Here we are, early 2016.
Our marketcap has fallen behind Stellar, Factom, and MaidSafe. To say nothing of DOGE (love the doge, but it's obscene that it has >x2 our market cap).
What has gone wrong?
Even though, personally, I don't find the UI to be the prettiest thing around, it mostly works, and it's being actively developed.
Plus, bitcoin core wasn't that pretty back in the day either.
The total and complete lack of privacy, as I've stated several times, seems to me as one major obstacle right now, and it was an oversight that it wasn't addressed any earlier. Essentially everyone whom I've introduced to bitshares refuse to use the system, even create new accounts, because it will all be linked (either that, or several 1-wallet accounts..) -- to say nothing of sending large sums and exposing who your business contacts are and how much every minute transaction is worth for the whole world to see.
I'm sure a minority will be turned off by the utter lack of proxy support in the ui (correct me if I'm wrong - I just transparent-proxy the whole thing through tor, just had a quick look and couldn't find any proxy settings). Crypto-people are usually at least vaguely concerned with privacy, and it would be trivial for the openledger server to identify which accounts/balances are being queried and which IP they belong to.
The above I had to state, but don't find to be particularly relevant, really.
What else? We have a decentralized exchange, which to the best of my knowledge is still a unique feature, and a pretty cool one at that. To be able to trade without having to trust in a 3rd party, that's some serious value right there.
Unfortunately, with the ever-growing list of UIAs that attempt to fulfill the roles of the several smartcoins, for the average user the DEX is reduced to essentially nothing. Does it matter if you're trading on cryptsy or the dex if all the value from your tokens is controlled by a 3rd party?
How is that any better than using cryptsy directly?
It's like a centralized decentralized exchange. I think it loses its appeal that way.
Which leads me into the next point, the much discussed smartcoin peg, which simply isn't working right now.
I can't tell you how many times over the last months I bought some crypto, not to speculate, but to store value, and how much more sense it would make to keep these as a stable smartcoin, rather than bitcoin or doge, or whatever the flavor of the month is.
Unfortunately, with the exception of CNY:BTS, the markets are essentially illiquid and the prices asked, absurd.
As you will probably know, investing/storing wealth in CNY is a dubious proposition right now due to factors external to BitShares, and given the above statement, I was left with no choice but not injecting money into the ecosystem.
I wonder how many hundreds of people thought the same.
How turning off it must be for new users, that they download the software, have a cursory glance at the market, and find .. nothing.
I don't propose to know the solution to this, but I can tell you: it is essential that liquidity be bootstrapped somehow. Maybe that morpheus guy is on to something when he wrote the incentives are not aligned right with the current set of rules.
It is not my goal to sound overly negative. I still believe strongly in this project and it's not just because I have some skin in the game. I can imagine how a world with a functioning BitShares system could work, and it's a great vision. It can really push things to the next level, when compared to bitcoin-like solutions.
So here are some (not-so-)scattered ideas which I believe would help:
First off, STEALTH has to be in working order, with total transparency people won't use the system. This point is being addressed and I look forward to finally registering some accounts I've been putting off to register and start loading them with smartcoins (assuming the liquidity thing is sorted by then :]) - and tell my customers to do the same.
Next, the smartcoin liquidity needs to be sorted. I'm sorry I can't offer much more in this department, don't know how to achieve that, just that it must be achieved. But that's old news, right?
Related to the smartcoins, I do believe we should attempt to "liquify" the SGD, CHF, GOLD and SILVER markets. Perhaps CAN, GBP and AUD as well.
We're a MUCH better system than traditional brokers, who charge absurd fees. Combine being able to buy stocks in {SGD,CHF,GBP,...} and/or indexes (SP500, NASDAQ, etc) with a liquid system, and I believe with some serious grassroots marketing, we can get people to start investing using the bitshares blockchain.
I, for one (with stealth in place), would be more than happy to pave the way. This year I'd open a brokerage account in SGD, but if it can be done with bitshares, I'm willing to put my money where my beliefs are.
Stocks/indexes are one possibility. Another is FOREX. And we already have everything we need (BitEUR:BitUSD already exists). Except liquidity.
Do you see it? Instead of more crypto inbreeding, bring traders from outside the ecosystem. Give them value. Costs 20 CHF at the swiss broker to place an order, costs 10 cents (or whatever it is these days) with bitshares to do the same.
And they don't even need to know it's running on top of bitshares.
p.s: for average users, unlocking the wallet using T/TOP would be a very nice addition. Allow for saving the recovery codes a la github as well.
Which brings me to the next point...
Working gateways. And I don't mean the kind that offer UIAs in return. Why yet another layer? FIAT --> GATEWAY.FIAT --> BIT${FIAT}.
Why not simply FIAT -> BIT${FIAT} and be done with it?
Look. We get people to deposit $FIAT and as soon as the transfer (or credit card purchase, or whatever) clears be credited with Bit${FIAT}, and this thing goes to the moon.
We need the infographics guys/girls to make it easy for average joe to understand the process as well.
It is even useful for all other crypto users. Need to buy some bitcoin? Well no problem, use our fiat gateway, get bitFiat, and help yourself to some BitBTC with that. With the possibility to withdraw "real" bitcoin already a reality.
We are very close to make BitShares heaven for savers, investors, and speculators. I think we need, in no particular order:
- To fix some small, some not so small issues, such as: finishing stealth, having liquidity
- Build some services on top of the blockchain, such as: virtual credit cards (bitshares is a much better match for this than bitcoin), (bit)forex brokers,
crypto-brokerage websites, p2p lending (see for instance
www.btcjam.com, again, bitshares with smartcoins is a much better system to run this)
- Have working gateways that exchange fiat to bit${fiat}, not some centralized UIA that may or may not be around tomorrow.
- Fund the Munich group and have the PoS system working. Then spread it like wildfire.
- Bootstrap liquidity in USD, EUR, CHF, GBP, SGD, GOLD, SILVER (CNY already works), with the caveat that it's possible that spreading ourselves too thin with so many of them might be deterimental. In that case, personally I'd go with GOLD, CHF, SGD, USD.
- Review the infographic strategy, and perhaps create infographics targeting specific users, such as:
- FOREX traders
- Brokerage users
- Savers
- Investors
- Speculators
- More social media presence (totally not my thing, so shooting from the hip..), like a more active subreddit and twitter feed.
On the ground, we need the PoS system to spread, we need marketing and advertising, and we need to have an easy, intuitive simple product that average people who see the advertising can consume. Online we need an easy way for merchants to accept payments (ken/chris & their crew are doing something in that arena as well, but I think it's odoo-specific).. perhaps a bitpay.com for bitshares, say.
Discuss.
Topic: Connecting the dots (Read 8523 times)
