BTSCX - UIAs backed by real cryptocurrency, decentralized fund storage

[seraphim]

Ok, I crunched some more numbers and looked into worker proposals, and have the following (final?) suggestion:

I'll set up 6 worker proposals, 60k BTS daily for 3 months each. If two get to be voted in the whole time, the initial funding is secured (at current prices). Donations of BTC, BTS and BitUSD will be accepted when the initial 30k USD target is met through those workers.
At the end of January 2016 the value in USD for everything that came in will be calculated, and 80% of the control asset will be given out proportionally, sharedropping the worker income.

//update:
the worker proposal doesn't seem to be in the community's interest, so the plan is cancelled for now
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19351.0.html

[seraphim]

That's great. As 30k is the absolute minimum and the more the merrier, I have another idea based on that:

The worker proposal will be one way of getting funds, and we sharedrop whatever portion of the total it represents.
The total amount one can receive through a worker contract seems fixed though, would it make sense to set up multiple proposals to allow a more dynamic association?

[fuzzy]

I created a StartJOIN concept this weekend to get some more feedback, maybe even from outside the existing bts community https://www.startjoin.com/btscx

But it seems the admins are on vacation or something. It's not showing up on the front page, and they're not answering on facebook (last activity there was months ago...). Is that platform dead?

What then? Raise funds here? Judging from the current interested parties here I'm not sure we'd be able to hit the minimal goal if we don't reach out.
Should I try to get someone for marketing on the team (which would require even more money...), or do you think we could achieve it through word of mouth marketing starting here?


I surely like the idea of sharedrops, but how will that help to get funding?

Here is my idea...  Ask the community for a worker proposal to pay this out and see how much funding you can get.  But when you do so, tell them of a UIA you are going to make that receives dividends from the tx fees received.  Based on the level of funding reached, sharedrop on the community in the form of this UIA, in a way similar to what you see below:

(€30000 goal)
Funding Level Reached:              5k          10k          15          20k          25k          30k         
Sharedrop %:                                2.5%         5%          10%        20%          45%         75%       

From a motivational perspective, scaling the % up in the way shown increases the interest of the community to ensure you are fully funded because every new level gives a bonus to the sharedrop % they received in the last level.  You also want the intervals between levels to be smaller like this because it makes reaching each goal seem less difficult...but with an increased reward.  You could actually scale the pay levels up in a way that makes it progressively easier to reach every level after the first as well...

[seraphim]

I created a StartJOIN concept this weekend to get some more feedback, maybe even from outside the existing bts community https://www.startjoin.com/btscx

But it seems the admins are on vacation or something. It's not showing up on the front page, and they're not answering on facebook (last activity there was months ago...). Is that platform dead?

What then? Raise funds here? Judging from the current interested parties here I'm not sure we'd be able to hit the minimal goal if we don't reach out.
Should I try to get someone for marketing on the team (which would require even more money...), or do you think we could achieve it through word of mouth marketing starting here?


I surely like the idea of sharedrops, but how will that help to get funding?

[EstefanTT]

Maybe you could check what Ronny (CCEDK) is doing with Openledger. He already has 8 partners on his plateform, there is maybe something to do there

[Frodo]

Sounds interesting, a special hangout would definitely be appreciated.

[fav]

DID SOMEONE MENTION SHAREDROP?

[EstefanTT]

Maybe after the 2.0 release, when people involved in BitShares are more relaxed and have a bit more time and attention for related projects, you should ask to Fuzzy for a special hangout to introduced yourself and explain all the details.

That would bring the attention of this community to your ideas.

Another thing that really works here to bring people interest to your project is using a simple word ... a magic word ... "Sharedrop" !

[seraphim]

Is there a way to do a worker proposal to get this funded, and Sharedrop increasing percentages on the community as it reaches various levels of funding? 

That's an idea which could be worked out. The current 80/20 proposal was taken out of thin air and can be changed of course. Maybe it'd make sense to reserve some of the assets for that purpose.

I still think there is more interest here than it seems, or at least I believe there *would* be if people could wrap their minds around this more fully.  So could you just walk us through what this would look like to the user?  You mentioned a standalone user interface.  So that would basically look like a wallet management utility, with deposit and withdrawal functionality allowing the user to move supported currencies into and out of the decentralized wallets, correct? 

Now this is where it gets hazy for me.  Would all trading then take place in this same interface, elsewhere, or both?  You mentioned possible margin trading and trollbox, so it sounds like in addition to decentralized wallets,. you also intend for this to be a full blown trading platform.  Is that correct?  If so, would users be *limited* to trading via this interface?  Or would they also be able to trade via the the Bitshares default trading interface and/or on an exchange participating in the Bitshares exchange network by somehow pointing their trading interface to the decentralized wallet(s)?  Please describe this in as much detail as possible.

Also, just to clarify, you're proposing an equity crowdfunder with 80% going to the backers in exchange for whatever amount they pledge beyond a minimum of $30k?  Is that how it would work?  Also, you mentioned extending the functionality to work with HZ and other non-Bitshares decentralized exchanges.  How would that get funded?  Thanks.

The BTSCX client will include its own trading interface, showing only the markets for its assets. But it will also be possible to trade them from the/another BTS interface, just like any other UIA.
Deposit-address-requests and withdrawals can be triggered from anywhere else too. To get a deposit address a message/memo needs to be sent to a specified account, to withdraw the assets needs to be sent with the user's wallet address in the memo. The standalone interface will only make it easier by hiding the details of those transactions in the background, providing the user with a button/form like on centralized exchanges.
It is intended to decentralize as much from the centralized trading world as possible. Leverage (probably) won't be possible, because we can't force-liquidate users. But short selling should be doable (using BTS/CORE as collateral).

The crowdfunding plan isn't finalized yet and ideas are very welcome. The only certainty here is that the asset won't be sold at a fixed price - did that with HZxchange, right after everything was sold the price surged to the moon and development was left with far less funding than it could have had, while the early investors didn't care for the project any more but took their profits and left it behind.

Porting to other decentralized exchanges is just an idea for later. BTSCX will be open source, and adapting it to other platforms will only require a rewrite of a couple of functions. Of course additional funding and/or voluntary dev work will be needed to realize it. Everything will be open source, so this can be done by anyone then.

[tbone]

I still think there is more interest here than it seems, or at least I believe there *would* be if people could wrap their minds around this more fully.  So could you just walk us through what this would look like to the user?  You mentioned a standalone user interface.  So that would basically look like a wallet management utility, with deposit and withdrawal functionality allowing the user to move supported currencies into and out of the decentralized wallets, correct? 

Now this is where it gets hazy for me.  Would all trading then take place in this same interface, elsewhere, or both?  You mentioned possible margin trading and trollbox, so it sounds like in addition to decentralized wallets,. you also intend for this to be a full blown trading platform.  Is that correct?  If so, would users be *limited* to trading via this interface?  Or would they also be able to trade via the the Bitshares default trading interface and/or on an exchange participating in the Bitshares exchange network by somehow pointing their trading interface to the decentralized wallet(s)?  Please describe this in as much detail as possible.

Also, just to clarify, you're proposing an equity crowdfunder with 80% going to the backers in exchange for whatever amount they pledge beyond a minimum of $30k?  Is that how it would work?  Also, you mentioned extending the functionality to work with HZ and other non-Bitshares decentralized exchanges.  How would that get funded?  Thanks.

BitShares CryptoeXchange

BTSCX will provide a gateway for cryptocurrencies to a decentralized storage, backing assets tradable on the BTS network.

For a coin to be added there need to be at least three individuals, so called signers, who hold keys to multisig addresses to store coins and assets. Two of those keys are required for a transaction to get accepted in the blockchain. The signers watch each other and react to suspicious behaviour by locking out the malicious signer, and if possible replacing him.
A multisig address can be created with a variable number of signers and required signatures, so it can be raised per-coin when more individuals applied for signing and get voted in. The number of signers should be in some way proportional to the total deposited value for (obvious) security reasons.

When a coin is added (enough signers available + successful community vote), an asset representing that coin is issued by the signers (also multisig protected), which will be given out in return for deposited coins. The deposits are immediately sent to the multisig storage address.
Returning the asset to the issuer triggers a withdrawal of the respective amount of coins.

The gateway can sustain itself through fees taken from deposits and withdrawals.

The client will support adding new coins and applying as a signer for an added coin as well as voting, trading and community functions.
Like Graphene, the UI will be standalone and can work with remote BTSCX, BTS and coin nodes.
By connecting it to a local coin wallet it will support trading directly out of or into that wallet.

A main asset will be issued, which gives the community the possibility to vote on every variable that may be set, per coin.
Those variables are (list not necessarily complete):
- coins to add
- x-of-y multisig
- offline/dropout tolerance
- fees
- distribution of fees between asset holders and signers


80% of this asset will be sold before software development takes place, 20% stay with the to-be-formed company.

The team consists of 3 persons so far (2 coders, 1 designer). As a rough estimation it'll require about 6 months and at least 30k$ to develop a working product. Adding more features like a trollbox or margin trading will boost that up quite a bit, but if we don't raise enough from the crowd we can still try adding funds through a worker proposal later. If we'd manage to raise 100k$+ this shouldn't be necessary.
I think we'd begin with a StartJoin campaign to raise the initial 30k, so if that goal isn't met everyone will get their money back. When it is reached and 2.0 is out and running, we can add the possibility to send BTS too, and start coding.

The timeline and exact details regarding the fundraise will be announced soon.

[fuzzy]

Any more open questions after reading this? If not I might use it to start the campaign soon...

Is there a way to do a worker proposal to get this funded, and Sharedrop increasing percentages on the community as it reaches various levels of funding? 

[seraphim]

Any more open questions after reading this? If not I might use it to start the campaign soon...

[seraphim]

Deposits are sent to multisig addresses created by the signers, [...]

//edit:
I updated the 2nd post to include all information posted so far.
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,18602.msg238645.html#msg238645

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Yay, questions!

When a coin is added (enough signers available + successful community vote) an asset representing that coin is issued by the signers (also multisig protected), which will be given out in return for deposited coins. Returning the asset to the issuer triggers a withdrawal of the respective amount of coins.
So the difference to market pegged assets will be that you're able to receive the actual coins you've been buying.

The software will be written for BTS specifically, but it's planned to do it in a way which will make it as easy as possible to adapt it to work with other decentralized exchanges (i.e. HZ) too. Before work on that begins, the priority will of course be having a perfect product for BTS.

The team consists of 3 persons so far (2 coders, 1 designer). As a rough estimation it'll require about 6 months and at least 30k$ to get a working product. Adding more features like a trollbox or margin trading will boost that up quite a bit, but if we don't raise enough from the crowd we can still try adding funds through a worker proposal later. If we'd manage to raise 100k$+ this shouldn't be necessary.
I think we'd begin with a StartJoin campaign to raise the initial 30k, so if that goal isn't met everyone will get their money back. When it is reached and 2.0 is out and running, we can add the possibility to send BTS too, and start the coding

I tried to follow your description of what happens.. but I still didn't get it. Coin added.. a UIA is created representing the coin.. but where did the actual coin go?

[seraphim]

Yay, questions!

When a coin is added (enough signers available + successful community vote) an asset representing that coin is issued by the signers (also multisig protected), which will be given out in return for deposited coins. Returning the asset to the issuer triggers a withdrawal of the respective amount of coins.
So the difference to market pegged assets will be that you're able to receive the actual coins you've been buying.

The software will be written for BTS specifically, but it's planned to do it in a way which will make it as easy as possible to adapt it to work with other decentralized exchanges (i.e. HZ) too. Before work on that begins, the priority will of course be having a perfect product for BTS.

The team consists of 3 persons so far (2 coders, 1 designer). As a rough estimation it'll require about 6 months and at least 30k$ to get a working product. Adding more features like a trollbox or margin trading will boost that up quite a bit, but if we don't raise enough from the crowd we can still try adding funds through a worker proposal later. If we'd manage to raise 100k$+ this shouldn't be necessary.
I think we'd begin with a StartJoin campaign to raise the initial 30k, so if that goal isn't met everyone will get their money back. When it is reached and 2.0 is out and running, we can add the possibility to send BTS too, and start the coding