The Benefits of Proof of Work [BLOG POST]

[oldmine]

BitShares is a platform with as many lives as there are business models to be built on it.

Whenever I see a down day, I always remember this:  Are we better off now than we were when we started in 2013?

A fundraising mechanism to pay BM's rent is not a business model. Business models require profit. Where are the profits?

BitShares is the reason I dont have any Bitcoin right now, so Im not sure Im better off than in late 2013.

[r0ach]

Why is our platform essentially being overlooked?

That's the easiest question to answer this board has ever seen.  It's because Bitshares is designed by engineers for engineers.

1)  Bitshares is a lifestyle rather than a currency - The consensus mechanism requires constant user input and attention when the #1 thing people want out of a currency is straightforward simplicity.  If you wanted to keep voting for some reason, you would need a fallback mechanism that occurs when people don't vote, like automatically voting for whoever puts up the largest amount of collateral locked for an extended period of time.  Larimer's new blog post about PoW even favors scraping voting entirely for a collateral bid system where users are required to lock coins for a duration in order to be selected as miners/delegates.

2)  Bitshares is anti-new user with high barrier of entry - To lure in large amounts of new capital, it's required that people be able to buy their way in as delegates instead of having to campaign to become one.  The essence of all proof of stake systems relies on large investors not trying to destroy their investments on purpose, so it's completely foolish to try and diverge from that idea.  The campaigning part also creates centralization by having information gatekeepers control the election process, which currently consists of one website (this one).  You control the flow of information and you control the election process.

3)  The "shares" terminology probably never should have even been used in the first place - The native currency of any crypto will always be more important than any of it's derivatives.  "Smart coins" are by definition just a bucket shop.  The platform should be focused on the value of it's native currency over anything else.  Having an exchange or whatever is just a side benefit.

4)  Larimer insistence on running a business the opposite of how any normal business is run - Businesses in the real world run at a loss until they can attract clients.  Larimer keeps insisting Bitshares run at a profit when there are no actual customers using the platform for the system to generate profit from.  If there's only 1 user instead of your expected million users, you don't raise transaction fees on the 1 user to make up for it.

5)  Referral system - The vast majority of crypto users see the referral system as some kind of late night infomercial scheme that severely devalues the integrity of the product in general and will cause people to avoid Bitshares entirely

The list goes on....

[Thom]

Actually, I think we've been very clear.

I disagree. If you think your reply addresses the points mike623317 raised then your lessons in political doublespeak are truly paying off. I don't disagree with everything in your reply, but I do see it as avoiding the hard questions mike posed.

[Stan]

Actually, I think we've been very clear.

The DEX makes a great foundation but it needs volume to become competitive.  Ronny is working on that.

The referral program needs a competitive DEX or other useful services to reach it's potential. 

So its about adding those services.  That takes time and funding.

It's not about which services are the most valuable, that's always in the eye of the beholder.  It all comes down to what services some investor is willing to pay for.

BitShares has a say in what the community wants to fund.

Other sources of funds get their own say.

We've had a lot of marketing talent over the years try to figure out how to sell BitShares to the average consumer.  The lesson learned is that BitShares must be sold to entrepreneurs who use it to implement their visions and then THEY sell what they've built to THEIR end users.  We have TEN business developers out looking for partners and investors and I personally average one new contact per week.   Some share their plans with the community, some don't.  Some come here and get their heads handed to them and leave.  Ask yourselves if reading this thread would make such people want to adopt this community. 

But a few stick with us, perhaps because of my good looks.  As those who do persevere and see it through bring their customers to the ecosystem the DEX will see more usage and therefore gain liquidity and become competitive.

But what each entrepreneur decides to build depends on what her government will allow her to build and what her investors are willing to fund.

So passionate arguments about what should be or should have been done are moot.  The platform is there.  It is beautiful and getting more beautiful as fast as the community can afford to polish it.  Cryptonomex is building on it as fast as our own resources permit.

Meanwhile, each entrepreneur must pursue the vision they most passionately think they can achieve with their own skills and resources.   

And that is not a group decision.

[Thom]

It seems to me that several people in the bitcoin community have mentioned that our technology is great. Bitshares to do things theirs cant. The same for Ethereum. I think everyone agrees that the technology improved dramatically from bitshares 1.0 to 2.0, yet our market cap went down. Also, we seem to be consistently overlooked by the press each and every time. We dont have devs knocking down our doors even though the technology has been out there for a while now.

It makes me wonder if we need to ask some fundamental questions rather than just focusing on the UI or a particular new feature. Why is our platform essentially being overlooked? Why are the devs not getting involved like they do for ethereum? Why is our market cap not recovering? Is it perceived that one group has too much control? Is it our overall vision? Is it our documentation? Is there too much change? Is it not user friendly enough?

I don't know the answer but i would like to hear others opinions.

IMO these questions are spot on. I find it interesting they are not being addressed very well in this thread, at least not yet? We'll see.

Aside from all the push back I throw @Stan, I very much appreciate your last post. Perhaps it's overly optimistic, but would you expect otherwise? I wouldn't and that is as it should be. What I like about it is the summary, that we're much better off [technologically] than we were in 2013 or even a year ago.

What I don't like about it is that it avoids the fact that technology alone does not a successful company make. Mike's questions need solid answers and affirmative action to send a message to the crypto world that we have a plan (we don't seems to) and are taking steps to reduce the risk in using the BitShares platform as a basis to build business.

[r0ach]

This post honestly sounds like you did a 180 and now agree with what I said about scraping this current system and using a collateral bid system.  Mining is mostly just a futures contract, and the time opportunity cost of locking collateral is also a futures contract.  Locking collateral (collateral bids) to determine who the delegates are also solves the enormous problem in Bitshares of high barrier of entry in getting involved in the system.

The price has plummeted for 2 main reasons:

1)  Extreme barrier of entry in becoming a delegate if you don't utilize any type of collateral bid system.  People want the ability to be able to buy their way into the system and not have to campaign.

2)  You can't pretend you have a captive audience: 

A)  99% of people in crypto can't stand the referral system because it seems like some type of late night infomercial scheme.

B)  The fact that it raises transactions fees to be higher than normal and higher than most other coins is equally bad.  It doesn't matter that Bitcoin transactions will be expensive someday, you have to compete right now.

[Empirical1.2]

STAN "So, from our perspective, we can now do exciting new things with 10% of the resources it took to do the first one.  And so can everyone else with a vision.  Each can have its own brand and business model at a fraction of the startup costs. 

As a general purpose platform, BitShares is obviously much more useful and lower risk today than it was back when it was just a white paper.  "

Perhaps we need a clear and comprehensive white paper for everyone to reference or perhaps we just need a few good businesses to take us up and use as good examples. I can't help but feel sometimes were struggling to get the word out of exactly what we are, what exactly we can do etc. for example, some sort of sandbox area where we could have an example business, ACME, built on bitshares with well documented steps and references for others to follow. Like a 1, 2, 3 step by step guide using the platform. (Full disclosure .. Before I get ridiculed by the devs, I am not technical at all but as a layman how would I go about creating a business).

Look at the amount of businesses on NXT, XCP & MSC (17 of top 20) and their combined valuations http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/

BitShares still has a long way to go before it catches up/overtakes the existing market leaders in this area.

Worse, even when it does...  XCP + NXT + MSC = < $10 million

[mike623317]

STAN "So, from our perspective, we can now do exciting new things with 10% of the resources it took to do the first one.  And so can everyone else with a vision.  Each can have its own brand and business model at a fraction of the startup costs. 

As a general purpose platform, BitShares is obviously much more useful and lower risk today than it was back when it was just a white paper.  "

Perhaps we need a clear and comprehensive white paper for everyone to reference or perhaps we just need a few good businesses to take us up and use as good examples. I can't help but feel sometimes were struggling to get the word out of exactly what we are, what exactly we can do etc. for example, some sort of sandbox area where we could have an example business, ACME, built on bitshares with well documented steps and references for others to follow. Like a 1, 2, 3 step by step guide using the platform. (Full disclosure .. Before I get ridiculed by the devs, I am not technical at all but as a layman how would I go about creating a business).

[Stan]

Other alt coin didn't spend millions of dollars to "build features that adds values" . You can't seriously compare the downtrend with zero development shitcoins . Otherwise , you'll demonstrating that development did bitshares no good than other shitcoins .

Sometimes value is outside the control of things which are logical

Classic quote! 

Meme coins only have one life - they last as long as you can keep the meme going.

BitShares is a platform with as many lives as there are business models to be built on it.

Whenever I see a down day, I always remember this:  Are we better off now than we were when we started in 2013?

If we were willing to start a new business back then with nothing but Bitcoin to build on, how much more willing are we to start a new business today with the BitShares platform and community and team and experience to build on?  How much less does it cost to start a business with all that infrastructure in place than it did when we had nothing?

So, from our perspective, we can now do exciting new things with 10% of the resources it took to do the first one.  And so can everyone else with a vision.  Each can have its own brand and business model at a fraction of the startup costs. 

As a general purpose platform, BitShares is obviously much more useful and lower risk today than it was back when it was just a white paper. 

Those are the First Principles behind BitShares' ultimate value. 

Would we decide to invest again?  Yes!  Several times a year for the foreseeable future.

[monsterer]

Other alt coin didn't spend millions of dollars to "build features that adds values" . You can't seriously compare the downtrend with zero development shitcoins . Otherwise , you'll demonstrating that development did bitshares no good than other shitcoins .

Sometimes value is outside the control of things which are logical

[btswildpig]

It makes me wonder if we need to ask some fundamental questions rather than just focusing on the UI or a particular new feature. Why is our platform essentially being overlooked? Why are the devs not getting involved like they do for ethereum? Why is our market cap not recovering? Is it perceived that one group has too much control? Is it our overall vision? Is it our documentation? Is there too much change? Is it not user friendly enough?

I don't know the answer but i would like to hear others opinions.

IMO bitshares looks like toy experiment to the big players outside the industry because there are no whitepapers worth anything; so when the big players employ experts to do their analysis, they overlook bitshares because there is no formal analysis on the underlying technology, unlike ethereum/ripple which is replete with whitepapers and documentation.

edit: probably a lot of the downtrend is nothing do with bitshares at all. It's probable that all altcoins go through the exact same cycles. I bet if you overlay the lifetime price graphs of every altcoin in the top 10, they'll overlay exactly.

Other alt coin didn't spend millions of dollars to "build features that adds values" . You can't seriously compare the downtrend with zero development shitcoins . Otherwise , you'll demonstrating that development did bitshares no good than other shitcoins .

[monsterer]

It makes me wonder if we need to ask some fundamental questions rather than just focusing on the UI or a particular new feature. Why is our platform essentially being overlooked? Why are the devs not getting involved like they do for ethereum? Why is our market cap not recovering? Is it perceived that one group has too much control? Is it our overall vision? Is it our documentation? Is there too much change? Is it not user friendly enough?

I don't know the answer but i would like to hear others opinions.

IMO bitshares looks like toy experiment to the big players outside the industry because there are no whitepapers worth anything; so when the big players employ experts to do their analysis, they overlook bitshares because there is no formal analysis on the underlying technology, unlike ethereum/ripple which is replete with whitepapers and documentation.

edit: probably a lot of the downtrend is nothing do with bitshares at all. It's probable that all altcoins go through the exact same cycles. I bet if you overlay the lifetime price graphs of every altcoin in the top 10, they'll overlay exactly.

[mike623317]

It seems to me that several people in the bitcoin community have mentioned that our technology is great. Bitshares to do things theirs cant. The same for Ethereum. I think everyone agrees that the technology improved dramatically from bitshares 1.0 to 2.0, yet our market cap went down. Also, we seem to be consistently overlooked by the press each and every time. We dont have devs knocking down our doors even though the technology has been out there for a while now.

It makes me wonder if we need to ask some fundamental questions rather than just focusing on the UI or a particular new feature. Why is our platform essentially being overlooked? Why are the devs not getting involved like they do for ethereum? Why is our market cap not recovering? Is it perceived that one group has too much control? Is it our overall vision? Is it our documentation? Is there too much change? Is it not user friendly enough?

I don't know the answer but i would like to hear others opinions.

[betax]

On that note when are we getting the Brownies for the testnet ? <<hint>> <<hint>>

[betax]

Happy to hold do it, it makes sense to separate holders / investors than speculators. So far the only one that has benefit were speculators, I was thinking of switching to Brownies instead of BTS as at least I know the investment will be in the developers .