Author Topic: Problems with "decentralized exchange" as the focus of marketing  (Read 2889 times)

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Offline Chris4210

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BitShares is an IT-Infrastructure and everybody can build their app on-top.

Dex, OpenLedger, Sharebots, Odoo POS, and others are apps based on the BitShares Blockchain.

We need to share the vision of BitShares as a open "frontier" for everyone to explore. A new "Metropolis" to be developed!

The best argument today are our price stable smartcoins. Corporates and Banks invested +$200 Millions in ideas like www.goabra.com , www.circle.com, www.bitpay.com; for mobile payment apps and e-commerce solutions based on bitcoin. Bitcoin! Why not replace it with stable crypto currencies and save the (remittance) world?
Thanks to BitShares groundwork, we at BitShares Munich were able to create the foundation for a change in the Blockchain world! Finally you can hold stable digital money (crypto currencies) in your pocket!

I would love to see more marketing around BitShares real treasury!

It will take Entrepreneurs like you and me to build this new Metropolis.


@xeroc I like your Mall interpretation.


Probably quite a lot of work to create but why not learn from Ethereum and Eris Industries? https://erisindustries.com/ I like their cartoon/minecraft style.
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Offline EstefanTT

I like the analogy of operating system better. A BD is a little reductive compare to what bts can do besides beeing a ledger of Tx/operation.
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(BitShares French ConneXion - www.bitsharesfcx.com)

Offline openledger

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Offline CLains

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The biggest problem with any focus in branding is how to get network effect.

Offline xeroc

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What is wallet naming structure going to be? Are we marketing Bistshares?, Openledger?, Openledger on Bitshares?. Is Openledger a platform, a DEX, both. I. Will future parties brand on Ol, Bitshares, or completely independent? I've been trying to wrap my head around this for awhile and can never come to a consistent conclusion. Will there be any guidelines in place for these kind of things?

bitshares.openledger.info
wallet.bitshares.org
???.bitshares.org
???.openledger.info
bitshares.???.org

BitShares is the network ...
Openledger is a private company that builds on top of BitShares.

future parties will have their independent brand and not be linked to OpenLedger unless they want to.

In the end .. BitShares is like a SQL database .. and OpenLedger (and potentially many more) are like applications using the database .. e.g. wordpress, facebook, ....

Offline EstefanTT

This is a draft for an "article" that I am currently writing on ..
It (of course) describes MY(!!) interpretation of BitShares:

Quote
BitShares as a Platform:

You can compare BitShares with a platform that offers a *common ground*
infrastructure to its customers, participants and business partners.

The first and maybe simplest non-technical analogy would be
      "BitShares as a global Shopping Mall"
Wait, what?

Let's take BitShares apart and see what components we have:

* Infrastructure
* Existing and Upcoming Tenants
* Customers, Clients and Guests

The Infrastructure
------------------
BitShares offers an infrastructure to their tenants and customers, such
as a parking garage, air conditioning, internet connectivity, a meeting
hall, toilets and even offers their business partners some
financial services, like local currencies, mall-wide or business wide
gift cards.

FIXME: Open 24/7!

Technically, these are implemented by means of a blockchain (how else)
that offers:

* 3 seconds confirmation times
* inherent security and an audit trail by an immutable public ledger
* market-pegged and user-issued assets

Fortunately, our shopping mall is located at a place that is
close to Las Vegas, and also China while non of their regulations apply.
In fact, the only laws that apply in the mall are the house rules of the
mall itself and they allow you to do almost anything!

FIXME: shareholders!

Businesses offered by Existing Tenants
--------------------------------------

One of our earliest Tenants is actually a bank. If you take a look at
your local malls, they all have had a bank from the beginning. Not only
to do they provide businesses within the mall with services, but are
also close when their customers need them while shopping. What is
different with this bank is that a) there is only one bank and b) they
don't make a profit out of your deposits! Further, every visitor of the
mall needs to have a bank account at that bank for shopping in that
mall, but they can get it for free when when they enter the mall.
Interestingly, this bank has some where unique value proposition to
outsiders, namely, that their accounts are so secure, that they can't
even access your accounts themselves while still offering you full
flexibility to decide whom to give access to it, maybe to your wife,
maybe not. Of course, you can also use your account in regular shopping
malls outside the BitShares mall.

FIXME: global fast payments ... almost instant transfers
Bank is owned by the mall

One of BitShares' biggest tenants is a marketplace but many use it as a
global FOREX, commodity and stock exchange, though. Yhea, figure that
out: Our shopping mall has an international globally accessible, open
all-day exchange! Anyhow, this exchange fortunately has decided to share
all its profits with the owners of the shopping mall! Our visitor can
benefit from this exchange as their are no doormen ensuring that only
the rich can get richer. No, this exchanges can be visited and used by
anyone and they trade anything, from GOLD, USD, Stock, Gift, Cards or
even Event Tickets. They of course also offer every business in the
mall, or any visitor to create their own digital good and have it trade
on a global scale instantly. Try that in your local shopping mall, the
managers' faces will become enjoyable.

Other tenants already offering services to visitors are in the

* privacy business,
* betting business,
* prediction business,
* gambling business

and there is **plenty** of room to house even more businesses!

Planned Services, Businesses and Opportunities
----------------------------------------------

### Secure Decentralized Messaging
With ultra low (later even zero) fees for transfers that can carry
arbitrary text messages, a trust-less, censorship-resistant and secure
messaging across the platform is possible! The infrastructure for this
services will be offered by the BitShares network, but profits can be
made by selling the best, nicest and most user-friendly app.

### Subscriptions
Our local bank has improved his services and now offers their customers
a way to setup withdrawal permissions for their accounts. This would
allow businesses to establish a subscription models that can leverage
all the advantages of our banks.

### Crowdfunding
### P2P insurance
### Market Maker
### Rate Limited free transactions
### Side Chains
### Bond Market

This is a great step towards where we should go ! Easy words, analogies, make it easy for the random guys to understand what we do.

This is great ! Maybe some person here will disagree because it is to "simple" but it is IMO, exactly what we need !
Bit20, the cryptocurrency index fund http://www.bittwenty.com
(BitShares French ConneXion - www.bitsharesfcx.com)

Offline Pheonike

What is wallet naming structure going to be? Are we marketing Bistshares?, Openledger?, Openledger on Bitshares?. Is Openledger a platform, a DEX, both. I. Will future parties brand on Ol, Bitshares, or completely independent? I've been trying to wrap my head around this for awhile and can never come to a consistent conclusion. Will there be any guidelines in place for these kind of things?

bitshares.openledger.info
wallet.bitshares.org
???.bitshares.org
???.openledger.info
bitshares.???.org

« Last Edit: March 06, 2016, 12:10:25 am by Pheonike »

Offline clayop

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This is a draft for an "article" that I am currently writing on ..
It (of course) describes MY(!!) interpretation of BitShares:

Quote
BitShares as a Platform:

You can compare BitShares with a platform that offers a *common ground*
infrastructure to its customers, participants and business partners.

The first and maybe simplest non-technical analogy would be
      "BitShares as a global Shopping Mall"
Wait, what?

Let's take BitShares apart and see what components we have:

* Infrastructure
* Existing and Upcoming Tenants
* Customers, Clients and Guests

The Infrastructure
------------------
BitShares offers an infrastructure to their tenants and customers, such
as a parking garage, air conditioning, internet connectivity, a meeting
hall, toilets and even offers their business partners some
financial services, like local currencies, mall-wide or business wide
gift cards.

FIXME: Open 24/7!

Technically, these are implemented by means of a blockchain (how else)
that offers:

* 3 seconds confirmation times
* inherent security and an audit trail by an immutable public ledger
* market-pegged and user-issued assets

Fortunately, our shopping mall is located at a place that is
close to Las Vegas, and also China while non of their regulations apply.
In fact, the only laws that apply in the mall are the house rules of the
mall itself and they allow you to do almost anything!

FIXME: shareholders!

Businesses offered by Existing Tenants
--------------------------------------

One of our earliest Tenants is actually a bank. If you take a look at
your local malls, they all have had a bank from the beginning. Not only
to do they provide businesses within the mall with services, but are
also close when their customers need them while shopping. What is
different with this bank is that a) there is only one bank and b) they
don't make a profit out of your deposits! Further, every visitor of the
mall needs to have a bank account at that bank for shopping in that
mall, but they can get it for free when when they enter the mall.
Interestingly, this bank has some where unique value proposition to
outsiders, namely, that their accounts are so secure, that they can't
even access your accounts themselves while still offering you full
flexibility to decide whom to give access to it, maybe to your wife,
maybe not. Of course, you can also use your account in regular shopping
malls outside the BitShares mall.

FIXME: global fast payments ... almost instant transfers
Bank is owned by the mall

One of BitShares' biggest tenants is a marketplace but many use it as a
global FOREX, commodity and stock exchange, though. Yhea, figure that
out: Our shopping mall has an international globally accessible, open
all-day exchange! Anyhow, this exchange fortunately has decided to share
all its profits with the owners of the shopping mall! Our visitor can
benefit from this exchange as their are no doormen ensuring that only
the rich can get richer. No, this exchanges can be visited and used by
anyone and they trade anything, from GOLD, USD, Stock, Gift, Cards or
even Event Tickets. They of course also offer every business in the
mall, or any visitor to create their own digital good and have it trade
on a global scale instantly. Try that in your local shopping mall, the
managers' faces will become enjoyable.

Other tenants already offering services to visitors are in the

* privacy business,
* betting business,
* prediction business,
* gambling business

and there is **plenty** of room to house even more businesses!

Planned Services, Businesses and Opportunities
----------------------------------------------

### Secure Decentralized Messaging
With ultra low (later even zero) fees for transfers that can carry
arbitrary text messages, a trust-less, censorship-resistant and secure
messaging across the platform is possible! The infrastructure for this
services will be offered by the BitShares network, but profits can be
made by selling the best, nicest and most user-friendly app.

### Subscriptions
Our local bank has improved his services and now offers their customers
a way to setup withdrawal permissions for their accounts. This would
allow businesses to establish a subscription models that can leverage
all the advantages of our banks.

### Crowdfunding
### P2P insurance
### Market Maker
### Rate Limited free transactions
### Side Chains
### Bond Market

As a platform, we need to have more infrastructures for developers. These include documents, libraries, wrappers, and help desk.
Bitshares Korea - http://www.bitshares.kr
Vote for me and see Korean Bitshares community grows
delegate-clayop

Offline xeroc

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This is a draft for an "article" that I am currently writing on ..
It (of course) describes MY(!!) interpretation of BitShares:

Quote
BitShares as a Platform:

You can compare BitShares with a platform that offers a *common ground*
infrastructure to its customers, participants and business partners.

The first and maybe simplest non-technical analogy would be
      "BitShares as a global Shopping Mall"
Wait, what?

Let's take BitShares apart and see what components we have:

* Infrastructure
* Existing and Upcoming Tenants
* Customers, Clients and Guests

The Infrastructure
------------------
BitShares offers an infrastructure to their tenants and customers, such
as a parking garage, air conditioning, internet connectivity, a meeting
hall, toilets and even offers their business partners some
financial services, like local currencies, mall-wide or business wide
gift cards.

FIXME: Open 24/7!

Technically, these are implemented by means of a blockchain (how else)
that offers:

* 3 seconds confirmation times
* inherent security and an audit trail by an immutable public ledger
* market-pegged and user-issued assets

Fortunately, our shopping mall is located at a place that is
close to Las Vegas, and also China while non of their regulations apply.
In fact, the only laws that apply in the mall are the house rules of the
mall itself and they allow you to do almost anything!

FIXME: shareholders!

Businesses offered by Existing Tenants
--------------------------------------

One of our earliest Tenants is actually a bank. If you take a look at
your local malls, they all have had a bank from the beginning. Not only
to do they provide businesses within the mall with services, but are
also close when their customers need them while shopping. What is
different with this bank is that a) there is only one bank and b) they
don't make a profit out of your deposits! Further, every visitor of the
mall needs to have a bank account at that bank for shopping in that
mall, but they can get it for free when when they enter the mall.
Interestingly, this bank has some where unique value proposition to
outsiders, namely, that their accounts are so secure, that they can't
even access your accounts themselves while still offering you full
flexibility to decide whom to give access to it, maybe to your wife,
maybe not. Of course, you can also use your account in regular shopping
malls outside the BitShares mall.

FIXME: global fast payments ... almost instant transfers
Bank is owned by the mall

One of BitShares' biggest tenants is a marketplace but many use it as a
global FOREX, commodity and stock exchange, though. Yhea, figure that
out: Our shopping mall has an international globally accessible, open
all-day exchange! Anyhow, this exchange fortunately has decided to share
all its profits with the owners of the shopping mall! Our visitor can
benefit from this exchange as their are no doormen ensuring that only
the rich can get richer. No, this exchanges can be visited and used by
anyone and they trade anything, from GOLD, USD, Stock, Gift, Cards or
even Event Tickets. They of course also offer every business in the
mall, or any visitor to create their own digital good and have it trade
on a global scale instantly. Try that in your local shopping mall, the
managers' faces will become enjoyable.

Other tenants already offering services to visitors are in the

* privacy business,
* betting business,
* prediction business,
* gambling business

and there is **plenty** of room to house even more businesses!

Planned Services, Businesses and Opportunities
----------------------------------------------

### Secure Decentralized Messaging
With ultra low (later even zero) fees for transfers that can carry
arbitrary text messages, a trust-less, censorship-resistant and secure
messaging across the platform is possible! The infrastructure for this
services will be offered by the BitShares network, but profits can be
made by selling the best, nicest and most user-friendly app.

### Subscriptions
Our local bank has improved his services and now offers their customers
a way to setup withdrawal permissions for their accounts. This would
allow businesses to establish a subscription models that can leverage
all the advantages of our banks.

### Crowdfunding
### P2P insurance
### Market Maker
### Rate Limited free transactions
### Side Chains
### Bond Market


Xeldal

  • Guest
IMHO we are like an operative system (mostly financial) with 1 program installed ; the DEx.
We can't say "we are the DEx", we have to say we are a plateform. BTS is the share of this plateform and the shareholders benefit from all the business running on it.
Not an easy message !

If we focus on beeing a DEx we will attract just a fraction of investors and developers. Only the one seeing value in the exchange. We can do muuuch more. We should (I don't know how) communicate the real potential and the bright future BTS could have.


I agree 100%, branding as the "Decentralized Exchange" is very limiting.   BitShares is a platform and Operating System.  The DEX is just an app.  The reason Etherium gets so much attention is because they are not branding themselves so small and so specifically.  If you can dream it up, you can build and run it on etherium, including an exchange.  There are no limitations, Etherium is obviously a platform, a wide open 'frontier'.   

You can do all the same things on BitShares, only people don't realize it, they think we are just an exchange.  Evidently that is what some of us want them to think.

A new business may not care 1 bit about having an exchange, it is not useful to them.  They want to build an app on a decentralized platform, not a decentralized exchange.

Offline EstefanTT

IMHO we are like an operative system (mostly financial) with 1 program installed ; the DEx.
We can't say "we are the DEx", we have to say we are a plateform. BTS is the share of this plateform and the shareholders benefit from all the business running on it.
Not an easy message !

If we focus on beeing a DEx we will attract just a fraction of investors and developers. Only the one seeing value in the exchange. We can do muuuch more. We should (I don't know how) communicate the real potential and the bright future BTS could have.

We could sell BitShares as a high tech financial plateform. Just that is not enough so we would  describe wich projects are related or running on it. In a way, we would give more importance in the web site in what is happenning and what we have running than the tech we have. Obviously, we have to show the tech also because is groundbreaking !

Just like if I would want to sell the very new kickass video game console. I would say quickly " this is kickass tech, 3sec block, free Tx, PM, ..." and then I would say "these are the game running on it : OL, Sharebits, Banx, MKR, gamebet, bunker, ..." and these are the future games : bla bla bla"

My idea was to stucture the projects, partners, 3rd parties, web site related, ... in categories. This is what I had in mind, I well aware that the categories are not good and that this is as ugly as sh... ;p



The Technology already has a tab in the header, if we only show tech related stuff, we frighten people away. Even Bitcoiners may have a hard time understanding all of it. I know I had to read it several time to understand everything and I was well aware of what BitShares is.


(I'm just throwing an idea to stimulate the brainstorm, nothing else)
« Last Edit: March 05, 2016, 07:04:48 pm by EstefanTT »
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Offline btswolf

Most traders seem to be rather happy with centralized exchanges and are not ready to change just because there is decentralized alternative.
That`s why our exchange needs to evolve to something better than the centralized exchanges. decentralization is not a big seller.
Usability, assets, customization and especially secondary/connected & embedded financial services will be the real money-spinner.
BitShares needs to become a one-stop provider for all kinds of crypto financial services.

Offline Samupaha

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If you show our GUI to anyone and ask them what it is. They will reply 'That looks like an exchange" because the core product of bitshares right now is an exchange.

That's because current wallet includes everything that Bitshares can do. But it doesn't mean that it will stay that way, it's likely that there will be different wallet for different use cases. We should be focusing on the message what Bitshares is meant to be in the future, not what it looks like now.

Anyone whos into bitcoin knows what the word decentralised implies.

No, they really don't know. There are lots of people who are talking about decentralization without thinking what it really means and what are good (and bad) ways to implement it. I'd really like Bitshares to be exception, we should have clear explanations on intellectual level and not only talk decentralization because everybody else does it.

Our other features are only special when you add "on a decentralised exchange"

Anyone can issue their own assets  on a decentralised exchange
You can  make stealth transactions on a decentralised exchange
You have fiat pegged smartcoins     on a decetralised exchange
Prediction markets the live                on a decentralised exchange

But what if you are not a trader? For a trader this tells that there are lots of stuff to be traded. But if you are an average person, this might scare you away because you are not interested in trading all these assets.

Bitshares needs to attract 2 types of people. Investors and Users

Investors
We need to attract people who like me saw BTS as a good investment. Not day traders trying to make a quick buck.
We need them to increase the price of BTS market cap which benefits all aspects of the bitshares system.

Users
These are people who want to use the exchange but not necessarily buy BTS. This will grow our network effect and therefore our marketcap.
I would say there are 2 types of users.
Asset creators like Maker or BANX. (the most important)
And normal traders looking to trade.

How would you do the marketing for these types? What is the value proposition? If you want investors, what kind of reasons would you give to them to make them interested in investing? If you want users, how you would get them to use Bitshares? Especially traders.

Reason why I'm asking these questions is that I don't feel very confident to market Bitshares to traders. They seem to be very difficult market segment.

Offline JonnyB

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If you show our GUI to anyone and ask them what it is. They will reply 'That looks like an exchange" because the core product of bitshares right now is an exchange.
Anyone whos into bitcoin knows what the word decentralised implies.

Our other features are only special when you add "on a decentralised exchange"

Anyone can issue their own assets  on a decentralised exchange
You can  make stealth transactions on a decentralised exchange
You have fiat pegged smartcoins     on a decetralised exchange
Prediction markets the live                on a decentralised exchange


The title change on the website is just a single sound bite that people can walk away with an understanding of what BTS is in 5 seconds.
We don't want fancy words that explain nothing.
If they spend longer than 5 secs on our site they will scroll down and see all our other key features.

Bitshares needs to attract 2 types of people. Investors and Users

Investors
We need to attract people who like me saw BTS as a good investment. Not day traders trying to make a quick buck.
We need them to increase the price of BTS market cap which benefits all aspects of the bitshares system.

Users
These are people who want to use the exchange but not necessarily buy BTS. This will grow our network effect and therefore our marketcap.
I would say there are 2 types of users.
Asset creators like Maker or BANX. (the most important)
And normal traders looking to trade.

I run the @bitshares twitter handle
twitter.com/bitshares

Offline Samupaha

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What I've seen, it's quite hard to get people really excited of decentralized exchange. Exchange part is interesting mostly for cryptotraders, which is quite small group. Even smaller subgroup are the people who really want decentralized exchange. Most traders seem to be rather happy with centralized exchanges and are not ready to change just because there is decentralized alternative.

To get people excited is really important, because we need more fresh blood to do marketing efforts. As we have seen, Bitshares doesn't market itself automatically – we need actual individuals to do that. When there is no direct financial incentive, there needs to be ideological or some other type of incentive. There is probably very few people who oppose the idea of decentralized exchange on ideological level, but on the other hand, there seems to be very few people who support it strongly in ideological level and are ready to use their time and resources to market it.

Also it's not necessarily very clear to everybody what decentralized exchange actually means. "It's not decentralized if it is centralized on only one blockchain" would be one counter-argument. This is why I'd like to hear from all of you who have been wanting to focus on decentralized exchange, how exactly do you define it?

Decentralized exchange is definitely one marketing point of view, but I don't think it should be the most important. Yesterday the Bitshares.org mainpage was changed to "BitShares - Your share in the Decentralized Exchange" which is better than it was earlier, but still is not very optimized message for most of the people who could become users and investors of Bitshares.

@JonnyBitcoin I'd like to hear especially your comments.