Amencon, mat608 and mf-tzo, would you be prepared to also repeat your points on some of these mumble-hangouts with Bytemaster?

You all touch on some very valid concerns and I would like to have your perspectives be part of those real-time discussion as well. Especially since some of you feel that I did not do a good enough job defending the multiple separate chain idea.

I admit that I now favor the idea of having separate DACs be developed more independently from the bitshares team, because I think having only Dacs developed by the  bitshares team would be just as bad as having a single blockchain. So my expectation of the future is now that trying to help bitshares reach more success in the short term, will boost adoption rate of separate blockchains and (D)Pos by others more, than having a crippled small team try and create a complete ecosystem from day one, complete with competitors. I'm noticing that some famous people in the industry are looking into Pos now as well, whereas they were completely opposed to the concept not too long ago.

Also on the topic of changing course and being inconsistent, I don't completely agree with that point of view. It does not account for this being a completely new experiment, with no definitive answers. Do keep in mind that bitUsd was not a finalized or even as trusted a concept as it is now. Also because of the idea of the bitUsd mechanic of btsx being part of most of the DACs planned by bitshares in the future, which was not part of the perceived reality when the plan was to create these separate selfsufficient blockchains, the situation did change from that time and it does make sense to reevaluate the path with this new development. What path is chosen should indeed be left to the individual stakeholders and what they believe is the best road forward.

Would be nice if people talked and ask questions first before panicking and selling before anything is even close to being decided. For one the details on how the percentage stakes would be divided has not even come up.

So now that I've gotten some sleep and a cup of coffee I'll post my reaction.

First to address some worries about this socalled shareholder meeting. The mumble meeting happened completely unexpectedly and spontaneously, probably mostly because of people wanting to vent their anger. The only person I could find on mumble earlier that day was Gamey, who was busy drowning his worries away because of the proposal and resulting commotion. He then went off to drown his worries some more and nobody has heard off or seen him since. Goodbye Gamey, you will be missed, hopefully by someone with better memory than mine.

I then checked Mumble again later that day, just before going to bed to see if anybody was there so I could do a little venting and forgot to turn it off. Purely by accident I heard gentso1 calling out while I was in another room and out of the blue the channel started filling up with people. Eventually even Bytemaster and Stan showed up, but that much should be clear from the chatlog and unedited recording I uploaded.

Now here is my perspective on what Bytemaster said, but first and formost no final decisions have been made nothing is set in stone, in the mumble session Bytemaster just explained the context of his proposal that was a reaction to people voicing their worries about the voting dac.
If you saw my post in the proposal discussion, you may have noticed I was not happy with the proposal at all and probably made one of the harshest posts in that giant thread. I have been passionate about corruption resistant systems for most of my life and I donated to AGS for the bitsharestoolkit and in hope that it would help bring the developments I've been striving for for more than 20 years to finally become reality. To me the concept of a single blockchain to rule them all is one of the biggest concerns I have.

After listening to Bytemasters point of view, he did manage to alleviate most of my concerns and restore a lot of faith in the future. I'll try to list the important points for me (sorry if it's not the speculator point of view), development of the opensource bitshares toolkit will continue and decentralization still is the main objective. However he feels that, at this embryonic stage, the bitshares team might do better to focus all their efforts on this single proto-dac with all the features of the previously announced separate DACS. This would make things clear for new people, and would help the marketing of bitshares enormously, because now they only have to sell this one project and focus all energy and developments to give the project critical mass / escape velocity.

Bytemaster argues, that in the case bitshares reaches adoption rates similar or beyond that of bitcoin, then decentralization will happen naturally by people making clones of bitshares or successful experimental DACs in this proto-dac spinning off on their own chain when they start to run into limitations and the free market will take care of it on it's own. For the short to medium term however the Bitshares team would  not be creating competition with itself and for now concentrate on assuring the biggest chance of survival for the current projects and maximum focused and efficient use of their current resources, be it manpower, capital or whatever.

Should the proposal gain general acceptance then the social contract will remain intact and Bitshares-team would still offer support to anyone using the toolkit and honoring the percentage stake in this separate chain/DAC if even it is a competing one.

Recording of the spontaneous AMA with Bytemaster on his proposal and ensuing panic. Different ogg encoder
Flac-version
Mp3
AAC/M4A

Plus the chatlog

Not edited, an edited cleaned up version will probably be uploaded later.

I've posted this first so everyone can get it from the horses mouth. I'll make another post to explain my point of view. Short version I was in complete opposition to the proposal and now see it very differently.

Just found this topic a minute ago and haven't had time to read all the pages yet, but here are my initial reactions, but I do reserve the right to be able to change my mind.

Do not use the forums as a means to find consensus, only use it to exchange arguments as a tool to formulate the final proposal.
Use or implement the voting mechanics on bitsharesX and use the network concensus mechanic to come to a consensus. Only people using the client and putting their money where their mouth is and actually use and support the network should have a say in votes like this for the bitsharesX part of the pie at least.

That way even if no consensus is reached, at least everybody with an opinion on this will actually use the network.

Is this a proposal made out of weakness, fear or feeling pressured by greedy people? If so then I suggest a weekend of separation from the internet and really think this through objectively and as rationally as possible. Decisions made in a panic or fearful state are rarely the right ones in the long run.

I am not in favor of a single monster of Frankenstein blockchain, that will do everything. To me that is the single biggest problem with bitcoin expanded by the fact that the user-owners of the network have no ability to vote. The opensource toolkit was the valuable concept to me, not the singular DACs that make use of it,  bitsharesX included.

I'm not concerned about the technical limits of  bandwidth or blockchainbloat, but I am concerned with the systemic/social problems that this imposes, and this is also why I am opposed to other single blockchain to rule them all solutions. Even on this forum it is clear that the bitsharesX crowd does not have the same interests as people interested in the other DACs, but in the proposed model they will be the ones with the majority vote on ALL decisions. That is a recipe for disaster. The separate DACs is the only way forward, because they need to live by their own rules and adapt not by the limitations and conflicting interests. Being small, light on your feet and flexible is only possible in smaller groups and at the very beginning. Once the network gets big and succesful, like all big companies they have become inflexible and in my eyes will collapse under their own weight or rot away from the inside, like for example is happening to Microsoft and Apple, both of whom I now see as past their prime and on their way down.

Also this completely passive attitude by socalled stake-holders and making themselves completely depended on bytemaster is a failure in creation of a self-sustaining decentralized  network. To be honest bytemaster should be working to leave bitsharesx and let it live on its own, maybe set a target for that as well and let it's community and the concept prove itself on it's own. I'm starting to feel a more forceful approach is needed to get people to understand what decentralized actually means. A lot of the comments come across as if people were thinking they bought Invictus shares and that they own Apple-style-stocks and through that own all things that anyone from Invictus touches. If that's the case then I suggest renaming all shares to Midas-shares or Invect-shares, if that is the model going forward.

Sorry if I sound a bit irritated, I admit I find myself getting more and more irritated by the mindset that by just sitting at the computer and clicking with your mouse entitles you to anything. (And that also means I am frustrated with myself as well). Don't get me wrong, I also think the Invictus team carries a lot of responsibility for creating the current culture of passivity by the community.

Involving the community and getting more people involved is what is lacking, not the monopoly on Bytemaster and his time.

For now I've run out of time, I'll try to come back later today and read the other pages of comments and hopefully list the rest of my points.

This would unfortunately make open bazaar integration much less straightforward, or at least be used differently on OB than other coins, leading to confusion (BTSX' greatest weakness). But otoh I agree that this is a better solution overall, due to its user friendliness.

I think the emergence if this inbuilt escrow system, and others like it, would create an industry wide debate about how to handle the reputation system of escrow agents. Should they be platform based (such as OB), coin based or universal as an external system to the others?

I personally predict that OB will end up becoming the only p2p trade platform, so it would make sense to have it be the default WoT for the entire crypto economy. That might also be an argument against a BTSX escrow system that doesn't fit into OB, unless btsx development takes the lead in implementing a custom OB bitUSD integration.

In the long run I'd like to see this system for Titan txs and regular multisig for non-Titan txs.

In what way is multisig used on openbazaar now? If it works like an escrow service, then it probably won't be that much different from their point of view, other than being on a different chain/wallet/api.  Also the end user probably won't notice the underlying mechanics, just as long as it works.

So anybody have any idea how the multi-sig fits in the design of openbazaar?

Quote from: currencydebt on October 13, 2014, 09:04:16 pm

Think everyone is worn out from the ABL drama last week.

Lol

Seeing and hearing so many people talk about it is kinda making me curious what the hell happened.

It seems I missed it this time, although I got caught up in one when I first joined this forum and tried to have a conversation with one angry guy I never even heard of, which was apparently a very bad thing seeing how everybody is supposed to know who ABL is.

This is not about the ltb-beyondbitcoinshow right, or is it?

Oh, sure, I haven't been keeping my recordings secret, I was under the impression I already linked my public google drive where I upload my recordings.

Might be that I wanted a better solution than google drive and then, completely forgetting about posting the link.

Keep in mind those are only the recordings of the ones I attended and they are all unedited. Also google has its very own logic and idea on how to present those files, so you might have to dig around a bit to find the most recent ones. I usually upload the recordings right after the session ends.

I agree with you that I like the free unedited format, it gives me a little more assurance that the conversation is not pushed into a certain direction. So I hope the format gets expanded in a similar manner and that more people with hopefully different or opposing viewpoints join, making the conversation veer off in unpredictable directions.