16
General Discussion / Re: China: BitCNY, BitEUR, BitUSD
« on: April 15, 2014, 04:12:23 pm »
...annnd... It's not gone.
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17
General Discussion / Tim Draper: Bitcoin is a good, successful business...
« on: April 15, 2014, 04:08:36 pm »
Interesting interview with Tim Draper on Bloomberg:
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/is-bitcoin-the-smart-bet-in-tech-investing-3eLyFaGTQOe_XQUoKGp6Kw.html
"The total value of all Bitcoin is about seven or eight billion. So, it is sort of a good, successful business in the eyes of... the venture community."
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/is-bitcoin-the-smart-bet-in-tech-investing-3eLyFaGTQOe_XQUoKGp6Kw.html
"The total value of all Bitcoin is about seven or eight billion. So, it is sort of a good, successful business in the eyes of... the venture community."
18
General Discussion / Re: Is Bitcountant really an "external" accounting firm?
« on: April 15, 2014, 04:04:20 pm »
Bitcountant passes the IRS's contractor test, making it external in that sense. BitShares is not Bitcountant's only client, and there really is not much to do other than keep track of the inflows and outflows of the AGS fund and produce statements recognizable to an accountant. It is much easier than filing the tax returns of miners and day-traders!
Because the BitShares AGS transaction records are made available to the public and the transfers are memorialized in the Bitcoin and PTS blockchains, fiddling the numbers Enron-style would be exceptionally difficult.
However, it is legitimate to ask, as we should hold everyone in this industry under white-hot scrutiny, without resorting to wild and inflammatory accusations, of course. Where there is money, you will find scoundrels, and there will be scandals.
Because the BitShares AGS transaction records are made available to the public and the transfers are memorialized in the Bitcoin and PTS blockchains, fiddling the numbers Enron-style would be exceptionally difficult.
However, it is legitimate to ask, as we should hold everyone in this industry under white-hot scrutiny, without resorting to wild and inflammatory accusations, of course. Where there is money, you will find scoundrels, and there will be scandals.
19
General Discussion / Re: BitShares bashing on reddit/r/bitcoin
« on: April 13, 2014, 03:55:28 pm »
There was an anti-BitShares thread on Reddit. I posted an alert to its existence. My alternative was to not notify participants on this forum of its existence.
20
General Discussion / Re: BitShares bashing on reddit/r/bitcoin
« on: April 13, 2014, 03:06:14 pm »<blockquote>
Looks like there are some grumblings of financial discrepancy...
Interesting that they can spend so heavily in marketing a product that doesnt even have a deadline anymore. How long before we get a "Gee Golly guys, we tried our best but we ran out of funding!"
</blockquote>
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/22q6t5/bitshares_the_next_neobee/
And your point is...?
Stan answered my question, I said thanks and even changed the title of the post to [Explained].
What exactly are you trying to say?
My point was that someone had started an anti-BitShares thread on the Bitcion sub-reddit.
21
General Discussion / Re: Explanatory videos
« on: April 13, 2014, 02:11:20 pm »
I have a PDF presentation to go with this draft:
--- --- ---
What is a blockchain?
A blockchain is...
[snippets of text pop up as the words are uttered]
...a shared public ledger that consists of a sequential record of all transactions, usually in a cryptocurrency system, that records ownership both present and at all points in the past of all units that circulate within that system, in order to mitigate double-spending, which is a core design challenge of distributed, untrusted peer-to-peer protocols, the integrity and the chronological order of which are enforced with military-grade cryptography buzzwords and techno-gobbledygook, hand-waving, and ooohhh...
something sparkly!!!
[Gold Bitcoin disks appear, onee-at-a-time to fill the scree. A 'ka-chink' sound accompanies each new coin image, and they appear slowly at first and faster through the dozen or so events.]
...
Let's try that again.
A blockchain is...
...a shared ledger.
[red arrow pops up]
Period.
...
[first spreadsheet image]
Imagine a spreadsheet with 1.15 x 10^77 columns. To put that into perspective, according to WolframAlpha, the earth is made of approximately 1 x 10^50 atoms meaning that the number of columns is about 3.7 x 10^28 earths' worth of atoms.
Remember, one million is 10^6, and a trillion is 10^12. So, 1.15 x 10^77 is... a LOT.
Each of these columns is like an account that someone controls, and it records how many units--'coins', 'shares', or whatever--one owns...
...and the total amount is known at any moment.
...
This unimaginably wide spreadsheet records every transfer of numbers from one column to another column...
Each row of the spreadsheet is like a sheet of paper, on which all of the transactions completed within some average amount of time are batched up and confirmed in what we call a 'block' of transactions. And, as the number of rows grows, the spreadsheet becomes like a stack of sheets of paper that we call a 'blockchain'.
And, instead of having an individual's name at the head of each column--because coming up with 1.15 x 10^77 unique names would be waaayyy too hard, each column is identified with a unique string of random characters...
How do we know that a copy of the transaction history--the blockchain--is correct? Well...
[copies of spreadsheet pop up around the world]
...because ANYone, ANYwhere in the world can have a copy of it, and if a copy does not match everyone else's, it gets ignored. As long as 50%
of those confirming transactions agree one a particular copy of the blockchain, that one *IS* the correct version.
Because everyone is looking over everyone else's shoulder, no one needs to TRUST anyone else, and if anyone fiddles with the numbers in his or her copy of the blockchain, everyone else will know it and ignore that copy.
[red arcs bounce around the globe]
And *THIS* enables us to transfer numbers from one column to another column, no matter... where... in... the world... the parties are... who... control a given column in this immensely wide transaction record.
[hold on final image with multiple red arcs]
...as if national boundaries that keep people apart did not even exist.
[pause]
How do you secure a blockchain?
Today, there are two general categories of solutions:
Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
First, with Proof of Work transaction processors confirm the validity of the most recent transactions; whereas with Proof of Stake transaction processors confirm the validity of the most recent transactions.
Next, with Proof of Work the transaction processors record that block of transactions on a page; whereas with Proof of Stake the transaction processors record that block of transactions on a page.
Then, with Proof of Work the transaction processors keep buying lottery tickets that until one eventually buys a winning ticket which is expensive, very tedious, and wasteful; whereas with Proof of Stake the transaction processors take a vote among the holders of the units in the system, like a one-vote-per-share election in a company.
Finally, with both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake the transaction processors add the new page to the stack of all previous transactions and start a new block.
After all that is done, the winning Proof of Work transaction processor collects a prize of some arbitrarily predetermined units for having been the lucky lottery winner; whereas the Proof of Stake transaction processor whose turn it was to confirm the current block receives a share of the transaction fees generated by that block of transactions.
The major difference between Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, is that Proof of Work vests the voting power in the hands of the transaction processors, who might not even hold any units--'coins', 'shares', or whatever one calls them--in the system; whereas Proof of Stake works like conventional corporate governance, in which each unit-holder gets to vote in proportion to his or her stake in the system.
To learn more...
...visit... BitShares.org
--- --- ---
What is a blockchain?
A blockchain is...
[snippets of text pop up as the words are uttered]
...a shared public ledger that consists of a sequential record of all transactions, usually in a cryptocurrency system, that records ownership both present and at all points in the past of all units that circulate within that system, in order to mitigate double-spending, which is a core design challenge of distributed, untrusted peer-to-peer protocols, the integrity and the chronological order of which are enforced with military-grade cryptography buzzwords and techno-gobbledygook, hand-waving, and ooohhh...
something sparkly!!!
[Gold Bitcoin disks appear, onee-at-a-time to fill the scree. A 'ka-chink' sound accompanies each new coin image, and they appear slowly at first and faster through the dozen or so events.]
...
Let's try that again.
A blockchain is...
...a shared ledger.
[red arrow pops up]
Period.
...
[first spreadsheet image]
Imagine a spreadsheet with 1.15 x 10^77 columns. To put that into perspective, according to WolframAlpha, the earth is made of approximately 1 x 10^50 atoms meaning that the number of columns is about 3.7 x 10^28 earths' worth of atoms.
Remember, one million is 10^6, and a trillion is 10^12. So, 1.15 x 10^77 is... a LOT.
Each of these columns is like an account that someone controls, and it records how many units--'coins', 'shares', or whatever--one owns...
...and the total amount is known at any moment.
...
This unimaginably wide spreadsheet records every transfer of numbers from one column to another column...
Each row of the spreadsheet is like a sheet of paper, on which all of the transactions completed within some average amount of time are batched up and confirmed in what we call a 'block' of transactions. And, as the number of rows grows, the spreadsheet becomes like a stack of sheets of paper that we call a 'blockchain'.
And, instead of having an individual's name at the head of each column--because coming up with 1.15 x 10^77 unique names would be waaayyy too hard, each column is identified with a unique string of random characters...
How do we know that a copy of the transaction history--the blockchain--is correct? Well...
[copies of spreadsheet pop up around the world]
...because ANYone, ANYwhere in the world can have a copy of it, and if a copy does not match everyone else's, it gets ignored. As long as 50%
of those confirming transactions agree one a particular copy of the blockchain, that one *IS* the correct version.Because everyone is looking over everyone else's shoulder, no one needs to TRUST anyone else, and if anyone fiddles with the numbers in his or her copy of the blockchain, everyone else will know it and ignore that copy.
[red arcs bounce around the globe]
And *THIS* enables us to transfer numbers from one column to another column, no matter... where... in... the world... the parties are... who... control a given column in this immensely wide transaction record.
[hold on final image with multiple red arcs]
...as if national boundaries that keep people apart did not even exist.
[pause]
How do you secure a blockchain?
Today, there are two general categories of solutions:
Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
First, with Proof of Work transaction processors confirm the validity of the most recent transactions; whereas with Proof of Stake transaction processors confirm the validity of the most recent transactions.
Next, with Proof of Work the transaction processors record that block of transactions on a page; whereas with Proof of Stake the transaction processors record that block of transactions on a page.
Then, with Proof of Work the transaction processors keep buying lottery tickets that until one eventually buys a winning ticket which is expensive, very tedious, and wasteful; whereas with Proof of Stake the transaction processors take a vote among the holders of the units in the system, like a one-vote-per-share election in a company.
Finally, with both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake the transaction processors add the new page to the stack of all previous transactions and start a new block.
After all that is done, the winning Proof of Work transaction processor collects a prize of some arbitrarily predetermined units for having been the lucky lottery winner; whereas the Proof of Stake transaction processor whose turn it was to confirm the current block receives a share of the transaction fees generated by that block of transactions.
The major difference between Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, is that Proof of Work vests the voting power in the hands of the transaction processors, who might not even hold any units--'coins', 'shares', or whatever one calls them--in the system; whereas Proof of Stake works like conventional corporate governance, in which each unit-holder gets to vote in proportion to his or her stake in the system.
To learn more...
...visit... BitShares.org
22
General Discussion / Re: Explanatory videos
« on: April 12, 2014, 07:09:56 pm »
Should the last two paragraphs be included, or should they be the start of a new video on Proof-of-Work vs Proof-of-Stake?
23
General Discussion / Explanatory Video: What Is a Blockchain?
« on: April 12, 2014, 07:08:50 pm »
What Is a Blockchain?
Imagine you and your friends wanted to start a lemonade stand.
You each contribute different resources (sugar, lemons, the stand, water, etc..), and in exchange you agree to share the income earned from the lemonade you sell.
To help you remember how the income is divided you and your friends write down what percent each individual owns in a note book.
From time to time a new friend would like to invest in the business or sell his or her share to someone else.
Every time shares change hands you and your friends update the notebook to reflect the change. Any time someone wishes to transfer their share of the business to someone else they must sign off on the transfer.
This simple system works well until you get hundreds or even dozens of partners in your lemonade stand.
At this point some people grow concerned that the notebook could be changed at any time by the individual responsible for holding it, and they want more proof that the record cannot be modified.
To accommodate this demand from the partners, they adjust the data recorded in the notebook such that a change to a single letter on any page would require making changes to every page thereafter. They then have everyone sign off on each page. To make things more transparent, a copy of every page added to the network is mailed to all of the partners.
Eventually there may be thousands of parters as your lemonade stand is franchised around the world. A physical notebook and signatures become too slow, so the business updates its infrastructure to use a virtual notebook called a blockchain, where each page is a block and each block contains a digitally signed transfer request.
Everyone on the Internet has a copy of this virtual notebook and every transfer request ever made.
This is a blockchain: a global ledger tracking every change in ownership is a transparent, secure, and inferable way.
Bitcoin Lemonade shareholders decided that they couldn't agree on how to sign off on the ledger, so they decided that each page in the notebook must be accompanied by a winning lottery ticket, and the notebook with the most pages would be considered the official notebook.
The lottery tickets are payed for with computing power, over and over and over and over and over... until one comes up a winner. When a shareholder produces a winning lottery ticket that shareholder is paid with new shares in the company. This system is known as Proof-of-Work and is very inefficient and unprofitable for the lemonade stand.
Some people have recognized the huge waste of resources and decided to replace the lottery tickets with a system where pages are signed off on by an elected board... the way that companies around the world have been governed for centuries. This is Proof-of-Stake.
Imagine you and your friends wanted to start a lemonade stand.
You each contribute different resources (sugar, lemons, the stand, water, etc..), and in exchange you agree to share the income earned from the lemonade you sell.
To help you remember how the income is divided you and your friends write down what percent each individual owns in a note book.
From time to time a new friend would like to invest in the business or sell his or her share to someone else.
Every time shares change hands you and your friends update the notebook to reflect the change. Any time someone wishes to transfer their share of the business to someone else they must sign off on the transfer.
This simple system works well until you get hundreds or even dozens of partners in your lemonade stand.
At this point some people grow concerned that the notebook could be changed at any time by the individual responsible for holding it, and they want more proof that the record cannot be modified.
To accommodate this demand from the partners, they adjust the data recorded in the notebook such that a change to a single letter on any page would require making changes to every page thereafter. They then have everyone sign off on each page. To make things more transparent, a copy of every page added to the network is mailed to all of the partners.
Eventually there may be thousands of parters as your lemonade stand is franchised around the world. A physical notebook and signatures become too slow, so the business updates its infrastructure to use a virtual notebook called a blockchain, where each page is a block and each block contains a digitally signed transfer request.
Everyone on the Internet has a copy of this virtual notebook and every transfer request ever made.
This is a blockchain: a global ledger tracking every change in ownership is a transparent, secure, and inferable way.
Bitcoin Lemonade shareholders decided that they couldn't agree on how to sign off on the ledger, so they decided that each page in the notebook must be accompanied by a winning lottery ticket, and the notebook with the most pages would be considered the official notebook.
The lottery tickets are payed for with computing power, over and over and over and over and over... until one comes up a winner. When a shareholder produces a winning lottery ticket that shareholder is paid with new shares in the company. This system is known as Proof-of-Work and is very inefficient and unprofitable for the lemonade stand.
Some people have recognized the huge waste of resources and decided to replace the lottery tickets with a system where pages are signed off on by an elected board... the way that companies around the world have been governed for centuries. This is Proof-of-Stake.
24
General Discussion / Re: BitShares bashing on reddit/r/bitcoin
« on: April 12, 2014, 06:54:11 pm »
25
General Discussion / BitShares bashing on reddit/r/bitcoin
« on: April 12, 2014, 03:15:42 pm »
<blockquote>
Looks like there are some grumblings of financial discrepancy...
Interesting that they can spend so heavily in marketing a product that doesnt even have a deadline anymore. How long before we get a "Gee Golly guys, we tried our best but we ran out of funding!"
</blockquote>
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/22q6t5/bitshares_the_next_neobee/
Looks like there are some grumblings of financial discrepancy...
Interesting that they can spend so heavily in marketing a product that doesnt even have a deadline anymore. How long before we get a "Gee Golly guys, we tried our best but we ran out of funding!"
</blockquote>
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/22q6t5/bitshares_the_next_neobee/
26
General Discussion / Re: Explanatory videos
« on: April 12, 2014, 01:22:24 pm »Charles if you don't mind please post here when draft complete
I'm also working on some others including "The Six Regulators and the BitElephant," "What Is a BitAsset," and the 'Insurance'/Mutual Aid Society (BTS MAS) thing.
27
General Discussion / Re: BTS-->BTS X-->BTS ME-->BTS YOU-->BTS HIM-->?
« on: April 10, 2014, 08:46:14 pm »
When someone starts a new company, the founder does not 'pre-mine' the shares. The founder issues the shares and then either keeps them, gives some or all away, or sells all or some of them.
With a DAC, the shares are also the internal payment system. So, for the DAC to have any value, users must hold shares in it.
Thus, the founder must give or sell some or all of the shares issued.
Getting the balance right is tricky, which is what the Social Consensus is all about. Give a small but significant proportion of the shares to individuals who have demonstrated a desire to support BitShares by mining PTS or virtually mining AGS, let them make a market in the shares, and then sell some or all of the remainder at the market price.
With a DAC, the shares are also the internal payment system. So, for the DAC to have any value, users must hold shares in it.
Thus, the founder must give or sell some or all of the shares issued.
Getting the balance right is tricky, which is what the Social Consensus is all about. Give a small but significant proportion of the shares to individuals who have demonstrated a desire to support BitShares by mining PTS or virtually mining AGS, let them make a market in the shares, and then sell some or all of the remainder at the market price.
28
General Discussion / Re: Please explain February budget payouts of over $460,000 and March's of $65,000
« on: April 10, 2014, 07:39:46 pm »We also broke ground with several developers and investors that could infuse orders of magnitude more wealth into this community.
heh... I wonder who saw that coming?
29
General Discussion / Re: You should read this
« on: April 10, 2014, 06:59:34 pm »
One could distribute just under half of the units to Bitcoin holders and keep 50%+1 for oneself.
30
General Discussion / Re: What does Blockchain 2.0 mean for Bitshares X and other Invictus DACs?
« on: April 10, 2014, 06:48:04 pm »They are so focused on proof of work they are missing the obvious. The entire premise of their innovation is that we need this large centralized proof of work system to be secure against government... once it becomes clear that you cannot outspend government on hash power things will change and people will flood to DPOS systems. Perhaps bitcoin will upgrade.
I still contend that the security vulnerability on the side chains is a non-starter.
One of the reasons for the fixation on POW is that it is proven technology, while POS—even though one-vote-per-share has a much longer history—is still a novelty. This is driven by the pervasiveness of the 'coin' metaphor. Breaking through that, I expect, will involve recruiting a new generation to this field and spinning them up on the share metaphor, rather than relying on bitcoiners to convert. Thus, BitShares could be the 'MacOS' to Bitcoin's 'MS-DOS'.
With regard to side chains, per se, if the units issued on the side chains are pegged to bitcoins in whatever proportion, then the side chains have to be justified by their technical merits. That pretty much puts an end to the altcoin market as we know it now.
The vast majority of altcoins are just legal replacements for pyramid schemes. Get in early, pump up the price, and hope that you get out before the thing crashes. Some have non-trivial features that set them apart from the rest. Some, like dogecoin take on a life of their own, and no harm done.
Put the altclones on sidechains, and their prices are tied to bitcoin prices, removing the whole point of their existence.
The only way Bitshares X even works is by having a significant external trade volume of Bitshares themselves to USD, bitcoin, etc. in order to establish the margin requirements for the various BitAssets within the chain. The total value of all BitAssets is limited to a fraction of the total value of Bitshares. I see this is one of the biggest challenges Bitshares will have to overcome because with the volatility of altcoins we currently see in the market, automatic margin calls could be triggered often enough to turn people off to the whole idea. If it was backed by Bitcoin, there would be less volatility and a much higher ceiling for total BitAsset value.
So you're right, in a sense, because Bitshares X would essentially become Bitcoin X. I just don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing.
One difference here, is that demand for BTS could be driven by demand for the BitAssets, whereas side chains work the other way around.
If someone wants BitUSD, he or she will need to buy some or buy some BTS and create some. With side chains, one most likely already has bitcoins, otherwise why all the hoopla?
Regardless of the merits of this particular idea, the fact that this idea has seemingly come out of left field is what we should be concerned about.
That belongs on a billboard.
It isn't your pieces or your opponent's pieces on the chessboard that you should worry most about; it's the invisible pieces that get you, when you aren't looking.
