Quote from: bytemaster on September 24, 2014, 04:13:45 pm

If NuShares placed their Shares as collateral against NuBits then you would have BitShares assuming NuShares were a freely traded crypto and the interest rate voted on by NuShare holders was the interest rate PAID by the shorts to the longs.   

What happens if the collateral loses value? This approach introduces a serious default risk. As it is, the viability of NuBits does not depend on maintaining the value of NuShares.

I'm also against this. Unless I'm missing something critical, what's preventing my competitor from getting into bidding wars with me just to rack up my costs? What if my website has massive authority in the eyes of Google but is non-profit; a wealthy individual can come by and buy up the domain to utilize its authority. I definitely wouldn't want to register a .p2p domain knowing that some rich competitor could take my domain, destroying the branding and mindshare I've accumulated.

IMO Open Transactions is a centralized solution disguised as a decentralized one.

Quote from: emf on September 20, 2014, 09:13:05 pm

Looks like we put a malformed key into the source code.  You can work around it by removing line 15 of programs/qt_wallet/WebUpdates.hpp so that it reads:

Code: [Select]

const static std::unordered_set<bts::blockchain::address>   WEB_UPDATES_SIGNING_KEYS ({
    // bts::blockchain::address( std::string( "BTSX5gc28hpz1U2BvuCaAtDEUZMFxouH9nwsR9bNaTzqTb1G3gBK4F" ) )
});


In no universe I'll comment a line looking like that unless I do manual review what exactly is going to be changed by this.
I would rather wait for a fix in the official repository.

We've seen a lot of examples where automated traders drive the price significantly upwards/downwards.
This is more likely to happen in shallow markets like BTSX bitAsset markets.
And it is even more troublesome when you can flash-lose collateral due to margin calls.
I think providing open source bots that might be similarly configured will only make such scenarios more likely.
Regardless of that anyone with sufficient capital could drive prices upwards and downwards as he pleases in order to harvest as much collateral as possible. Note this is not fault of BitsharesX but is due to the shallow market.
Furthermore anyone with lower capital and some knowledge about the configuration of the automated traders could also try to exploit this.

I'm not saying that the system is flawed in any way. It is just young and market needs more depth.

BTW: about the depth part I'm sure crosschain trading BTC<->BTSX will do miracles. You can see my proposals about this here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9075.0

So let's reason from first principals:

1) We want btsx to be valuable.
2) We want bitUSD to be worth $1.

Given these two desires, we need to create self reinforcing incentives that drive people towards both of those goals. If a minority of actors defect from those goals, they should be "punished" by losing value, whether they are holding bitAssets or btsx.

Some other truths:

1) the value of btsx relative to actual $ has been volatile
2) the value of bitUSD relative to actual $ has been volatile
3) bitUSD is (obviously) only priced in btsx.
4) we need shorts and longs in equal supply, because only when someone goes short can someone else go long and create bitUSD.
5) paying longs to hold bitUSD with transaction fees is good for them, and creates incentives for them to hold it.
6) forcing shorts to put up collateral btsx is good for them collectively, because it sequesters btsx and drives up the value of btsx. This enables shorts to make money.
  6a) forcing shorts to put up collateral btsx is bad for them individually, because buying btsx is hard and a short doesn't have an infinite supply of btsx.
  6b) Therefore, we have what in economics is called a collective action problem. The more shorts that short and the more collateral they put up, the better it is for them as a group, but each short wants to defect and let the OTHER shorts put up the collateral. Of course, since we demand a fix amount of collateral now by protocol, they can't defect. They can just choose to sit out.
7) If the peg isn't holding, it is because the short demand and the long demand are imbalanced. Therefore, we want to add longs when there are lots of shorts, and add shorts when there are lots of longs.

The obvious solution to pay the group that is insufficiently supplied. Any other solution will simply cause the smaller group to sit out. Since we are already tapping transaction fees to pay longs already, and they still seem to be in insufficient supply, where can we get more cash? They answer is from the group that is in larger supply. Just add a fee paid from shorts to longs (or longs to shorts, depending on the market). The fee should be something that is part of their bid.

Let the market decide the fees, and the peg will hold. No feed from delegates required.

Quote from: GaltReport on September 17, 2014, 12:31:07 am

This is a joke right?  You will have to pry my grass fed steak from my cold dead hands!!

Well, this is all voluntary. No one is going to grab it from your cold dead hands. You can keep eating the grass fed steak as long as you can afford it. In fact, I would imagine more people would afford to switch from the cheaper steaks they eat today to grass fed steaks since the cost of the rest of their meals could drop significantly.

Quote from: arhag on September 16, 2014, 05:43:43 pm

Quote from: G1ng3rBr34dM4n on September 16, 2014, 12:08:46 pm

Quote from: xeroc on September 16, 2014, 06:17:01 am

... still big farms have a WAY higher *efficiency* .. just consider the big machines they can use .. and efficiency is an important issue when it comes to energy supply and the second law of thermodynamics (i.e. global warming)

Good point Xeroc - I agree energy supply is an important factor, but I don't believe its isolated on just the farms.  In the U.S. food is shipped, on average, about 1900 miles from the source of production. 

Going off on a tangent here, but there are also a lot of REALLY big issues I have with the sheer volume of pesticides, insecticides, and fungicides being dumped over the plants that are inevitably accelerating climate change and damaging ecosystems.  I don't have issues with GMO's (again, technologically objective perspective); what I do have an issue with is why GMO's are developed, enabling monopolies to force the ever increasing usage of harmful chemicals.

I also believe this goes beyond efficiencies.  I was catching drinks with my boss last night and he brought up a really good point; do we really know what we're putting into our bodies?  Like really??  I would love to know 100% exactly what inorganic materials and what ratios of those materials make up the plant matter I'm ingesting.  I would also like to have the assurance that I'm not ingesting chemicals "known to the state of California" to cause cancer.  And I'd like fresh strawberries when there's a foot of snow outside.  Or heirloom tomatoes.  Or arugula where the flavor profile is dialed in just right.

This is just the tip of the ice berg with what's possible and I say we bring back the flavor first and foremost. :-D

My intention is not at all to diminish what you are doing. It sounds really cool. But I am interested to see what your thoughts are on something like Soylent? I mean in some sense it is a very depressing way forward for humanity. People enjoy eating fresh natural food. But there is a lot of efficiency to be gained by taking advantage of economies of scale to farm nutrients and then convert the nutrition into a form that can travel really well over long distances without spoiling. And I don't even think it would need to travel that far. Someday in the future, it could be possible to grow the nutrients in well-controlled, large bio-factories powered by nuclear power located not too far away from major population centers.

And I am confident there will always be ample demand for fresh, natural foods for the purpose of luxury and pleasure. But if that becomes something more like a twice a week thing, people could afford to pay higher prices for the better-quality (compared to what most people eat today that is) natural foods. And it is still not clear to me why the economies of scale provided by centralization wouldn't make the high quality foods cheaper than the decentralized alternative. Or is the case that the decentralization is worth the cost for the security it provides families, since food is essential to living? But then you also need to decentralize the other dependencies necessary to grow the food and keep people alive and satisfied: power, water, waste management, mesh networks. Otherwise, not being dependent on centralized institutions for food is kind of meaningless when you are still dependent on them for your electricity/gas and water supply.

Arhag, that's a very good question - I really like the concept and execution of Soylent!  My first hypothesis would be perhaps it could work supplementary to fresh food.  I believe there's a certain psychological connection people have developed with the form factor and tastes of particular foods.  I believe Soylent has the potential to replace meals for those who want, or aren't bother by, the user experience drinking all their nutrients.  Personally, I just love the first bite of a freshly picked spinach leaf - something I don't believe will be replicable in a way that would make sense to replace the real thing.

If somebody would like to fund it - I will publicly try Soylent for 30 days and comment on my own experience.