Plan for introducing Privacy (STEALTH) Mode feature asap

[onceuponatime]

@onceuponatime I've always respected you and this proposal shows why.  I wish I had time to chime in on the conversation but, please re-think the multi sig threshold and increase it to something like 2 of 10 or 3 of 20.  When I was skimming through the proposal this was the one thing that I don't feel good about.
Otherwise, I'll vote on this knowing you've thoroughly thought this through and feel comfortable pushing this forward and putting your money on the line.

Can you tell me why it would be advantageous to do that? Since I plan on compensating my advisers (co-signatories) on the Maintenance Fund for their efforts and advice, increasing the number makes it both unwieldy to have meetings and expensive to run. What are the advantages?

My thinking was kind of what you've already mentioned, death, sickness, lost wallets or M.I.A persons.  I certainly agree with you when you say it'll be easier to maintain with fewer involved but, in the long term, I think having a few more names to call in the phone book as back ups will be beneficial should the need arise.

You're on my list should the need arise!   

[emailtooaj]

@onceuponatime I've always respected you and this proposal shows why.  I wish I had time to chime in on the conversation but, please re-think the multi sig threshold and increase it to something like 2 of 10 or 3 of 20.  When I was skimming through the proposal this was the one thing that I don't feel good about.
Otherwise, I'll vote on this knowing you've thoroughly thought this through and feel comfortable pushing this forward and putting your money on the line.

Can you tell me why it would be advantageous to do that? Since I plan on compensating my advisers (co-signatories) on the Maintenance Fund for their efforts and advice, increasing the number makes it both unwieldy to have meetings and expensive to run. What are the advantages?

My thinking was kind of what you've already mentioned, death, sickness, lost wallets or M.I.A persons.  I certainly agree with you when you say it'll be easier to maintain with fewer involved but, in the long term, I think having a few more names to call in the phone book as back ups will be beneficial should the need arise.

[onceuponatime]

@onceuponatime I've always respected you and this proposal shows why.  I wish I had time to chime in on the conversation but, please re-think the multi sig threshold and increase it to something like 2 of 10 or 3 of 20.  When I was skimming through the proposal this was the one thing that I don't feel good about.
Otherwise, I'll vote on this knowing you've thoroughly thought this through and feel comfortable pushing this forward and putting your money on the line.

Can you tell me why it would be advantageous to do that? Since I plan on compensating my advisers (co-signatories) on the Maintenance Fund for their efforts and advice, increasing the number makes it both unwieldy to have meetings and expensive to run. What are the advantages?

[emailtooaj]

@onceuponatime I've always respected you and this proposal shows why.  I wish I had time to chime in on the conversation but, please re-think the multi sig threshold and increase it to something like 2 of 10 or 3 of 20.  When I was skimming through the proposal this was the one thing that I don't feel good about.
Otherwise, I'll vote on this knowing you've thoroughly thought this through and feel comfortable pushing this forward and putting your money on the line.

[Tuck Fheman]

I support privacy on the blockchain.

I don't care how it's accomplished.

https://youtu.be/ZXsQAXx_ao0

[carpet ride]

I fully support this proposal.

I am disappointed by the one dimensional thinking that seems to surround arguments around the entrepreneur profiting from its development.

Everyone seems to not realize that if you want to have a similar feature to profit from you can certainly spend the money to have it done and profit it from it for yourself.

I think this is where the 'something for nothing' argument comes from. If you really are serious about wanting to profit from a feature like this, you can certainly have a competing feature that does so.

Just to weigh in on this numbers debate. Once again, it assumes only one option will ever exist. It also assumes massive growth from where we are now, and that every transaction will be stealth. So I tend to agree it's weighing on the lala land side of having any semblance of accuracy as far as projections go. I believe there is a higher probability it will take him years to recover just his investment.

  We're in the free market now, boys.

[onceuponatime]

There is no bs in my reasoning. If I wire $45,000 to Cryptnomex, first there is a mandatory report filed to a regulatory agency (anything over $10,000). If I broke it up into several payments, I would be reported by  my financial institution for possible "structuring" and my account frozen.

This part is true. The IRS will likely expect you to pay any sort of taxes and follow any sort of regulations. This is proven by the fact that the IRS has gone after people for that.

But you have to remember to actually find out the probability that an event will happen. Any event could happen but not every event is certain or likely to happen. Use a risk matrix to determine what the likely consequences are.

Don't use the word "severe" unless the risk includes fatalities. Don't use the word "certain" unless it is something which happens 100% of the time. Almost certain means it's an extremely frequent occurrence but you have to understand that regulators and law enforcement have limited resources. If they want to get you then they can get you on something, but it's unlikely they will come to get you in the current atmosphere.

Of course the political atmosphere can change.

So, the payment to Cryptonomex automatically is under scrutiny. You can understand, can't you, that Privacy Mode is not going to be popular with those in power? If either Cryptonomex or I create an asset and offer it for sale to the public it may fall under the definition of "security" by some gung ho regulator. Cryptonomex or I then must expend resources on defending against any such allegations.

It's not that simple. Some of those in power will like privacy mode and some wont. The government is not a monolith. Tor was funded by the Navy and government operatives have used Tor.

Also the "security" risk is non-exisent. if it is a risk then the risk matrix would force you to conclude that it's low. There has never once been a case which claimed any UIA, or digital asset, is a "security" by how you're defining it. Of course it could happen but you're assuming that if it does happen that it would happen to you?

Until the SEC starts prosecuting hundreds of people, I doubt you'd be on the radar but even if you are among the first then if it does happen you'd still end up paying a fine but so would a lot of others. This is why perhaps you would want to share the risks with the others.

If the feature is a success, there will be a pool of funds that may excite the jealous attention of many government authorities. That will be costly to counter.

If it's a success you'll have the money to counter. Right now the risk is low but the political climate can change depending on what happens and news coverage. In either case I doubt it's going to be treated as a security overnight.

If either the feature or BTS overall is not a success, then some disgruntled investor in an asset might complain to Big Brother, and I am not willing to take on that risk.

Couldn't someone inform on you for taxes? It's the tax risk which is actually higher.

In any case, this is why a group of people would have to fund the development instead of just you. Why should you take on all the risk? At the same time the witnesses are talking risks too. We simply don't know how the political climate will be in the future.

If you read my OP again, I think that you will see that I want to sell the income stream to an unknown private investor(s) once the fee stream has proven to exist and be growing. I am free to sell that without any consequences that I can think of, and will pay any tax due. The Private Investor intends then to issue an FBA and offer it for purchase to the Community. All this is possible once the Privacy Mode exists, but not before.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

I fully support this proposal.

I am disappointed by the one dimensional thinking that seems to surround arguments around the entrepreneur profiting from its development.

Everyone seems to not realize that if you want to have a similar feature to profit from you can certainly spend the money to have it done and profit it from it for yourself.

I think this is where the 'something for nothing' argument comes from. If you really are serious about wanting to profit from a feature like this, you can certainly have a competing feature that does so.

Just to weigh in on this numbers debate. Once again, it assumes only one option will ever exist. It also assumes massive growth from where we are now, and that every transaction will be stealth. So I tend to agree it's weighing on the lala land side of having any semblance of accuracy as far as projections go. I believe there is a higher probability it will take him years to recover just his investment.

[luckybit]

There is no bs in my reasoning. If I wire $45,000 to Cryptnomex, first there is a mandatory report filed to a regulatory agency (anything over $10,000). If I broke it up into several payments, I would be reported by  my financial institution for possible "structuring" and my account frozen.

This part is true. The IRS will likely expect you to pay any sort of taxes and follow any sort of regulations. This is proven by the fact that the IRS has gone after people for that.

But you have to remember to actually find out the probability that an event will happen. Any event could happen but not every event is certain or likely to happen. Use a risk matrix to determine what the likely consequences are.

Don't use the word "severe" unless the risk includes fatalities. Don't use the word "certain" unless it is something which happens 100% of the time. Almost certain means it's an extremely frequent occurrence but you have to understand that regulators and law enforcement have limited resources. If they want to get you then they can get you on something, but it's unlikely they will come to get you in the current atmosphere.

Of course the political atmosphere can change.

So, the payment to Cryptonomex automatically is under scrutiny. You can understand, can't you, that Privacy Mode is not going to be popular with those in power? If either Cryptonomex or I create an asset and offer it for sale to the public it may fall under the definition of "security" by some gung ho regulator. Cryptonomex or I then must expend resources on defending against any such allegations.

It's not that simple. Some of those in power will like privacy mode and some wont. The government is not a monolith. Tor was funded by the Navy and government operatives have used Tor.

Also the "security" risk is non-exisent. if it is a risk then the risk matrix would force you to conclude that it's low. There has never once been a case which claimed any UIA, or digital asset, is a "security" by how you're defining it. Of course it could happen but you're assuming that if it does happen that it would happen to you?

Until the SEC starts prosecuting hundreds of people, I doubt you'd be on the radar but even if you are among the first then if it does happen you'd still end up paying a fine but so would a lot of others. This is why perhaps you would want to share the risks with the others.

If the feature is a success, there will be a pool of funds that may excite the jealous attention of many government authorities. That will be costly to counter.

If it's a success you'll have the money to counter. Right now the risk is low but the political climate can change depending on what happens and news coverage. In either case I doubt it's going to be treated as a security overnight.

If either the feature or BTS overall is not a success, then some disgruntled investor in an asset might complain to Big Brother, and I am not willing to take on that risk.

Couldn't someone inform on you for taxes? It's the tax risk which is actually higher.

In any case, this is why a group of people would have to fund the development instead of just you. Why should you take on all the risk? At the same time the witnesses are talking risks too. We simply don't know how the political climate will be in the future.

[Helikopterben]

"Looking at the numbers"
You're living in LaLa Land. My proposal is that the fee be 3x the regular transaction fee. How much is the transaction fee for a lifetime member again? And who do you think other than lifetime members is going to use such a feature? Private Mode transactions could be a tiny percentage of all transactions. And transactions now are very very few. I am risking a significant part of my life savings to help bootstrap BitShares. What are you doing?

That proves nothing.  Can someone else prove my numbers wrong and actually use real numbers to do it.

Stealth transfers cannot participate in the referral program. The fee for a stealth transfer can be higher (premium service) at about $0.50

Looking at the numbers.  If stealth transfers are charged $0.50 per transaction and you get $0.30 per transaction, then your $45,000 investment will be worth $157,680 in one year at a tx rate of just 1tx per minute.  At 1tx/sec (about half of bitcoins tx rate) that is $9,460,800 per year for a $45,000 investment.

Otherwise the numbers are correct.

[luckybit]

Thanks for the proposal.  I like the name Privacy Mode.

I think the main concern I have is that the community was most likely going to vote this feature in within 6 months to 1yr anyways.  The $45,000 cost for the network was most likely not the biggest issue, it was just the feature's priority.  There are probably a handful of people that really want to implement this feature now and don't want to wait, but it does not mean that they should have access to 60% lifetime royalties when it was planned to be implemented anyways. 

If we have royalties capped at $67,500-$90,000 so investors get up to twice their investment that seems more appropriate.  The community could have an option to buy out the feature via worker proposal in 1yr or 2yrs at those amounts.  Also what about competing Privacy Modes?  If this is not exclusive, then the royalties would be less of an issue and at least the platform would be open to competition, innovation and lower cost privacy solutions.

My expectation was always that this would be a core feature, and so the cost to the Bitshares ecosystem is the opportunity cost of the revenue stream this feature would have generated.   

Note: I'm less concerned about other non-core features that people want to introduce and 'privatize'.  Stealth transactions was expected to be implemented at 2.0 or soon after. 

Note2: I don't think those that introduce the feature will be exposed to regulatory risk.  There may be more scrutiny if a private individual or company is making money out of it.  I was just thinking about that issue now with Privatized bitAssets.

Another way to look at it is:

1.  We should reserve worker funds for that which can't be funded some other way.  To turn down outside investment is penny wise and bitshare foolish.

2.  BitShares needs to grow its capabilities as quickly as possible.  Waiting for next year when we might be able to afford to build it ourselves is not a wise strategy.  Its first and foremost about network effect.  Grow the pie, don't fight over each slice.

Applying these two principles will do more for the wealth of BitShares holders than trying to take more upside away from entrepreneurs.  Entrepreneurs are scarce and hard to attract.  We want a thousand new features to bloom. Fee Backed Assets could become THE killer reason to use BitShares, but only if there are lots of them.

Imagine an "App Store" where you can invest and trade shares in the Apps.

@Stan

In response to this, it's also a risk that those who make wealth might not be able to keep it. It's about creating wealth that people can actually keep. The main risk is that people associated with this particular feature make wealth, then lose it all in court, or lose it in taxes. So I would  say the risk of backing this feature is also the risk that somehow in the future whatever wealth you do get could be confiscated.

It's best left as a private asset than a worker proposal in my opinion because not everyone wants to gamble their life savings on this feature. The people who do are the people who are willing to buy the STEALTH asset. In that way the rewards would go directly to the people who take the risks.

I agree that most new features should be financed by entrepreneurs, not paid as BitShares workers.

Not sure how owning a FBA would have risk of confiscation beyond that of more ancient coins like a denarius or a bitcoin.

The risk I'm talking about is we don't know how tax authorities or politicians will crack down. France is talking about banning Tor. They want to ban encryption. There are many people who hate anonymity and secrecy.

So there are risks but we would hope the rewards outweigh the risks. In the case of Satoshi Dice the rewards did outweigh the risks. I would say in the current environment it's not particularly risky but the tax authority might confiscate retroactively or use some sort of retroactive law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law

[onceuponatime]

You missed the best part of my answer to you:

"Otherwise, I say UIA for development.  Some of the rest of us may want to get in on it."

Go ahead and organize it!   

So you are admitting my numbers are correct?

Looking at the numbers.  If stealth transfers are charged $0.50 per transaction and you get $0.30 per transaction, then your $45,000 investment will be worth $157,680 in one year at a tx rate of just 1tx per minute.  At 1tx/sec (about half of bitcoins tx rate) that is $9,460,800 per year for a $45,000 investment.

"Looking at the numbers"
You're living in LaLa Land. My proposal is that the fee be 3x the regular transaction fee. How much is the transaction fee for a lifetime member again? And who do you think other than lifetime members is going to use such a feature? Private Mode transactions could be a tiny percentage of all transactions. And transactions now are very very few. I am risking a significant part of my life savings to help bootstrap BitShares. What are you doing?


"Otherwise, I say UIA for development.  Some of the rest of us may want to get in on it."

Go ahead and organize it!  

[Helikopterben]

You missed the best part of my answer to you:

"Otherwise, I say UIA for development.  Some of the rest of us may want to get in on it."

Go ahead and organize it!   

So you are admitting my numbers are correct?

Looking at the numbers.  If stealth transfers are charged $0.50 per transaction and you get $0.30 per transaction, then your $45,000 investment will be worth $157,680 in one year at a tx rate of just 1tx per minute.  At 1tx/sec (about half of bitcoins tx rate) that is $9,460,800 per year for a $45,000 investment.

[onceuponatime]

What are you doing?

Not trying to get something for nothing.

You missed the best part of my answer to you:

"Otherwise, I say UIA for development.  Some of the rest of us may want to get in on it."

Go ahead and organize it!   

[Helikopterben]

Looking at the numbers.  If stealth transfers are charged $0.50 per transaction and you get $0.30 per transaction, then your $45,000 investment will be worth $157,680 in one year at a tx rate of just 1tx per minute.  At 1tx/sec (about half of bitcoins tx rate) that is $9,460,800 per year for a $45,000 investment. 

"Looking at the numbers"
You're living in LaLa Land. My proposal is that the fee be 3x the regular transaction fee. How much is the transaction fee for a lifetime member again? And who do you think other than lifetime members is going to use such a feature? Private Mode transactions could be a tiny percentage of all transactions. And transactions now are very very few. I am risking a significant part of my life savings to help bootstrap BitShares.   

on the first proposal from bytemaster it was stated

Stealth transfers cannot participate in the referral program. The fee for a stealth transfer can be higher (premium service) at about $0.50, with $0.10 going to the network and $0.40 going to the individual who funds this improvement to the GUI.  After the first 20 Million BTS worth of fees have been paid to this individual, the split would reverse, with $0.10 going to him and $0.40 going to the network.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I take this to mean that lifetime members will pay the same fee as everyone else.  If so, then the numbers are correct unless you can prove otherwise.

What are you doing?

Not trying to get something for nothing.