In tonights update I would like to share some of our latest developments and roll out plans:
I have been putting together an extensive test plan and while preparing for the launch of BitShares XT have concluded that testing everything at once would be like the Wright Brothers attempting to fly an experimental airplane across the Pacific Ocean carrying 2000 passengers while under attack by severe weather.
We have many moving parts that need to be tested and for the sake of everyone involved we are preparing for a phased launch schedule that will add new features as we go. The primary goal is to get the BTS XT shareholders liquid as soon as possible with a block chain that has a near 0 probability of reset. The risk of a reset will significantly harm the market value of BitShares XT.
To achieve this goal we will focus the first test on our networking code and TaPOS without the BitAssets being available. The wallet will implement an API as close to Bitcoin's JSON-RPC API as possible and therefore should be relatively easy for exchanges to integrate with.
Assuming this test is successful, we will use this chain as the snapshot chain for future revisions of BitShares XT that add BitAsset support. Recent discussions in the BTS X attack thread have necessitated some significant thought and changes including among them:
a) Closer evaluation of the Initial Margin requirements. (10x is too much, 2x may be too little)
b) Closer evaluation of the Maintenance Margin requirements. (If it is too high, it increases risks for shorts, too low we risk running out of collateral on short squeezes)
c) More robust algorithm for measuring market depth with a focus on positions near the price point. Initial implementation simply looked at total shares involved without consideration of their price relative to other bids. The exact details on this need to be resolved.
d) Consider implementation of circuit breakers that halt trading if the price changes too quickly. This will help mitigate many attacks and effects caused by short squeezes.
As you can see there are many aspects of this that requires both development and extensive testing and none of these should be rushed. We will likely introduce BitShares ME (new snapshot taken from AGS/PTS) as an incremental step toward testing the Bid/Ask system with custom assets prior to implementing the more sensitive short/long system in BTS XT.
This incremental approach will get tradable value into your hands as quickly as possible while also paving the way for many new DACs to be developed along the way.
As you all know we want to get this out there as quickly as possible. To achieve this goal I have almost completely delegated all non-development tasks to Gregory, Stan, Bo, and Brian who will be taking over business partnerships, marketing, Beyond Bitcoin, etc. They have some exciting things coming for everyone that I am pleased will not take me away from being focused on delivery.
This week I worked with Toast in person to teach him how to extend the BitShares Toolkit to implement BitShares DNS. In three days we managed to get through a basic unit test that started the first auction. Toast will be working on BitShares DNS full time and helping prove that our BitShares Toolkit is properly extendable. We have a video coming out on this shortly.
Topic: BitShares X Status Update (Read 369742 times)
