BitShares' Target Market - We're not in the payment services business

[bitacer]

Guys, you created something that was not ever possible before in the history of man kind ,thats why it might be slightly difficult to promote it  because it will take some time for people to grasp what bitshares is and what it does. Personally when I look at bitshares I see one thing :

UNITED  GLOBAL BANK !  Which is owned by the participants .

UGB in short . And the gateways act as representatives of different branches. Lets not be too careful or too humble to express it , its time to reveal to the whole world , they do not need private banks any more !  İt is time to step on some toes , be controversial and attract some attention . Lets shout out some big claims .

[Akado]

I disagree that Bitshares is not in the payment services.   You don't have to market it is as such, but  it should be recognized as a platform or financial OS that people can build on for a variety of applications.  To say it's only one thing or another and discourage other applications that have a lot of potential is a mistake.   I see Bitshares has two core features as a payment platform and exchange.   That's the very reason why you have Smartcoins.  If people want to focus and promote it primarily as decentralized exchange and recruit exchanges to come on board that's fantastic.  That should happen. 

Is the potential of being a ghetto alt-coin exchange that attractive?  Most of the relevant exchanges are USD/CNY/EUR->Bitcoin... if you want to be a NASDAQ you have to go through regulatory hurdles and if someone can recruit regulated businesses to jump on board that's great, but it's not going to be as easy as you think. 

I think there is far more opportunity in making Smartcoins the new money of the future and we at bitCash are working to make that happen.   It's got far more potential than Bitcoin as a money.  Digital money is the root of this entire blockchain revolution and disruption.

Exactly, you're proving my point. You're a 3rd party building on top of BitShares using your business plan to promote payment services.

BitShares itself, however, at the moment, shouldn't be worried if business A or B manages or not to integrate as a payments service since the priority is developing exchange related stuff. You use what you can and adapt which seems it's what you're doing.

[pc]

I think there is far more opportunity in making Smartcoins the new money of the future and we at bitCash are working to make that happen.   It's got far more potential than Bitcoin as a money.  Digital money is the root of this entire blockchain revolution and disruption.

[merivercap]

I disagree that Bitshares is not in the payment services.   You don't have to market it is as such, but  it should be recognized as a platform or financial OS that people can build on for a variety of applications.  To say it's only one thing or another and discourage other applications that have a lot of potential is a mistake.   I see Bitshares has two core features as a payment platform and exchange.   That's the very reason why you have Smartcoins.  If people want to focus and promote it primarily as decentralized exchange and recruit exchanges to come on board that's fantastic.  That should happen. 

Is the potential of being a ghetto alt-coin exchange that attractive?  Most of the relevant exchanges are USD/CNY/EUR->Bitcoin... if you want to be a NASDAQ you have to go through regulatory hurdles and if someone can recruit regulated businesses to jump on board that's great, but it's not going to be as easy as you think. 

I think there is far more opportunity in making Smartcoins the new money of the future and we at bitCash are working to make that happen.   It's got far more potential than Bitcoin as a money.  Digital money is the root of this entire blockchain revolution and disruption. 

[Akado]

BitShares is about getting traders and businesses (exchanges, PSPs, etc). Then those businesses will bring new users. Not BitShares.

What businesses, other than online exchanges, do you mean when you say "traders and businesses"?
(And what does PSP stand for?)

What xeroc said.

what other businesses can we get? Every single one that wants to use Bitcoin and potentially even more since we offer more features and are way more flexible because of DPOS. Many businesses wanted to use Bitcoin but in the end, they couldn't because of it's scalability problems for example.

I mainly mentioned exchanges because it's the one we're more close to I guess, but we can also provide for Payment Service Providers that could consequently extend to online shops that have a huge number of costumers, Remittance, Crowd-funding, every feature, like Xeroc mentioned, can be used by a service being it's front end. You can have different Prediction Markets or Bond Markets with their own business model, kinda the same way you have lots of different exchanges. Lending, Gambling, Insurance. idk, pretty much anything that runs on top of a blockchain that we can support. I think an exception for example would be storage, BitShares isn't meant for that (at least the existing chains), but other than that you should be able to do business with pretty much everyone who wants to do something on Bitcoin. The principles are the same. Difference is we are more specialized in transactions and stuff like that so maybe some of the businesses might not make as much sense here. Still, plenty of opportunities will appear in the future.

[James212]

 

well said.         Use Googles business development model.  One very solid and excellent core product (search Engine) first!  Then spin of in to other lines of development.   With the extreme potential of crypto, it's important that we avoid the temptation of chasing too many opportunities at once.  <-- we've been very poor at this in the past. 

[Akado]

BitShares isn't in the payment services business. 3rd party business on top of BitShares are.
This means we must support every business who wants to to build something on top of BitShares.
Those businesses will then atract new users.
Then we can worry about other stuff. Once we have a bigger (way bigger) user base that are not traders.

Rock solid foundation >> Traders and Businesses and Volume
Businesses >> Utility >> New users >> Profit

Jup .. that's what we were doing in Dublin at the Websummit .. getting more people on board .. and I am still in contact with some of the businesses there!

However, don't be too optimistic: It'll take time .. much more time .. Bitcoin's ecosystem wasn't deployed in 3 months either ..

I know. I'm not expecting BitShares to have many businesses already. I think we already have our hands full for now, plenty of work to do. I'm happy as long as you keep in contact. I'm not even worried about that for now because we need to bootstrap liquidity and volume first and that itself takes time. Only then can we think about other businesses imo.

I expect the next year for us to solidify more, get a good product, nice API, bots, etc hoping the exchanges that are with us to develop more and maybe a couple of other 3rd parties will see the potential and start doing something or maybe even a couple more exchanges to join. Basically hoping BitShares can stablish itself more as a brand, that's what we need.

After this first year then we will see if we're in conditions of supporting more businesses. I never expected any of the people you approached to jump right on board.. That takes time, plus, we need to improve our services first! So they dont get disappointed and can then offer their own services to new costumers.

You summed up perfectly how I see it @Akado .

Our unique selling proposition is the fact that we are an amazing decentralized exchange. There is plenty of money in that niche, especially if we aim to one day replace mainstream exchanges like NASDAQ or FOREX.

So I would love to have the voice of exchanges businesses in the committee and having them tell us the kind of fee structure they would like.
(Because I do not have the knowledge to make that kind of call personally)

@rgcrypto the problem is I dont think exchanges care enough to have a position on the committee or give their input on stuff because they can simply make money with other pairs. This means they don't acknowledge BitShares and it's advantages. We're not yet recognized as a brand and unique features. That will take it's time once we build more volume and get more competitive.

[pc]

Our unique selling proposition is the fact that we are an amazing decentralized exchange.

How is that a USP? I thought other 2.0-chains had decentralized exchanges too. Google returns 9 million hits for "decentralized exchange", and Bitshares.org is #4.

IMO the USP of BitShares have always been MPAs - the first decentralized stable cryptocurrencies. The built-in exchange is necessary for the functioning of MPAs, but it's not the primary aspect of BitShares. IMO.

[TravelsAsia]

You summed up perfectly how I see it @Akado .

Our unique selling proposition is the fact that we are an amazing decentralized exchange. There is plenty of money in that niche, especially if we aim to one day replace mainstream exchanges like NASDAQ or FOREX.

So I would love to have the voice of exchanges businesses in the committee and having them tell us the kind of fee structure they would like.
(Because I do not have the knowledge to make that kind of call personally)

I'd like to hear the opinions of those that represent the exchanges as well.   

[clout]

Originally BitShares was an exchange and I believe it still is. That's its main purpose. BitShares is in the exchange business. I've seen people extremely worried about fees, because it will affect BitShares and payment services and that as a consequence it won't attract new users. Pardon my language: that's bullshit.

Bitshares is an exchange and we should focus our energy on providing a competitive trading service instead of on the payment services business. The problem with the fees currently is that transfer fees are to high and trading fees are to low because they are not a percentage of the trade volume. We will need to correct this going forward. Additionally there is no way that the revenue from fees is enough for referrers to make a business around. The referral program is the main consideration for higher fees, and it is an ill-advised approach to generating usership. It would make more sense for bitshares to have the lowest fees possible to provide a competitive trading experience.

[rgcrypto]

You summed up perfectly how I see it @Akado .

Our unique selling proposition is the fact that we are an amazing decentralized exchange. There is plenty of money in that niche, especially if we aim to one day replace mainstream exchanges like NASDAQ or FOREX.

So I would love to have the voice of exchanges businesses in the committee and having them tell us the kind of fee structure they would like.
(Because I do not have the knowledge to make that kind of call personally)

[Method-X]

  So much this.

[GaltReport]

I would like to see people's opinion on this. Sometimes in the past it seemed BitShares got lost on what to do and it seems it might happen again. Why you ask? well,

Fact: People don't know what BitShares is about.

BitShares is obviously a platform with a great potential that could reach many businesses, but first we need to start somewhere. The fact people don't know what BitShares is about clearly shows there's a lack of focus on the path we should take and only adds to the uncertainty around the markets.

Let's see things how they are. CNX whether you like it or not is the backbone of BitShares. Without it, development would be affected. Fortunately we've slowly start to gather small groups of people willing to take the risk and develop their own tools as well,  for them. However, my point is, being directly responsible for the future of BitShares, imo, they should focus on one thing and let BitShares evolve around that rock solid pillar.

Originally BitShares was an exchange and I believe it still is. That's its main purpose. BitShares is in the exchange business. I've seen people extremely worried about fees, because it will affect BitShares and payment services and that as a consequence it won't attract new users. Pardon my language: that's bullshit.

The average joe won't use BitShares to his family in Africa. A dad with a family to take care of won't use BitShares as their bank account. Even if we build it for that, they won't use it. We're still years away of that becoming a reality. Look at bitcoin. It will take quite a while yet. The one's who are already into that space and are someone which no crypto can compete with atm is Ripple. Yeah, it's centralized you may claim, so what? It has all the connections and funding they have. They're set. It's just a matter of time.

Now what do I mean with this? It's not that BitShares won't ever be able to compete with Ripple for example. It's the fact that we should focus on our core objectives and be pragmatic. We're in the exchange business and we are the best in crypto for that. That's another fact. We have the best technology, let's take advantage of that.

If you want to build a house, you don't start with the roof, do you? You start by building a foundation. That's what developing BitShares as an exchange is. Building a rock solid foundation. Be the best at it.

"But by ignoring the payment services business you are ignoring bilions of users". Bilions of users that won't start using this kind of technology in the next 5-10 years. It's a waste of time and resources worrying about them now. They won't use BitShares, they won't undertand what BitShares is, they won't bring any income. Zero.

"Well, you're letting one of the core principles of crypto out of the picture, which is, people being able to own their own money". I did that on purpose to give emphasis to my point that we need a rock solid foundation first. You know what happens when a company has 10000 different and awesome ideas and wants to purse them all? Fails. It's not focused. That's why BitShares should be focused right now on building the best exchange infrastructure. But I have good news for you, I'm not despising payments services or remmitance businesses at all, in fact, I agree that they're useful. They're just not a priority right now. What's the solution then? Let businesses get into the payment services business.

BitShares is about that exchange that will shake the NASDAQ to the core. Then, around BitShares, business will sprout, adapt and grow. Those same businesses will be into the payment services stuff and will adapt. Of course we can make they're life easier right? Otherwise they might not be able to adapt! Of course. However that doesn't mean our priority should be debating how lower/higher fees won't attract new users.

The ultimate individual being damaged by the fees is not users. It's businesses. It's business that attract users. Not BitShares itself. BitShares is about getting traders and businesses (exchanges, PSPs, etc). Then those businesses will bring new users. Not BitShares. Get that into your head ffs. BitShares with lower fees as it is wont be used by someone in Somalia. That's wishful thinking.

tldr:
We're loosing focus and sight of what's our objective. We need a rock solid foundation first. Being the top exchange and place where exchanges work on.
______
BitShares isn't in the payment services business. 3rd party business on top of BitShares are.
This means we must support every business who wants to to build something on top of BitShares.
Those businesses will then atract new users.
Then we can worry about other stuff. Once we have a bigger (way bigger) user base that are not traders.

Rock solid foundation >> Traders and Businesses and Volume
Businesses >> Utility >> New users >> Profit

That was needed !!!

Clear, simple and very true !

 

  - Seems like a reasonable plan.

[jakub]

I think the OP makes a good point.
This is what I said some time ago:

It might sound a bit harsh but IMO the so called "normal users" are irrelevant to us at this stage, i.e. there is really not much we can do to attract them right now.

This community and CNX should concentrate on the exchange part of the business and on getting liquidity for SmartCoins.
The payment part of the business does not belong to us - it's in the hands of third-party companies incentivized by the referral program.

EDIT: But I won't say "We're not in the payment services business" as this thread's title says.
As an ecosystem we are both in the exchange and payment business. But as a DAC, indeed our focus should be purely on the exchange part.
The payment part will take care of itself once the exchange part works smoothly.

[xeroc]

BitShares is about getting traders and businesses (exchanges, PSPs, etc). Then those businesses will bring new users. Not BitShares.

What businesses, other than online exchanges, do you mean when you say "traders and businesses"?
(And what does PSP stand for?)

PSP = Payment Service Providers:
* Paypall
* Neteller
* Dwolla

We can have all of them use the same blockchain as their "backend" .. and they could all bring in their own users ..