Quote from: delulo on September 25, 2015, 09:30:14 pm

Quote from: Ander on September 25, 2015, 04:56:22 pm

Thats the main difference.  Any bitshares clone must use an equivalent of BTS, so you cannot gain by simply removing it.

Still didnt get where the difference is. Maybe you can say it differently?

BTS is necessary to the way that the Bitshares blockchain works.  You cannot have collateral and market pegged assets without it.

It is easier to clone a version of ripple that doesnt have the XRP token in it, because the XRP token doesnt actually serve much function in the blockchain, it simply exists to make ripple labs and early adopters rich.

I agree if we assume that Bitassets are the defining part of Bitshares.
But that still doesnt give BTS more value because others forks would just have their own chain with their own BTS-similar token (unless you mean that the graphene license agreement forces them to sharedrop).

Thats the main difference.  Any bitshares clone must use an equivalent of BTS, so you cannot gain by simply removing it.

What do you mean by "equivalent of BTS"?

Ethereum is not an organization in itself .. there is just a token that can be mind an programs that can be run on the blockchain.
If you call Bitcoin a DAC, then you could also call Ethereum a DAC .. though they have no means of governance nore can they be profitable .. in contrast to BitShares and Maker

Here are my thoughts:
Hence the "company" part of the DAC analogy: There are also unprofitable companies so Bitcoin and Ethereum at the moment would be unprof. companies.
Ethereum can be profitable. Their revenue from tx fees just has to be bigger than what they pay to block producing nodes.
I would call Bitcoin a DAC. I don't see any criterium of the DAC analogy that would not make it a DAC.
There is a clear governance model for Bitcoin (it is just not made to decide fast and may prduce more hard forks): The governance model is: What ever software is run by most. Bitshares in contrast has a mediation mechanism that prevents going the "hard fork competition route".

Acc. to toast virtualized smart contracts can be almost as "fast" as natively implemented ones. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,18415.msg236127.html#msg236127
If scalability is not an advantage to the native approach (is it not?) what is it then?

And what dimensions (tx throuput, settlement speed, cost) are effected by the virtualized vs native way of providing smart contracts?

Quote

The only relevant question imo is whether the 'best-selling' option, significantly adds to costs or security concerns.

BitShares is attempting to sell itself in the market and the "Customer is Always Right" so all technical concerns aside we have to market it well.

I think I have made a entirely defendable case that we do not need a large number of "witnesses" for the network to be secure... just like large speakers are not required to produce good sound.   For a very long time people would buy the larger speakers even if they were technically inferior and more expensive.

So rationality is not the most important thing when figuring out how to build something that will sell.

This means we have two options:

1. Figure out how to sell the best technical approach
2. Adopt an inferior technical approach as a marketing gimmick. 

So in the spirit of marketing gimmicks we need to identify the fallacy that others BELIEVE is good, and get them to accept BTS as equally good.

People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry.  But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.

But perhaps a bigger issue we face is WHO are we selling to.   Altcoin fanatics or the general public.   

If the requirement is to build a FUNCTIONAL system then we have that and have already optimized all of the security conserns. 
If the requirement is FORM over FUNCTION for sales reasons then we should debate what FORM sells the best independent of any security concern.   

Perhaps all we need to do is add a nice FORM over our best FUNCTION in order to sell the best.

Those with the most money are not the ones screaming on reddit and bitcointalk.

Often what sells good is just what is different and also provides great potential for controversy which is very good! Controversy though requires a good command over a subtle yet dumbed down marketing language which we sucked at up to now.

Producing blocks is only one part of security.  Providing seed nodes is another.  Attacking the P2P protocol is a third.   Of the three of these, attacking the block producers is probably the most difficult because no one knows their IP address.   Attacking the seed nodes on the other hand could completely disable new connections.   More importantly, attacking the P2P protocol could temporarily completely disrupt all communication among witnesses. 

How would an attack on the P2P protocol and an attack on seed nodes work?

Also related: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=17308.0