Quote from: clout on November 18, 2015, 02:51:26 am

I think it is extremely important that we get lending functional. I see there being to solutions to borrowing assets. If you want to borrow an asset you can put up the 2X collateral and short it into existance or you can put half the collateral and pay a fee to the lender that puts up the other half of the collateral. I would be a hybrid of the current model and the previous model. It will also be important that the lending feature can be done for any asset.

Agreed. I wish I could park my money in bitusd right now and get a return like we use to.

I don't think it would be realistic to get a return on usd or any other asset for that matter in the bitshares ecosystem.  In fact, the opposite should occur.  Bts lenders (bitasset creators) should be paid interest.  If you don't think charging users to store their wealth in bitassets will work, take a look at the GLD example below. 

Bts is the underlying reserve currency (or backbone currency) of the bitshares ecosystem and bts holders can be thought of as depositors.  In legacy banking, depositors earn a (generally small) return on their money as the bank uses that money to lend out in the form of mortgage loans, credit cards, car loans, ect.  Bitshares is very similar but more efficient in the fact that lending occurs P2P and the system remains solvent through automatic collateral maintenance.  Bts lenders are providing a service to the network by creating bitassets and they should be compensated for doing so.  USD holders, gold holder, oil holders, ect are borrowers.  They borrow bts in exchange for the privilege of securely storing their wealth in assets that track the value of external assets such as gold and silver.  These borrowers should pay interest for this priveledge at market rates.  The tricky part would be trading these assets and using them as currency while maintaining collateralization.

Lets look at a legacy example.  The GLD ETF is an exchange traded fund that tracks the value of gold.  For all intents and purposes, the gld etf is a digital form of gold but much less secure than bitgold because of its centralized custodian model and it is much less efficient and much less censorship resistant than bitgold because of all the constraints of fiat currency.  Still, investors pay for the privilege of this digital gold storage as evidenced by the 0.39% annual expense ratio all while currently having $25.42 billion under management.  http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=GLD+Profile  UNG is an ETF that (supposedly) tracks the value of natural gas but it is even more inefficient because it uses front-month futures contracts to track the value of natural gas which is subject to loss of value due to contango during periods of market volatility.  Natural gas would be very difficult to store using the custodian model.  UNG has an expense ratio of 1.14% with $500 million in assets under management.  Obviously people are willing to pay to store their wealth and trade in these types of derivatives which, IMO are inferior to bitassets.

 

Yes this is what we need.  Great trading interfaces that use Bitshares as back end.

 

The openledger interface is on par with crypto exchange interfaces such as polo, so I dont see any reason we shouldn't see more adoption over time.  In fact, the more I explore this system, the more convinced I am that it will be a game changer.  Its very similar to legacy futures markets, only far more advanced... and solvent.

BM hinted at a new project called plasma in the last mumble which would allow Interoperability between chains.  He had previously indicated that atomic cross chain transfers were really not feasible.  Have they found a way to do it?  Reading between the lines, this could potentially allow for users to deposit assets such as bitcoin directly on chain, backed 1:1 by real bitcoin on the bitcoin blockchain.  If this is the case, then the implications could be huge.  It can eliminate pain points for the user while retaining all the security of a provably solvent, consensus driven, decentralized exchange.  Right now if a user wants to deposit btc, then they have to hope that another user is willing to short that btc into existence near market price and if they want to redeem btc, then they have to hope that someone is willing to buy existing bitbtc near market price.  With plasma, the user can deposit btc backed by actual on-chain btc instead of btc collateralized by bts, eliminating the worry about margin maintenance and liquidity.  This would allow a much more seamless user trading experience, at least among various blockchain assets.  In other words, users would be able to trade pairs such as btc/eth while knowing that the assets are completely accounted for on the native chains.

Of course this would be impossible for assets such as fiat currencies and physical commodities such as gold, silver, and oil.  The MPA markets are the best solution for trading these assets. 

The foundation for the DEX has been built with DPOS.  With plasma, barriers to adoption because of liquidity can be greatly reduced.  We will have to wait and see exactly what plasma will do, but so far it looks to me like it could be a game-changer to help bootstrap the DEX.

It's shocking that some here would reduce this to a question of promising y and delivering x.  You try conceiving, building and delivering - under extremely difficult circumstances and on a shoestring budget - one of the great technical wonders of the world and see how that goes.  I'm not saying everything is perfect, but geeze louise.

I am also shocked that people expect near perfection at launch and attribute price to that not being the case. 



I mostly predicted an incomplete project months ago:

As investors, do we really think this next iteration will be the final version?  I have my doubts.  I have a feeling MPA's will be difficult to get right, but eventually the correct formula will be found.  Bitshares has been rebooted twice now.  First with the "merger" and now with 2.0.  I could foresee another reboot being necessary if this next version doesn't go exactly according to plan, but at least the dev team is willing to take on that task if necessary and not just try to patch things up if it doesn't work.

Bitshares is still far ahead of its closest competitor, ethereum, which is cli only and only for use by developers at this point.  I think we are seeing a bottom in price here, although I wouldn't be surprised to see a final push down to about 1000 sat to shake out the remaining weak hands.  IMO, we should see a bottom form and a steady uptrend develop near the first of the year.  [/speculation]

edit:  Keep in mind, these projects are still an experiment and work in progress.  I foresee a few more years before we see real production level protocols.  Bitcoin is the only project that is close.  I would say that once the block size debate is solved, then bitcoin could be considered in a production level environment... and bitcoin has been a work in progress for 7 years now.  2.0 projects, including bitshares have been around for only a few years and are much more complicated that bitcoin.

I proposed exactly this earlier.  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19338.0.html  That may have been what you read.  I don't know if the blockchain itself could provide liquidity, but maybe it could work in some form... or perhaps even a worker proposal to provide liquidity services.  IMO liquidity is the missing link to boostrap internal markets.  Much more so than the debate over fees.

We should give it a few months for markets to develop.  It is a process that will take time as new users study how the system works and test with small amounts of money before jumping in. 


If necessary, there are some things that can be explored such as dynamic burning that I describe here:

"Instead of directly burning bts, those bts designated for burning should be dynamically burned by using them to create bitassets through a special transaction where the only redemption of those bts can occur through a liquidation event (margin call), providing liquidity to the network.  Over time as the value of bts increases, this will work to effectively burn those bts while still providing a benefit to the network."

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19338.0.html

Quote from: Helikopterben on October 21, 2015, 04:37:10 pm

The theory (at best) that value rises as supply is diminished does not necessarily work well in practice. 

When has it not worked to increase price?

I just showed you where it has not worked to increase price.  Look at the charts.

To increase "value" you just have to keep adding value to it.

Exactly.  That is why am am proposing adding more value by dynamic burning through the creation of bitassets instead of adding less value through direct burning.

Why wouldn't you want to burn BTS so that it takes less market cap to reach $1 per BTS?

That is exactly what I am advocating.  Either you didn't read what I wrote or you don't understand it.

Deflation is in the form of burning is even better than a stock buy back and also because Bitshares was was diluted, it is now owed to the community of loyal supporters and the network to return the loaned BTS back to parity and the only way to do it is to burn. Burning is the only way to reverse the dilution and bring Bitshares back into deflationary status.

Dynamic burning would be better.  You achieve the same result as burning bitshares or a stock buyback, but those bts remain useful on the network.

Quote from: luckybit

Burning is kind of like burying perfectly good gold in the ground and throwing away the treasure map in an attempt to make gold holders richer,

No, Bitshares is not like gold. BitGold is mapped to gold. Bitshares is like Bitshares and should not be compared to a precious metal. Bitshares is stake in the network and the only thing that should matter to you as a member is the percentage of stake you own.

What does this (bolded) even mean?  Bitshares is 3 things (and yes it can be all three of those things):
1)  a digital commodity
2)  a stake in a decentralized company/network
3) a currency

But you were here for the debates and saw the effect on the market the dilution had? The merger? The moment Bitshares became inflationary and stopped being deflationary, a lot of people started dumping, and it's now at bottom.

You don't understand markets.  Maybe you have never been an investor or trader.  Nobody knows exactly what effect the dilution combining of blockchains and restructuring had on price.  Look at ethereum.  There has been no material change in dilution (other than just talk) or their business plan, yet the price has declined 80% in 2 months.  Bitcoin prices rose several orders of magnitude during the worst inflation period it will ever see.  How can these two examples be polar opposites?  Because asset inflation on a relatively small scale doesn't have that much of an impact on price.  Human psycology, the herding instinct, and crowd behavior (among other things) are large drivers of price, probably more so than a little bit of inflation or deflation here and there.  Markets are more or less patterned after human behavior.  Look closely at the price charts of the best crypto projects.  You will notice similar patterns.   

Now that you don't have the 5% dividends the only thing you have to get people to hold BTS is the burning. There is no other reason to hold onto it. BTS isn't a currency, it's not Bitcoin, it's not supposed to be the cash for activists in the developing world. It's meant to be stake in a profitable decentralized exchange.

Thats the only thing, really?  As I said above, bitshares is 3 things, including a currency.  Perhaps you can give some insight as to why bts should not be used as a currency?  In fact, its is the reserve(backbone) currency of the bitshares system. 

Quote from: luckybit

while that gold still has perfectly good industrial uses.  Imagine if that gold could still be used in an industrial setting but not available to be sold on the open market.

No let's not imagine that. Bitshares is not gold and never was marketed as gold. BitGold was marketed as gold, but that is because it tracks the value of gold. If you want to hold the value of gold then hold BitGold. Bitshares is a stake, and you gain absolutely nothing from "industrial uses", it's just a stake which you use to vote and pay transaction fees with. It's more like fuel, to power the network, combined with share properties, to make you into a member/owner.

Now you are starting to agree with me even though you are contradicting yourself... and yes obviously bitshares in not gold but it is like gold in the fact that it is an asset with limited supply.

Ownership requires an entirely different way of thinking from the consumer like thinking you're doing. An owner wants to increase the price of whatever he or she owns.

How am I thinking?  I want the price to increase also. 

Quote from: luckybit

One example of an asset that does not necessarily add value when the asset is burned is gasoline.  Gasoline is an asset of limited supply that is burned, both literally and figuratively. 

Bitshares is meant to be more like fuel, like gas, not like gold. You're confusing Bitcoin which is maybe based off Bitgold, with Bitshares which was never trying to be a currency, or precious metal. Bitshares in the beginning was described as a DAC, it was always to be a share, and shares are supposed to APPRECIATE.

There you go contradicting yourself again... and gas is like gold in that it is an industrial commodity with limited supply.  Bitshares has the same properties.  It is useful as collateral to produce bitassets.  That why shares should be dynamically burned in order to retain that usefulness.

Bitcoin is gaining value while the price gets cheaper because miners keep inflating by adding new Bitcoins but this is because it was the only way to secure the network.

Your perception of what moves the market is clouded, most likely because you don't have enough experience in trading and investing.  You attribute the price decline over the past 2 years to inflation.  So why has the price risen over the past 6 years, much of which was during even worse inflation.  I agree that inflation on the scale of what fiat currencies experience has detrimental effects on an asset, but small amounts of inflation possilby have a negligible effect... and keep in mind, I am advocating deflation, not inflation.

Bitshares doesn't have mining at all and one of the ways Bytemaster made that case is specifically the fact that mining is inflation and Bitshares can be the first deflationary DAC.

Exactly, and I would like to keep it that way also.

When you hold a Bitasset you are holding Bitshares. Bitassets are made up of BTS. And if you trade then you're spending transaction fees.

Yes but when you are holding a bitasset, you are not holding the value of bitshares.  So why not have more bitassets in existence for users to trade?

This is bad economics. You're talking about treating Bitshares like the dollar and doing some sort of fed like QE propopsal to help the Bitshares economy?

Where did I advocate creating more bitshares?  QE is just a fancy term for inflating the money supply.  Either you don't understand QE or you don't understand my proposal, or both.

Why would people leaving their national currency choose to hold BTS if BTS is inflating too and even faster? This is why it has to be deflationary. If it is deflationary then it's a lot easier for people to hold it without feeling it is risky. The higher the deflation rate the less risk the long term BTS holder will feel they are taking.

Exactly.  That is why I am advocating deflation through dynamic burning... and why are you comparing bitshares to a national currency if bitshares is not a currency.