fork would be accepted so long as it does not undermine PTS value. It seems you are now claiming an inherent design flaw that can't be fixed without undermining PTS value, but are also bemoaning that someone else could honor the original agreement.