Someone Give Me a Reason To Keep Holding BTS

[clout]

@clout
You are being ridiculous for faulting Bitshares for not attracting large banking partners. No decentralized cryptocurrency has been able to do that, yet Bitshares should have been able to.... give me a break. Have you missed all of the recent articles that all of the large banks are all developing their own private blockchains? Sadly, Identabit is going nowhere. Banks want 100% of the pie and 100% control. It is the sad reality of the matter.

I said nothing about large Banks using bitshares...Why do you think BM created CNX? Because he realized that people wanted to build their own private blockchains and figured the bitshares devs could make money through building private blockchains and consulting on blockchain tech. The werent able to do that, which tells me that they will never be able to get the connections necessary to get CNX off the ground let alone BTS.

[oldmine]

BTS has never ever been profitable

This is not a true statement.. you must be new around here.

You need to learn patience, it is a good skill to have in life. We can't build a billion dollar company without dilution to fund the development of our product. Ending dilution (and therefore development) this early in the game would be a death sentence to Bitshares. If you don't like it please sell your stake and let those that share the vision reap the rewards.

Caring so much is a good indication you have not diversified your cryptocurrency portfolio sufficiently. The only coin I own more than 6% of my portfolio in is Bitcoin.

Let me correct myself - BitShares hasnt been profitable ever since we started diluting.

We should stop diluting soon, i.e. give it 1 more year of development. How much longer can holders continue subsidizing?

[clout]

WOW! Hold the horse. There is only one correct form of dividend: putting real money into my wallet on regular schedule. All other forms of dividend is scam. BTS delivers no dividend. Zero. For this reason, it is nothing more than a collateral token. This is a good reason to keep it, but don't tell people that it is something more than it is.

Warren Buffet would disagree with you, and the empirical evidence that this method can work is Berkshire Hathaway.

You can't seriously mention WB in reference to crypto...

WB said stay away from bitcoin in 2015.  Bitcoin was the best performing currency in the world in 2015 up 39% against the $.

http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-money-tips-for-2015-2014-12?utm_content=buffera0c03&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

WB buys shares of companies because it gives him a stake in the cash flow and other s will be willing to purchase that stake in the future given the fundamentals of the company. BTS and other cryptos do not give you a stake in earnings so WB would not have anything to positive to say about them. WB also said not to invest in internet based companies, many of which have outperformed Berkshire. Its not that he's wrong, its just not his strategy. I was just pointing out that crypto isn't something WB would be confident about so why invoke him in reference to crypto. Doesnt make sense

[CoinHoarder]

BTS has never ever been profitable

This is not a true statement.. you must be new around here.

and has no prospect of ever becoming so with the current dilution rates. Bytemaster seems to have given up on achieving profitability. All he says now is "real companies go through rounds of dilution to grow", etc. Therefore BitShares is so far not a profitable company, its just a fundraising scheme for BM & CNX to pay their rent. Thats fine, but it cant go on forever.

Give Me a Reason to Hold BTS - when are we going to stop dilution and become profitable?

You need to learn patience, it is a good skill to have in life. We can't build a billion dollar company without dilution to fund the development of our product. Ending dilution (and therefore development) this early in the game would be a death sentence to Bitshares. If you don't like it please sell your stake and let those that share the vision reap the rewards.

Caring so much is a good indication you have not diversified your cryptocurrency portfolio sufficiently. The only coin I own more than 6% of my portfolio in is Bitcoin.

[oldmine]

I agree that share buyback can be a legitimate source of dividends, which is why Im holding on to my bts.

BUT (huge fat but)

BTS has never ever been profitable, and has no prospect of ever becoming so with the current dilution rates. Bytemaster seems to have given up on achieving profitability. All he says now is "real companies go through rounds of dilution to grow", etc. Therefore BitShares is so far not a profitable company, its just a fundraising scheme for BM & CNX to pay their rent. Thats fine, but it cant go on forever.

Give Me a Reason to Hold BTS - when are we going to stop dilution and become profitable?

[kenCode]

Dan basically said 'dilute and pay a shitload for FMV otherwise i'm gone'.

It owns the majority of the witness spots via inits or CNX minions.

If CNX wants bts to survive, it needs to distribute it's knowledge monopoly.  It needs to come up with features that it thinks need to be implemented, but give them to another developer to do and implement.  This will at least distribute the knowledge centralization that CNX has.

My teams are distributed all over the world (Latvia, Ukraine, Turkey, etc) but I just don't have the income yet to pay any more of them to take over some of the graphene core jobs. I have them laser focused on the mobile wallets (try out the alpha7 download!) and POS systems (if OPENPOS is funded, these will be done by March). I can tell you that at least 2 companies that have worked with cxn have contacted me recently to get them out of their predicament.
 
Please do not call Dan's co-workers minions, those guys are outstanding at what they do and what they have accomplished in a very short amount of time. I would be proud to work with them any day.
 
I have 5 people right now who are getting pretty damn graphene savvy. The more docs @xeroc puts out there, the easier it is for me to get new devs up to speed. It takes me a couple weeks to get their crosstraining rolling, but once they are in our skype group, the knowledge really flows, it's a beautiful thing. It's what I'm good at, building DAC's.
 
So, please @clout keep holding your BTS, there is hope.
With your support, there's nothing I can't build, always on time and on budget. I need you, we ALL need you.

[Ben Mason]

At this point the only reason to invest in BTS is Identabit, but even that is dubious. I love that no one mentioned that. The features aren't the problem, its the resources, connections and funding that are.

If you have sold a month ago, what is the purpose of op? It seems disingenuous. Also you make statements like the one quoted as if it were fact. I am excited about Identabit and wish the project the very best, but it has not yet launched. I find it curious that you would claim it as the only reason to invest in BTS....which has an incredibly powerful product launched, active network, existing community, active funding and is being actively developed.

How is it disingenuous if I actively manage a BTS position?

I say that Identabit is the only reason I'd consider holding BTS because the product as it stands is useless. It doesn't matter if the tech is good no one is using. Bitshares has little to no connection to broader financial and payment system. If you can get money transmitters then theres a different story. If you can make the entire system regulatory compliant then there's a different story. If you can get venture capital backing then theres a different story. This is Identabits approach.

The community is getting smaller and smaller by the day. I've been here from pretty much the beginning. This community is a lot smaller than you are suggesting and those that have faithfully believed in this project have lost a lot of their capital.

The software development also is slow and the team is small, both in relation to other crypto projects and those business Bitshares is attempting to compete with.

Connection to the old, corrupt, falling apart legacy financial system is of dubious longterm value. The real value of BitShares is in being an alternative with integrity. There is no way the incumbent financial system is going to empower a replacement that they don't have direct control over.

I haven't referenced the size of the community at all. I don't know if it's bigger or smaller, though the composition is undoubtedly changing....I see it as a forging process. For every sell there is a buy.
From my perspective, the development process has been fast but more important is the quality.  There is nothing like BitShares in the whole world, we are simply in competition for the hearts and minds of people everywhere. The idea that success or failure can be measured in a couple of years for a platform this ambitious and disruptive is absolutely ludicrous. Had you held your BTS, would you be happy if in 5 years they had increased significantly in value? We will get there, we simply need to work harder and smarter for longer.

[luckybit]

If you have to ask this question then maybe it's time for you to sell.

If you cannot find an objective and rational reason to hold, to stay, then perhaps you shouldn't.

I feel like bitshares is stuck between is it a platform for other businesses/developers to build on or is it an exchange company?

In either case there are design issues.  For example no way people are going to build on a platform where in order to get your app/business on you have to get people to vote for it etc.

Alternatively look at ethereum...its clearly a platform that wants others to build on top of it.  And many have already.

We all have complains and concerns. I've complained about the lack of micropayment capability as being a main hindering factor. I've complained about the lack of bonds or similar functionality as being a limiting factor. Of course there is no place to collect yield in Bitshares 2.0, so of course there are a lot less people holding in Bitshares 2.0. What did anyone expect?

And of course BitUSD isn't successful because without micropayments it never will be. People around the world and in poorer parts of the US are getting paid in what Silicon Valley developers would call micropayments. Without the ability to pay micropayments you miss the majority of payment types which take place online.

Now it's time to be tough. You can either hold no matter what, even if BTS goes to  0.001 and lower, and wait the situation out, or you can sell now and get out before the next seemingly inevitable price drop. Until the exchange has bond markets, lots of unique assets, prediction markets, stealth, and we have micropayments, we can't really say Bitshares 2.0 is good enough to deserve a $100,0,000,000 marketcap or even a $50,000,000 marketcap.

Bitshares is at a low price because that is where it's current utility is. Unless more utility is built around it, it's not supposed to be priced higher than it's worth. Ethereum is actually over priced due to hype and should be $20,000,000 or less, but it's Ethereum.

Hahah i don't know why you're stuck on micropayments. That's simply not where the money is.

I sold a month or so ago when Dan made the post about vision. I realized then that this going nowhere. Dan's too much of an idealist and this project has lived and died by that ethos.

A currency lives and dies on micropayments. Micropayments are the only reason people will adopt cryptocurrency at all. It's not like people aren't already getting paid in their local currencies so why would they care about BitUSD or BitCNY or any of these strange niche currencies that can't even do micropayments?

On the other hand once they can do micropayments and people gain some experience with them, the size of the community grows. Even if it grows bottom up, from the poorest on up, it's still able to grow. While now it's not growing very much because only rich people are being targeted and expected to buy BTS without anything they can do with it.

If there is no yield you shouldn't expect to attract rich people to hold anything.

[MarkoPaasila]

I don't know why I expected this project to be further along. Maybe I thought it was an actual business that was being cultivated, but I realize now that is not the case. It doesn't matter what the underlying software can do or not, CNX can't get funding, they can't produce a competitive exchange and don't know the market they are entering into. Bitshares, if looked at as a company, can't be run by a community of individuals that do not know or entirely trust each other. I don't have the answers for how to turn things around, but I see the same mistakes continually being made and I don't have a reason to stay anymore.

Complaining is easy, but if you put things in the right perspective you might have the reason to hold. You might not actually know how hard it is to bring something completely new to market and create a profitable business. Here are some brilliant people working and trying to make something sustainable and profitable, and it's still way too early to tell which crypto's will succeed in the end. No cryptocurrency is actually used (arguably) in the real world yet, other than for speculation, so there is no reason to be upset if bitshares isn't. When bitshares succeeds, you will make a profit too -by just holding. You could listen to the hangouts and Beyond Bitcoin and notice how smart the people working for you are.
I my eyes the best things about bitshares are 1) It has the most sustainable long-term funding/incentive model of any crypto-project and 2) It has the most impressive technology. What a combination actually! Just think about NXT. What will be the long term incentive to keep developing the platform once the major stakeholders have made all the profit they can? Now it might seem good, but it will be interesting to see where it goes when it gets harder to make profit. The long-term funding model of Ethereum isn't clear either. They actually just hope for the best, like bitcoin. Bitshares has an actual plan.
One more reason to hold bitshares is to concieve some business that utilizes cryptocurrencies. If I was to create a business today, which needed a cryptocurrency, I would try to implement it on bitshares first because it is the most efficient (cheapest, quickest), it has an internal exchange (broader market, less risk), and it has a long term plan (less risk again). Those are three crucial elements, which set bitshares apart from most other crypto's.

[testz]

You can expect further abuse of shareholders, while changing the rules so frequently that no business can start much less survive... All while staying financially and intellectually centralized by CNX.  Todays whale slaying just gives more concentrated power to CNX.

But remember... this whole price drop is because of negative people on the forum who scare away investors...lol

Please give the name and date of the last unnecessary 5 rule changes (outside the batch upgrade to 2.0 which implemented all the lessons learned from the previous year).

Please give one thing CNX has done to prevent decentralization.

No concentration in power distribution, since for every seller there was a buyer.

And yes, price is a function of supply and demand and pessimistic, negative vibs on this forum can't help but cut into demand from people we refer here for the first time.  It's called negative marketing.  It's what trolls do.

The upgrade to 2.0 killed or critically damaged several companies trying to build on bts (moonstone, metaexchange says its one of the hardest API's to integrate, all the sqr and arbitrarily implemented shorting rules that smoked many shorts, improperly communicated hardforks with exchanges).  Not counting the merger which started the price crushing, in which Dan basically said 'dilute and pay a shitload for FMV otherwise i'm gone'.

BTS is centralized because CNX can push through anything it wants... It owns the majority of the witness spots via inits or CNX minions.  CNX has control over by far the largest proxies.  People are afraid Dan is going to do what he did during the merger again (via MAS) and he has the ability to do it right now.

If CNX wants bts to survive, it needs to distribute it's knowledge monopoly.  It needs to come up with features that it thinks need to be implemented, but give them to another developer to do and implement.  This will at least distribute the knowledge centralization that CNX has.

"Knowledge monopoly" in open source project!?

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

@clout

You are being ridiculous for faulting Bitshares for not attracting large banking partners. No decentralized cryptocurrency has been able to do that, yet Bitshares should have been able to.... give me a break. 

Have you missed all of the recent articles that all of the large banks are all developing their own private blockchains? Sadly, Identabit is going nowhere. Banks want 100% of the pie and 100% control. It is the sad reality of the matter.

You're talking about the big banks. And largely, I agree. They'll take one look at our DPOS proposal debates and say 'no thanks'. They sure as hell won't put their back end on this blockchain while it's under decentralized control. BUT if enough smaller and mid-sized businesses give it a try, recognizing how much money it saves them and all the advantages it holds, there is a real chance that: (a) we add sufficient scale to start growing, and (b) that stability, which must be longer term in terms of governance (and not just one change after another, as we've seen in recent years/months), then that may attract some larger organizations. Our witnesses and committees and whoever the hoo-ha's are will be a lot less inclined to make changes on a whim when all of us have a vested interest in letting the system grow and prosper, which can only happen with stability and predictability. In my mind, there's a big difference between those BIG banks and everyone else.

Same with venture capitalists... they are only investing in Bitcoin companies, or brand new cryptocurrencies/side chains with which they can have a large part of the pie. I haven't seen any VC money going into any established alternative cryptocurrencies which have been around for a while. Again, how can you fault Bitshares for this when no established alternative cryptocurrencies are succeeding in this department..

Not entirely true. FBAs are going to be extraordinarily well received by VCs... I already know.

Also more sophisticated VCs can understand the value proposition Bitshares offers depending on how it is being presented and by whom.

However, we are just coming out of the holiday season with little more than 2 months from the MVP launch of 2.0. The story really hasn't gotten out there as much as Bitcoin has. So to expect everyone to be banging on the door now is far to premature.

Only ones coming in now are by way of current holders that had connections to partners that got them in the know before 2.0 launched.

As mentioned in my previous post, people should really wait six more months.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

If you think the reason for holding bitshares is Identabit then you need to get your facts straight.

If you really think that is where the value is, you should be converting all your BTS into BROWNIE.PTS.. if I recall correctly, the sharedrop on BROWNIES was going to be significantly higher than any other sharedrop.

Secondly, Identabit isn't even going to be built on Bitshares, it's suppose to be a side chain that is built with Graphene.. at least that was the original idea.

IF there is anything to happen in regards to an Identabit launch, and your grand plan for returns is the anticipated sharedrop, then the price changes should mean nothing for two reasons. One, doesn't matter, you still get your Identabit shares (assuming they choose a genesis time that works for your holders). Two, it's going to be YEARS until you see any real movement on that front. They are banks, that's all I need to say.

So for those two reasons and your anticipation of value in BTS to be in Identabit, you should be holding BROWNIES.PTS and should not be paying any attention when other unrelated markets (Shanghai) cause BTS value to fall on the downward pressure of whales selling out to cover other losses.

To state the obvious.. do not consider this investment advice.

Further to this... I noticed that you defined Bitshares as a financial platform and tool. That outlook and limited definition really puts on blinders to everything else that is happening and can happen with Bitshares now.

It has been repeated so many times over the past months about the Bitshares PLATFORM being about to support different businesses, yet this thread shows the focus is all around copying financial instruments that have been done and redone that all require MASSIVE efforts and resources to pull off as being what is really needed (it takes more than just coding something). I don't believe any of those things are really going to be what carries Bitshares forward and up any time soon.

There is much more low hanging fruit out there that can be accessed easier and faster.

I think you are going to see things outside of the financial sector that are going to be built with the bitshares platform.. while they take advantage of features like the DEX in their operations, they will have other primary functions that will generate transactions.

You can do what you like.. and nobody here needs to convince you of anything.. and frankly to make decisions on forum responses from a bunch of mostly anonymous aliases would be just outright irresponsible. That said, I am quite certain anybody selling off now will be regretting it within six months from now

[CoinHoarder]

@clout

You are being ridiculous for faulting Bitshares for not attracting large banking partners. No decentralized cryptocurrency has been able to do that, yet Bitshares should have been able to.... give me a break. 

Have you missed all of the recent articles that all of the large banks are all developing their own private blockchains? Sadly, Identabit is going nowhere. Banks want 100% of the pie and 100% control. It is the sad reality of the matter.

You're talking about the big banks. And largely, I agree. They'll take one look at our DPOS proposal debates and say 'no thanks'. They sure as hell won't put their back end on this blockchain while it's under decentralized control. BUT if enough smaller and mid-sized businesses give it a try, recognizing how much money it saves them and all the advantages it holds, there is a real chance that: (a) we add sufficient scale to start growing, and (b) that stability, which must be longer term in terms of governance (and not just one change after another, as we've seen in recent years/months), then that may attract some larger organizations. Our witnesses and committees and whoever the hoo-ha's are will be a lot less inclined to make changes on a whim when all of us have a vested interest in letting the system grow and prosper, which can only happen with stability and predictability. In my mind, there's a big difference between those BIG banks and everyone else.

It's a similar story with venture capitalists... they are only investing in Bitcoin companies, or brand new cryptocurrencies/side chains with which they can have a large part of the pie. I haven't seen any VC money going into any established alternative cryptocurrencies which have been around for a while. Again, how can you fault Bitshares for this when no established alternative cryptocurrencies are succeeding in this department..

[donkeypong]

@clout

You are being ridiculous for faulting Bitshares for not attracting large banking partners. No decentralized cryptocurrency has been able to do that, yet Bitshares should have been able to.... give me a break. 

Have you missed all of the recent articles that all of the large banks are all developing their own private blockchains? Sadly, Identabit is going nowhere. Banks want 100% of the pie and 100% control. It is the sad reality of the matter.

You're talking about the big banks. And largely, I agree. They'll take one look at our DPOS proposal debates and say 'no thanks'. They sure as hell won't put their back end on this blockchain while it's under decentralized control. BUT if enough smaller and mid-sized businesses give it a try, recognizing how much money it saves them and all the advantages it holds, there is a real chance that: (a) we add sufficient scale to start growing, and (b) that stability, which must be longer term in terms of governance (and not just one change after another, as we've seen in recent years/months), then that may attract some larger organizations. Our witnesses and committees and whoever the hoo-ha's are will be a lot less inclined to make changes on a whim when all of us have a vested interest in letting the system grow and prosper, which can only happen with stability and predictability. In my mind, there's a big difference between those BIG banks and everyone else.

[CoinHoarder]

@clout
You are being ridiculous for faulting Bitshares for not attracting large banking partners. No decentralized cryptocurrency has been able to do that, yet Bitshares should have been able to.... give me a break. Have you missed all of the recent articles that all of the large banks are all developing their own private blockchains? Sadly, Identabit is going nowhere. Banks want 100% of the pie and 100% control. It is the sad reality of the matter.

@Empirical1.2 @neo1344

http://prestonbyrne.com/2014/08/17/dont-walk-away-run/
Bts has lost 90% 0f its value since above article was published.

That guy wasn't too bright imo, I think he was mostly attacking the pegging system and that it would fail with a 50% price drop but actually it's held up very well.

Good point Empirical1.2, Preston Byrne's main accusation was that bitAssets would fail, which has turned out to be false thus far. In my opinion he simply wanted attention (and got it) in is blog posts on Bitshares. He was largely wrong as bitAssets have closely resembled the value of their real life counterparts for a long time now.. the only thing he coincidentally happened to be right on is the price.

@Akado @morpheus @Ander
I don't think anyone disagrees that those features would be beneficial to Bitshares (prediction markets, bond markets, etc.) The problem is that we have a limited amount of developers and the community cannot agree on what is most important. Everyone has their own opinion, and unfortunately everyone cannot immediately get what they want. It is time to stop whining every time you don't get what you want. I was against dilution (among other things) and I'm still here supporting Bitshares. You need to sell your stake if you don't like the direction the project is headed, or learn to accept the way it is headed is the way it is going to go for the time being.

@onceuponatime @clout

I sold a month or so ago when Dan made the post about vision. I realized then that this going nowhere. Dan's too much of an idealist and this project has lived and died by that ethos.

So, if you sold "a month ago" does the title you gave to this thread make you some kind of troll or just an ignoramus?

+1000000000% 

@lil_jay890

You can expect further abuse of shareholders, while changing the rules so frequently that no business can start much less survive... All while staying financially and intellectually centralized by CNX.  Todays whale slaying just gives more concentrated power to CNX.

But remember... this whole price drop is because of negative people on the forum who scare away investors...lol

Either your account was conceived as an elaborate trolling scheme from day one, you already sold your stake and want to burn the house down on the way out, or you are the most retarded stakeholder of any cryptocurrency ever with all the FUD you've been spewing lately. Which one is it?


@fuzzy @luckybit

If you have to ask this question then maybe it's time for you to sell.

If you cannot find an objective and rational reason to hold, to stay, then perhaps you shouldn't.

 

I hate to agree but it isn't necessarily a bad thing..

You guys are way too smart for your own good.