IMPORTANT: BTS Merger (Poll)

[alphaBar]

"Fair" is certainly subjective, but I would argue that there is a floor and a ceiling on the acceptable range of subjectivity. Anything outside of those extreme boundaries I would label as "provably" unfair. For example, we know that AGS and PTS were promised at least 10% in future DACs. ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL it would make sense to grant them equal stake in the SuperDAC. But all else is not equal for the following reasons:

1) You have to discount AGS in order to compensate for "gifting" them with liquidity. The exact value of this discount is subjective, but I would argue that this value is objectively NON-ZERO.
2) Now we have BM proposing that the currently liquid PTS would actually be subject to a vesting period! Wow, this tips the scales even further. How much? I dunno, but again this is a NON-ZERO amount.

As a corollary I would argue that the liquidity discount from point #1 was actually decided by the market already. The AVG dollar-for-dollar difference in stake between AGS and PTS investment was due solely to the fact that AGS was "locked in" (illiquid). This premium paid by PTS investors is in fact the experimentally proven value of liquidity.

[amencon]

At this point "fair" is long out the window anyway.

 

"fair" is pretty subjective.  I'd reckon the people who bought into Cannibascoin are probably feeling about the same way right now.

Very true.  Just because I invested my PTS for the reasons and in the manner I did, doesn't mean someone else didn't use that liquidity to time snapshots to perfection and made a bundle and greatly increased his stake up to this point.

There are too many variables to fully account for and at this point hopefully pain can be minimized on all sides.

Will be interesting to see what is eventually decided.

[fuzzy]

At this point "fair" is long out the window anyway.

 

"fair" is pretty subjective.  I'd reckon the people who bought into Cannibascoin are probably feeling about the same way right now.

[amencon]

I agree with your overall assessment alpha.

When investing I bought some AGS and some PTS.  The PTS was for the same purpose as AGS but with liquidity so I could get more into or out of certain DACs as they were announced.  Now that there aren't multiple DACs the value proposition for me in investing in PTS vs just parking it in AGS is gone.  Considering PTS gain no benefits over AGS and go into the same pool as BTSX why is it fair that AGS got 6x the stake in what is now the only DAC?  Like you said, AGS holders get the 6x BTSX boost AND free liquidity AND the 6x boost in stake for future DACs that spin off BTS.

At this point "fair" is long out the window anyway.  Hopefully PTS holders can reclaim some of the value they lost in all this, but I'm not holding my breath.  Glad I did split my investment up between the two now though and definitely feel bad for those that gave up BTSX for a liquid PTS that is now dead anyway.

[alphaBar]

Fuzz,

You obviously still do not get what Canonizer.com can do, otherwise you would have attempted to do this survey with a more modern tool like Canonizer.com.

These issues are the biggest problem facing the crypto currency movement, and we can't take over the world till we get them solved in a very amplify the wisdom of everyone way.  The expert opinion is that mining is bad, but the Bitcoin herd is still running towards mining like a bunch of lemmings about to jump off the cliff and become very poor, throwing away millions of $$$.  Why is it that this problem can't be solved, without some set of experts like The bytemaster and team having to invest huge amounts of effort and capital to get over the huge barrier of entry to create a viable competitor that is strong enough to be able to destroy mining and Bitcoin with it?

And, sure, the bytemaster is brilliant, and we are very agile, while we are small, so we may be able to kill mining (and bitcoin with it), but then what?  How do we scale that?  This dilution issue (or some other similar issue in the future) could kill bitshares, just like mining is about to kill Bitcoin by making it vulnerable to Bitshares like competition, or at best fracture the community.

Let me list just a few of the problems with attempting to quantitatively determine and build consensus in this way.

• Not Quantitative: When The bytemaster makes proposals like he does to the forum in this way, if people spend way too much time, they may be able to determine how much consensus there is for or against the idea.  But how much time and effort, and how likely is someone to make a mistake and get it wrong, or read the crowd incorrectly?
• Does not scale:   There are only at about 100 people participating in this process.  We need to be able to scale this to millions of people and more, in a way that amplifies everyone's wisdom, and motivates everyone to be very involved in the process.  Even with 100 people participating, nobody knows who is in what camp, how much and what they are willing to give up, what, exactly, would be required to get the various people in each apposing camp to get on board, and so on.
• Destroys consensus: Doing things this way just destroys consensus, or at least that's the way it always appears.  People get the perception that there are hundreds of different points of view, and more.  If there are already 1000 posts, nobody will want to post another post as nobody can read 1000 posts, let alone one more.  Nobody can agree on even definitions, let alone what each "yes" vs "no" camp means, and so on.  When, in reality, there is always way more consensus than is apparent.  The important things is, we need to be able to measure and build consensus, quantitatively, from the bottom up.
• People Loose Interests: If you do not have a constantly improving, easy to follow system, people will lose interest.  Each of the yet to be defined camps or positions, must be able to improve in description, and be stated very definitively and consisely, in a way that ensures everyone in the camp definitely agrees.  The camp descriptions must be able to change and improve, by anyone, in a wiki way, while insuring unanimous agreement by everyone in the camp.  I you can't do that in an efficient way, people will not have enough time to do due diligence, and just not participate.
• Survey Not Dynamic: People must be able to propose more than just yes / no, and what the yes and no camps mean must be able to change, dynamically, as more consensus is built.  Even the top level question, or goal of the question must change, from the bottom up, in a wiki way, that insures everyone agrees with the change.

Modern systems like the one we are developing with Canonizer.com can amplify the wisdom of the crowd and solve all these problems, enabling the herd to change direction very rapidly and efficiently.  Sure, Canonizer.com is just a prototype, hard to use, and people need to get up the huge learning curve about how to communicate and build consensus, concisely and quantitatively, which takes some work.  But it can be done and more effort can be put towards developing such system enabling is to communicate concisely and quantitatively.

And the first Crypto Currency community to learn how to most effectively do this in a way that scales in agile, intelligent ways, will be the first one to rapidly take crypto currency to the next level (the next level being taking over all hierarchies and bureaucracies, and becoming the new rulers of the world)

I do get what cannonizer can do Brent trust me. I am not an expert on its use, however, on how to effectively maximize its utility.  You want to start one?

Oh and as for alphabar...im too busy trying to help unite the community to deal with your angry posts.  I have and continue to sacrifice for this project...along with a great many others on this forum (who do even more). Please dont talk to us like we are greedy a-holes who do not care about the success of this project.  I sincerely hope we can all take a deep breath and recognize the stakes...and im not talking to our pockets...

I'm not speaking to your intentions, just your actions. You may intend to "unite the community", but you are alienating a huge segment of an already small group of Bitshares stakeholders. When somebody brings up a valid and objective argument and you ignore it by saying "good enough" or "it's the best we can do", don't be surprised if there is a backlash. The allocation issue doesn't take effort. Nobody is criticizing you for not trying hard enough. It's about what is equitable and fair, and your proposal isn't even close.

[donkeypong]

I converted a lot of BTSX into PTS. Right after that they announce the vesting, so PTS tanked.

Bravo! What a way to treat supporters.

I still have some PTS. The allocation seems quite fair.

[bytemaster]

I voted FOR the merger, but am absolutely against the vesting period starting from 0%, this is madness. At least start it at 50%.

The vesting will make some people very very angry.

Agreed. It's like "Here's your money, but you cannot spend it. HAHA"

it does not apply for BTSX

liondani - I am absolutely mad right now, because they announced the merger and liquidity I was like cool!

I converted a lot of BTSX into PTS. Right after that they announce the vesting, so PTS tanked.

Bravo! What a way to treat supporters.

I am fairly sure that vesting was mentioned from the original proposal and nothing changed.

[fuzzy]

Fuzz,

You obviously still do not get what Canonizer.com can do, otherwise you would have attempted to do this survey with a more modern tool like Canonizer.com.

These issues are the biggest problem facing the crypto currency movement, and we can't take over the world till we get them solved in a very amplify the wisdom of everyone way.  The expert opinion is that mining is bad, but the Bitcoin herd is still running towards mining like a bunch of lemmings about to jump off the cliff and become very poor, throwing away millions of $$$.  Why is it that this problem can't be solved, without some set of experts like The bytemaster and team having to invest huge amounts of effort and capital to get over the huge barrier of entry to create a viable competitor that is strong enough to be able to destroy mining and Bitcoin with it?

And, sure, the bytemaster is brilliant, and we are very agile, while we are small, so we may be able to kill mining (and bitcoin with it), but then what?  How do we scale that?  This dilution issue (or some other similar issue in the future) could kill bitshares, just like mining is about to kill Bitcoin by making it vulnerable to Bitshares like competition, or at best fracture the community.

Let me list just a few of the problems with attempting to quantitatively determine and build consensus in this way.

• Not Quantitative: When The bytemaster makes proposals like he does to the forum in this way, if people spend way too much time, they may be able to determine how much consensus there is for or against the idea.  But how much time and effort, and how likely is someone to make a mistake and get it wrong, or read the crowd incorrectly?
• Does not scale:   There are only at about 100 people participating in this process.  We need to be able to scale this to millions of people and more, in a way that amplifies everyone's wisdom, and motivates everyone to be very involved in the process.  Even with 100 people participating, nobody knows who is in what camp, how much and what they are willing to give up, what, exactly, would be required to get the various people in each apposing camp to get on board, and so on.
• Destroys consensus: Doing things this way just destroys consensus, or at least that's the way it always appears.  People get the perception that there are hundreds of different points of view, and more.  If there are already 1000 posts, nobody will want to post another post as nobody can read 1000 posts, let alone one more.  Nobody can agree on even definitions, let alone what each "yes" vs "no" camp means, and so on.  When, in reality, there is always way more consensus than is apparent.  The important things is, we need to be able to measure and build consensus, quantitatively, from the bottom up.
• People Loose Interests: If you do not have a constantly improving, easy to follow system, people will lose interest.  Each of the yet to be defined camps or positions, must be able to improve in description, and be stated very definitively and consisely, in a way that ensures everyone in the camp definitely agrees.  The camp descriptions must be able to change and improve, by anyone, in a wiki way, while insuring unanimous agreement by everyone in the camp.  I you can't do that in an efficient way, people will not have enough time to do due diligence, and just not participate.
• Survey Not Dynamic: People must be able to propose more than just yes / no, and what the yes and no camps mean must be able to change, dynamically, as more consensus is built.  Even the top level question, or goal of the question must change, from the bottom up, in a wiki way, that insures everyone agrees with the change.

Modern systems like the one we are developing with Canonizer.com can amplify the wisdom of the crowd and solve all these problems, enabling the herd to change direction very rapidly and efficiently.  Sure, Canonizer.com is just a prototype, hard to use, and people need to get up the huge learning curve about how to communicate and build consensus, concisely and quantitatively, which takes some work.  But it can be done and more effort can be put towards developing such system enabling is to communicate concisely and quantitatively.

And the first Crypto Currency community to learn how to most effectively do this in a way that scales in agile, intelligent ways, will be the first one to rapidly take crypto currency to the next level (the next level being taking over all hierarchies and bureaucracies, and becoming the new rulers of the world)

I do get what cannonizer can do Brent trust me. I am not an expert on its use, however, on how to effectively maximize its utility.  You want to start one?

Oh and as for alphabar...im too busy trying to help unite the community to deal with your angry posts.  I have and continue to sacrifice for this project...along with a great many others on this forum (who do even more). Please dont talk to us like we are greedy a-holes who do not care about the success of this project.  I sincerely hope we can all take a deep breath and recognize the stakes...and im not talking to our pockets...

[bitmeat]

I voted FOR the merger, but am absolutely against the vesting period starting from 0%, this is madness. At least start it at 50%.

The vesting will make some people very very angry.

Agreed. It's like "Here's your money, but you cannot spend it. HAHA"

it does not apply for BTSX

liondani - I am absolutely mad right now, because they announced the merger and liquidity I was like cool!

I converted a lot of BTSX into PTS. Right after that they announce the vesting, so PTS tanked.

Bravo! What a way to treat supporters.

[liondani]

I voted FOR the merger, but am absolutely against the vesting period starting from 0%, this is madness. At least start it at 50%.

The vesting will make some people very very angry.

Agreed. It's like "Here's your money, but you cannot spend it. HAHA"

it does not apply for BTSX

[clayop]

I voted FOR the merger, but am absolutely against the vesting period starting from 0%, this is madness. At least start it at 50%.

The vesting will make some people very very angry.

Agreed. It's like "Here's your money, but you cannot spend it. HAHA"

[bitmeat]

I voted FOR the merger, but am absolutely against the vesting period starting from 0%, this is madness. At least start it at 50%.

The vesting will make some people very very angry.

[alphaBar]

I'm re-posting this here so that it doesn't get lost in a thread before people can read it.

As I write this, the valuations on Coinmarketcap would seem to imply a naive marketcap-based allocation of about 10% to PTS, 10% to AGS, and 80% to BTSX. Here is a summary of the main reasons why this would be grossly unfair to PTS/AGS:

1. The proposed merger is in essence like an unsolicited takeover, to use the company metaphor, and PTS and AGS are not being given a chance to vote their approval. (I don't call it a "hostile" takeover because there is no management team for PTS/AGS in place to oppose it). Academic studies of large samples of corporate takeovers have shown that unsolicited takeovers typically require substantial premiums, say 40% or more, above the average pre-offer share price.

2. The coinmarketcap valuation of PTS likely understates the true fundamental value of Protoshares (and, by extension, Angelshares). This is because PTS is far less liquid than BTSX. Whether you look at dollar volume of trade or the order book on BTer, the conclusion is the same: PTS has a large built-in illiquidity discount relative to BTSX.

3. The proposed merger would basically discard the original social consensus (and perhaps try to forge a new one). The social consensus is an inherent property of PTS and AGS, and BTSX has certainly derived some value from "free riding" on it. None of what we have now would be possible without the cornerstone laid by PTS and AGS. Getting rid of the social consensus has a price that should also be factored in.

4. The new BTS entity being formed is not just BTSX 2.0. It is a much broader conglomerate that goes beyond banking and exchange. From this perspective, it is more like a merger of equals than a one-sided acquisition. Based on Bytemaster's recent views, we can expect that (1) a separately developed VOTE DAC would achieve a valuation equaling or exceeding BTSX, and (2) in the future, with a trillion dollar industry, the value would be spread evenly among a dozen or so different DACS rather than being concentrated in BTSX.
      So, PTS and AGS should be fully compensated for the substantial value that they are giving up. A simple example may help illustrate. Suppose that, without the merger, eventually BTSX = 100 and VOTE = 100. Suppose conservatively that all future DACS, large and small, would together be 200 (we can exclude DNS and MUSIC since the snapshots already occurred and we're focusing on future valuation). Now suppose that, with the merger, the combined BTS is 250 (there are additional synergies from eliminating competition between BTSX and VOTE). Finally, let's suppose chains inherit 10% (or 20% in the case of BTS).

Scenario A: with a merger, assuming an 80/10/10 allocation of BTS:

BTSX gets:  80%*250 + 80%*20%*200 = 232
PTS/AGS get: 20%*250 + 20%*20%*200 = 58


Scenario B: without a merger, VOTE is developed as competitor to BTSX, and PTS, AGS each get 30% of VOTE:

BTSX gets: 100
PTS/AGS get:  60%*100 + 20%*200 = 100


The gains from the merger in Scenario A should be measured relative to values in the no-merger Scenario B, which is the default/fallback outcome (i.e., what would happen if the merger were not feasible). The relevant issue is, how much do parties gain or lose from choosing Scenario A versus Scenario B? Even if you adjust the numbers a bit, it's clear the 80/10/10 is woefully inadequate to compensate PTS and AGS for moving to Scenario A from Scenario B. And it becomes even more unfair the greater the assumed value of all future DACS.


So, the bottom line is, absolutely the merger should be done. It will yield great benefits in terms of branding, marketing, and incentives. But let's make sure we compensate PTS and AGS fairly and generously for the right to buy them out and eliminate them from the face of the earth.

You did not address the issue of "gifting" liquidity to AGS which will introduce massive sell pressure on every other linked asset. I do agree in principle with what you said. 

[Brent.Allsop]

Fuzz,

You obviously still do not get what Canonizer.com can do, otherwise you would have attempted to do this survey with a more modern tool like Canonizer.com.

These issues are the biggest problem facing the crypto currency movement, and we can't take over the world till we get them solved in a very amplify the wisdom of everyone way.  The expert opinion is that mining is bad, but the Bitcoin herd is still running towards mining like a bunch of lemmings about to jump off the cliff and become very poor, throwing away millions of $$$.  Why is it that this problem can't be solved, without some set of experts like The bytemaster and team having to invest huge amounts of effort and capital to get over the huge barrier of entry to create a viable competitor that is strong enough to be able to destroy mining and Bitcoin with it?

And, sure, the bytemaster is brilliant, and we are very agile, while we are small, so we may be able to kill mining (and bitcoin with it), but then what?  How do we scale that?  This dilution issue (or some other similar issue in the future) could kill bitshares, just like mining is about to kill Bitcoin by making it vulnerable to Bitshares like competition, or at best fracture the community.

Let me list just a few of the problems with attempting to quantitatively determine and build consensus in this way.

• Not Quantitative: When The bytemaster makes proposals like he does to the forum in this way, if people spend way too much time, they may be able to determine how much consensus there is for or against the idea.  But how much time and effort, and how likely is someone to make a mistake and get it wrong, or read the crowd incorrectly?
• Does not scale:   There are only at about 100 people participating in this process.  We need to be able to scale this to millions of people and more, in a way that amplifies everyone's wisdom, and motivates everyone to be very involved in the process.  Even with 100 people participating, nobody knows who is in what camp, how much and what they are willing to give up, what, exactly, would be required to get the various people in each apposing camp to get on board, and so on.
• Destroys consensus: Doing things this way just destroys consensus, or at least that's the way it always appears.  People get the perception that there are hundreds of different points of view, and more.  If there are already 1000 posts, nobody will want to post another post as nobody can read 1000 posts, let alone one more.  Nobody can agree on even definitions, let alone what each "yes" vs "no" camp means, and so on.  When, in reality, there is always way more consensus than is apparent.  The important things is, we need to be able to measure and build consensus, quantitatively, from the bottom up.
• People Loose Interests: If you do not have a constantly improving, easy to follow system, people will lose interest.  Each of the yet to be defined camps or positions, must be able to improve in description, and be stated very definitively and consisely, in a way that ensures everyone in the camp definitely agrees.  The camp descriptions must be able to change and improve, by anyone, in a wiki way, while insuring unanimous agreement by everyone in the camp.  I you can't do that in an efficient way, people will not have enough time to do due diligence, and just not participate.
• Survey Not Dynamic: People must be able to propose more than just yes / no, and what the yes and no camps mean must be able to change, dynamically, as more consensus is built.  Even the top level question, or goal of the question must change, from the bottom up, in a wiki way, that insures everyone agrees with the change.

Modern systems like the one we are developing with Canonizer.com can amplify the wisdom of the crowd and solve all these problems, enabling the herd to change direction very rapidly and efficiently.  Sure, Canonizer.com is just a prototype, hard to use, and people need to get up the huge learning curve about how to communicate and build consensus, concisely and quantitatively, which takes some work.  But it can be done and more effort can be put towards developing such system enabling is to communicate concisely and quantitatively.

And the first Crypto Currency community to learn how to most effectively do this in a way that scales in agile, intelligent ways, will be the first one to rapidly take crypto currency to the next level (the next level being taking over all hierarchies and bureaucracies, and becoming the new rulers of the world)

[Vizzini]

Longtime lurker here. Had to weigh in: this makes BTS stronger. Merge it all, pls. Allocation is fair.