Why BitShares isn't Taking off and What we are doing about it.

[Frodo]

This year we will go further beyond today's BitShares than BitShares is beyond Bitcoin.

(It's not like we have only two years' worth of innovation in us, you know.)

We are just getting started.

Haha, I love this posts. In all seriousness though, innovation was never our problem. Maybe we had a bit too much innovation to handle all at once.

Regarding the OP I'm not sure that this is the right approach. To me a referral system is the attempt to sell a barely usable product to people who will never use it. It will artificially pump the price in the short term but are we really that desperate?

To illustrate my point: Imagine a salesman showed up at your doorstep and tried to sell you a new concept car that you can't even drive yourself. Would you buy it? Would you buy stocks in the company? Or would you just wait a year until this thing goes into production?

IMO there is only one way out of this situation: deliver a usable product and user experience. It won't be an easy path to go, but it is the only sustainable solution. If we succeed to do that we can start promoting our product.

[bitmeat]

I would highly advice to have deterministic wallets, that don't require saved file. For some people restoring a backup is just way too stressful. In fact many thought that password was all that was needed and got burned when not also backing up the wallet file. I still think a big deterrent is the lack of good user experience. I've ran it on all 3 platforms and have various problems that I could manage as a power user, but know would scare the crap out of a newcomer. I think fixing the bugs is definitely a major step in the right direction of reducing the cost of user adoption

[bitcrab]

bugs still exist in the market place, according to the designed rules, some BitUSD/BTS orders should be traded but now they do not, even the old  users are disappointed for this, please try to fix the bugs ASAP.

[luckybit]

That is exactly what I experienced with the tests I ran on Facebook and Twitter. The cost per conversion is too high.
We are not selling socks here. We are selling a pre version 1 software that most people don't understand why they would need that in the first place.

The affiliate system would be a great way to recruits entrepreneurs and businesses who would then go ahead and gain users.

But running ads to attract users to understand bitshares core is a losing game. (It is still valuable to create content and be involved in the media but direct marketing for bitshares core...nah)

Services like MineBitShares, Moonstone, Limewallet, etc are project that could flourish if they gained an affiliate compensation for bringing in users (may reduce the need to go all out politic and run for a delegate position too).

Curious to know how that plan would be funded.

Any thoughts?

Speaking of "Limewallet" why not release a Bittorrent client which lets people pay for content with BitAssets? I think it's a natural integration and wouldn't take a long time to code. You could then use that Bittorrent client to market Bitshares to a wide demographic.

Is it possible for example to set it up so that everyone who distributes content using the Bittorrent style client can be paid for being a seeder? Just theoretical questions but that is one way to market it. Just build it into technology already being used.

[luckybit]

Its the user experience. People can understand concept, but the execution is the issue.

My own assessment of the information has led me to realize it's more than just that. It's the risk landscape.

When Bitcoin prices were rising people concluded the reward far outweighs the risk. As a result new users were throwing money at different projects fueling growth in the industry. Today after a year or more of falling prices, price manipulation, scams, bans from China, Russia, and now we have the strange April 1st executive order from Obama, there is more uncertainty, more risk, and at this point in time the atmosphere isn't what it was in 2013.

In 2013 people buying Bitcoins thought they would get rich and some did. In 2014 people thought they would miss the train if they didn't get in, and the people who missed the Bitcoin train poured their money into Bitcoin 2.0. Bitshares was part of the Bitcoin 2.0 wave.

Now we are headed into Bitcoin 3.0 and Bitcoin is cheap again. We will have to go through the same cycle which happened in 2011-2012. Sooner or later there will be the next big bubble where Bitcoin will likely reach beyond $10,000 and when that happens the money will go into Bitcoin 2.0 and Bitcoin 3.0 as Bitcoin will be perceived as "too expensive" or people will figure out it's "too late" to get in on that.

At the same time to make something easy to use you have to lower risk. No one should feel like by using Bitshares they could be risking their freedom or risk being fined. But isn't that what Russia is doing? If you use Bitcoin you could upset Russia if you're a Russian. What about China? Same difference.  What about Australia? Double, triple tax?

[luckybit]

Bytemaster and Stan consider this possibility,  what if there is negative advertising against Bitshares and the entire crypto-community which is outpacing the positive advertising coming from the Bitcoin community and Bitshares community?

Attention is limited and people tend to trust authority as horrible as that sounds. Bitcoin price seems to improve when governments signal that it's okay to play with cryptocurrency but when government signals that they might ban cryptocurrency the prices of all cryptocurrency goes down.

We are in a crypto recession not because of anything Bitshares did wrong but because of what governments have been doing to suppress the rate of growth of this industry. China is literally single handedly controlling the entire Bitcoin and Bitshares economy and you don't need me to tell you that. Russia is about to ban Bitcoin entirely and every cryptocurrency like it.  In fact they've gone further than that and have banned Bitcoin websites too.

My opinion and suggestion is that Bitshares take on a stealth strategy. Businesses should simply use Bitshares as the backend without talking about crypto, crypto-currency, Bitcoin, or Bitshares. Bitcoin should be removed from all future marketing of Bitshares while Bitcoin is a liability but when Bitcoin becomes an asset again then Bitcoin could be added back into the marketing materials.

The problem right now is people associate certain words with Bitcoin. The moment they see cryptocurrency they think Bitcoin, then they think Silk Road, then they think of all the radical phrases they've heard from the more enthusiastic members of our community. Bytemaster is not the face of the Bitcoin community and the Bitshares community remains in the shadow of the Bitcoin community.

My opinion is for services built up around Bitshares "just use it". You don't have to explain your technology to anyone. You don't have to put Bitcoin in any of the marketing material. You don't have to bring them to Bitshares.org. All you have to do is make sure their transactions utilize the Bitshares blockchain and it's good for Bitshares.

The other part of the strategy I suggest is to appeal to different stakeholders. It's time to appeal to regulators more because they are the only people who can give the signal to open the flood gates. It is they who can ban Bitcoin or unban it.

What is China concerned about? Is there anything Bitshares can do to give itself a better impression to users in China? In the short term I'm skeptical of the China strategy even if I think long term it might work. At this point in time if we assume China is not going to use Bitshares what is the primary demographic going to be? Who needs Bitshares and if that is Americans then Bitshares has to start doing stuff Americans want to do.

Can it support crowd funding? Can it do prediction markets yet? The utility right now isn't enough to get mass appeal when the average American user weighs the risk to reward ratio of using it. The tax situation for example makes it so it's not even possible for a lot of westerners to use Bitshares because of the difficult to calculate taxes. There needs to be ways to lower the risks for the users while increasing the potential for major reward.

Governments are increasing risks for users. Users are risk adverse and to be honest they are afraid of the government. Even Americans are afraid of the government in our "free country". So it has to be possible and easy for users to comply while also maintaining the potential for users to "win big".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/14/russia-bitcoin-website-ban/

[rb2]

I've read multiple times that some companies are waiting for a 1.0 release to integrate bitshares. If hat's true, shouldn't the focus be on a 1.0 release?

Also, there are some initiatives that are presented as game changing, but get lost. An example: the cart integration. It has been done, but in the website I do not see references of that.

Finally, I feel like the focus is always changing. At times it's bitassets,then it's the 1.0,  now it's user acquisition while as many said, the pain to become a user is still too high...

Take this as constructive feedback, I do not pretend I would do better ;-)

[btswildpig]

100 USD / user ?

place 5000 USD as bounty for people outside of crypto space , you may get 10000 users , that's 0.5 USD per user .

Start with grass root beauty pageant ...........   

[Overthetop]

 

[wuyanren]

I think developers credit overdraft too much，I feel that we should do is let restore confidence

[merivercap]

I agree with all the comments on the thread. 

Also it's hard to measure traction when the webwallet is still in beta. 

We have a well thought out referral program that will be game changing and that cannot be gamed.

 

[rgcrypto]

What can BitShares do for me? How easy is it to jump on there and make it do what I want? The most important thing is getting the user experience right. The light wallets and on/off-ramps, etc., can make this thing easier to use. I understand the cost-per-user calculation, but what about a pain-per-gain calculation?

At the moment, the pain is the huge freaking hassle of getting started with gateways and exchanges and Bitcoin and then having to arm-wrestle this client, etc. And that's if you even understand how this thing works. To get that far, you'd need to see some value for yourself from the gain side of the equation also.

That side of the equation is simpler, though, since BitShares offers a great deal: instant transactions, nearly zero cost, market-pegged cryptocurrency, plus the upcoming possibilities with user-issued assets, and a ton more. So if people actually understand it, the gain side is monumental; this technology is earth-shattering and transformative. But the pain side still makes these benefits very hard to sell, even when one successfully manages to explain one or more of them.

I'm not only hanging on here, but I just increased my BTS holdings by 10%. I think this is going much, much higher, but it's not easy to change the world.

I agree 100%. In my opinion, Bitshares core should not focus on user experience at all but on making a scalable, high quality blockchain while having entrepreneurs create application that have great user experience. (Moonstone for example) So if we can use affiliate compensation to attract more entrepreneurs, more developments, more services then we can start seeing real life problem solved by more people.

[donkeypong]

What can BitShares do for me? How easy is it to jump on there and make it do what I want? The most important thing is getting the user experience right. The light wallets and on/off-ramps, etc., can make this thing easier to use. I understand the cost-per-user calculation, but what about a pain-per-gain calculation?

At the moment, the pain is the huge freaking hassle of getting started with gateways and exchanges and Bitcoin and then having to arm-wrestle this client, etc. And that's if you even understand how this thing works. To get that far, you'd need to see some value for yourself from the gain side of the equation also.

That side of the equation is simpler, though, since BitShares offers a great deal: instant transactions, nearly zero cost, market-pegged cryptocurrency, plus the upcoming possibilities with user-issued assets, and a ton more. So if people actually understand it, the gain side is monumental; this technology is earth-shattering and transformative. But the pain side still makes these benefits very hard to sell, even when one successfully manages to explain one or more of them.

I'm not only hanging on here, but I just increased my BTS holdings by 10%. I think this is going much, much higher, but it's not easy to change the world.

[bytemaster]

That is exactly what I experienced with the tests I ran on Facebook and Twitter. The cost per conversion is too high.
We are not selling socks here. We are selling a pre version 1 software that most people don't understand why they would need that in the first place.

The affiliate system would be a great way to recruits entrepreneurs and businesses who would then go ahead and gain users.

But running ads to attract users to understand bitshares core is a losing game. (It is still valuable to create content and be involved in the media but direct marketing for bitshares core...nah)

Services like MineBitShares, Moonstone, Limewallet, etc are project that could flourish if they gained an affiliate compensation for bringing in users (may reduce the need to go all out politic and run for a delegate position too).

Curious to know how that plan would be funded.

Any thoughts?

I have it all figured out and am working on documenting it so it can be reviewed.   

[rgcrypto]

 
That is exactly what I experienced with the tests I ran on Facebook and Twitter. The cost per conversion is too high.
We are not selling socks here. We are selling a pre version 1 software that most people don't understand why they would need that in the first place.

The affiliate system would be a great way to recruits entrepreneurs and businesses who would then go ahead and gain users.

But running ads to attract users to understand bitshares core is a losing game. (It is still valuable to create content and be involved in the media but direct marketing for bitshares core...nah)

Services like MineBitShares, Moonstone, Limewallet, etc are project that could flourish if they gained an affiliate compensation for bringing in users (may reduce the need to go all out politic and run for a delegate position too).

Curious to know how that plan would be funded.

Any thoughts?