The first week since the launch of ProtoShares is in the history books and we already seem to have a robust, for-profit multi-enterprise ecosystem developing.  Here are some of the Key Historical Events and “Firsts" we noted.  What other history making events would you include in this time line?

Invictus Incorporated July 4th, 2013

CCC Announcement.  Oct 5, 2013 -  Invictus first mining opportunity is targeted for "Early November”.

ProtoShares Unveiled. Oct 19, 2013 - Invictus Newsletter 01 introduces ProtoShares as the precursor to BitShares (and many future DACs).

Forum goes live.  Nov 3, 2013 - at bitsharestalk.org

First ProtoShares miner/wallet.  November 4, 2013 - Near final source code for inspection.  This code is independently produced and maintained by bitsharestalk user FreeTrade, in response to a bounty to modify the standard Bitcoin release to incorporate the Momentum proof of work.   It became the official launch baseline against which future improvements are measured.

Launch Alert!  Nov 4, 12:14 AM EST - Newsletter #2 announces that release is imminent - watch the forum!

Launch of Genesis Block.  Nov 5, 08:08:08 GMT -  Invictus actually released miners to everyone in the hour leading up to this intended time when someone grabbed our final test code and started mining a bit early.

First Known Trade.  Nov 5 - super3 sells 2.5 PTS at 0.01 BTC/PTS to paimike@bitcointalk for total of 0.25 BTC.

First OTC Exchange. Nov 6 - Lighthouse founds the first formal for-profit PTS forum exchange and escrow service. Providing liquidity with a formal buy-sell spread - begins at 0.002 buy and 0.004 sell.

First Suspected Scam. Nov 6 - posted by carisma

First Mining Pools
      Nov 7, profoot announces PTS pool.
      Nov 8, xolokram announces Beeeer - the first for-profit ProtoShares mining pool!
      Nov 9, Invictus begins testing alpha pool with new miner as a competitive performance edge. 

First Automated Exchange.  Nov 9 - Silfax announces on-line exchange for trading Protoshares and Bitcoin.

First Emergency Fork. Nov 10, 06:15:07 AM EST - Hopefully also the last.  Invictus announces the need for a chain fork to move block rate from 15 seconds back in the direction of the nominal 5 minute specification. (The amount of hash power backing the network caused an unplanned acceleration of the intended mining production integral by 2 or 3 months.)

First Competing Miner - Nov 11 jh00 asserts its custom miner has 5x improvement over Invictus miners… game on!

$1 Million Market Cap.  Nov 11 - FreeTrade and donschoe independently document informal estimates ProtoShares' Market Cap has exceeded $1 million for the first time. 

First Denial of Service Attack - Nov 12 -  Took down Bytemaster's pool for a few hours.

Other firsts?

   Fastest crypto-asset to reach critical mass in history?

   First coin to launch with TOO MUCH hash power?

   ….

Let us know what we missed!

These kind of issues are why we are waiting for forum feedback like yours before committing one way or another. 

Our first newsletter covered this is some detail (see the News tab at invictus-innovations.com).  There we speculated:

Can you imagine if you had owned ProtoShares for the idea of a web browser? By the time Netscape,
Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Chrome had been implemented, you would own shares in every
one of them! Who would try to introduce a new browser without honoring the market share of current
browser ProtoShares holders? ProtoShares are like ownership in a patent that never expires – entitling
you to “royalties” in all future implementations of the idea!

The assumption is that subsequent arriving competitors would see several advantages to honoring the protoshares of an existing DAC:

• It would give the most informed and committed stakeholders an incentive to view their new implementation favorably.
• It would leverage an already existing community with populated forums, trading mechanisms, and reputations already established.
• Some DACs may require a critical mass of shares to pre-exist in order to function efficiently or at all.  This is a way to initialize a DACs market with informed owners and an operative money supply.
• By investing in those ProtoShares before announcing that social contract, they might expect to grow the value of ProtoShares for everybody and hence raise some capital to fund their own development.

Of course, that last bullet factors into their consideration of where to hook on in the family tree.  The higher you hook on the more stakeholders you inherit.  The lower you hook on the more your announcement will influence the value of your acquired stake.  There's also the theoretical possibility of specifying your DAC's social contract to include multiple inheritance.  Think about that one.

Lots to be learned here.  Hoping for new ideas and a robust discussion of their pros and cons.

Fill in the blank:

1 protoshare = x % of all protoshares ever to be mined (2 million total was it?)
1 bitshare = y% of all bitshares ever to be mined (??)

1 protoshare = z bitshares (1.0 I believe)

x/y

In principle, any DAC developer can specify the terms of their social contract wrt to ProtoShares or one of its descendants.  The social contract we published for BitShares is that it would be initialized with one BitShare for every ProtoShare a person owns at the pre-published time of launch.  Its not percent based, its a one-for-one snapshot.  Other DACs from Invictus or other sources may specify different terms and conditions and the market will reward the ones they like.  The more different types of DAC shares that ownership of ProtoShares becomes good for, the more we would expect ProtoShares market value to rise.

Couldn't have said it more succinctly myself.

Such a video is a great idea.  Until we do one, try looking at the ProtoShares Primer in our first newsletter at http://invictus-innovations.com/news/.

   

We’re all big boys and girls.  Many are veterans of former hash wars.  So intellectually we all know the score.  We know why mining is supposed to be hard. We know that markets can be irrational and volatile. Nevertheless, everyone occasionally gets a small case of Hash Traumatic Stress Disorder (HTSD) and loses sight of the Big Picture.  There are sound psychological reasons we are all out there in the hash trenches. It’s why humans succeed as a species.  Time to turn off that left brain, drink a cup of Kool-Aid, and let your right brain run free.  I’m a Certified Quack Psychiatrist (CQP) and here to get you pumped up and back out onto the battlefield as soon as possible.   If I cure your mining and trading blues, and you feel compelled leave a big tip (e.g. to insure good mining karma), you may send vast quantities of ProtoShares (PTS) to PuiWo9RKkSR3Y31CqXEdpRaCF2HQwtfjGf.  Your actual mileage may vary.

Nice talent.  That would also make a great Screen Saver to remind us periodically of what we're up against!