My approach and use of psychological techniques was rather focused on the question: "How do we increase the adoption rate of the products produced by the DAC?"

I think we share the same goal and just have different approaches. My approach would accomplish the same goal from a different angle. I look at what Blizzard has done with their World of Warcraft franchise, and I think of DAC employees as gamers or players of the DAC.

Why is Apple more successful than any other consumer company and still sells millions of phones and tablets each quarter? Because they knew exactly who their target consumers were and how they should approach them.

I give you credit that Apple is very successful, and it seems to be entirely based around marketing. Unlike the approach taken by Apple I want the success of a DAC to also be based on the efficiency of that DAC in solving the problem. I do not want a well marketed DAC with inferior features, functionality, and core efficiency to win purely on marketing against a superior technologically driven DAC. The way I see to do it is to make sure the technology is the best, that the DAC can offer value that cannot be found elsewhere.

So what is it that people need? They need money, they need products. A DAC which pays workers in shares for example could be set up in such a way so that these shares could be traded directly for products and services in the DAC or traded into other DACs. That in my opinion is a game changing feature and a technology which would be such a huge breakthrough that it could be like Google.

Google did not do much marketing or have "die hard" fans but it does have the best search algorithm, it does have the best search interface, it does offer the best value (Gmail launched by giving away what was back then a ton of free hard drive space). Google may outlast Apple because it has more forward thinking and better designed technologies while Apple could lose it's edge at any time because it relies on product releases which each have to be successfully hyped, launched, etc.

I don't say one way is better than the other, I think time will show us along with statistics.

They succeeded because they created a huge following of people that were willing to spread the message of Apple being the #1# company in the world and how the iPhone kicks everyone's butt.

The iPhone quickly was replaced by the Android precisely because it wasn't the best technology. Of course die hard followers will seem to buy Apple products no matter what and I cannot discount the value of that, but is that necessary for something like Bitshares?

Moreover, because of this, the public's perception of Apple being a boring computer company like IBM changed to it being a rebellious and agile company. Exactly therefor, Apple was able to attract worldclass talent to join their workforce (more about my definition of "worldclass talent" and "A-Teams" later).

This is true but IBM and Apple have completely different customers. IBM is also the company associated with Linux and Open Source. They are associated with businesses. So really the difference is in the demographic target audiences.

The premise to all of this is obviously a superior product to the current market-standard (which we obviously have with Bitshares). So what I'm saying is that it is possible, with the right use of psychological techniques, to create a following similar to Apples. We need these "messengers" to spread the word of a new DAC, or in a more recent case, Bitshares. Think of it, would you rather pay someone to create a dull presentation about your product, or would you take your time to convince that same person of your vision and your intentions to "change the world", so that he's going to passionately talk to his friends, family, co-workers and his entire social environment about how innovative and how game-changing the product is. The outcome of both such presentations is fundamentally different.

And this is where we differ. I don't see Bitshares as a product. I see Bitshares as a new economic ecosystem. I think something like this does not really need much marketing. The best marketing for Bitshares will be the news articles about people who made millions of dollars trading Bitshares, or the early adopters who went from being penniless to making millions in Silicon Valley. The rags to riches story is the best marketing and also one of the oldest and most cross cultural forms of marketing. This is why I said money really sells itself and Bitshares isn't just programmable money, it's a new economy entirely. If we look at Bitcoin as a success, there hasn't been a single Bitcoin ad on TV and Bitcoin actually suffers from negative press and people ignore the Silk Road press FUD because they read about how some kid discovered some coins he lost worth $700,000. They see Bitcoins going from $15 to $1200 in the same year and really what better advertising could you have to attract investors other than logarithmic growth? They will look at their economic situation and compare it to what they see going on with Bitshares and want to be a part of it because they can do math.

By gaining such "messengers" you not only spread the message about your product (cheap word of mouth branding), but you are also able to attract world class talent to join your forces.

So what is world-class talent for me?
For me, it is someone that is not focused on the monetary (or share) compensation he/she can expect for the given work - but someone that works independently and passionately follows the projects progress. Someone that aspires you and the project for being prescient and innovative. TL;DR, worldclass = someone that works beyond his capacity in order to influence the output of the project for the better - someone who cares about you and the project. As Sun Tzu said:

"The will is rooted in character, and for the man of action character is of more critical importance than intellect.
Intellect without will is worthless, will without intellect is dangerous."

Especially in our crowded market as software engineering it is of the best for a DAC to be able to convince talent to join them. A higher monetary compensation could mean that you can acquire a lot of talented people. But do these people really care about the output? Do they share your vision about producing something game-changing? Essentially, each DAC is like a start-up, they need to know their market, the product and they need to be able to acquire and motivate talent.

So basically, some of my proposed psychological techniques can be used to acquire talent and create a die-hard following for a project, which in return leads to a higher success-rate. But obviously the operator of a DAC (do your intended DAC's have representatives?) needs to be a good charismatic storyteller that is able to influence people.

I'd like to see your techniques tried out on a DAC and the success measured before I can form an opinion. I think if the success rate is as high as you say then it's a no-brainer. I think you're right that a storyteller who is able to influence people is important, but the demographics you're focused on aren't the people who need to be convinced. It is my opinion that the investors are the ones who need to be the true believers. If you can use your psychological techniques on them to make them crowd fund at a higher rate then more DACs can be funded and more ideas tested. The Angel investors ultimately are the people who are the single biggest decider of which DACs have a chance and which wont.

Essentially, the mentioned techniques (and a few more) are what I will be trying on Bitshares with Brian and Dan.



About Gamification:
Gamification is a great method to pump up activity. It is something I have been researching for quite some time and I am currently using it on my start-up. The purpose of Gamification (more closely, badges in our case) is to increase the completion rate of our To-Do List e.g. invite 10 friends and get this badge, do X and Y and get that other badge.
I do really advocate your proposal to use Gamification inside a DAC to increase activity/completion. But after all, Gamification is just another form of compliance technique that increases the motivation of a prospect.

Right but badges serve two purposes in my system. It motivates the prospect to do task completion, but it also increases their status in a way which can transfer across to other DACs. It's a meritocracy of accomplishment as their resume.

Let me elaborate with some more examples:
Giveaways: At first glance, a giveaway's sole purpose is to garner attention. But with the adroit use of a second component (as you have proposed) it becomes a powerful method for creating consistency in your prospect. Lets say that your giveaway is focused on giving away 100 PTS to all the people that write a public, 500 word statement to why BitShares is better than Nxt. This requests for a stand to be taken from the prospect who is supposed to write the statement. As case studies have shown, this kind of action that needs to be taken, causes the prospect to be consistent about their statement and even openly express it. Meaning, you have a new "messenger"!
Gamification: This is used nearly everywhere around us: Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers, Youtube Subscribers, Achievements, Rewards, ... all these cause us to comply to a desired action by our opponent. Most of the time it is used to increase activity, but sometimes, if used in an adroit fashion, they can cause contagious and addictive behavior. Gamification satisfies some of our needs: belonging to someone/something, social cohesion/acceptance, feeling of superiority (altruism)  and achievement.
Social Proof: "He is doing it, so it must be right!"This is another "flaw" in the human brain. We request for a shortcut in most of our daily activity that is why we use methods that lead to automatic action. Social Proof also leads to heard behavior.
Reciprocation: "Do me a favor, and I shall give you one in return!"

This is all very true and I don't dispute it. The problem is I've seen these exact techiques used by some scammers and so have many others. So because of what we have seen in the past a lot of us are jaded and see any of these techniques and think it could be a scam. How do you avoid the perception that your product is a scam because the language pattern matches the pattern that some scammer or the camera angles in a photo of a product look too well thought out and matches that of the scam ASIC people seen so they now don't want to buy it. This all takes place subconsciously and often people don't even know why but they just have a bad feeling about something.

So what I'm saying is that with the correct use of compliance techniques the activity and acceptance of a DAC can be substantially increased - which leads to a higher success-rate. None of these techniques are really obvious compliance techniques at a first glance and thus do not hurt the reputation of a DAC that is simply using them to increase activity/adoption.

I'd like to see it tested out. I know these techniques work I just don't know if they will work with the current demographic. I don't think Bitshares can be marketed as a product with a brand because it's a protocol and economic ecosystem. It's like how do you market the NASDAQ or Forex? We cannot think of it like an Apple product because Apple has never made anything on this scale. While we can learn from Apple we also have to learn what NASDAQ and Forex did to become so widely cherished while at the same time avoid the mistakes which caused Wall Street to be hated.

And by no means am I evil haha - I am simply suggesting several techniques that can be used in a DAC. I will propose more methods in detail to Invictus. So lets see where this leads!

I'm open minded. In my opinion this is a completely open space which will probably be studied by academics and become completely new fields of study. We are essentially the pioneers of a new industry so there is no right or wrong when we don't even know what we are building yet. We will eventually figure out what works and what doesn't after we see a lot of DACs rise and fall. So there is room to try many different experimental techniques.

A DAC should not only be there to assure a fair distribution and correct use of the invested capital (distribution mechanism) - but it should also include a motivational mechanism. This algorithm should offer a combination of rewards and punishment to induce behavior. Meaning, we need to find the correct use of behavioral and motivational techniques in order to assure the highest possible productivity inside the DAC.

Rewards yes, punishment no. You have deterrence in the form of damaged Reputation which leads to exclusion and reward in the form of increased inclusion.

If someone is a thief and scams people that should permanently damage their "Good Name".  If they agreed to abide by a social contract and they don't then that is the same as being a thief and it should damage their reputation beyond repair.

But I don't think any algorithm should have the capability to dish out punishment, only rewards. Human beings dish out enough punishment as it is and we don't need DACs to get in on it.

Basically what I'm saying is that you need to put in more factors in your success-equation of a DAC. Talent is not only convinced by the monetary compensation they receive - "rational" people are more convinced of the intentions and purpose of a project.

The current demographic on this site already believes in the idea and doesn't have to be convinced. It seems to me it's just a matter of getting some money to pay some of the people already here rather than a situation where we have to attract people from elsewhere. The people who believe have bills to pay and families to feed just like everyone else.

The example of Jonestown was included to articulate how far you can get with a deliberate usage of these psychological compliance techniques. Obviously you will not want to convince potential participants to commit suicide for you - you want to convince them of your intentions and their purpose in the project. Only if you state the WHY, HOW and WHAT you will get an A-Team to join your project - and with such, you can get them to comply to your request (Lets assume you do not have enough money to pay a programmer the current industry standard. So you want to convince them to take less).

No you really can't. If a programmer has to pay their rent and other bills you might be able to convince them to take a little bit less in $ but you're ignoring the high appreciation rate of a successful DAC. When you look at start-ups a lot of them pay in stock, it's really no different. The stock might turn out to be worthless or it might make them millionaires. At the time you give them the stock they have the choice to sell it to pay their bills and decrease their risk or save if you give them enough stock they could pay their bills and have some to save which is actually the ideal situation.

If you're short on money then you can outsource to people in countries where it's cheaper but I don't see how this particular community would be short on money if we had crowd funding. Mastercoin raised a million dollars at the time which has appreciated greatly and is now worth millions more. I think paying at whatever the market rate (or slightly below) will not be a problem because the crypto assets you're dealing with don't suffer from the problems associated with the dollar or euro.

If these techniques are used by the wrong person they can be a real menace to the platform. You probably heard of "Kony 2012". A movement that caused millions of people to care about Uganda and their dictator Joseph Kony. People protested (well, they tried to), flyers were scattered across towns and millions of dollars were donated to Invisible Children (which in return, kept like 50%+ of the donated money). All of this was caused because a team of psychologists and cinematographers knew how to create a video that touched people on an emotional basis.

I get it. Psychology does matter. But I think you're looking at a completely different demographic from most here. Most DACs are not charitable organizations and will attract either very greedy institutional investors or people who use Bitcoin and who think it's a cool idea/technology. I don't think this kind of psychological marketing is necessary because Bitcoin for the most part leaves a trail of bread crumbs directly to the DACs. It's real simple, people will be drawn to the DACs as a way to get Bitcoins (or shares in the DAC) and you don't have to motivate by more than that.

If you're after the A-team whatever that is then you might have to use more motivation but how do you define the A-team? I think it depends on the DAC. I'm not discounting the use of psychology. I have advocated switching Bitshares to the smallest denomination in the client and display so that psychologically people feel like they have more or will buy more. I believe it's possible Bitshares could reach parity with Bitcoin and surpass it in price and so in order to have people not think it's too expensive we would be best to adopt the smallest denomination showing the total number of Bitshare units. The idea that Bitshares are scarce is important as well so for marketing you want to market the scarcity of the largest denomination to professional/sophisticated investors.

What I'm advocating against is the use of any kind of dishonesty or purposeful con-artistry and some of the compliance techniques will drive people away because they will be viewed as dishonest. The giveaway thread for example attracted people who wanted something for free and when they found out they had to do something for it they felt like it was a bait and switch. Just because a technique may be temporarily effective for a DAC it does not mean it should be the preferred technique. Being perceived as honest, having a good reputation, are very important (more important than just making $) because there are too many scams.

People felt connected, they thought the same could happen to them and thus wanted to take action - with no compensation. They did it because they believed in it.

There are plenty of documentaries about the economic crisis and the banks. I think if people are looking to try Bitcoin they are already sold on this and don't really need to be sold further but I could be wrong. If people crowd fund documentaries which successfully bring people to different DACs then lets do it. In fact I think documentaries could be a successful method of marketing. Really I care about effectiveness and I think if you follow an algorithmic approach which measures effectiveness through a voting/rating system then you can try out different compliance techniques, marketing techniques, etc.

So to get to a conclusion: What I'm saying is that the DAC's and the entire project's chance to succeed is subsequently higher if we deliberately use compliance techniques in order to achieve widespread adoption, acceptance and understanding of the intentions. With such, you are able to get "diehard" fans that spread the message not because they receive a badge or another form of compensation - but because they believe in the system.

I think you're just trying to trick people into working for the DAC for free. That might work for some people but you will be limited to those people. Anyone who has a job which pays them is not going to quit their job to work for a DAC which does not give them the same money, kudos, credentials, experience, credit, recognition, prestige, badge of honor, titles, or whatever they could get somewhere else.

The prestige system has been tested over and over in studies on gamification and you can see that these game mechanics work in practice. It is a fact that World of Warcraft is addictive for a reason, because of specific gamification mechanics. People work not just to make money but also for prestige and status to keep up with the Joneses. Different people are motivated differently and some people are motivated as "die hard" types who would work for free but those people in my opinion are incredibly rare and it goes against the tenants of capitalism.

I'm sure a DAC could pull it off if it were a charity DAC but I don't think people are going to work for a DAC which is clearly capitalist, clearly designed to make shareholders money, and not expect anything out of it.

Maybe you can show me that I'm wrong but I think if you look at why most people work or play it's because they want trinkets, credit, recognition, fame, money, etc. This applies as much to prize fighting and sports as it does to acting, being a doctor, lawyer, computer technician, or just gaming for fun.

People want to feel a sense of win, and they also have to be given enough money to of course feed themselves and their families so they don't have to worry about money. There is a balance of course where if you give people too much money you're wasting money, but if they are worried about money they will take their talent elsewhere to whichever DAC, business or team which gives them more money. Any DAC I develop will be designed in a way which includes gamification components but it would be good to try different approaches as that is why there should be competing DACs so that the market can decide what it likes.

Marketing != Compliance techniques

If you're using the word compliance techinques you're not exactly saying who they are to comply with. Are they complying with shareholders? To me a DAC should be all about inclusion and anyone should be able to become a shareholder if they are willing to work for the DAC to earn shares and have faith that those shares will be worth something then they should be rewarded.

A reiteration of my opinion is that we should just create a functioning algorithm which can fairly distribute the work and funds according to the voting of the stakeholders. We should reward anyone who helps develop and build up a DAC with ownership of the DAC making them stakeholders just as we reward the investors who crowd fund it and the Protoshare holders who are part of the social contract. I think only through ownership and only by allowing people to earn a stake can you have inclusion and I think inclusion is what will attract people to the DACs. It's just like how inclusion is what attracts so many people to mining.


Reference
http://gamification.org/wiki/Gamification_of_Work

You might be interested in this proposal currently circulating.


Application Specific, Autonomous, Self Boot-Strapping Consensus Platforms (And the DACs that live on them)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PBjrpMBViJh1-QrWJ80XMcQmhqcG3NhhoeSn0C_ML7Y/edit?usp=sharing

That proposal mirrors what I'm thinking about with the exception being that there could be artificial intelligence at the center (there is no top) which gets feedback/commands from shareholders to better achieve the goals of shareholders. Ultimately it's not hierarchical and there really is no top, it's flat and anyone who works for the DAC becomes a shareholder as a payment received for their level of commitment according to the PoC algorithm.

Apparently we are on the same page. Let's work together on this and blend ideas into something great.

I think you have a good idea. Let's try and discover a formal DAC construction system?

I think the key to making it work all is to find a way to get members of the community to work directly or indirectly for the DAC. Involvement is a way of saying it, but if you want people to put up posters, put urls in signatures, or do guerrilla marketing then you have to give them a stake which increases in proportion to their level of commitment/involvement. I think if we get that right then the community will start marketing the DACs by itself.

So here is how I suggest we start. While the idea I presented in the past was to create a DAC to handle it, I think since we don't have a DAC will we have to start by going about it the human way and slowly automate functionality until it becomes a DAC.

So you've taken the first step by presenting your proposal. We do not yet have Proof of Stake voting so the community should first somehow vote on it to approve or disapprove your marketing plan. If the plan is approved then you will need to come up with a step by step to-do list so that members of the community can become your street team and get rewarded with shares or credits in the case where shares do not exist yet for this purpose. This would mean you'll have to keep a spreadsheet with coin addresses, as well as keep track of who followed through.

About giveaways, when I hosted a giveaway it was also required that they do something in exchange for receiving their portion of Mastercoins and it was also limited so that each only gets to do it once. One individual complained that it was bait and switch because the title of the thread was giveaway but I was asking for signatures and other proof. It may be helpful not to call it a giveaway, but more a reward for participation. If you call it a giveaway you will attract people who want something for free and who may not even know what it is.

About reputation, it is critical that we get reputation right. The vision I have (since you call us visionaries), is a situation where the DACs are are the center of our eco-system. We move away from the traditional labor or full time job based model into a model where it's task oriented and problem solving.

So to create a prototype or protoDAC which uses Proof of Commitment you need:

1. Reputation (prestige, status, badges designating role, effectiveness rating, etc)
2. Credit (If they attain a badge and are in a role they should be credited for verified completed work)
3. Tasks - (to-do lists or DAC instruction sets)

It's cheaper to say lets use volunteers but then you get what you pay for, you get people who can eventually quit their jobs to build and operate DACs. Building a DAC requires a lot more than just programmers, and we have a lot of people here who in an ideal situation would quit their jobs and work directly for DACs. If you show the world that you can build a functioning economic ecosystem which is self contained enough that people work for DACs exclusively then you can show the world another economic model.

Some open questions:

How much do we want to spend on marketing? The first thing to decide is a budget. Once you have a budge in place you can decide other things.

How would you like to get paid if at all to do certain tasks? Since we don't really know how much certain tasks cost we probably should have some surveys to find out, alternatively you could pay at a rate relative to what people would get working for a corporation but when you're global and online a lot of things are cheaper.

What would it take to get community members to quit their job and spend their day doing DAC tasks? Ultimately no matter what these tasks will have to be completed each and every time to build a DAC and every DAC seems to follow a similar pattern so if I were trying to build a DAC I don't want to have to set up a website, set up an exchange, do the art work, create the messaging, handle the marketing strategy or any of that. The DAC should build itself through us because the incentives are structured in such a way that these are self building DACs.

So in order to streamline a self building DAC kit or self building DAC manufacturing then we start with the basic components. Off the top of my head every DAC starts with an outline, a whitepaper or set of instructions on how to build it. This includes the service the DAC will offer, the problem the DAC is trying to solve, how much funding the DAC will need, some crowd funded mechanism of funding it, a list of tasks or bounties which have to be filled from start to finish in order to complete the DAC.

All of that should be released at the same time in a formal package and every DAC should at least come with a similar sort of instruction manual. I don't have a name for this but basically the way to think about it is just as you would think about source code which feeds instructions the computer, DAC instruction sets are to tell the human workers how to construct and operate the DAC.

An example To-Do list (DAC instruction set) could be like

1. Crowd funding figure must reach X amount. (set funding target)
2. If crowd funding figure reaches X amount then roles/jobs in these categories must be created, tasks/bounties for these roles will be created, assignment to humans on first come first serve basis. (determine assignments)
3. Proof of Commitment algorithm determines how much funding goes to each bounty/task or a committee of shareholders decide on their own. (measure participation/commitment and set bounties)
4. Every task is checked, audited, every participant who successfully does a job is rewarded with credits for a job well done and a badge to signify they have experience. (reward a job well done and track experience of participants)

The badges are necessary, as is the crediting system, because then each member of the community can collect these badges which can immediately indicate their level of experience. Badges can represent levels, so if a particular DAC employee if you want to call it, or DAC bounty hunter decides to go work for another DAC then that DAC would immediately know exactly the level of experience they are at and it could all be an automated process.

If the system were set up how I envision it then you could have DAC employees like

1. An individual who could write DAC documentation for a living. This individual would be rated over time and go from novice to expert. As an expert this individual would get bonuses depending on the algorithm used to reward the credits.  If the algorithm is PoC then the payout would be according to that algorithm but every DAC could have it's own payout algorithm so that over time an individual can decide to not work under certain payout algorithms they don't like.

2. An individual could do DAC artwork for a living. This individual would be rated over time and if their work sucks they would not go from novice to expert but if the work is good then they will. The algorithm should always allow for measuring the quality of their work in a decentralized manner using human beings to rate. Just as with the first example if there are plenty of DACs in the ecosystem then eventually the artist will be able to select the DAC they want to work for based on the payout algorithm they prefer.

3. An individual could be a DAC programmer for a living. In this role the individual would write code, the code would be audited by the community and could even be rated by peer review. If the DAC programmer consistently writes buggy code with securities holes then that should go on their record but if their code is clean, consistently passes security audits, then they should be rated an expert. Once again you can use a badge system to finely tune it so that successful projects by the programmer in certain areas like say cryptography could win the programmer a specialist badge in cryptographic protocols. This badge would allow the programmer to go to any DAC and work for it based off previous experience.

4. An individual could be a DAC marketer for a living. In this role the individual is part of or the leader of a marketing team. The individual is either given a set of metrics and goals or they are in charge in strategy. In general their success should be measured statistically and if the statistics don't look good they should be rated novice by the community but if the statistics look good they should be rated expert.

Now some problems could occur in the case of collusion and for this reason voting pools should be anonymous and selected at random. Voters should be paid to give them incentive to want to rate others work. So this job would be similar to the kind of jobs you see with Bitcoinget where you just need some human being to look at something or review some code. Over time the work of the reviewers should also be reviewed in the same way so that quality reviewers get paid the most.

These ideas are a bit radical and may be too much for right now but if we are serious about building DACs we should create our own work or task distribution processes and tie that in with share/coin distribution so that the incentives are aligned similar to how they would be if we were working for a real corporation.

Only in this case these corporations would be decentralized, autonomous, and there are no bosses. The only boss would be the community itself which would review everyone and everything with incentives for it. I believe the best way to market a DAC is to show what a DAC is and the only way to truly know what it is would be to work for it and be serviced by it, so the community has to interact with DACs on both these levels just as they would with corporations in the world.

Quote from: coolspeed on December 25, 2013, 06:32:53 am

Quote from: slacking on December 25, 2013, 04:46:36 am

The reason I buy PTS instead of Mastercoin, Datacoin, Namecoin, Nextcoin or any of the other coins that attempt to leverage the blockchain into non-currency decentralized products is that Invictus seems to have an actual assembled team with bios on their website and they are public and vocal in explaining their forthcoming technologies, both in forums and at Bitcoin conferences. They have a public "face" and aren't just slapping a website up with a few paragraphs about what they are, they have white papers, in-depth discussion on the forums, announcements of new hires for things like Director of Marketing. I was sad to see everybody shit on the angel shares idea so quick since I would love for Invictus to get a fresh infusion of cash to fund operations and hiring. They aren't the only players in the DAC area and it would be a shame if they failed due to funding issues.

According to Invictus official site, AngelShares is coming soon

And to stave off any panic I can tell you this much in advance:

1) PTS holders will get 50% stake in BitShares, a 5x gain from existing Social Contract
2) PTS holders would have been diluted by 50% through original planned BitShare mining in just 6 months, so PTS holders will come out ahead in percentage terms in just a few months.
2a) Angels are unlikely to sell in first few months, where as most miners would have been dumping supply on the market to cover electric costs.
3) PTS holders can potentially increase their stake by being Angels and funding us with PTS as 50% of AngelShares will be allocated to PTS Angels
4) AngelShares are not transferrable and are not a new blockchain, Invictus will not be issuing securities or taking that kind of legal risk.
5) We have a Christmas Gift for all Keyhotee Founders to throw in the mix.
6) If the market doesn't like the plan, then anyone can fork the code and see if a different allocation strategy can gain the network effect faster.
7) Receive your BitShares by simply importing your ProtoShares and Bitcoin wallets.

Needless to say we took to hart much of the complaints from the original ideas and expect the value of PTS to rise as a consequence of our revised plan.  Though we could be entirely wrong.

Merry Christmas to All!

Anything posted here is just a summary and is subject to change and various details to be documented in our official announcement sometime tomorrow. 

 

This looks very good and is encouraging news. Merry Christmas.

My views are known. There has to be a cap. We should not be discussing in 10% of this or 90% of that. How many Bitshares should there be? I say it should be as scarce as possible. No more than 6 million. It has to be at least 3 million to include Angelshares and all of the Protoshares. We want our shares to appreciate as much as possible with the least amount of dilution while also promoting development and marketing.

I think BitUSD will end up being fairly stable in the long run. What will be interesting is seeing how assets like BitGold react, since it should be a speculation on gold, which is already a heavily speculative commodity

The big difference is you can have asset classes which are technically impossible to have in the physical world. Forget BitGold, think bigger.

BitUSD will provide the stability necessary but what stops you from combining BitUSD, BitGold, and something else to make the perfectly stable currency?

Or you can create a currency which is perfectly stable but which gives 10% returns for years straight, or 20%, or 40%. There really aren't a lot of rules here and we don't know what can be created.


I think if BitUSD starts out cheaper than a dollar why not buy as much of it as your dollars can afford because it wont be cheaper than the dollar forever. If at any time in it's lifespan it is more expensive than the dollar then you will make extreme profit with minimal risk. I think it would be a better play than Bitcoin even because it's almost a sure thing that it will be a winner. Statistically it would be similar to 50% chance that you'll get your money back soon and the chance rises the longer you have your money in that form until it reaches almost 100%.

Of course that all depends on the system working as intended and the dollar staying as it is now.