In the interest of helping everyone to understand what is going on, to reduce the uncertainty that is hurting the BTSX price, lets get an accurate current summary of the current proposal.
Everyone, please comment on any inaccuracies in this post so that we can fix it! Thanks!
The background: what are the problems we are trying to solve?1) Conflict between BTSX and VOTE. (Conflict between supporting the interests of stakeholders in BTSX vs post-Feb 28 AGS/PTS buyers).
At present, Bytemaster's attention is being split between working on BTSX, and working on development of future DACs such as VOTE. Some people purchased BTSX but do not hold AGS/PTS, and expect bytemaster to support BTSX so that it can fulfill its potential. Some people donated to AGS or bought PTS after Feb 28, when BTSX was split off, and these stakeholders expect Bytemaster to work to develop DACs such as VOTE, as they donated in order to acquire a stake in those projects.
The development of VOTE lead to the ideas for some new features which would be very good for VOTE but would bring it in conflict with BTSX, as described in these threads:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10057.0https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10118.0It appeared that BTSX and VOTE would enter a darwinian competition with each other that only one could win. For example, both DACs could have their own versions of bitUSD, and those bitUSD versions would be in competition with each other for market share.
This looked like it might fracture the community into stakeholders of BTSX who would desire BTSX to succeed, versus stakeholders of VOTE who would desired VOTE to succeed. (With many people owning a stake in both, of course).
2) Complexity. The Bitshares ecosystem is very complicated for newcomers. People learn about Bitshares or BTSX or PTS and they are unsure what to buy. There are too many moving parts, and too much complexity, which is hurting adoption.
Because of this, there was an idea that we should eliminate PTS, as described in this thread:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10104.03) Need for capital infusion. Bytemaster and other members of the development and marketing team have stated the need to raise additional funds in order to support a strong marketing campaign for BTSX.
Currently, BTSX has a fixed supply and cannot issue more shares as a means of funding itself. However, leadership appears convinced that it is imperative that we raise more funds for this marketing campaign, in order to grow quickly and become big.
BTSX development is not at risk of dying due to shortage of funds, but does not have enough funds for the big marketing campaign they would like.
The proposed solution:To resolve this conflict, Bytemaster proposed merging BTSX, PTS, and AGS back together into a new entity called Bitshares (BTS). The new entity would be able to create new shares to be sold to new investors for a capital infusion, by shareholder vote, for purposes of funding the marketing campaign. Proposal was made in this thread:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10148.msg132495#msg132495How this resolves the three issues outlined above:
1) This solves the issue of competition between BTSX and VOTE (or other future DACs), by recombining all stakeholders into a common pool. Thus, there will no longer be subgroups of stakeholders who want BTSX or VOTE to win. Instead, there will be one new entity, Bitshares, which everyone has a stake in. Bitshares will contain all of the features that BTSX and VOTE would have had, (plus possible additional features?)
Because different individuals have purchased BTSX, AGS, and PTS at different prices over time, it is not possible to provide absolute fairness to everyone in terms of their stake in the new entity. In order to be as fair as possible, recent market caps are used to determine how much stake each of the merging entities will provide in the new BTS:
* At the time of the proposal, the market cap of BTSX was roughly $50 million.
* At the time of the proposal, the market cap of PTS was roughly $5 million.
* AGS is essentially equivalent to PTS, and is thus valued at roughly $5 million.
This matches up nicely with the community norm of giving 10% of shares to AGS and PTS for new DACs.
This is generally fair to all parties. The market believed that BTSX was worth roughly $50M. The market believed that a 10% stake in the value of the future DACs that would be created was worth roughly $5M. The new entity, Bitshares, would be created with a $60M market cap, giving $50M worth to BTSX, and $5M to PTS and AGS.
Note: We need clarity regarding whether the above is indeed correct. How many shares will be granted to each entity? We need to come to the fairest arrangement that is possible for all of the stakeholders, so that we can be a united community, and not leave a bunch of people bitter about the share allocation!
2) The issue of too much complexity for newcomers is solved by merging BTSX, the flagship product that is the way that most people now hear of Bitshares, with AGS and PTS.
There will be one simple answer to give to newbies regarding what to buy in order to get a stake: You buy Bitshares. They do not have to worry about buying a stake in BTSX, and a stake in PTS, and worrying about the difference between them.
3) Capital infusion to fund marketing efforts is solved by allowing for a majority vote of BTS holders to vote to create and sell shares for funding purposes, which would then be used to grow Bitshares much faster than it could otherwise have developed (hopefully).
If the community believes that the secondary offering of new shares is in its interest, it would vote in favor. If the community believes that the dilution is not worth the benefits, they will vote against it.
The change allows for the possibility of funding the marketing campaign proposed by the leadership team, if the community is in agreement.
Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion.
if anyone has better specifics of the new proposal, please comment and I will try to update this!
Topic: Summary of recent events / merger proposal (Read 18164 times)
