https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/4e272p/unionshares_dpos_for_free_redeem/

Just came across this on r/bitcoin https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4c99lq/how_not_to_do_proof_of_reserves_a_look_at_uphold/

Although transparency is one of the things we value the most, I don't recall OpenLedger providing a Proof of Reserve.

I think this is an important problem to address because sooner or later it will come around. Now imagine if the project that was exactly created due to transparency issues, had it's biggest partner so far no being transparent. Quite the irony.

With this I would like to suggest for a new field on the UIA creation template to be created. Called Proof of Reserve, with a link or links to any cryptocurrency accounts that can prove solvency, plus those need to be signed by the owner as proof they actually own the account. Then the committee, since they were elected by the community could add their "stamp" of confirmation that a message was signed, confirming the address is legit. Could that be done? Add a field on a UIA that the committee could have access? I guess if they have some kind of permissions over the asset they could do so? Even if low? This should be done so that the actual owner of the UIA couldn't change it after. So the committee would be the only ones with permission to flag that field as true or false.

This way the community could whitelist assets and everyone would know which ones are trustworthy and new users would also have less chances of getting scammed by fake assets, which, sooner or later, will happen.

We want transparency, we need to start with ourselves first. Otherwise it will come around when we least expect and make irreparable damage.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/jpmorgan-unveils-juno-prototype-at-hyperledger-meeting-1457629074

https://github.com/buckie/juno

STEALTH will need some rigorous testing on the UI as to avoid mistakes from users. After that, we will also have the Rate Limited Free Transactions (RLFT) that abit is working on if I'm not mistaken. Once both of those are done with, what would you like to see next from the list on our roadmap? Remember it might still take a while before whatever option you've chosen starts being worked on.

Don't forget that our resources are limited and we can't do on a shopping spree. We can't afford everything and probably not even the most expensive stuff on this list so please vote with that into consideration. Remember that we don't need to have a toon of random features, we need to have some features with a certain objective, that complement each other as a way to maximize their use and benefit BitShares the most.

Check the Roadmap for details: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21541.0.html
For details on Yield Subsidy: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21597.105.html

Please provide a reasoning behind your choice. Why did you choose it? Which is the one that could benefit the most? Is it worth the cost? Can we afford it now? Do you prefer something with a bigger short term or long term impact? Are these even needed? Should we opt by something else? Should we focus on what we have for now? If so, how?

What path do you think we should be taking?

For you, what's the #1 priority for BitShares right now and what path should we follow?

I've noticed there were some talks about this but I think it didn't get much attention so I decided to make this thread.

What is Autobridging?
https://wiki.ripple.com/Autobridging
https://ripple.com/dev-blog/introducing-offer-autobridging/
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,15118.msg201331.html#msg201331

This way we would essentially have shared orderbooks and improve liquidity. Imagine if we could merge all OPEN.BTC, METAEX.BTC, TRADE.BTC markets into a single one that trades against BTS or USD. (doesnt work because users could end up with a UIA from a third party that they dont want, BTS should only be used as a bridge currency)Couldn't this, with sidechains, allow users to always get the best prices available vs multiple currencies? Sounds a pretty cool idea. It would be another reason for people to park their BTC in BitShares via our sidechain if we ever go forward with that.

As a simple example:
The BTC → BTS and BTS → USD can be synthesized into a synthetic BTC → USD. The real and synthetic BTC → USD order books can be be further synthesized into single combined order book.

Bridge Order Book + Bridge Order Book = Synthetic Order Book
1) USD/BTS + CNY/BTS = USD/CNY - this would be merged with the Direct USD/CNY Order Book
2) USD/BTS + EUR/BTS = USD/EUR - this would be merged with the Direct USD/EUR Order Book
3) BTC/BTS + USD/BTS = BTC/USD - this would be merged with the Direct BTC/USD Order Book
4) BTC/BTS + CNY/BTS = BTC/CNY - this would be merged with the Direct BTC/CNY Order Book

Do you think it's needed? Would it help? Would it be worth the effort? Why/why not?

https://medium.com/@barmstrong/what-happened-at-the-satoshi-roundtable-6c11a10d8cdf#.y94gr5g58

Thank you DPOS.

Amanda mentioned on one of her videos, the cryptocurrency with the best consensus mechanism will be the one to do it. I'm obviously biased but I really like DPOS because it makes things so simple. You vote. Period.

https://youtu.be/eUFsNSpQsEU?t=2m31s

tldr; BitShares has an identity crisis. We need focus and to find our own market. Imo our niche should be financial markets.

Imagine a boat, drifting in the middle of the ocean. Going around randomly, according to how the wind blows and water currents move. Then place a maze the size of the ocean on top of it with many dead ends. The boat needs to get to the other side. That boat is BitShares.

Exposing the Problem

BitShares has a major identity crisis. No one here can exactly answer the question "What is BitShares?". Well, maybe some can, even though they will most likely have different answers. Now from an investors pov, assuming you're a new user searching for info about BitShares, you can't find anything specific. What is it? What does it try to achieve?

These are the questions that keep people at bay. This is what causes most people to overlook BitShares. Consider the following projects. What do they all have in common?

I think a key difference is that they and the market are clear on what industry they will dominate in 'The New (Decentralized) World.'

Ethereum     - Decentralized Apps
MaidSafe     - Decentralized Data
Bitcoin          - Decentralized Gold   
Augur           - Decentralized PM (Gambling)   
BitShares    - Decentralized Bank & Exchange

A market, an objective, a goal. The industry they're aiming to disrupt and improve. If you ask most people in the crypto space about Augur or Ethereum they will immediately tell you what they're all about. It's easy.

Most acknowledged projects and the ones being taken into consideration and expected to be huge, can be easily identified via the industry they're in and their goals. It gives people a sense of security because they know what they're about.

Now onto BitShares. What is it? Like I said, most can't answer that, let alone new people. If you don't know what something is about, will you invest, will you feel motivated to go deep and discover what it has to offer? Most likely not. Even worse, from a business perspective: completely impossible to find new partners willing to build something using BitShares and to use it. They don't know what it is about, they don't know how it can be used to solve their problems and help them achieve better services, cut expenses and secure more profit.

I've seen on the forums arguments of the type: "BitShares can be whatever you want it to be." "It depends on how you look at it." "Everyone has their own interpretation" "It can do a lot of stuff" "Smartcontracts", etc

What? Are we talking about art? What did I just describe here? Something completely abstract with no sense or form, that no one will be interested on. Are you going to pitch that to investors and new businesses? Are you going to explain that to new people? The amount of info they have after you explained that to them, regarding BitShares is zero. They will still not be able to understand how it can be used. How they can use it. What is it for and what's the objective. At that very moment you will look exactly like someone who doesn't even understand Bitcoin, explaining Bitcoin a week after release. Some kind of crazy person talking about virtual stuff that in people's eyes, is useless.

Even when smart contracts are mentioned. Yes, they are the trend now thanks to Ethereum, but well, what can we do with them? What type of smart contracts will BitShares create and use? It's just a fancy word with no meaning behind it.

Perception is everything. This shows others we have a lack of focus and plan to grow, which consequently doesn't stimulate a sense of confidence and interest.


BitShares' path is a Maze

If we don't even know what BitShares is, if people who are looking for new stuff with potential can't understand BitShares, what path can we take? What will we do next?

Here comes the previous arguments once again "You can do everything, the sky is the limit". That kind of stuff. However, think about it. We can do everything and have no concrete path to follow. What will this cause? A maze. This is the perfect analogy for BitShares' development path if we don't solve this.

People will start worker proposals for this and that, some will get approved, some don't. However, in the end they might not even be related. They might not even complement each other.

Picture a company with an awesome product that has the potential to make a profit and be successful. Then the CEO, who has zero focus on what the objective of his company is, decides to experiment and develop all sorts of new products, essential killing the profit of that one single, awesome original product. All of this because he lacks a purpose, an objective, a goal. That is BitShares. If in the end all the worker proposals are for completely random different stuff, they, as a whole, are worthless, because they just don't add up. Not to mention worker funds, obviously, aren't infinite so they need to be carefully managed. What will happen when we build tons of "awesome" stuff, that together don't add up or make any sense? They will just be a bunch of random features and every cent spent on them will be for nothing.

We need focus and a purpose.

As for vision's like "Helping achieve financial freedom" ... I always think "And..." . That's the objective of all crypto, ever since the inception of Bitcoin. It doesn't even make sense to say it like that. Bitcoin was done for that in the first place. But that's not the worst. The worst is that it is just too subjective. Once again, go pitch that too investors and new people. Or rather I can just ask you a simple question: "How do you plan to achieve that?" Most likely your answer will end up not making sense or be satisfactory enough or you won't even be able to explain it.

It's too subjective. It will fail to get business people in. It will fail to attract investment.


What Should BitShares' Purpose Be Then?

The decentralized platform that will provide financial tools and aims to host the world's biggest financial markets. Basically, Financial Markets. At least now we seem to have an objective. It's now easier to explain our objective and what we aim to do. It can now be pitched easily by most people. It can now be understood more easily by other investors or new people looking for an interesting project.

"Ethereum makes Dapps, Augur Prediction Markets and BitShares aims to take on the Derivatives Market." That simple to share a rough idea of what we aim to do. Now we leave others thinking about how big the derivates market is. $$$. sure it can be hard as hell, far fetched, call it as you want, but well, who wouldn't like to take the chances of being an early adopter of a project who plans on taking on a $1.2 quadrillion  market? If you want to have an idea of the size of what we could be getting on check this link, which even compares it with Bitcoin  http://money.visualcapitalist.com/all-of-the-worlds-money-and-markets-in-one-visualization/



Exchanges, hedge funds, banks, etc, all using BitShares via
Stock Markets
Bond Markets
Commodity markets
Money markets
Derivatives markets
Futures markets
Insurance markets
Foreign exchange markets

I strongly believe with a plan like that we could attract several new people and see BitShares grow. Why? Because we would finally be acknowledged. People would immediately associate BitShares with financial markets and people would finally know what they would be getting themselves into. It would bring back confidence, security. People would finally understand what BitShares is about and what it tries to achieve.

If we did some kind of rebrand like updating the website with new info, advertise this, etc we would make news and make an impact. We time that with Rate Limited Fees for example and I believe it could give us that initial boost people are looking for.

Obviously this applies to any other plan or objective you may have, this is merely my opinion.

I just decided to post this when I was updating the road map thread with metatrader 4 integration and if you notice most plans there could be used and fit this niche. I don't know the feasibility of this, it's just what I would like to see.

BitShares would only need to focus on developing itself on that front and always maintaining scalability and performance as a top priority.

Imagine being acknowledged as the blokchain with the best performance and scalability who is going in for derivatives market! That's a pretty strong brand right there

A strong brand, a project with a clear direction and sense of what it aims to do.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_market
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_instrument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_%28finance%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivatives_market

https://twitter.com/brianchoffman/status/702653679334236161

So we have scalability and smartcoins. Really wasnt expecting this, I thought most projects were bitcoin centric. Glad i was wrong. I honestly didnt think we could ever have a chance but at the moment we are indeed the best option.

They wont go with private chains or chains from big corporations IMO. It doesnt make sense and goes against its principles. Ethereum doesnt seem to scale lile we do unless they already have a plan for the future, iheard they are working onlightning networks of their own even though that Will take a lot of time. Still, right now, as it is, we are the chain that fits the profile better. They seem to be close to the release and we seem to be the best option.