Should we Abandon Proof of Stake Marketing?

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

WTF - Worldwide Trading is Fun (BTD - Better Than Doge)

I thought:

What The Fuck?

Haha... well.. we would totally dominate the crypto meme space with that one! .. not in a good way though.

[liondani]

WTF - Worldwide Trading is Fun (BTD - Better Than Doge)

I thought:

What The Fuck?

[Thom]

BFP - Blockchain For the People
BFD - Blockchain For Deals (is a Big F*ck'n Deal)
TPB - The People's Blockchain
EFN - Earthling's Financial Network (my personal favorite)
WTF - Worldwide Trading is Fun (BTD - Better Than Doge)

ATTAP - All Things To All People

 

[fuzzy]

@PRKG came up with the idea "blockchain for the people" ...and I fell in love with it.

[santaclause102]

For one: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,21546.msg280544.html#msg280544

And then a technicality such as the consensus mechanism if boiled down to a phrase such as "delegated proof of stake" isn't suited as a core concept for marketing.

For marketing you need a mantra that is meaningful (something capable of creating emotions and/or a vision about the future) and simple:
Dash - the privacy alternative to Bitcoin.
Ethereum - the (universal) smart contract platform.
etc.

What I wanted to say is that the core vision and the central argument for Bitshares shouldn't be about DPOS (or whatever else) - Ethereum (which is excellent at marketing itself we have to admit) also isn't about POW vs. Casper at it's core.

It's admittedly hard to come up with a mantra for Bitshares though. Maybe: The most salable, decentralized financial platform.

[konelectric]

Beyond Proof of Stake (BPoS).

[Samupaha]

I think that POS hasn't been defended very well or actively lately... It's not enough to write some blog or forum posts once and expect that everybody will get the point. Complicated systems like consensus methods of a blockchain have to be defended and explained regularly – again and again and again.

This doesn't mean that we should go and declare "this is why Bitshares is the best ever" but to remind people that how we have resolved certain problems. Little by little people will understand how good our solutions are compared to other blockchains.

Edit: Just listened the latest hangout.

I really don't think that we can suppose that average Bitcoin people can easily understand DPOS system. Let's assume that somebody wants to know if the accusations against POS are true, especially in the case of DPOS. How they can find relevant information? What they need to google? Where are the webpages that explain why usual critique against POS doesn't apply for Bitshares DPOS? All that information is buried in a few forums and it cannot be find easily.

No wonder that DPOS is rejected if nobody is defending it anywhere. Marketing has always been a problem for Bitshares and this is again a good example of that. Explaining clearly how DPOS works is essential if we want that other people will understand it and accept that it is a suitable solution for a blockchain. Changing the name will not help in any way.

[MrJeans]

board of directors.

May sound odd to crypto people but may grab the attention of everyone else.

[jakub]

http://www.coindesk.com/16-blockchain-tech-predictions-2016/

Ethereum has been working for over a year on replacing bitcoin's slow and wasteful proof-of-work consensus formation algorithm with a proof-of-stake system with many better features.

The buzzwords of 2016 will be 'smart contract', 'Merkle tree' and 'proof-of-stake'.

[chryspano]

Or POSH (Proof of Shares)

[noisy]

Proof of Bandwidth

No, I would understand by this,  that I can mine coins by sharing my not used bandwidth. As far as I know, there are already a coins, which rewords users for shared hard drive space. That would be confusing.

Nevertheless, after reading this thread more carefully, I agree that changing "DPOS" to something else is not so important.

[fav]

what about PoRN? Proof of Reliable Network

[cylon]

yeah, after hearing the "time share/bandwith rate limiting" fee structure proposal, I would support POO or Proof of Bandwidth, not only because the idea makes sense to both US and Chinese points of view in the fee structure debate, but it is a term that people who know nothing of bitcoin or POW can really understand. so in essence it is better marketing to the masses than bitcoin's POW blockchain

billions of  connected human pays phone or innternet bills based on

Proof of Bandwidth

and most hate not utilizing their capacity, so they would see this as fairer than AT&T, Comcast, etc

finally, familiar crypto terms that will resonate with the masses

[fav]

Bitshares and Marketing

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Bitshares runs on POO huh?  

Maybe we can spin that as the eco-environmental biofuel angle.

I have just realized what word this will create

This was not intentional. Nevertheless, maybe we could came up with something with similar meaning.

How about... Witness of Ownership Distribution.. AKA.. WOOD

The WOOD IS GOOD!

[noisy]

Bitshares runs on POO huh?  

Maybe we can spin that as the eco-environmental biofuel angle.

I have just realized what word this will create

This was not intentional. Nevertheless, maybe we could came up with something with similar meaning.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

After reading a thread Will you vote yes on Bytemaster's "free transactions" proposal that he talked about at last shareholder meeting? and listening last beyond bitcoin hangout now I understand why this topic was created.

BM idea for me seems to be very innovative. I really like the idea, that I can buy not only a cryptocurrency, but also a right to use it bandwidth in the future. Right now bitcoins transfers seems to be cheap, but we do not know, what will happen, when Moore's law will stop work... and bitcoin network will have to rise the fees. It may be possible, that bitcoin will not scale to global usage so easily.

In the other hand, right now I can buy very easily significant amount of bitshares (because it is cheap) and buy the right to have a priority to use bitshares network for transactions.

I really like the analogy with shared house in the mountain, which can be used by all owners, according to some rules. Having that in mind, I would like to propose new name:

Proof of Ownership

it is simple, flexible... and all of us like to own things

This will be very easy to explain to people, that with buying a bitshares they also buy rights to:
- use network infrastructure
- vote through a system and make a decisions about their property
- as owner of the network they acquire rights to hire people (developers, witnesses)
- own the future profits (through the network effect) + future optional fees

People love to collect different things, what means that word "Ownership" has very positive connotation.

Bitshares runs on POO huh?  

Maybe we can spin that as the eco-environmental biofuel angle.

[noisy]

After reading a thread Will you vote yes on Bytemaster's "free transactions" proposal that he talked about at last shareholder meeting? and listening last beyond bitcoin hangout now I understand why this topic was created.

BM idea for me seems to be very innovative. I really like the idea, that I can buy not only a cryptocurrency, but also a right to use it bandwidth in the future. Right now bitcoins transfers seems to be cheap, but we do not know, what will happen, when Moore's law will stop work... and bitcoin network will have to rise the fees. It may be possible, that bitcoin will not scale to global usage so easily.

In the other hand, right now I can buy very easily significant amount of bitshares (because it is cheap) and buy the right to have a priority to use bitshares network for transactions.

I really like the analogy with shared house in the mountain, which can be used by all owners, according to some rules. Having that in mind, I would like to propose new name:

Proof of Ownership

it is simple, flexible... and all of us like to own things

This will be very easy to explain to people, that with buying a bitshares they also buy rights to:
- use network infrastructure
- vote through a system and make a decisions about their property
- as owner of the network they acquire rights to hire people (developers, witnesses)
- own the future profits (through the network effect) + future optional fees

People love to collect different things, what means that word "Ownership" has very positive connotation.

[brainbug]

there is another way to describe DPOS consensus without using POS.

Leave it alone, focus, get back to work, get us the list of stuff promised on the bitshares.org homepage. Please.

What about C3PO, "Consensus based 3-Party-Order", where three refers to delegates, witnesses, and workers ?

[kenCode]

there is another way to describe DPOS consensus without using POS.

Leave it alone, focus, get back to work, get us the list of stuff promised on the bitshares.org homepage. Please.

[cylon]

why change your brand unless you can beat the original? 





What's better New Coke:
























or Coke Classic
























end of thread

you think that the quarter billion in ETH even cares if they are POW or POS?

NO

smart money only cares for smart contracts, so how are ours coming along?

talking about anything else is dumb because threads like this do not showcase our money makers

what is the biggest thing to hit crypto in the past year?

Proof of anything?

Sorry, but nothing compares to the rise of Ethererum (the BitShares killer because they talk smart contracts while we talk "airdrops, vesting, mergers, and consensus" which nobody cares about)


sorry, what were we talking about again?

oh, yeah, of course, nothing that the latest billion dollars in public crypto capital investment cares about.

carry on then

what percentage of the new billion in crypto investment does this puny little DAC need to become self sustaining?

[cass]

IMO we should stick with DPOS ... it is established and known ... and each change could have negative influence .. Number 1# for building a brand is consistence ..my 2 cents ...

[monsterer]

Totally agree with this^^

No one cares about proof of whatever... as long as it's secure, which most cryptos have already proved to be.

Most crypto's haven't come under attack because their market caps are insufficient to present a sizeable enough reward. Do not mistake what has happened for what could happen. This is why we have white papers and proofs.

[mint chocolate chip]

Proof of Confusion.

Do we still elect delegates?

All network parameters, from fee schedules to block intervals and transaction sizes, can be tuned via elected delegates

https://bitshares.org/technology/

Other references to delegates on the bitshares.org site:
https://bitshares.org/technology/delegated-proof-of-stake-consensus/
https://bitshares.org/technology/stakeholder-approved-project-funding/
https://bitshares.org/technology/transferable-named-accounts/
https://bitshares.org/referral-program/

This is likely just one of several examples of out-of-date information. Maybe we can get a worker to update the text on the site?

[luckybit]

While I don't think we should change marketing of DPOS. An alternative could be collaborative consensus algorithm. @bytemaster

[lil_jay890]

what's wrong with calling us "proof of work"?

what do you call your miners?

"workers"

ok then

Bitcoin calls their workers: "miners" so they should change their name to Proof of Mine

What are our workers doing that bitcoin's "miners"(workers) aren't?

Bitshares is more POW than bitcoin if anybody asks me, but since we are on the coinmarketcap 100, nobody asks or cares what consensus model you use anymore because none have been hacked and none are 100% decentralized.

No, shet, who cares about about proof of work/burn/stake/importance/activity, none are perfect, and all are secure.

All money cares about now is features.  Ever hear of Ethereum, Factom, Emercoin, Alexandria, Zcash, Synereo, Maidsafe, etc.

It's 2016 already, the proof of "who cares what" is irrelevant to the "what can I use it for?" question.

Proof of consensus was Bitcoin1.0

Proof that your application works is what everyone wants to know about since "proof of anything" has been proven secure from hack/theft.

Tell me this :

When was the last time you had a discussion about "doublespending?"

See, that conversation was abandoned back when we abandoned the POW vs POS arguments ultimately realizing that it is an argument of opinion like what would you do if I started a "what's your favorite flavor of ice cream or nationality of woman?" thread etc...

what we are really just doing here is proof of masturbation... When is the DARK DEX going to be ready?

Totally agree with this^^

No one cares about proof of whatever... as long as it's secure, which most cryptos have already proved to be.

[giant middle finger]

what's wrong with calling us "proof of work"?

what do you call your miners?

"workers"

ok then

Bitcoin calls their workers: "miners" so they should change their name to Proof of Mine

What are our workers doing that bitcoin's "miners"(workers) aren't?

Bitshares is more POW than bitcoin if anybody asks me, but since we are on the coinmarketcap 100, nobody asks or cares what consensus model you use anymore because none have been hacked and none are 100% decentralized.

No, shet, who cares about about proof of work/burn/stake/importance/activity, none are perfect, and all are secure.

All money cares about now is features.  Ever hear of Ethereum, Factom, Emercoin, Alexandria, Zcash, Synereo, Maidsafe, etc.

It's 2016 already, the proof of "who cares what" is irrelevant to the "what can I use it for?" question.

Proof of consensus was Bitcoin1.0

Proof that your application works is what everyone wants to know about since "proof of anything" has been proven secure from hack/theft.

Tell me this :

When was the last time you had a discussion about "doublespending?"

See, that conversation was abandoned back when we abandoned the POW vs POS arguments ultimately realizing that it is an argument of opinion like what would you do if I started a "what's your favorite flavor of ice cream or nationality of woman?" thread etc...

what we are really just doing here is proof of masturbation... When is the DARK DEX going to be ready?   

[betax]

Elected Witness Consensus (last one I promise)

[betax]

Voted Witness Consensus

or

Democratic Witness Consensus

[Stan]

what's wrong with calling us "proof of work"?

what do you call your miners?

"workers"

ok then

Bitcoin calls their workers: "miners" so they should change their name to Proof of Mine

What are our workers doing that bitcoin's "miners"(workers) aren't?

Bitshares is more POW than bitcoin if anybody asks me, but since we are on the coinmarketcap 100, nobody asks or cares what consensus model you use anymore because none have been hacked and none are 100% decentralized.

[hadrian]

How about:

Consensus achieved through Participant Approved Witnesses (CatPAW)?

[bytemaster]

Proof of Witness Consensus


Proof of Consensus is my favorite, we have two ways to prove consensus:

Indirectly via Witness Votes
Directly via TaPoS. 

Assuming you start out with a known checkpoint (aka genesis) with a sufficiently distributed (and anonymous) ownership then this is very effective and robust.

[onceuponatime]

"Witness Certified"

[TravelsAsia]

Distributed Shared Consensus

or

Decentralized Shared Consensus

I like these options.

[iHashFury]

Distributed Shared Consensus

or

Decentralized Shared Consensus

[bizzyb]

A decentralised democratic digital infrastucture

[TravelsAsia]

You need to have a white paper discussing the byzantine tolerance, the possible attack vectors, the mitigation, the game theory etc etc - then you will at least have something to direct people towards.

 

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

The whole movement of the Left capitalist critiquing clique, when they finally realize that blockchain based value transfers is the future, will decidedly favor green ecological POS with governance structures over machine-like, energy intensive POW. The fact that everyone is moving to POS, masternodes etc. puts us ahead of the curve, and the fact that ETH are moving to POS should completely vindicate our pioneering role.

I am not sure who you have been talking to recently, but for my part I see the mood having shifted gradually in our favor all through 2015. I don't think any longer the POS/POW debate is our weak spot. We're rather back to the fact that BitShares is confusing to people, that we have fewer developers joining in, and that people are unsure about the market mechanics and how all that will work.

The primary challenge as I see it is to convince the left that this apparently cynical, capitalist cryptocurrency/cryptoshares new internet value transfer economy really is the best chance we have to restructure the existing financial system in a way that provides transparency for big actors, anonymity for small actors, lower barriers of entry for value creation in the third world, and giving the means and power back to the people to self-organize in meaningful ways without centralized structures of authority.

^ This... When you talk to people who are not in crypto about the power consumption of the bitcoin network they are taken aback.

When you listen to people in crypto talk about bitcoin they talk about it in in terms of 'computing security' as a means to enforcing a barrier to entry story. i.e 'No point trying to duplicate this because its so massive.. just use bitcoin'.

I think if you want to tweak what we are now in 2.0 a bit I don't think that is much of a departure. Fact is... we no longer have the Delegates in DPOS.

Could maybe call it WPOS (Witness Proof of Stake)

You guys know that we are listed as POS in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake

Maybe after we make WPOS I can create a wiki page for it.

I also like the whitepaper thing.. though I know its difficult to justify that time.

[CLains]

The whole movement of the Left capitalist critiquing clique, when they finally realize that blockchain based value transfers is the future, will decidedly favor green ecological POS with governance structures over machine-like, energy intensive POW. The fact that everyone is moving to POS, masternodes etc. puts us ahead of the curve, and the fact that ETH are moving to POS should completely vindicate our pioneering role.

I am not sure who you have been talking to recently, but for my part I see the mood having shifted gradually in our favor all through 2015. I don't think any longer the POS/POW debate is our weak spot. We're rather back to the fact that BitShares is confusing to people, that we have fewer developers joining in, and that people are unsure about the market mechanics and how all that will work.

The primary challenge as I see it is to convince the left that this apparently cynical, capitalist cryptocurrency/cryptoshares new internet value transfer economy really is the best chance we have to restructure the existing financial system in a way that provides transparency for big actors, anonymity for small actors, lower barriers of entry for value creation in the third world, and giving the means and power back to the people to self-organize in meaningful ways without centralized structures of authority.

[betax]

DPOS is an innovation to be proud of.....it is fundamental to the existence of the BitShares network and Graphene technology.  I welcome as much integration and co-operation with other blockchain projects as possible, but it's everyone else that matters more in terms of adoption.

I completely support Monsterer's suggestion for a white paper.

I don't think we should re-brand BitShares without a serious re-examination and optimization of all the marketing material/information (including the website) has been completed.  We need a comprehensive plan for targeting our chosen market/s and to adjust the material towards that goal.  Only then will we really know if there is a problem with the name of the network/community/platform.

  Bitshares does not have a "bad" name, everyone knows that is there and loves it (whomever I talked to in crypto world). The issue has been the marketing, and I guess the merger. There was nothing wrong with the merger itself, but it kind of invalidated (discourage) the option building more chains using bitshares / graphene. But god knows what is happening in the background, maybe plasma etc plus insurance will be a winner.

PS DPoS is great.

[Fox]

You need to have a white paper discussing the byzantine tolerance, the possible attack vectors, the mitigation, the game theory etc etc - then you will at least have something to direct people towards.

THIS

I do not feel confident in my ability to pen such a whitepaper. Here are a pair of relevant examples for a community member to use as a template:

Tendermint [1]
Interactive Proof of Stake [2]

[1] http://tendermint.com/docs/tendermint.pdf
[2] http://arxiv.org/abs/1601.00275

[Ben Mason]

DPOS is an innovation to be proud of.....it is fundamental to the existence of the BitShares network and Graphene technology.  I welcome as much integration and co-operation with other blockchain projects as possible, but it's everyone else that matters more in terms of adoption.

I completely support Monsterer's suggestion for a white paper.

I don't think we should re-brand BitShares without a serious re-examination and optimization of all the marketing material/information (including the website) has been completed.  We need a comprehensive plan for targeting our chosen market/s and to adjust the material towards that goal.  Only then will we really know if there is a problem with the name of the network/community/platform.

[betax]

But Bitshares needs to continue alive same as the other chains, as it will continue to push the world boundaries.

[betax]

DPoS or any label is not important, it is important how the consensus is achieved together with performance and speed. In perspective, why my business will use a blockchain? What are the options out there? Bitcoin, Ethereum, Graphene, OpenChain, Multichain, Eris. Public / Private, etc. What are the differences on trust?

On the bitshares perspective, yes the market is not in the Crypto, it is digital assets as in Blythe Masters. But that is what Identabit should be (IMHO).

[lovejoy]

If we can afford changing names, I think the name "BitShares" is our biggest marketing liability.
Never too late to fix it...

Yep. Agreed.
Darkcoin / Dash pulled it off quite well.

[bitacer]

And for God's sake abandon this desire to be an exchange for crypto world. Become and advertise as an exchange for collaterilized assets. There are much more than crypto currencies out there.

[bitacer]

And one more thing , financial instruments should be as stable as  a rocky mountain , changing constantly is the worst message you will be sending. And use the terminology used by mass media.

[bitacer]

All an end user cares is utility and maybe profitability . Simplicity always wins.  These days my bank has a new feature where I can go to any ATM and withdraw money using just my iphone by scanning the QR code on the screen of the ATM, no passwords only few clicks. Simplicity wins.

[luckybit]

Proof of Stake seems to mean different things to different people. The early POS systems where flawed. In most of the discussions on POS I see people throwing out strawmen.  Even worse, people won't give anything with a POS label the time of day, they have already written it off.

So when we say DPOS we automatically lose people. We need to get through people's knee jerk reactions.

So I am curious if there is another way to describe DPOS consensus without using POS.

Absolutely not. Stop competing for the same people over and over again. Bitcoin is one group of people, and there is a limited number of people who are interested in cryptocurrency enough to care about the technical specifics like Proof of Stake vs Proof of Work vs DPOS. Basically, the majority of people are never going to care.

And the people who are technically inclined will care, and must know the specs of Bitshares. Not everyone who is into technical details will be America, white, male, with a cypherpunk background. Not everyone will have had the chance to be an early miner (pre-ASIC). So for the most part DPOS can be marketed.

On the other hand once mining actually becomes decentralized again (and it will), and beneficial (folding proteins and searching for aliens), that is when Proof of Stake might be at a slight disadvantage, but again. Market MineBitshares to make Bitshares less susceptible. Don't stop marketing POS.  That kind of flip flopping only shows weakness and insecurity.

[bitacer]

Depends on  who your audience is. There is so much time a segment of target market can allocate for understanding the mechanics of it. There are people who discuss mechanics and technology of Mercedes Cars and there are those who care only for its utility wether its a prestige or power and safety. Who do you want to target ?

[fav]

what's wrong with calling us "proof of work"?

what do you call your miners?

"workers"

ok then

Bitcoin calls their workers: "miners" so they should change their name to Proof of Mine

What are our workers doing that bitcoin's "miners"(workers) aren't?

Bitshares is more POW than bitcoin if anybody asks me, but since we are on the coinmarketcap 100, nobody asks or cares what consensus model you use anymore because none have been hacked and none are 100% decentralized.

our miners are called witnesses and they act more like PoS.

[-banano-]

what's wrong with calling us "proof of work"?

what do you call your miners?

"workers"

ok then

Bitcoin calls their workers: "miners" so they should change their name to Proof of Mine

What are our workers doing that bitcoin's "miners"(workers) aren't?

Bitshares is more POW than bitcoin if anybody asks me, but since we are on the coinmarketcap 100, nobody asks or cares what consensus model you use anymore because none have been hacked and none are 100% decentralized.

[brainbug]

You need to have a white paper discussing the byzantine tolerance, the possible attack vectors, the mitigation, the game theory etc etc - then you will at least have something to direct people towards.

Honestly, I agree with this.

I would love to help out here, but I have no idea about all the details that Dan already figured out in his head

100%

[xeroc]

You need to have a white paper discussing the byzantine tolerance, the possible attack vectors, the mitigation, the game theory etc etc - then you will at least have something to direct people towards.

Honestly, I agree with this.

I would love to help out here, but I have no idea about all the details that Dan already figured out in his head

[donkeypong]

I think that instead of shying away from the algorithm that has proven successful thus far, we should have a blog post that defends it and addresses the FUD that comes from people like Andreas.

I agree with Jakub in that if we rename DPOS, people will see it as a sign of weakness.

There's no reason to abandon it completely. I would just suggest we think of another way to explain our governance to outsiders who may be more interested in the whos and hows of how BitShares is run than in how we address technical blockchain issues.

[emailtooaj]

Why don't we call it DLIFE.

Decentralized
Liberty
Instituded
For
Everyone

[speedy]

I think that instead of shying away from the algorithm that has proven successful thus far, we should have a blog post that defends it and addresses the FUD that comes from people like Andreas.

I agree with Jakub in that if we rename DPOS, people will see it as a sign of weakness.

[abit]

You need to have a white paper discussing the byzantine tolerance, the possible attack vectors, the mitigation, the game theory etc etc - then you will at least have something to direct people towards.

Honestly, I agree with this.

//Update:
I think this post will cause some dumps on BTS, or say decreasing of market cap.

[donkeypong]

I agree that the term is dated. The DPOS term is for people who understand the basics of how Bitcoin and blockchains work. The wider audience we want to reach now does not come from crypto and so they may not be familiar with the problems that DPOS solves. Who controls it? How are decisions made? Those may be the immediate questions people ask, especially if they understand that it is decentralized. So we need some term to express that there is a committee, voted in and elected by users, and that committee makes decisions affecting the network. You Libertarians are going to hate me, but I think what we really have here is representative democracy on the blockchain. It's a democratic system and that's quite monumental (a far cry from Bitcoin's mess).

[liondani]

Smart Crypto-Democracy-Shares

or

Smart CDS

[merivercap]

DAO is fine.  What's wrong with 'Community' @btswolf ?

[btswolf]

proof of vote

Yes, if you want to describe BitShares you probably need the terms "voting" or "election" and these words suggest democracy.
So what do we actually have? Voting Shares based Consensus - VSC ?

@merivercap
I already avoid trying to name BitShares a DAC (Company) because that`s in my jurisdiction definitely a legal term.
As far as I know Organization is not a legal term per se, at least not in my country.
But yes, everybody is free to use his own favorite term to describe it.
I just don`t like to use DAC (Community) at the moment, but that may change in future...

[Akado]

We are indeed treated like a pariah in the cryptoworld, but I don't think much of it stems from the name DPOS.
IMO, the problem lies much deeper.

Anyway, if we change DPOS to something else, this would be the most likely reaction:
"You see? They're trying to hide the problems we were talking about."

While actually the opposite is true: we have not identified any fatal problems and DPOS has proved to be something much more powerful than anybody could've expected 2 years ago.

If we can afford changing names, I think the name "BitShares" is our biggest marketing liability.
Never too late to fix it...

There should be something to back the change of name, otherwise it doesn't make sense from a marketing perspective. I really don't see the project changing the name honestly although I guess that could be up for voting...

Curious to see what would happen if we did one though, and launched with a nice prediction markets UI and bond markets. Curious, but don't see it happening.

[brainbug]

Delegated Proof of Stake gets Proof by Elected Delegates, PED.

[monsterer]

You need to have a white paper discussing the byzantine tolerance, the possible attack vectors, the mitigation, the game theory etc etc - then you will at least have something to direct people towards.

[jakub]

We are indeed treated like a pariah in the cryptoworld, but I don't think much of it stems from the name DPOS.
IMO, the problem lies much deeper.

Anyway, if we change DPOS to something else, this would be the most likely reaction:
"You see? They're trying to hide the problems we were talking about."

While actually the opposite is true: we have not identified any fatal problems and DPOS has proved to be something much more powerful than anybody could've expected 2 years ago.

If we can afford changing names, I think the name "BitShares" is our biggest marketing liability.
Never too late to fix it...

[Akado]

"delegated proof of stake" doesn't pass the message of the governance model we have. Proof of Stake for me is where users have their stake on the wallets and produce more or at least that's the basic idea i guess.

We are beyond that. What the name should suggest is the current governance model where everyone even with a single BitShare can vote in the future of BitShares. That it's easier to reach consensus because you can simply vote thing up or not with a simple click. With that click, people choose where the money is spent and used. Their vote counts. Their stake counts and has an influence in the future.

You don't need to run a node or be a miner,- that most people might not know how to do -  you can do that with a simple click. It's accessible to anyone.

[merivercap]

What about just remove the POS and just say Delegated Consensus? 

...also Organizational Consensus?

As btswolf just mentioned DAO/DAC might be the key phrase to stress since didn't you coin the term anyways?  If it would be good to emphasize that... the first ever DAO/DAC. I think Decentralized Autonomous Community might be preferred over 'Company' for legal reasons and it will attract more people...

BTW My go-to line in explaining DPOS/POS: 'Millions of corporations and organizations use this (or operate this way) today ..'  Seems to have worked the few times I used it, even to someone who seemed like a hardline Bitcoin maximalist.

[Frodo]

proof of vote
proof of trust

[btswolf]

On Twitter, since 2016 there is only one mention of BitShares in combination with DPOS.
DPOS also wasn`t mentioned in the latest press releases of CCEDk.
So actually it is already abandoned.
I don`t see at all why we should use terms like pow, pos and dpos to describe BitShares.
Those words mean nothing to non-crypto people and we don`t have to put our self in any of those categories for stereotyped thinking.
We are BitShares, BTS, a blockchain based DAO.
That`s it.

[bytemaster]

Proof of Stake seems to mean different things to different people. The early POS systems where flawed. In most of the discussions on POS I see people throwing out strawmen.  Even worse, people won't give anything with a POS label the time of day, they have already written it off.

So when we say DPOS we automatically lose people. We need to get through people's knee jerk reactions.

So I am curious if there is another way to describe DPOS consensus without using POS.