[hangout feedback] BitShares fees / Referral program (+ Fav interresting idea )

[fav]

bad news for zero fees Chinese exchanges I guess

https://twitter.com/BambouClub/status/822054090809208833

[Thom]

I am really excited to see the revival of discussions here on the bts.talk forums 

I have not gone back to read the OP, so my apologies if I'm off track here. I also think from what I see in this thread the conversation is useful and somewhat productive. I liked what @tbone and @datasecurity node said about savings / dividend to incentivize DEX use and provide users more safety than centralized exchanges, more traffic etc.

I also better understand @bitcrab's perspective. It does seem that @bitcrab and @fav are at opposite ends of the discussion here though.

I disagree with removing anything in the protocol that limits functionality, like removing things that allow referral program to work smoothly. However, @tbone's summary of @bitcrab's objections are valid, and perhaps warrant some changes.

Although any LTM that wants to run a referral program is in full control of how much of their proceeds they return to users, the fact that users must pay up front is indeed prohibitive to many.

For a LTM that wants to minimize impact and encourage adoption, I see them less likely they would refund the majority of the fee to become a LTM because they may see that as funding direct competition. Any such promoter is of course free to do that, and they would bear the burden of making it as easy for new LTMs as they want, by coming up with a way to provide whatever % of the LTM registration fee they want. They could create a multisig account for each prospective LTM, with the LTM referrer and the normally registered user account. The promoter LTM would deposit the % of the LTM registration fee they wish to provide in that account and approve the LTM registration fee for that user.

I haven't thought through that in depth, but feel something like that could be done. Of course that is a fair amount of overhead, but it could be done without the need to change the existing scheme and it would be entirely up to each LTM on whether to do so or to what degree.

I don't see that the referral program hurts those with @bitcrab's perpective. They can choose to reward or refund any fees they collect back to those users they register. If they are up front and honest about doing that for the few LTMs they would sign up, their reputation would be honorable and trustworthy and people that wanted to become a LTM would recognize that so claims "the LTM only wants to take advantage of my transaction fees" would be hollow and baseless.

I think requiring to change the way LTM is currently handled to support the way @bitcrab says the eastern market wants it is unnecessary, considering LTM sign ups would be a small minority of cases as @datasecuritynode described.

[EstefanTT]

let me repeat 3 times:
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.

I'm trying to be constructive here. Could explain why you think it's a bad idea ? I mean, why is not a good idea to use it to give back valuebto the referral program and what would be your solution otherwise.

We have to find some kind of agreement between eastern and western.

Repeating 3 times what you think doesn't make it a better idea nor contribute effectively to the brainstorm.

the answer is always China.

but so far no one provided some number proving how much impact china has to BitShares in terms of adoption and revenue. Is Asia even relevant to the success of BitShares? Or is this maybe some personal agenda by a committee member to protect their business?

I can see there is some trading on the BitCNY:BTS but I don't feel that the whole chinese crypto commuity is amazingly seduce by the fact the we don't have % fees on the DEX. It's still very very low volume !

Exchanges charge a % fee on trades, it's a fact that even chinese community is used too. I don't see that change implemented in BitShares beeing traumatic to anyone. We are speaking about 0.1%. It's tiny. This % can be lower later on if the DEX grows a lot and we are making "too much" money.

In the other hand, this little change will incentive again lots of people to find cretives way to bring users into BitShares. Which is exactely what we need !! More users, more money in BitShares, more market cap, more money in the reserve pool, more money available for workers and witnesses, more development, more users and so on ...

[fav]

let me repeat 3 times:
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.

I'm trying to be constructive here. Could explain why you think it's a bad idea ? I mean, why is not a good idea to use it to give back valuebto the referral program and what would be your solution otherwise.

We have to find some kind of agreement between eastern and western.

Repeating 3 times what you think doesn't make it a better idea nor contribute effectively to the brainstorm.

the answer is always China.

but so far no one provided some number proving how much impact china has to BitShares in terms of adoption and revenue. Is Asia even relevant to the success of BitShares? Or is this maybe some personal agenda by a committee member to protect their business?

[bitcrab]

let me repeat 3 times:
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.

I'm trying to be constructive here. Could explain why you think it's a bad idea ? I mean, why is not a good idea to use it to give back valuebto the referral program and what would be your solution otherwise.

We have to find some kind of agreement between eastern and western.

Repeating 3 times what you think doesn't make it a better idea nor contribute effectively to the brainstorm.

you can check this to find some of my ideas. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,23718.0.html

referral program is not a must, I do not think there need any solution for it, if you think necessary and propose any change, you need to avoid bad effect to the ecosystem.

I repeat 3 times to tell you: this is not possible, all the users from China comm are against it.

[EstefanTT]

let me repeat 3 times:
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.
forget to add 0.1% on treades in DEX.

I'm trying to be constructive here. Could explain why you think it's a bad idea ? I mean, why is not a good idea to use it to give back valuebto the referral program and what would be your solution otherwise.

We have to find some kind of agreement between eastern and western.

Repeating 3 times what you think doesn't make it a better idea nor contribute effectively to the brainstorm.

[bitcrab]

let me repeat 3 times:
no way to add 0.1% trades fee in DEX.
no way to add 0.1% trades fee in DEX.
no way to add 0.1% trades fee in DEX.

[EstefanTT]

Right now the referral program is not a problem at all, even for chinese community because we lowered the fee to nothing.
Having back or not 80% of nothing is not a concern.

100$ for a LTM is not a problem because it is a choice you can make. Nobody have to buy it.
If it makes sense to you to pay 100$ of fee because you expect to pay more over time, it's an investment. The choice remain yours.

I think the good way to go would be to have free transfers like Steem. The Chinese community would be very happy with this change. You would be allow to use the plateform for basic stuff for free.

To add (a lot of) value to the referral program, we would just add 0.1% on the trades in the Dex. That will produce more fee that transfers and won't slow adoption.
Poloniex is centralised, take a 0.2%+ on trades and doesn't experiment any kind of problem with users adoption. I think BTC38 also takes 0.1%, right ?

With this tweek (no fee on transfer / 0.1% in the dex) we would have a good compromise with western and eastern comnunities.

I heard in a thread that there is in China an exchange that operates without fee at all ... unless someone can explain to me their amazing plan to make their exchange a success and economically possible, I won't receive this argument as viable.

I have the feeling reading this thread that the referral program itself is not needed. Referral programs are proven to be effectives and are widely used over the internet by big companies (Amazon, Coinbase, ...)
It's basically giving money to someone who brings you more money. It's perfect for because we lack of money ! Is there someone that disagree with thus statment ?

Finally, I would say, even if we disagree on some aspects of this problem, I'm really glad the conversation is open and we can move toward the resolution of that issue.


Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[fav]

So what's the answer?  Maybe registrars should have the ability to waive their 80% share so the user never has to pay the full amount to begin with, all they have to pay is the $20 and the registrar would not have to do anything, and would not have to wait 3 months to get any money back.  This would at least address the problem with the $100 price being way too high for non-western communities.  @bitcrab could possibly that work for you?

sorry, it's not that easy. you have to ask all other projects for input as well, would this impact openledger?

also, do we want to run a profitable DAC or is this thing meant for 3rd world countries too?

[tbone]

Ok, I think we're making some progress.  @bitcrab has a very valid point here.  The way the referral program is designed, it adds complexity for communities like in China where the $100 fee is way too high.  He can return his 80% share of LTM fee to the user, but that's not an elegant process.   First the user would have to pay from their own wallet, then he would have to reimburse them.  That seems undesirable.  Another problem is that he would have to wait 3 months (I believe) to get that 80% back.  Again, this is too much to expect. 

So what's the answer?  Maybe registrars should have the ability to waive their 80% share so the user never has to pay the full amount to begin with, all they have to pay is the $20 and the registrar would not have to do anything, and would not have to wait 3 months to get any money back.  This would at least address the problem with the $100 price being way too high for non-western communities.  @bitcrab could possibly that work for you?

[bitcrab]

I believe this is part of the cultural difference once again. China and India are similar where it only takes some to move in one direction to have others follow and create a network effect... not so in western markets which is where everyone who has been cheering for the refer program are located. From where @bitcrab is sitting, he really doesn't see any usefulness for it at all because in his market it isn't necessary. Everything he said is right in regards to business as far as China is concerned.

Thing which are specific to local markets should not be implemented at protocol level. Protocol should allow to create referral programs , pay dividends etc, but let local businesses which are oriented to specific markets to implement such things.

not totally culture difference.

in China there are also referral programs in App, one example is DiDi, an App similar to Uber and which has purchased Uber China. at the early stage of DiDi. when you finish one order, the App will generate one short message for you to share with your friends in social network, you can get some discount in your next order if you just shared the message. it works well.

we do not like the current BTS referrer program as:
1.the referrer get revenue directly from the fee paid by referee. referee will think "you promote this to me just because you want to make money from my transaction", this in many scene discourage the referee to join.
2.there's no difference for a referee to sign up using or not using referrer.

so if I need to design a referrer program for China commnuity, at least I'll do change like this:
1. when the referee sign up, he will get 20 BTS from referrer automatically as startup fee.

anyway, there's complex factors for implementing referrer programs succesfully, including but not limit to culture difference. I agree not to implement referrer program at protocol level.

[yvv]

I believe this is part of the cultural difference once again. China and India are similar where it only takes some to move in one direction to have others follow and create a network effect... not so in western markets which is where everyone who has been cheering for the refer program are located. From where @bitcrab is sitting, he really doesn't see any usefulness for it at all because in his market it isn't necessary. Everything he said is right in regards to business as far as China is concerned.

Thing which are specific to local markets should not be implemented at protocol level. Protocol should allow to create referral programs , pay dividends etc, but let local businesses which are oriented to specific markets to implement such things.

[EstefanTT]

if I can, I'll remove the referral program from the platform.

I am not only to push senseful change, but also to reject unnecessary/senseless/reluctant proposals.

in my view, the core point to run Bitshares platform is to attract more people to use the service, attract them to trade in DEX, to pay  with smartcoins or to issue UIAs.

I don't think to attract them by interest or dividends is the right way. however, maybe we can build some kind of service, with which A can borrow assets from B with paying interest(the planned bond market?).

I have some idea to let the non-LTM users enjoy the same transfer/trade fee schedule with LTM, but only LTM are authorized for issuing assets, shorting...etc...but seems referrers do not like this?

up to now this is what I think about this, surely you can continue to explain/persuade, maybe sometime I can change my idea.

I believe this is part of the cultural difference once again. China and India are similar where it only takes some to move in one direction to have others follow and create a network effect... not so in western markets which is where everyone who has been cheering for the refer program are located. From where @bitcrab is sitting, he really doesn't see any usefulness for it at all because in his market it isn't necessary. Everything he said is right in regards to business as far as China is concerned.

He also made the point about LTM being the only ones being able to create assets etc.. and wonders why this isn't enough to promote LTMs. Offhand I would say because the market of users who are going to do that are very small to something like trading. Being a DEX that is the most obvious value.. being able to create a UIA is only for particular use case I think.

I have already given my thoughts in telegram regarding the LTM. I think by implementing a shareholder balance that is only accessible to LTM which enables balances to partially back bitassets in the system while paying back a dividend/interest would be a much clearer value proposition for the LTM to sell it to a wide audience in crypto/trading. This would be a major fork.. but it would solve the bitassets liquidity issue and give people a new reason to want to buy bitshares... not to mention the refer program having a second life without increasing fees etc to give it value. Oh... not to mention I suggested the shareholder balance be the voting balance... eliminating the exchanges security issue.. and making dedicated holders the voters... but that has nothing to do with the OP topic.

You idea should have it's own thread and be discussed.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[fav]

I have already given my thoughts in telegram regarding the LTM. I think by implementing a shareholder balance that is only accessible to LTM which enables balances to partially back bitassets in the system while paying back a dividend/interest would be a much clearer value proposition for the LTM to sell it to a wide audience in crypto/trading. This would be a major fork.. but it would solve the bitassets liquidity issue and give people a new reason to want to buy bitshares... not to mention the refer program having a second life without increasing fees etc to give it value. Oh... not to mention I suggested the shareholder balance be the voting balance... eliminating the exchanges security issue.. and making dedicated holders the voters... but that has nothing to do with the OP topic.

really like this idea.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

if I can, I'll remove the referral program from the platform.

I am not only to push senseful change, but also to reject unnecessary/senseless/reluctant proposals.

in my view, the core point to run Bitshares platform is to attract more people to use the service, attract them to trade in DEX, to pay  with smartcoins or to issue UIAs.

I don't think to attract them by interest or dividends is the right way. however, maybe we can build some kind of service, with which A can borrow assets from B with paying interest(the planned bond market?).

I have some idea to let the non-LTM users enjoy the same transfer/trade fee schedule with LTM, but only LTM are authorized for issuing assets, shorting...etc...but seems referrers do not like this?

up to now this is what I think about this, surely you can continue to explain/persuade, maybe sometime I can change my idea.

I believe this is part of the cultural difference once again. China and India are similar where it only takes some to move in one direction to have others follow and create a network effect... not so in western markets which is where everyone who has been cheering for the refer program are located. From where @bitcrab is sitting, he really doesn't see any usefulness for it at all because in his market it isn't necessary. Everything he said is right in regards to business as far as China is concerned.

He also made the point about LTM being the only ones being able to create assets etc.. and wonders why this isn't enough to promote LTMs. Offhand I would say because the market of users who are going to do that are very small to something like trading. Being a DEX that is the most obvious value.. being able to create a UIA is only for particular use case I think.

I have already given my thoughts in telegram regarding the LTM. I think by implementing a shareholder balance that is only accessible to LTM which enables balances to partially back bitassets in the system while paying back a dividend/interest would be a much clearer value proposition for the LTM to sell it to a wide audience in crypto/trading. This would be a major fork.. but it would solve the bitassets liquidity issue and give people a new reason to want to buy bitshares... not to mention the refer program having a second life without increasing fees etc to give it value. Oh... not to mention I suggested the shareholder balance be the voting balance... eliminating the exchanges security issue.. and making dedicated holders the voters... but that has nothing to do with the OP topic.