BitShares cannot "take off" while bitcoin and the rest of crypto are in a bear market.
Yes, because that is number 4 on Stanimov's 7 deadly crypto natural laws:
"#4. only DarkDashTITANCOPYCoin can grow its market cap duting a bitcoin bear market."
DASH/DRK was the only coin on the list that figured out the whole supply vs. demand thing. If you want to create a DASH masternode (which receives new DASH in exchange for the masternode's mixing services), then you need to lock up 1000 DRK. Sort of like staking in Peercoin. You can't touch those 1000 DASH and you receive more DASH out of the block reward.
There are thousands of DASH masternodes now and they are each locking up $3000+ USD worth of DASH, taking it out of the supply. The people who run these masternodes then save up another 1000, and then "stake them" in order to get even more DASH.
BitShares could employ a similar strategy for delegates. Instead of having a registration bond that's destroyed, (which only motivates scam delegates to pretend to do work for a few weeks), we could instead have a large registration fee that's not destroyed, but is rather returned to the delegate after "canceling" delegate registration. Perhaps 1 million BTS. (If DASH can have $3000-required masternodes, we can have $4500-required delegates) So everyone who is a delegate or running as a delegate must have 1 million BTS locked up in the system. What would be the result?
1) All delegates are heavily invested in BTS compared to the pay they receive. Unless they truly believe that they will serve as beneficial delegates for a long time and that BTS will be worth more in the long-term, then becoming a 100% delegate will be too risky for them. If they're willing to lock up 1 million BTS and risk getting fired in a few weeks for inaction or incompetency after BTS drops 30% against the USD, they'll lose money measured in USD.
2) 101 * 1 million = 101 million BTS taken out of supply by delegates alone and probably more because delegates need to lock up 1 million BTS on the blockchain to be eligible for votes.
Wow, your trolling of DASH just made me think of this on the spot. This is a damn good idea and solves delegate accountability and incentive issues without having to micromanage them.
I'm sure some people will complain that it's elitist though.