Proposal to Resolve a Million Issues at Once

[James212]

Perhaps we should have a hangout---maybe tomorrow---for shareholders to speak with Dan and the team about this.

Seems there is a great deal of need for more efficient forms of communication on this topic than forums can easily digest...

 

[James212]

But can both of these not be accomplished without a full-blown merger? I think the question in some people's minds is, what was wrong with the previous plan that would have given a bigger role to VOTE but would not involve a merger? Why the abrupt pivot away from that plan? Using a separate chain to help achieve network effects would be more conservative in that it would help contain the risks associated with unexpected outcomes.

"what was wrong with the previous plan that would have given a bigger role to VOTE but would not involve a merger?   <- Fragmentation.

Contingency planning seems like a good idea in this rapidly-evolving space. What happens if the "secret sauce" plan doesn't quite succeed as expected (after all, Bytemaster conceded that there is a chance it wouldn't work)? A merger with dilution of Bitshares is like "betting the ranch" or going for broke. It assumes that (a) the network strategy will succeed and (b) a dilutable share base will not somehow become a disadvantage relative to other coins with fixed share base, i.e., Bitcoin or Ripple. My concern is that a full-blown merger of chains unnecessarily places the entire Bitshares enterprise at risk. If the unthinkable happens and things don't go as planned, it would be hard to unmix two chains and re-establish credibility with respect to the promise not to dilute.

The "secret sauce" plan is not really that issue here.  The reasons for each dilution will have to stand on its own merits.  We do not have the information to be able to vote on the dilution for the "secret sauce" plan at this time.  The greater issue we are confronting is how to fund our marci DAC BTS(X) for the future.  If it can't be funded, resources will go to our sister DACs which will create competition as many of the feature sets in BTS(X) can be duplicated by them and they will have more robust financing.  This will create a market mess.  We will start canalizing ourselves.   

"a dilutable share base will not somehow become a disadvantage relative to other coins with fixed share base". <- This is where you are not understanding the concept of a bitshare.  A bitshare is not a coin. **though bitUSD may be seen as a coin, it is pegged to the dollar not to the value of BTS(X)**  It is a value representation of a profit driven company and thus the task that it must perform is totally different. 

[teenagecheese]

To me it is obvious why now is the time to do this and I think it is great that this discussion is happening now. In fact, I wish it had been sooner.

You want to be organized, simple, clean, and straightforward when you present yourself to the larger market. You don't want to be making changes once you really launch. The mass market would never put up with these branding identity issues (not to mention the fundamental concept changes).

You gotta have your sh*t together to succeed (or at least look like it). This is not a game, people will not be forgiving or understanding. This is real serious money in real life.

[amatoB]

@AmatoB @luckybit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

We are not talking about a social communications network (to which Metcalfe's Law applies) where the number of bilateral connections determine value. We are talking about achieving a network effect. If Metcalfe's Law were applicable across the board, then why do we have separate Eastern and Western Bitshares marketing teams? Why do we have separate teams working on DNS, Music, and Play?

Achieving a network effect can be done with two separate chains, perhaps in some cases just as well or even better than with one chain.

[fuzzy]

At the risk of calling BitShares one DAC to rule them all... I think we can worry about that after we have achieved critical mass, until then someone else may come along and build one DAC to rule them all and we don't want them to get there if we can get there first.

Yes. We are too new and small to afford so much division. The whole point of the multiple DACs is to be scalable. But we are too small to worry about scalability limits right now. We just need to worry about getting that critical network effect so that we aren't wiped out by a competitor that clones the BitShares toolkit with better marketing.

After we reach a point where we have a large network effect, large market cap, and lots of new features, we can then worry about splitting the DAC into multiple ones specializing in different industries.

We can argue the details of this plan over time, but for now I will say that I agree with the general principle behind it. However, the dilution point is really important. We need to make it clear that this is a DAC that we intend to use dilution to help fund our efforts and we also need to be clear about the particular mechanics behind how dilution will work and what control shareholders have over it.

Edit: Also who knows. Maybe we will find that the way we want to tackle the scalability problem in the future is to just make this BitShares DAC into a meta-DAC as discussed here. Maybe the community will decide it is more important to keep all BitAssets on one DAC despite the trade-offs that proposal introduces.

I think if you want to grow large then do sharedrops with new DACs. Division and competition is good because that is how an economy and industry is supposed to work.

Bitshares branded DACs can unite without doing it this way.

thank you.  This is exactly how I feel. 

Perhaps we should have a hangout---maybe tomorrow---for shareholders to speak with Dan and the team about this.

Seems there is a great deal of need for more efficient forms of communication on this topic than forums can easily digest...

[Gentso1]

A couple of things:

I for one dumped my PTS to go all in on BTSX because that was the DAC I believed in. Under your original model users would invest in just the DAC's they believed in and not invest in the ones they didn't.

What happened to profitable DAC'S funding themselves, paying their own way so to speak?

Remind me why we are diluting btsx to help PTS? These users have the liquidity advantage and are free to move into any DAC they like.

I looked at BTSX as a DAC on the edge of breaking out. The reason being "the big marketing push" , the creation of on and off ramps through the partnership with a bank or more likely credit union.Your argument is bitshares is to complex which is valid.Mine is that we have done nothing to educate (other then community lead efforts) the average user. Marketing up to this point seems to be completely centered at attracting big money, not education of the consumer. 

So why dilute btsx when is is getting ready to actually be marketed and partnerships are on the cusp of being formed? What is the need to change the plan before we give the original one a chance to succeed?

The opportunity appears now.

I am truly trying to under stand.
1. I am sure you considered that before you guys posted this their would be a bit of a dump, even if short term. Investor's never like uncertainty.
2. That means you still felt it was worth it to shake us up a bit.

Lets agree that all of us put 100% faith in what you guys have said. That their is this huge marketing push that is primed and ready to go and that their is a deal that is all but inked with a bank or credit union that would provide the liquidity/utility that we need.

Why now? Why suggest to do this now? Why not wait to suggest such a move after the push and a deal with a bank or CU? If we agree this needs to happen what advantage is their to doing this now as opposed to waiting until the 2 above things happen. Surely once the 2 above things happen we will have more of a concrete footing, compared to shaking people now. You are smart intelligent guys and I know you must have realized this would happen. So my only question is

Why shake investors before the push and deal, what advantage is their to doing this now compared to later? Answer this(please ) and I will feel like we have a plan instead of fumbling around in a dark room looking for a light switch.   

[amatoB]

@AmatoB @luckybit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

I think it's important not to overstate the applicability of Metcalfe's Law here. Separate chains for BTSX and for "grow the network effect" (VOTE or other) need not be mutually exclusive in terms of users--in fact, they could be part of the same "network". Besides, the plan as outlined by Stan seems to be to merge only one or two chains that provide critical complementarities. Separate chains could provide these same complementarities and need not be substitutes.

[arhag]

Honestly I would rather there be competition than to have one central DAC where all risk is centralized there. I just don't understand why these ideas are any good.

If you want to compete you and anybody else are absolutely free to fork the BitShares toolkit and do anything. But don't expect Dan and I3 to divert resources supporting the competition.

The point of this proposal is to allow the team to focus their attention on one DAC during this early growth stage and take advantage of Metcalfe's law.

[Rune]

@AmatoB @luckybit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_law

[James212]

Get big, then divide. 
Don't divide, then try to get big.

Wise words... .

I love today. Mass buying opportunities + great news for the future -- what a combination.

 

[amatoB]

I think we also need an explanation as to how all of the negative aspects of "one chain to rule them all" no longer apply?

Fully agree.

This is not "one chain to rule them all".   
(Bytemaster merely mentioned that such claims would be incorrectly made.)

Two or three synergistic chains would be merged.
Other unbelievably powerful features would be added to that mix.
The network effect to maintain one bitUSD would be preserved.
And that's where Bytemaster next focuses his innovative energies.

But...
Most of our current DACs would remain independent.

More third party clones would still be tailored for unique markets.
(We'll be working to help launch one of those most of next week.)

Just a few are stronger together.
And if we don't combine them, someone else will.

Ok so we need to know which dacs/features will be merged and could potentially merged in the future.  And why are third party dacs getting help?  If the whole point is to focus on only BTS only then third party dacs shouldn't be taking the teams time at all.  I don't know any companies that say 'next week we'll mostly be working for a different company' :s.

Edit:  Unless the plan is to somehow merge with them too once they've proven themselves?

Edit:  just realized this could sound rude, and I don't mean to, but there aren't other dev teams i know of working on other projects in the middle of launching a startup, that itself consists of multiple dacs!  Isn't a mega-dac with fingers in multiple industries enough for one team?

The protoDAC model is not abandoned.  BTS would become the protoDAC to be honored for 3rd parties who want to leverage our growing network effect and DAC-savvy community.  These are third party specialty DACs you will definitely want to own and providing a little consulting to get them spun up is a small price to pay and consistent will all previous promises.

The proposal provides a stronger, simpler story for all the people we are about to bring into the ecosystem for the first time.  Before we turn on the vacuum cleaner and start filling the funnels, now it the time to get lean, clean, and simple to explain.

Clearly, re-branding BitsharesX as simply "Bitshares (BTS)" would be extremely useful and advantageous. Achieving a large network effect rapidly is also very critical and is the only way to make Bitshares really future-proof.

But can both of these not be accomplished without a full-blown merger? I think the question in some people's minds is, what was wrong with the previous plan that would have given a bigger role to VOTE but would not involve a merger? Why the abrupt pivot away from that plan? Using a separate chain to help achieve network effects would be more conservative in that it would help contain the risks associated with unexpected outcomes.

Contingency planning seems like a good idea in this rapidly-evolving space. What happens if the "secret sauce" plan doesn't quite succeed as expected (after all, Bytemaster conceded that there is a chance it wouldn't work)? A merger with dilution of Bitshares is like "betting the ranch" or going for broke. It assumes that (a) the network strategy will succeed and (b) a dilutable share base will not somehow become a disadvantage relative to other coins with fixed share base, i.e., Bitcoin or Ripple. My concern is that a full-blown merger of chains unnecessarily places the entire Bitshares enterprise at risk. If the unthinkable happens and things don't go as planned, it would be hard to unmix two chains and re-establish credibility with respect to the promise not to dilute.

From that perspective, wouldn't using a separate chain (either VOTE or even a newly-launched chain) to carry out the growth strategy be the safer route? Such a strategy wouldn't preclude re-branding BTSX as BTS. It also preserves the social consensus not to dilute the original Bitshares X chain, helping to preserve credibility. And, unlike the merger approach, the separate-chain approach would still leave many fallback options if the underlying strategy growth/marketing strategy were to fail.

[luckybit]

At the risk of calling BitShares one DAC to rule them all... I think we can worry about that after we have achieved critical mass, until then someone else may come along and build one DAC to rule them all and we don't want them to get there if we can get there first.

Yes. We are too new and small to afford so much division. The whole point of the multiple DACs is to be scalable. But we are too small to worry about scalability limits right now. We just need to worry about getting that critical network effect so that we aren't wiped out by a competitor that clones the BitShares toolkit with better marketing.

After we reach a point where we have a large network effect, large market cap, and lots of new features, we can then worry about splitting the DAC into multiple ones specializing in different industries.

We can argue the details of this plan over time, but for now I will say that I agree with the general principle behind it. However, the dilution point is really important. We need to make it clear that this is a DAC that we intend to use dilution to help fund our efforts and we also need to be clear about the particular mechanics behind how dilution will work and what control shareholders have over it.

Edit: Also who knows. Maybe we will find that the way we want to tackle the scalability problem in the future is to just make this BitShares DAC into a meta-DAC as discussed here. Maybe the community will decide it is more important to keep all BitAssets on one DAC despite the trade-offs that proposal introduces.

I think if you want to grow large then do sharedrops with new DACs. Division and competition is good because that is how an economy and industry is supposed to work.

Bitshares branded DACs can unite without doing it this way.

[luckybit]

And my confidence is fully restored!

Me too.

I was reading the VOTE thread and freaking out.  It seemed like the devs were focusing all their time on something that would end up competing with BTSX and that I couldnt buy right now (snapshot passed and not yet tradable!). 


Lets bring everyone together into our flagshit product, and focus on making it big first.  Make sure everyone in our community has a stake in the same project and are working together on it.

Honestly I would rather there be competition than to have one central DAC where all risk is centralized there. I just don't understand why these ideas are any good.

I think the idea could make sense if the whole industry were in a period of growth but the industry is in a period of divestment as a whole. It makes no sense to do this when Bitcoin and everything with it is crashing.

[Stan]

1. Reducing the Complexity of the BitShares Ecosystem

Collapse AGS and PTS into Genesis, and Genesis into BitShares X.
Collapse BitShares X, Y, Z, .. into BitShares X, and simply call it "BitShares."

2. Funding the BitShares Ecosystem

Vote in BitShares for the issuance of new shares going to elected Delegates.
New DACs can be birthed with ICOs, giving samples to Genesis / BTS holders.

3. Marketing the BitShares Ecosystem

Elected Delegates can propose marketing and raise funds for their projects.
Embedded referral program giving new users 10% back on buying bitUSD
Issue new shares to subsidize YIELD for various bitAssets in the first x months.

Questions

What DACs specifically will, or could be, collapsed into BitShares?
--Would there be different wallets, and if not would it not clutter?
--Wouldn't it be difficult to scale, and if so what is the long term plan?

could be done as you wrote it.

- what will be happen with DNS, vote, music etc.? how do we "collapse" them into BTS?

what is confusing me ist the fact, that bytemaster was in the past extreme against "one blockchain" because he believed one blockchain can not support the transaction load. what is about this reason you said Ethereum will fail?

"Collapse" is a poor choice of words.  This would be a merger.  Mergers are done when companies are considered stronger together than apart.  One or two other chains would be merged to share features, the most important of which are common bitAssets and complementary network effect. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

It's reassuring to know that the merger would selectively target one or two chains and not indiscriminately unify all of the DACS under one umbrella. However, I still have problems with the proposal as it was originally stated. The ending of PTS and AGS is particularly problematic.

1. "Buying out" PTS and AGS for 10% each would be unfair to these early donors (who supported Bitshares during its darkest hour from March till July) since this would not really be consistent with the valuations that Bytemaster expected under the alternative "secret sauce" plan involving VOTE. Bytemaster's stated expectation from a couple of days ago was that the Voting DAC would help provide the network effect for BitsharesX and would have reached the same scale as BitsharesX. Given that expectation, wouldn't a fair buy-out price provide PTS and AGS at least half of what they would've gotten under the Vote allocation, i.e., 15% = 30%/2? Furthermore, this largely ignores the value of future DACs that have not been developed yet but that were part of the claim going to PTS and AGS under the social consensus. Note that I'm not saying that a buyout of PTS and AGS would be good, but rather that the buyout scheme as originally proposed would be neither fair nor consistent.

2. By killing off PTS and AGS, wouldn't Bytemaster's incentives to help develop future DACs be eliminated? Who then would develop DACs like lending, insurance, etc., which themselves have blockbuster potential but would need the right mix of talent and capital to succeed?

The proposal is to make BTS the protoDAC child of its PTS/AGS parents.  Developers who want to leverage the BitShares community and its network effect would honor BTS which PTS/AGS holders would inherit.  The intent is to devise a formula that makes this a seamless transition that is fair for everybody.  And since we are big holders of AGS and PTS and BTSX et. al. ... you can bet we have skin in that game.

[vegolino]

These are the kind of changes you don't make after a launch. It's way too much change for the market to handle and it's not the kind of change anyone wants. The market is speaking.

In my opinion if you want unity then network the DACs using technical means. Don't change the names, don't change the internal structures or centralize it. Allow all DACs to pay a fee to join this network of DACs and use that network as a sort of support network for all the DACs.

It is a company. 
It is competing in a ruthless Darwinian evolutionary environment. 
It must continuously adapt or die. 
Arguments against change are arguments against adapting. 
The dinosaurs already tried that.

    for wise Stan