Dear Bitshares community,

We are writing this on a happy note, because we have made strides in the development of Moonstone. There have been many challenges along the way, but we believe everything worth doing is worth doing well.
Currently we are in alpha, and have given some Bitshares Forum users access to Moonstone. They are currently testing and providing invaluable feedback, for which we are very grateful.
Once we get sufficient feedback from our early alpha testers we intend to open up to a broader audience. Therefore, the more the early testers help us the faster we can get Moonstone to the general community.
We believe that Blockchain communities are among the most progressive and friendly ones in the technology space. We are extremely grateful to have the chance to work with all of you on the future of the Internet!

With love,
Your Bitsapphire team.

For a while now people have been trying to figure out why there is so little trading volume on the DEX.  I've traded forex and stocks for over 10 years and have written dozens of trading bots (Expert Advisors) in the mql language.  I've turned $2,500 into $50,000 in 6 months.  I've also turned $50,000 into $20,000 in 6 months as well. I think I have a pretty good idea of what traders need and expect from a platform.

1. Shorting in the DEX is cumbersome and confusing
I recently tried to short using the DEX.  I borrowed CNY and then sold that CNY for BTS.  I ended up getting margin called as BTS fell in price.  I'm ok with being wrong about a position, but I'm very confused with the mechanics of how this happened.  I also had no idea what my position was worth throughout the trade, and I'm not even entirely sure how much I lost.  Shorting needs to be streamlined and simplified.  The borrow/sell thing is too many steps and not knowing the positions value during the trade is borderline scary.

2.Is there a way to put a stop loss or take profit order?
Because right now I can't figure out how to do it.  This means there is no money management ability.  Without the ability to manage a trade, the DEX is unusable for serious traders.  There needs to be at a minim stop loss orders.  There really should be a way to put trailing stops in as well.

3.Indicators are shaky at best
Right now there are 4 indicators and 2 of them are moving averages.  The RSI doesn't appear to be working as the only reading I see on the more liquid markets are 100, 50, or 0.  It looks like an EKG witch tells me something isn't working correctly.  Not all traders use indicators, but many do.

These are just basic GUI things that are preventing traders from using the DEX.  It doesn't even include the inability to use leverage.  Just fixing the 3 things above will bring much more utility and liquidity to the dex.  I will guarantee it.  The people that originally designed the DEX were not traders.  They thought poloniex was a good interface to base their platform on.  Unfortunately, poloniex is not a good platform.  A professional trader would never use Poloniex.  Poloniex's platform is modeled off some cheap retail trading platform.

How do we fix this??
Right now we are consumed by petty fee debates and if we should keep calling ourselves DPOS.  These things are not that important right now.  It's not what will drive mainstream traders to the BTS platform.  What is needed is A PLUGIN FOR METATRADER 4.  While it isn't the most sophisticated trading platform, it's the most widely used and known.  It's also light years ahead of the current DEX.  What I propose is that instead of @dannotestein and blocktrades using a worker proposal to fix basic blockchain bugs, rather is work on creating a plugin for MT4.  They are already an exchange and have a good understanding of BTS.  I know it's not as easy as fixing "bad coding techniques", but getting this plugin for BTS would do more to improve the market cap and utility than anything else.

Quote from: lil_jay890 on June 02, 2016, 03:17:12 pm

Quote from: kenCode on June 02, 2016, 02:40:27 pm

Quote from: cylonmaker2053 on June 02, 2016, 02:16:55 pm

Quote from: kenCode on June 02, 2016, 09:22:38 am

Chris, me, Rodrigo, JP and Martin at yesterday's investor conference here in Munich..
edit: (Leopold was holding the camera)

Awesome! What was the investor conference about exactly? What was the audience? Did you guys make a pitch for Bitshares?

We are now going to secure some more funds for marketing Bitshares, BlockPOS, Stealth, Graphene-IPFS, ECHO and a slew of other projects we are doing. I think 8 different VC firms showed up yesterday from around the world.
 
The BitShares Munich team is growing fast, lots of amazing talent with us now. They will take a stake in our private projects just like OPENPOS holders get, but it is worth it to me since we are now ready to unleash a few of our products to the public. We need to push the marketing HARD now and dominate the crypto space. Everyone will know about Graphene soon.
 
If you haven't started a Meetup group in your local town yet, NOW is the time!!!
https://secure.meetup.com/create/

Sounds like things are going well and moving fast Ken.

Couple questions I have, who are "they" that will be taking a stake in your private projects?  Are the VC's or new team members?  How will they be taking a stake, by investing in OPENPOS?  Are these private projects still part of the OPENPOS investment?

Thanx @lil_jay890
Originally, we were just going to build a wallet and integrate with Odoo, but I managed to build 4 products instead of 2.
 
I think with all of the products that we are launching, systems that we are integrating with, things that we are bolting on to Bitshares and so on that we need to raise substantial capital and actually go public. It only makes sense to give OPENPOS holders a bigger stake than we had originally planned because without you guys we never would have been able to create these first four products (BitShares Wallet, Smartcoins POS for Odoo, standalone POS (runs on any android device), and now the Smartcoins Wallet (native android). I don't want to just market to individual stores or chains, I want to market Bitshares and our products to the world now. We're ready. Bitshares is ready.
 
So, the VC's we have been talking to (at least 60% of them so far, various meetings over the last month) are absolutely stoked about what we have built, are currently building and our vision for future products and BlockPOS integrations. They would not have come all the way here to Munich to see us unless they saw value.
 
Right now, it's just Chris (CEO), Rodrigo (CMO) and I. We must keep our overhead as low as possible. We need to raise about $25K to last us for the next 3 months until the paperwork goes thru and we get the first deposit, so if you guys can donate more to the OPENPOS token that would be MUCH appreciated (as you can see, our bitshares-munich account is just about empty now). We still have to order a couple more tablets and counter mounts (these things are $300 each), plus have a couple professional videos produced, design and print localized marketing materials and ads, legal work, get ready for two huge upcoming trade fairs (need booth equipment, handouts, ads, promotional items, etc) and pay my Devs for a few more features that I want added to the BlockPOS systems and the new Smartcoins Wallet before I give them to the public. The VC's have also told us that their marketing departments will push this hard too. They know the decision-makers at Billion dollar retail, vending, gas and grocery chains so this launch is massive, we just need to survive the next couple months until we get the first deposit from them.
 
The VC's want a chunk of ECHO Industries UG (our German company). One of the VC's might even be able to get us traded on the London Stock Exchange.
 
I think OPENPOS holders are ultimately going to get a stake in our company too, but we need to get legal on that (as we can afford it) so that the tokens can be tied to the regular company shares in some way. I am not the finance guy, @Chris4210 handles all of that, but leave him alone for now please, he is swamped with spreadsheets and meetings and until we know more, this is about all I can share right now as I don't know how it will be handed out yet either.
 
So, if that doesn't get you fired up about the OPENPOS token I don't know what will. PLEASE contact @Chris4210 if you'd like OPENPOS as well, this is your last chance.

Quote from: Brekyrself on June 01, 2016, 04:03:43 am

Price is not going anywhere without real world adoption.  We should be supporting projects such as this with a worker proposal https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22576.0.html

Thank you Brekyrself
BitShares Munich is just starting to do marketing (chris and rodrigo) now that we have four Proof Of Concepts complete (and even more features being added). If we can get some big funding then we can bring more liquidity bots online (like we are doing with LiqBot), get BlockPOS integrated with 10-15 more POS systems and market the hell out of this. We have solved every problem that BTC couldn't solve.
 
@everyone - Why is the OPENPOS price so low? Please have more faith in me and my team!