Why Vision Matters Blog Post

[Ben Mason]

I really get a kick out of all the people here who are so afraid of 1. An idea, and 2. Bytemaster in a leadership capacity... I hope the irony is not lost on anyone.   

Going into 2016 I would like to see a renewed focus on community and vision. Our community is the product we are selling so let’s give people a reason to join our community rather than offering them a service they can pay for like a customer.  Lets focus on helping one another and being a place where others would like to be rather than being self-centered individuals complaining about how the breadcrumbs are divided. Let’s adopt an attitude of abundance and love rather than one of scarcity.  As our attitude changes so will our community and the value of BTS will grow to give us the abundance our combined society can generate.

This has been my feeling from the beginning.  I heartily 2nd the push for such a renewed focus and happy to see it being expressed by you here @bytemaster.

To those of you who have such reactionary fear over these ideas... whoa.. slow down and breathe!  These ideas aren't competing with the DEX, or even challenging it, they are in a whole other complimentary domain.  I understand the desire for focus, but there are a lot of us here, with different talents, and collectively we should have more than enough focus to advance on several fronts simultaneously.

For me personally, I can sell a movement, I can bring the masses into a movement.  What's hard for me is selling a DEX.  So when you fight against these ideas you're fighting against potential allies, and current allies such as me, who can access new demographics for BitShares in ways we never could with just a DEX.  The DEX is great, don't get me wrong, but it's got around .003% sex appeal, intrigue, and excitement to anyone outside of the crypto space.

Loved your words here....

[jakub]

I haven't forgotten the DEX, it is a critical component. I have just learned through experience that selling a DEX is a hard niche market.

Please, someone tell me the market value of Poloniex.. how much is their exchange worth?  How much is BitStamp worth?  BitFinex?    The combined revenue of all crypto currency exchanges is less than $25 million per year.  If we assume these exchanges operate with a 50% profit margin then that means $12 million per year in profit.  Based upon a 5% dividend, this would put the combined value of all exchanges in the cryptocurrency space at  $240M dollars and my guess is that is very high.

So if BitShares grew to become the only exchange in the entire market it would be worth at most 24x its current valuation. 

For me the DEX itself has never been the actual product that I've been trying to sell people. I fully agree that there is only a handful of people who are interested in trading cryptocurrencies and that really is a small niche market.

Instead I've tried to sell all those financial instruments that the DEX enables or could enable in the future. Smartcoins are great for average Joe, they can have all the benefits that bitcoin has with price stability. With bond market, UIAs, FBAs, etc. they can eventually move pretty much all of their own personal economy to the Bitshares blockchain.

The next financial crisis is coming. Instead of just trying to help people who will suffer from it, we should be focusing on building a better financial platform. We have to be ready to welcome millions of people who will be betrayed by their banks and governments. IMO that is a lot more effective way of helping than just giving some money to suffering people.

For me Bitshares has been the best way to make profitable financial revolution. I hope it will remain like that in the future too.

I think somebody here has said "go big or go home". That's the thinking I'd like to apply to the DEX. Let's not get stuck into that what it could do right now for the cryptotraders, but let's try to use it for something much bigger financial instruments. Morpheus mentioned the derivatives market, I also consider it as the gold mine.

Just look at this infographic.

Bitcoin is valued because of the COMMUNITY of freedom activists that are using it and promoting it.  It has no revenue based valuation.  A DEX doesn't inspire a community following like Bitcoin has.   

Nope. I have to strongly disagree here.

While I still hang out with bitcoinists and agree that there are lots of good people there, I think the whole community sucks. Just look at how they are debating right now about blocksize. Full of arrogant people who can't reach a consensus on a civilized manner (of course a big deal here is that Bitcoin doesn't actually have any mechanisms to make decisions on the blockchain level like Bitshares has, that makes this whole thing more difficult).

And most of Bitcoin's value comes from people who don't care about freedom, they just want to get rich. They are waiting for price to go up. If you remove all these investors and speculators, Bitcoin will lose most of it's value immediately.

This is why I think Bitshares also needs people who just want to get rich. If we build a community that consists of only freedom fighters, it will be very small and poor community.

My initial reaction to this new vision is that you are shifting away from making the blockchain and businesses around it profitable to build some kind of hippiestyle "peace & love, let's help each others" community.

You have to also remember that building a community (mainly) for libertarians is really hard. Libertarians are like cats, it's almost impossible to herd them.

 
I fully agree with this.

If CNX does not want to offer worker proposals for developing DEX, we need to attract another blockchain company that will be able to do that.
This way we can have *real* choice between DEX and MAS.

[kenCode]

wow, nice post @Samupaha

[Samupaha]

I haven't forgotten the DEX, it is a critical component. I have just learned through experience that selling a DEX is a hard niche market.

Please, someone tell me the market value of Poloniex.. how much is their exchange worth?  How much is BitStamp worth?  BitFinex?    The combined revenue of all crypto currency exchanges is less than $25 million per year.  If we assume these exchanges operate with a 50% profit margin then that means $12 million per year in profit.  Based upon a 5% dividend, this would put the combined value of all exchanges in the cryptocurrency space at  $240M dollars and my guess is that is very high.

So if BitShares grew to become the only exchange in the entire market it would be worth at most 24x its current valuation. 

For me the DEX itself has never been the actual product that I've been trying to sell people. I fully agree that there is only a handful of people who are interested in trading cryptocurrencies and that really is a small niche market.

Instead I've tried to sell all those financial instruments that the DEX enables or could enable in the future. Smartcoins are great for average Joe, they can have all the benefits that bitcoin has with price stability. With bond market, UIAs, FBAs, etc. they can eventually move pretty much all of their own personal economy to the Bitshares blockchain.

The next financial crisis is coming. Instead of just trying to help people who will suffer from it, we should be focusing on building a better financial platform. We have to be ready to welcome millions of people who will be betrayed by their banks and governments. IMO that is a lot more effective way of helping than just giving some money to suffering people.

For me Bitshares has been the best way to make profitable financial revolution. I hope it will remain like that in the future too.

I think somebody here has said "go big or go home". That's the thinking I'd like to apply to the DEX. Let's not get stuck into that what it could do right now for the cryptotraders, but let's try to use it for something much bigger financial instruments. Morpheus mentioned the derivatives market, I also consider it as the gold mine.

Just look at this infographic.

Bitcoin is valued because of the COMMUNITY of freedom activists that are using it and promoting it.  It has no revenue based valuation.  A DEX doesn't inspire a community following like Bitcoin has.   

Nope. I have to strongly disagree here.

While I still hang out with bitcoinists and agree that there are lots of good people there, I think the whole community sucks. Just look at how they are debating right now about blocksize. Full of arrogant people who can't reach a consensus on a civilized manner (of course a big deal here is that Bitcoin doesn't actually have any mechanisms to make decisions on the blockchain level like Bitshares has, that makes this whole thing more difficult).

And most of Bitcoin's value comes from people who don't care about freedom, they just want to get rich. They are waiting for price to go up. If you remove all these investors and speculators, Bitcoin will lose most of it's value immediately.

This is why I think Bitshares also needs people who just want to get rich. If we build a community that consists of only freedom fighters, it will be very small and poor community.

My initial reaction to this new vision is that you are shifting away from making the blockchain and businesses around it profitable to build some kind of hippiestyle "peace & love, let's help each others" community.

You have to also remember that building a community (mainly) for libertarians is really hard. Libertarians are like cats, it's almost impossible to herd them.

[kenCode]

Building a next generation exchange is not trivial and it's nowhere close to being done.  I doubt shareholders will approve anything not related to the dex.

Agreed. We first need to finalize DEX and make it profitable. Without any profit from our product, we cannot be sustainable.

Agreed. Stay focused Dan, please.
 
Also, there are a ton of spelling and grammar errors on that post, just fyi. Not that it matters really, it was just kind of distracting.

[jakub]

Adding new applications to the BitShares platform does not constitute any kind of a turn.

1)  Stealth
2)  Maker
3)  Lending (Bond) market
4)  Prediction market
5)  MAS

We now have 5 and may well have a dozen such candidate businesses by this time next year.
In the mean time, each candidate needs a champion willing to raise or supply the cash to develop it.

Here is the manipulation, Stan: the above list is purely theoretical at this stage.
You pretend we have a choice but actually we don't.

As long as CNX is the only player capable of implementing changes affecting BitShares protocol - this is a one-man show.
DPOS and shareholders voting on worker proposals is pure fiction at this stage.

We (the shareholders) did not have a choice between Stealth and Maker. We were offered Stealth or nothing. So we chose Stealth.
Now again the same thing is happening: we do not have a choice between DEX and MAS. We are offered MAS or nothing.

So my appeal to CNX is this: be fair and offer us a choice. You are welcome to propose a vision but do not force this vision upon us (the shareholders).
And to have a choice we must wait till there is at least one more development team in the ecosystem capable of offering worker proposals as complex as Prediction Markets or Maker.
Then CNX will have every right to propose MAS as an alternative to DEX and let the shareholders actually choose between MAS and DEX (or choose to finance both).

I don't want to have developers who have a vision.
I want developers who are happy to be paid for implementing the vision of the shareholders.

As we have it now, it got all mixed up: we have developers and vision creators as one entity.
Which leaves us with this "choice": share their vision or sell.

[bitacer]

"For riches, don't you see, are not a little more or a little less money. They are bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, fuel to warm you, oil to lengthen the day, a career open to your son, a certain portion for your daughter, a day of rest after fatigue, a cordial for the faint, a little assistance slipped into the hand of a poor man, a shelter from the storm, a diversion for a brain worn by thought, the incomparable pleasure of making those happy who are dear to us. Riches are education, independence, dignity, confidence, charity; they are progress and civilization. Riches are the admirable civilizing result of two admirable agents, more civilizing even than riches themselves — labor and exchange."

What is Money,  F. Bastiat. http://bastiat.org/en/what_is_money.html

[Empirical1.2]

The DEX is "done" except for perhaps the MAKER proposal which isn't even necessary.  SVK and CASS are working on improving the User Interface of the DEX.  Michael is working on improving the API to be similar to poloniex. 

The key to bootstrapping any exchange is having UNIQUE assets to trade.  This is something that FBA and new business models will have.

I haven't forgotten the DEX, it is a critical component. I have just learned through experience that selling a DEX is a hard niche market.

Banking partners are telling all blockchain companies the same thing: "we don't want your chain, we want our own".   Anyone holding out for banking partners getting on board any existing public chain in a meaningful way needs a wakeup call.   

BitShares needs to provide VALUE to the average joe.  A DEX doesn't provide that value on its own.  A bond market doesn't provide that value on its own. 

Selling people "peace of mind" and an opportunity to "change the world" and "fight the empire" and "fight Obamacare" is a much easier sell in my own market research.

Please, someone tell me the market value of Poloniex.. how much is their exchange worth?  How much is BitStamp worth?  BitFinex?    The combined revenue of all crypto currency exchanges is less than $25 million per year.  If we assume these exchanges operate with a 50% profit margin then that means $12 million per year in profit.  Based upon a 5% dividend, this would put the combined value of all exchanges in the cryptocurrency space at  $240M dollars and my guess is that is very high.

So if BitShares grew to become the only exchange in the entire market it would be worth at most 24x its current valuation. 

Bitcoin is valued because of the COMMUNITY of freedom activists that are using it and promoting it.  It has no revenue based valuation.  A DEX doesn't inspire a community following like Bitcoin has.   

Lets gain some perspective before calling for the DEX to be "finished" as if that will magically make BTS grow in value 10x.

I knew diluting for the DEX wasn't worth giving up a growing crypto-currency for & I also knew banks would want their own blockchain so saw limited value in Identabit.

As for valuations Coinbase was valued at $400 million, early 2015 with revenues >$10 million
https://veritaseum.com/index.php/learn/tag/Coinbase

The DEX is quite different as it allows Bitcurrencies, commodities and stocks. The market potential for the most widely adopted decentralised BitUSD is potentially larger than BTC in 5 years, so this is what I personally think has value.

BTC usage increases drastically in countries experiencing capital controls/banking problems/rapid devaluations. In these scenarios BTC becomes favourable despite its volatility but a strong BitUSD is even better suited to this task. (BitUSD is better for trade too.)

Uphold (Formerly BitReserve) would be better to look at, they offer centralised BitAssets, they started after BTS. The were valued at $90 million early 2015 but they're already 'supposedly' the fastest growing money platform in the world, with over '$600 million in transfers. So they're probably looking more towards a PayPal, $45 Billion future on the back of their BitAsset & payments platform than just a crypto-currency exchange. I think the future for the decentralised BitAsset leader is even brighter.

Today they just announced they accept China UnionPay
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uphold-now-accepts-china-unionpay-000000459.html

(Also BTC has very little to do with freedom activists that are promoting it imo. A limited globally accessible currency fills a real market need in countries with capital controls, banking problems and rapid devaluations. It was also useful for more private trade, gambling and to a lesser degree remittances and payments & also attracts a lot of speculative capital and has currency safe haven in SHTF scenarios like gold but can be moved across borders. Due to first mover advantage it became the most widely used and accepted crypto-currency so continues to suck up the majority of new demand up until a major flaw is exploited or a vastly superior competitor like BTSX with BitUSD comes along.)

[NewMine]

Hey, what happened to that Vote DAC\FollowmyVote game change crap from over a year ago? Is this another issue du jour to distract you and the koolaid drinkers from actually attaining any inkling of what was in that original white paper near 2 and a half years ago?

I am actually wondering if money is the issue or if BM is one of those people who never sees things through? Perhaps afraid of failure, so everything is always in a state of perpetual alteration. Or maybe a self saboteur and he doesn't realize it?

Nah, its all about the money as usual. Cant keep collecting if the product is finished.

Banking partners are telling all blockchain companies the same thing: "we don't want your chain, we want our own".   Anyone holding out for banking partners getting on board any existing public chain in a meaningful way needs a wakeup call.   

Wow. Weren't you guys the ones selling that idea 6 months ago and keeping a big secret about it? That CNX was talking to a bank, but woukdntnsay which or what about. Care to disclose that information since it is no longer even a viable idea? Or was another spew of misinformation to rally the troops a bit longer? Kind of like, marketing, Votes secret sauce, Overstock, Kevin Harrington, the merger, identabit, both lottoshares..... I wonder when Bts2.0 and 100,000 tps falls into that same list?

[lovejoy]

I can't wait to see how excited people are about this proposal when bitshares market cap is sub 4 million... As we just got confirmation from cnx that the value of bts is no longer a priority. Becoming a charity while fighting obamacare is now the main goal.

Also don't forget about the fba's adding constant selling pressure to bts.  You get to pay for all these "features" indirectly  even if you don't support them.  It's truly incredible how bitshares shareholders are raked across the coals.

With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Straw men aside, all of you trolling a discussion on "Why Vision Matters" hoping that for all the world your bleak worldview isn't just the cloudy mirror of your own jaded hearts, my sympathies.

To those who think that passion is not the driving force in world history and the impulse of every creative endeavor, ever, sleep on.

We don't build bridges except to cross chasms, and we cross chasms to connect with one another.  With this as our goal we will not easily succumb to the phantoms of division and fear wailing below.

We will continue to create ever more adaptable and effective systems to advance the universal enterprise of liberty.

There is no dam which can contain the tides of humanity striving for their natural freedoms on this living earth.
BitShares is a protean force of oceanic dimensions, and we may be fishers upon these waters.

So weave, or cut nets... either way, the sea is rising.

[morpheus]

So if BitShares grew to become the only exchange in the entire market it would be worth at most 24x its current valuation. 

You should also factor in the $1.2 trillion global derivatives market... and bts collateral needed to make that happen.  Right now bitshares is the only working chain with derivative-based assets.  If liquidity is not entering the system, then we need to change market rules or parameters, implement maker, lending, or some other change that may help, not just give up and say it is finished.  If you pivot away or even divert your attention then you risk becoming a jack of all trades and master of none.   

[rajarush]

That 240M valuation of exchange market is so stupid. OMG you worked in exchange for years and this calculation is what you have? Bitcoin has value because of freedom activitist? You can't be more stupid, seriously can't. Ur own market research told you "change the world" is easier to sell? Stupidity will laugh at you. You are too over.

[fav]

visions and dreams are important to move on, but we must not forget the reality in the process.

[onceuponatime]

I can't wait to see how excited people are about this proposal when bitshares market cap is sub 4 million... As we just got confirmation from cnx that the value of bts is no longer a priority. Becoming a charity while fighting obamacare is now the main goal.

Also don't forget about the fba's adding constant selling pressure to bts.  You get to pay for all these "features" indirectly  even if you don't support them.  It's truly incredible how bitshares shareholders are raked across the coals.

How exactly, do you think, are "fba's adding constant selling pressure to bts"?

And your mis-characterization of "the main goal" is juvenile sophistry, unworthy of informed debate.

What is your objective?

[lil_jay890]

I can't wait to see how excited people are about this proposal when bitshares market cap is sub 4 million... As we just got confirmation from cnx that the value of bts is no longer a priority. Becoming a charity while fighting obamacare is now the main goal.

Also don't forget about the fba's adding constant selling pressure to bts.  You get to pay for all these "features" indirectly  even if you don't support them.  It's truly incredible how bitshares shareholders are raked across the coals.