BitShares to become Decentralized Autonomous Community
BitShares is a community of likeminded individuals working together to make the world a better place. The only way to become a member of our community is via proof of work. PTS miners did work to create and secure our first membership token. AGS donators have proven their support by giving resources they had to work to earn. Delegates are continuing to do the work to grow the community and realize our vision.
BitShares are Proof of Work.
Companies are contractual entities while communities are voluntary associations. We want to work together and recognize the contributions of each member to helping the community grow and achieve its ultimate mission, world peace. In our community it is imperative that each individual produce more value than they consume and equally so that no individual be expected to sacrifice themselves disproportionally for the group.
We have long used the company metaphor to describe BitShares X as a bank and exchange and thrown around words like shares, dividends, dilution, merger, interest, etc. I would like to officially strike all such language from the rebranded BitShares (BTS) to be launched because it does not fit with what we are really doing and those words work against us in every way except understanding the economic consequences of various decisions.
BitShares will be a self-governing community which elects delegates who serve the community and enforce the social consensus that majority stakeholder opinion rules.
The BitShares community is a contract-free zone where at no point in time shall there exist a legal obligation for any party to behave any way in the future. We shall stick to these principles and rely on reputation and community coordination to facilitate efficient commerce with low overhead.
To this end the funds held by I3 for development will be divided among the core developers who will work together as independent parties to grow the community. Details of this plan are still under review, but at the end of the day the result will be that no one developer will have "king making authority" for delegates. People have stated that I have "too much power", but I do not wish to rely of fiat to get things done, but instead on my ability to persuade the community. I also wish for the development of BTS to continue regardless of what the SEC or government attempts to accuse I3 of. BTS is bigger than any one of us and has the potential to unite everyone under a fully voluntary society.
Lets make this happen... lets change the world and reimagine BitShares.
The community really needed this announcement.
BitShares is a community of likeminded individuals working together to make the world a better place. The only way to become a member of our community is via proof of work.
Wah?! ...
A guiding principle is reciprocity. You have to give to receive in nature. If you plant a million seeds it might cost you time but it could yield a bounty of crops in the future.
I don't know how many people here believe in God but whether you do or you don't the earth we have is a gift. If you give to it you can get more from it in the future. A community works in a similar way where if you want to grow it you have to give resources to it so that in the future you can rely on it's gifts.
Let's look at what we have or could have:
1) Decentralized trust with privacy. We can trust each other enforced by algorithmic social measures instead of legal.
2) Decentralized reputation with privacy. We will know from experience how trustworthy we can all be in a way which can be quantifiable. The more "Big Data" we collect the more accurate our measurements will become and once again with algorithmic enforcement the scammer has to deal with the self enforcing contract.
3) Decentralized decision making with privacy. If we can trust each other and know each other's reputation then we become like a society of friends. We can trade with each other and make big important decisions while maintaining pseudo-anonymity (privacy).
On top of this we can organize ourselves into legal structures which promote and encourage trust/reputation. Basically the legal structures only really would have to exist to supplement the algorithmic social structures. The problems come when we speak in a language which attracts enforcement entities that our community does not need or want.
So we have to use the language which makes sense for what our community is trying to be. Our community will develop algorithms which will measure trust and reputation well enough that sooner or later there will not be a need for contracts. Just someone's word will be enough because their reputation will be their most important asset.
This means it will be in their own best interest to maintain that reputation. The threat of prison never really stopped people from scamming each other but if you wonder why everyone isn't a scammer it's because some people care more about their reputation and others don't. So by keeping score of how much each person cares about the community or how much each person gives back you can form legal structures around that data formula.
Decentralized trust and reputation are very powerful and I think so far most of the world underestimates how powerful. If we had those two components then all the institutions and legal enforcers set up wouldn't be necessary.