Am I the only one that thinks referral system is Bitshares largest mistake ever?

[fuzzy]

Ｉdon`t think referral system is a mistake , but I think high fee is the biggest mistake at so low Tx volume.

This is where i stand too, personally.  Though i have little trading experience to qualify my comment as valuable beyond a simple consumer datapoint..

[clayop]

Ｉdon`t think referral system is a mistake , but I think high fee is the biggest mistake at so low Tx volume.

Agreed... Referral system is a good idea, but we don't have to stick to high fee scheme to sustain it. Let's attract more people and make them like BTS system. Then they will become lifetime members, which generates a lot of profit.

[BTSdac]

Ｉdon`t think referral system is a mistake , but I think high fee is the biggest mistake at so low Tx volume.

[donkeypong]

This is Post # 68 in the current thread. R0ach, based on the responses, let me take a stab at answering the original question.

Q: Am I the only one that thinks referral system is Bitshares largest mistake ever?

A: Pretty much. There are a few people who don't want fees of any sort involved in BitShares, but it seems that a super-majority of this community are pretty excited about the referral system.

Take Away: Few of us agree 100% with every decision made on BitShares, but I know we're all very high on its potential. The jury's still out on this referral system, but it's something no one else has in this field. Some of us have tried marketing an insular product (0.x)  that was more like a savings account, that no one knew about, using basically no marketing budget, and that's not an experience I wish to repeat. Give the referral system a chance to help us spread the word and grow the ecosystem. If it sucks, then we'll change it or stop using it, but I really feel that it could be the secret sauce. Longer term, maybe we won't need such a thing. Your feedback will be important.

[gamey]

The bucket shop talk is just an unrelated thing to this thread.  Everyone keeps skipping over the main point:

"As for the referral system, I stand by my statement that the referral system is currently holding the entire network hostage.  5 to 20 is a 400% increase.  No real referral system places such a huge burden on it's base system.  Going from 5 to 7 or 5 to 8 I could stomach, but the current system, no way, not ever."

If the referral system is going to be legit, it should only affect the base by something like 5-30% max.  400% is absurd.  It's like Mark Lyford was given free reign to design it.

Your verbage when you try to be manipulative is amusing.  "holding the entire network hostage".  loool.

[r0ach]

If the referral system is going to be legit, it should only affect the base by something like 5-30% max.  400% is absurd.  It's like Mark Lyford was given free reign to design it.

So it seems that, contrary to this thread's title, your conclusion is that nothing is wrong with the referral program but just the transaction fees are set too high.

I think we've already had this discussion:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19159.0.html

If someone ideologically opposed it, there's no reason to make a big deal out of the referral system if it has little or no impact on the system as a whole.  The fact of the matter is, it has a huge impact on the system as a whole in current form.  So yes, if it doesn't have a huge impact on fees, I would not care that it exists, but it does, therefore I oppose it.

[jakub]

If the referral system is going to be legit, it should only affect the base by something like 5-30% max.  400% is absurd.  It's like Mark Lyford was given free reign to design it.

So it seems that, contrary to this thread's title, your conclusion is that nothing is wrong with the referral program but just the transaction fees are set too high.

I think we've already had this discussion:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19159.0.html

[r0ach]

The bucket shop talk is just an unrelated thing to this thread.  Everyone keeps skipping over the main point:

"As for the referral system, I stand by my statement that the referral system is currently holding the entire network hostage.  5 to 20 is a 400% increase.  No real referral system places such a huge burden on it's base system.  Going from 5 to 7 or 5 to 8 I could stomach, but the current system, no way, not ever."

If the referral system is going to be legit, it should only affect the base by something like 5-30% max.  400% is absurd.  It's like Mark Lyford was given free reign to design it.

[oldmine]

I'm kind of shocked most of you people don't seem to understand what Bitshares actually is.  Even Bytemaster doesn't seem to acknowledge it.  Bitshares is a decentralized bucket shop (world first?).  You are not trading real stocks or assets.  You can't compare anything about it to real stock markets.  It's a gambling market where you're betting against the somewhat decentralized but non-autonomous house that operates price feeds.  You don't own real assets.  You're not investing in real assets.  All you're doing is gambling.

You think we dont know that already? BitShares is the best damn bucketshop around.

And whats wrong with a bucketshop anyway? The are only illegal because:
1) Authorities dont want money diverted from inflating the stock market
2) Wall street lobbying

It might be gambling, but its not against the House. Get your facts right its p2p.

[monsterer]

I'm kind of shocked most of you people don't seem to understand what Bitshares actually is.  Even Bytemaster doesn't seem to acknowledge it.  Bitshares is a decentralized bucket shop (world first?).  You are not trading real stocks or assets.  You can't compare anything about it to real stock markets.  It's a gambling market where you're betting against the somewhat decentralized but non-autonomous house that operates price feeds.  You don't own real assets.  You're not investing in real assets.  All you're doing is gambling.

Bitshares aims to replace the ECN, rather than to be one actor on someone else's ECN, like an actual bucket shop would be. It's only gambling in the same way that you might argue any trading is gambling.

However, your actions on the DEX do affect the internal orderbook and therefore the prices,  and because of that, I have to say it is not a bucket shop.

[Helikopterben]

In the US Scottrade is seen as a bargain basement trading firm at $7 per trade!! Seriously. Other houses charge $25+ USD PER TRADE!!. Let's get some perspective on what the market will bear.

I'm kind of shocked most of you people don't seem to understand what Bitshares actually is.  Even Bytemaster doesn't seem to acknowledge it.  Bitshares is a decentralized bucket shop (world first?).  You are not trading real stocks or assets.  You can't compare anything about it to real stock markets.  It's a gambling market where you're betting against the somewhat decentralized but non-autonomous house that operates price feeds.  You don't own real assets.  You're not investing in real assets.  All you're doing is gambling.

It's virtualy impossible for there to be a situation where there's X dollars invested in Y stock and the same amount of money or higher invested in the Bitshares prediction market of said stock because the prediction market offers you no real legal standing or ownership.  You can't compare real stock markets to this because the value proposition of the real stock market is always higher.  I'm not saying the market has no value, it's just nothing close to the real stock market.

I don't think you understand the state of legacy markets today.  The stock market is just a daisy chain of contractual obligations.  Some folks believe the backend is a house of cards ready to fall.  So for all intents and purposes, trading stocks directly is not much better than trading a derivative form of those stocks.  Bitshares has the potential to be a far superior platform for companies to issue stock on through user issued assets.

The bitasset market most closely resembles futures markets, which are bucket shops by your definition.  We should see some real fireworks once things such as gas, corn, wheat, sugar, soybean, and cocoa can be traded freely and fully collateralized by native sound money and even be used as currency.  These things are all traded digitally today anyway, so by definition they have to be derivatives. 

Think about this use case:  Joe travels 3,000 miles a month for his job and uses 100 gallons of gas each month.  He wants to budget for for his gas expenses for the entire year and right now gas prices are relatively cheap at $2.00/gallon.  Joe buys 1200 bitgas for $2400.  Joe will pay $2.00/gallon all year as he redeems bitgas every time he fills up his car.  If prices jump to $3.00/gallon, then joe will save money.  Perhaps in the future gas stations will accept bitgas directly. 

[jakub]

You are not trading real stocks or assets.  You can't compare anything about it to real stock markets.  It's a gambling market where you're betting against the somewhat decentralized but non-autonomous house that operates price feeds.  You don't own real assets.  You're not investing in real assets.  All you're doing is gambling.

But if you're interested in just trading (and not ownership in a legal sense) how is the profit earned on a derivative market (like BitShares) in any way inferior to the profit earned on a "real" market?
For me, both these profits have the same value so the market fees ARE comparable.

And I'd assume 99% of people are interested in just profits, not legal ownership, provided the profits are legally or contractually guaranteed.
(this 99% is just my common sense, not based on any market research)

[r0ach]

In the US Scottrade is seen as a bargain basement trading firm at $7 per trade!! Seriously. Other houses charge $25+ USD PER TRADE!!. Let's get some perspective on what the market will bear.

I'm kind of shocked most of you people don't seem to understand what Bitshares actually is.  Even Bytemaster doesn't seem to acknowledge it.  Bitshares is a decentralized bucket shop (world first?).  You are not trading real stocks or assets.  You can't compare anything about it to real stock markets.  It's a gambling market where you're betting against the somewhat decentralized but non-autonomous house that operates price feeds.  You don't own real assets.  You're not investing in real assets.  All you're doing is gambling.

It's virtualy impossible for there to be a situation where there's X dollars invested in Y stock and the same amount of money or higher invested in the Bitshares prediction market of said stock because the prediction market offers you no real legal standing or ownership.  You can't compare real stock markets to this because the value proposition of the real stock market is always higher.  I'm not saying the market has no value, it's just nothing close to the real stock market.

As for the referral system, I stand by my statement that the referral system is currently holding the entire network hostage.  5 to 20 is a 400% increase.  No real referral system places such a huge burden on it's base system.  Going from 5 to 7 or 5 to 8 I could stomach, but the current system, no way, not ever.

There also needs to be more emphasis on the BTS native currency as an intstrument of value and trade settlement instead of market pegged or user issued assets, and the referral system's huge burden is an impediment to that.  Gold isn't really a valid monetary instrument for the modern world, cryptocurrency is, so why would people do backflips over BitGold or a BitUSD?  The cryptocurrency is the actual thing with a future.  My statement on gold here:

I don't think precious metals are a solution in the modern world in the first place. They'll only be useful in a hard collapse where/if we go back to the dark ages.  Precious metals have low granularity and high friction in use.  They were useful in an age of barter where you show up at a market and want a chicken and the vendor estimates which coin in your pocket the chicken is most closely valued to.  He then has to toss in a loaf of bread or something else until you both agree on value. 

Most business owners don't run their own floor nowadays and nobody is even allowed to barter.  Let's not forget gold backed currency is how fractional reserve was created in the first place.  In other words, it's almost useless because the market demands higher granularity and lower friction.

Yes, it's ok for short term hedging, but in the long run, it's mostly useless.  Native cyrptocurrency is the long run asset/currency, not pegged assets.  The pegged assets are more of a short term bandaid for acceptance or for stabalizing against a more succesful crypto like BTC.

[luckybit]

When the outside world looks at this thing, they don't even know the fee rate can be changed over time, so they're thinking, "nice, if this coin hits 3 billion market cap like Bitcoin, I get to pay $15 in fees per transaction!

had the same thought the other day 

Can fees be displayed as USD? Seeing something like 5 cents has a much lower perceived value than 20 BTS.

In the US Scottrade is seen as a bargain basement trading firm at $7 per trade!! Seriously. Other houses charge $25+ USD PER TRADE!!. Let's get some perspective on what the market will bear.

To put it in context most US trading companies charge between 1500 - 5000 BTS per trade.

I use Robinhood and it has much lower fees.

[donkeypong]

I love the referral system. It is truly innovative in the cryptocurrency space and will help Bitshares grow via magnified network effects.

I do have a question about how it works though. Is is multi-level or single level?

If I refer someone I get a portion of their fees, I get that. What if they in turn refer someone? Then that someone refers someone else?

Is a MLM affiliate scheme better than a single level affiliate scheme? I have my own opinion, but I am interested in hearing everyone else's. I am thinking I may be in the minority on this... pro MLM. MLM structures promote users to recruit other users that will then recruit other users, and so on so forth. Recruiting mainly other users that will recruit other users is currently in the best interest of Bitshares as we are very early in the game. Magnifying the network affect of the referral system is in our best interest IMO. How many levels deep should it go, or should it ideally be unlimited down to a fraction of a percent?

I'm pro-levels also. This thing would take over the world. But what they've done is a big step in the right direction.