Can we solve the fee dispute udder the committee infrastructure?

[jakub]

This would create a situation where users may convert their bitUSD/EUR to bitCNY and/or encourage them to hold bitCNY. It may result in a distortion of markets.

I'm not sure about it.
If I regularly spend my money in bitUSD (or bitEUR) I won't bother to convert it to bitCNY just to save a couple of cents on transfer fees - it's just not worth the effort and it will additionally expose me to unwanted volatility.

But maybe it's just me. I wonder what others think.

[cube]

I'd like to keep bitUSD transfer fees the same.  Can we make transfer fees for bitCNY lower and keep bitEuro and BitUSD the same?  I'm sure it's hard to implement regional pricing, but doing it by currency type might be good for now.

For me this^ is the best and easiest solution. It would solve most of the problem which stems from regional differences.
Are there any disadvantages to that? I cannot see any but maybe I'm missing something.

I like to see that too.  But I think technically it would be a challenge and users may have to give up some of the privacy aspect of a crypto transfer.

Why would this solution compromise my privacy?

This is how I understand merivercap's proposal:
When I transfer bitUSD or bitEUR I pay the equivalent of $0.20. But when I transfer bitCNY I pay the equivalent of e.g. $0.10.
Is it technically possible? Maybe by using different configurations for asset pool fee funding?

I think this would solve 80% of our problem, which is good enough.

You are talking about transfering bitCNY.  I was referring to the need to track transfer based on country of sender.  I see your point.

This would create a situation where users may convert their bitUSD/EUR to bitCNY and/or encourage them to hold bitCNY.   It may result in a distortion of markets.

[jakub]

I'd like to keep bitUSD transfer fees the same.  Can we make transfer fees for bitCNY lower and keep bitEuro and BitUSD the same?  I'm sure it's hard to implement regional pricing, but doing it by currency type might be good for now.

For me this^ is the best and easiest solution. It would solve most of the problem which stems from regional differences.
Are there any disadvantages to that? I cannot see any but maybe I'm missing something.

I like to see that too.  But I think technically it would be a challenge and users may have to give up some of the privacy aspect of a crypto transfer.

Why would this solution compromise my privacy?

This is how I understand merivercap's proposal:
When I transfer bitUSD or bitEUR I pay the equivalent of $0.20. But when I transfer bitCNY I pay the equivalent of e.g. $0.10.
Is it technically possible? Maybe by using different configurations for asset pool fee funding?

I think this would solve 80% of our problem, which is good enough.

[cube]

I'd like to keep bitUSD transfer fees the same.  Can we make transfer fees for bitCNY lower and keep bitEuro and BitUSD the same?  I'm sure it's hard to implement regional pricing, but doing it by currency type might be good for now.

For me this^ is the best and easiest solution. It would solve most of the problem which stems from regional differences.
Are there any disadvantages to that? I cannot see any but maybe I'm missing something.

I like to see that too.  But I think technically it would be a challenge and users may have to give up some of the privacy aspect of a crypto transfer.

[jakub]

I'd like to keep bitUSD transfer fees the same.  Can we make transfer fees for bitCNY lower and keep bitEuro and BitUSD the same?  I'm sure it's hard to implement regional pricing, but doing it by currency type might be good for now.

For me this^ is the best and easiest solution. It would solve most of the problem which stems from regional differences.
Are there any disadvantages to that? I cannot see any but maybe I'm missing something.

[carpet ride]

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

If impossible, fine.  Although it seems it works just fine everywhere else, though I don't claim to know the technical implications.  If its just difficult, that is no excuse.

as for pegging to USD.  Why not peg to RMB or EUR?  is bitshares a US network for US business? I understand USD is "world reserve" currency but it does not make sense to be so.  Fee should be based on something neutral like BTS simply, or if you must, perhaps a basket of currencies/commodities.  How about the average of 20% the cost of a loaf of bread from around the world.  It might be $.20 here but how about India, Mexico, or China.

Agreed. We may not want this message,

"With Bitshares You can send your money anywhere in the world, EXCEPT Asia and Africa, because they can't afford our fee system"

All things considered, I imagine it still costs more on all other systems in Africa and Asia.  Remittance can be 6% or more.

[pc]

in BTS2.0 one of committee's tasks is to define some business parameters, including transaction and trading fees. now the argue on fee has lasted for long time, why not get a conclusion via a vote by committee?

Well, it's not like someone (BM) has to flip a lever or something to put the committee into action. Right now, shareholders can vote for committee members, and committee members can vote on proposals.

However, in my eyes "majority rules" is not a sustainable way of action. Overruling a significant minority only serves to split the community and to drive people away. We need to discuss this and come to a broad consensus.

[Xeldal]

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

If impossible, fine.  Although it seems it works just fine everywhere else, though I don't claim to know the technical implications.  If its just difficult, that is no excuse.

as for pegging to USD.  Why not peg to RMB or EUR?  is bitshares a US network for US business? I understand USD is "world reserve" currency but it does not make sense to be so.  Fee should be based on something neutral like BTS simply, or if you must, perhaps a basket of currencies/commodities.  How about the average of 20% the cost of a loaf of bread from around the world.  It might be $.20 here but how about India, Mexico, or China.

It doesn't matter what you peg it to. But I don't think pegging is a good idea at all. Those relative values can change over time and then you're stuck with something that is much too cheap or too expensive in fiat terms. Slave to the system from which you are trying to break free. People will set the market for BTS and its fees where they need to be. Perhaps some tweaking is still needed, but I'm getting quite comfortable with the present fee structure and I've seen good arguments to keep it.

I agree about not pegging.  I was posing these alternatives to make a point.  I too am fairly comfortable with the fee structure but I recognize that many are not, and for good reason.  I also see that it effectively eliminates entire regions/industries of use-case and opportunities for growth.  If the entire motive behind keeping the current fee is for referral income, and this income can be shown to be equivalent or greater with an alternative more widely agreeable structure, I'm all for that change. 

I may be comfortable with the fees but that is mostly because I don't live in the effected regions and don't transact in the eliminated use cases.  Ultimately I will be effected if these translate into fewer users and lower price, just not directly, and not so easily apparent.

[donkeypong]

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

If impossible, fine.  Although it seems it works just fine everywhere else, though I don't claim to know the technical implications.  If its just difficult, that is no excuse.

as for pegging to USD.  Why not peg to RMB or EUR?  is bitshares a US network for US business? I understand USD is "world reserve" currency but it does not make sense to be so.  Fee should be based on something neutral like BTS simply, or if you must, perhaps a basket of currencies/commodities.  How about the average of 20% the cost of a loaf of bread from around the world.  It might be $.20 here but how about India, Mexico, or China.

It doesn't matter what you peg it to. But I don't think pegging is a good idea at all. Those relative values can change over time and then you're stuck with something that is much too cheap or too expensive in fiat terms. Slave to the system from which you are trying to break free. People will set the market for BTS and its fees where they need to be. Perhaps some tweaking is still needed, but I'm getting quite comfortable with the present fee structure and I've seen good arguments to keep it.

[clayop]

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

If impossible, fine.  Although it seems it works just fine everywhere else, though I don't claim to know the technical implications.  If its just difficult, that is no excuse.

as for pegging to USD.  Why not peg to RMB or EUR?  is bitshares a US network for US business? I understand USD is "world reserve" currency but it does not make sense to be so.  Fee should be based on something neutral like BTS simply, or if you must, perhaps a basket of currencies/commodities.  How about the average of 20% the cost of a loaf of bread from around the world.  It might be $.20 here but how about India, Mexico, or China.

Agreed. We may not want this message,

"With Bitshares You can send your money anywhere in the world, EXCEPT Asia and Africa, because they can't afford our fee system"

[Xeldal]

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

If impossible, fine.  Although it seems it works just fine everywhere else, though I don't claim to know the technical implications.  If its just difficult, that is no excuse.

as for pegging to USD.  Why not peg to RMB or EUR?  is bitshares a US network for US business? I understand USD is "world reserve" currency but it does not make sense to be so.  Fee should be based on something neutral like BTS simply, or if you must, perhaps a basket of currencies/commodities.  How about the average of 20% the cost of a loaf of bread from around the world.  It might be $.20 here but how about India, Mexico, or China.

[bitcrab]

let's fill the committee slots first, if you feel you are appropriate to act as a committee member and you'd like to play that role, just publish a post in the Stakeholder Proposals->Committee board, I'll check and vote if I feel you can contribute value to the committee, either you are referral businessman, developer, trader, market maker...etc.

[wallace]

The point is that price increase later down the road is quasi impossible for people to swallow. So if you train people to pay low fees then it's tough to convince them they should pay more down the road if it proves uneconomical and we  are losing money.

This is not always true.  bitcoin for example has a fee that is always increasing so long as the price of BTC is increasing.  The fees of bitcoin at $1 /BTC were much lower than they are now.

setting a fee now of 20 BTS or $.08, later as price moves up, fee is kept the same 20BTS, but now collecting $.20 fee.  so fee has technically gone up but has also not changed.

I believe there are creative ways of changing the fee structure that will not change the overall collected fees.  for example a percentage based fee would allow for cheaper small transfers and would be more expensive for larger transfers.   the collected fees for a referrer would on average be the same and would allow smaller transactions to remain viable as well as accommodate regional cost of living differences.

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

a 1,000 users system is much different from a 10,000 users system, the system value is different, why keep the fee the same?

[clayop]

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD

At the moment, pegging to USD is not a good idea. Are you really willing to increase the fee to 60 BTS now? Since the fee priced in BTS, the market is very sensitive when BTS price is down.
We need to be more smart. With fixed BTS fee, marketers and referrers can get more income when they play good roles and then bring BTS price increase.

[fav]

The point is that price increase later down the road is quasi impossible for people to swallow. So if you train people to pay low fees then it's tough to convince them they should pay more down the road if it proves uneconomical and we  are losing money.

This is not always true.  bitcoin for example has a fee that is always increasing so long as the price of BTC is increasing.  The fees of bitcoin at $1 /BTC were much lower than they are now.

setting a fee now of 20 BTS or $.08, later as price moves up, fee is kept the same 20BTS, but now collecting $.20 fee.  so fee has technically gone up but has also not changed.

I believe there are creative ways of changing the fee structure that will not change the overall collected fees.  for example a percentage based fee would allow for cheaper small transfers and would be more expensive for larger transfers.   the collected fees for a referrer would on average be the same and would allow smaller transactions to remain viable as well as accommodate regional cost of living differences.

i think percantage based fees are hard if not impossible to implement. I think it would be easier to just peg the tx fees to USD