Removing BTS inflation after July

[jsidhu]

cant inflation be voted away when we dont need dev and marketing efforts to get to the stratosphere and through?

Exactly.  Inflation isn't guaranteed and is the ONE THING we can vote on easily.    Find delegates willing to campaign and win low dilution delegate slots.

Also if marketing is good and devs are on the ball the price should rise to a point where delegates are forced to reduce payout and thus reducing inflation and further creating phsycological incentive for price to rise faster than supply is reduced.. Its more phsycological than it is a physical phenomenen to me... If people think its bullish collectively it becomes bullish..

[Empirical1.2]

How does BTC deal with the inflation PR issue? Do people just accept it or are they too looking for an inactivity fee or other solution? I don't keep up with Bitcoin anymore so not sure how they field their inflation detractors.

Delegate pay = Mining - meaningless hashing.

The distinction between Assets and BTS is clear to us but not to the masses. They'll just see, "Hold that Bitshares coin for too long and you'll lose all your money to fees".

Regards the masses, NuBits holders probably know very little about what is required from NuShares holders. People with savings accounts probably know very little about what's required from the shareholders who own that bank.

BTC have less of an inflation PR issue because they've stuck since inception to the inflation rules on which they were founded. BTC holders also have a great deal of certainty & trust that there will only be 21 million Bitcoins. BTS on the other hand changed it's inflation rules which was possibly a key reason that it lost most of it's market value & community. It's quite remarkable that BTS is on a 5 month BTC downtrend despite only being alive for seven months.

Also because of voter apathy only 7.82% of BTS is required to elect a delegates & according to http://bitsharesblocks.com/genesis-btsx that amount could be easily controlled by a small group of accounts.

So measures that address inflation and voter apathy may be worth discussing but I don't think there's much appetite for it as most of those BTSX shareholders have already left leaving this minority value fork with people who have been funnelled to mostly share your POV about inflation.

[merivercap]

Why call it inflation in the first place?   Just call it a capital raise...equity share issuance...or even dilution which shareholders generally dislike...but using the word 'inflation' is inconsistent with the DAC/company model ..

5% penalty?  That would hurt and will almost feel like a tax or stealing from people not in the know or who are to busy.  I would prohibit any fee on accounts.  Direct democracies are bad because decisions are based on ignorance and superficial reasons rather than passion or knowledge...if enough people gain more shares and take over the majority and call for a redistribution of all shares because some accounts have too much how will people feel?

[BTSdac]

I think it is`nt  a  good idea

[speedy]

How does BTC deal with the inflation PR issue? Do people just accept it or are they too looking for an inactivity fee or other solution? I don't keep up with Bitcoin anymore so not sure how they field their inflation detractors.

Theyre waiting for the block halving next year.

[Riverhead]

How does BTC deal with the inflation PR issue? Do people just accept it or are they too looking for an inactivity fee or other solution? I don't keep up with Bitcoin anymore so not sure how they field their inflation detractors.

Delegate pay = Mining - meaningless hashing.

The distinction between Assets and BTS is clear to us but not to the masses. They'll just see, "Hold that Bitshares coin for too long and you'll lose all your money to fees".

[bytemaster]

cant inflation be voted away when we dont need dev and marketing efforts to get to the stratosphere and through?

Exactly.  Inflation isn't guaranteed and is the ONE THING we can vote on easily.    Find delegates willing to campaign and win low dilution delegate slots.

[jsidhu]

cant inflation be voted away when we dont need dev and marketing efforts to get to the stratosphere and through?

[Empirical1.2]

Regarding the inactivity fee:

A penalty only on shares that have never been claimed might work. (Given plenty of time for the remaining people to claim them). 
Once the shares are claimed, ever, I dont think there should be any more inactivity fees after that.

I don't think it would be sufficient to remove the need for inflation and it doesn't incentivise current BTS shareholders to vote but that could be an option and I did a poll on that back in the day - https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9950.0

[Ander]

Regarding the inactivity fee:

A penalty only on shares that have never been claimed might work. (Given plenty of time for the remaining people to claim them). 
Once the shares are claimed, ever, I dont think there should be any more inactivity fees after that.

[Empirical1.2]

Dont add negative reenforcement for inactivity... But positive one will be more beneficial

I think inflation is even more negative for BTS shareholders and marketing BTS and BitAssets.

So for me it's a question of whether BTS shareholders prefer an annual inflation tax that dilutes them by circa 2% a year or do they prefer a tax they can completely avoid just by voting once per year? (And which doesn't effect BitAsset holders at all.)

It also helps  address 2 big problems...

1. Voter Apathy            (You will vote to avoid the fee)
2. BitAsset Adoption   (People will hold BitAssets more with higher yield.)

BitShares possibly gets to become a No Inflation, Profitable DAC again which is more attractive to shareholders and as a backing for people holding BitAssets imo.

[xeroc]

Dont add negative reenforcement for inactivity... But positive one will be more beneficial

I tend to disagree .. heavily in fact
.. and agree with empirical .. thought it has to be sold properly that only balances in BTS have to pay fees for inactivity!!

[jsidhu]

Dont add negative reenforcement for inactivity... But positive one will be more beneficial

[Empirical1.2]

How could you possibly sell Bitshares as a savings account with a feature like this?

It would give our competitors a field day. Inactivity fee was a massive negative in my mind when I first checked out this community.

 

Average user will consider that BitShares is already too complex without it adding obvious negatives. If you have to punish people to use it, then that's likely to push more people away than the numbers that will understand the subtlety. If there is a fundamental problem that calls for warping the money, then there surely must be better approaches that allow the number of tokens in an account to be unaffected. It's daft but simple psychology of number matters more than value of it.. see people's reaction to bank charges in fiat and what that does for brands.

BTS are the shares in the DAC and BitAssets and BitAsset accounts are what we are selling to consumers.

In my example the bank/savings account would not be subject to any fees at all & would actually pay bank and savings account holders much higher yield & thus be far more attractive. 

Only BTS shareholders are subject to the fee if they don't meet their minimum responsibility as a shareholder of voting once a year. (So it's like NuBits holders getting interest for doing nothing but NuShares holders being subject to the requirement of voting once a year or paying a 5% fee. There's a responsibility attached for being a shareholder of the DAC  but not for using the products, in fact the result is that it incentivises people to use the products more.)

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

At present there is no communication infrastructure built into the accounts.

If there was at least a series of notifications that went out via email or SMS (transaction paid out of the users account).. then there can be a few attempts made well in advance to notify of the pending termination.

This way we can still have cleanup while ensuring real accounts will get a response from people still wanting too keep them.

We need a communication medium for this to happen though.. we don't have that yet. I would suggest this is a good middle ground to satisfy both sides.

[davidpbrown]

How could you possibly sell Bitshares as a savings account with a feature like this?

It would give our competitors a field day. Inactivity fee was a massive negative in my mind when I first checked out this community.

 

Average user will consider that BitShares is already too complex without it adding obvious negatives. If you have to punish people to use it, then that's likely to push more people away than the numbers that will understand the subtlety. If there is a fundamental problem that calls for warping the money, then there surely must be better approaches that allow the number of tokens in an account to be unaffected. It's daft but simple psychology of number matters more than value of it.. see people's reaction to bank charges in fiat and what that does for brands.

[monsterer]

How could you possibly sell Bitshares as a savings account with a feature like this?

It would give our competitors a field day. Inactivity fee was a massive negative in my mind when I first checked out this community.

[donkeypong]

I agree. The inactivity fee would be a smart change.

[Empirical1.2]

5% Annual inactivity fee

is massive negative PR, good job it was canned IMO.

While not popular, I believe it is more popular than inflation & was in the original whitepaper we all invested in.

The fees earned and not spent on delegates can be directed to BitAsset yield and this would be accceptable as we're not inflating the DAC to do it. So to avoid the fee, a BTS shareholder just has to vote once a year and to benefit from it just has to hold BitAssets (Which aren't subject to the fee)  So it could address Voter Apathy and BitAsset adoption.

My personal view is that apart from the temporary setback of requiring price feeds that BTSX was on a strong uptrend until inflation became a serious reality and 5 months later we're still 60% down even in BTC terms during a time when BTS should have been going from strength to strength, growing in value, community size and interest.

As I said at the time - https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=9603.msg125136#msg125136

However unless something like a vastly inferior, but no Inflation NXT passes us in CAP, I don't expect this option to be to seriously considered though.

[monsterer]

5% Annual inactivity fee

is massive negative PR, good job it was canned IMO.

[Empirical1.2]

BTS’s current annualised inflation is 1.627%  http://bitsharesblocks.com/charts/supply

Using Instead...

FMV's 30 Million BTS +
BTS Fees >12 Million BTS +
5% Annual inactivity fee would provide up to 20-25 Million BTS (Also addresses serious problem of BTS voter apathy.)

Would provide 2-3% of BTS for Jul 2015 - Jul 2016

BTS could be a No Inflation Profitable DAC with access to up to 2% BTS per year thereafter.

I don't think this will have much legs but just pointing out that it's possible.