Should BTS end merger vesting BTS early?

[julian1]

Those balances *are* the property of their owners.   

That property interest was the equivalent of a royal grant made by the (former) developers of Bitshares who held merge rights on the Bitshares Github repository. The legitimacy of that act has always been in doubt, because it was never subject to stakeholder vote.

The quid-pro-quo for this gift was the alignment of the developer resources and chains (vote, dns, bitshares). Additionally there was an insight that having multiple dapps on the same chain has synergy and efficiency benefits compared with multiple dapps on different chains. (See BMs discussion on the cost of cross-chain transactions, or consult the Ethereum market cap for reference).
 
The Bitshares Royalty have now abdicated their position in favor of a new interest (Steem). It is natural to consider if Bitshares can afford to pay 700k/day with no benefit attached, and when the original terms of the arrangement no longer carry any meaning.

[dannotestein]

I was always opposed to the merger (even without understanding all the ramifications of it) and the way it was essentially "forced" on the community. And, IMO, it turned out to be in the top 3 or 4 "disasters" for bitshares (probably #2). It totally failed at its stated purpose (which was never adequately explained anyways), it wasn't decided very democratically,  it killed a number of funding opportunities, directly and indirectly cost BitShares two core developers (toast and Nathan), brought us another even more ineffective and expensive marketing manager that ultimately led the community to conclude that hiring an effective and reasonably priced marketing manager wasn't possible (something I don't think is true), introduced a lot of unnecessary inflation, and disenchanted a lot of loyal BTS followers.

On a personal level, it cost me some of my BTS ownership, as I wasn't a donator after the first BTS snapshot, since I thought most of the value proposition of AGS was tied to that snapshot. I liked a lot of the other plans in theory, but they were all high-risk long term plays, and I didn't see sufficient experienced manpower and funding to make those teams effective.

Despite the personal cost to me, I have to agree with gamey that changing the rules at this point would make us guilty of the same thing that was done to us, so I'm voting against this plan.

[gamey]

The promise that was made, was to align the various competing chains and interests (vote, dns, bitshares etc) under the one umbrella, and to retain developer resources.

This is the promise that was broken.

It's quite normal for agreements to set aside when the original intention of the agreement cannot be fulfilled or when one side to the agreement fails to perform.

(And in the real world, damages would ordinarily be paid for breach and loss).

It is also real normal for others to want to take money from others without their consent in the real world, but that doesn't make it right.

There is a selectivity at play. It is completely not fair and will give Bitshares such a bad rep. There are a dozen ways you can spin how people were screwed. This time intentional.  Those shares were paid for just as much as the shares that haven't been vested. All the shares are investments.

Those balances *are* the property of their owners.  If you can't agree by that simple principle any longer, then why would ANYONE ever invest in this cryptocurrency again?

I find it baffling that so many people support this. Truly utterly baffling. 

[unreadPostsSinceLastVisit]

I voted yes before understanding the proposition.

I thought it meant "let everybody claim all their stake now and pick up the pieces after one final gigantic burst of dilution" not "stiff people being compensated from the merger."

Please factor one vote out of the yes column and put it in the no column when considering these poll results.

The way I see it the merger was agreed to, then dns failed (vote is still in the works from what I understand). That's not a broken promise in terms of cryptocurrency development, that's people who bought PTS and AGS making a bad decision (I'm one of them). BitShares should stick to it's side of the bargain regardless.

[julian1]

The promise that was made, was to align the various competing chains and interests (vote, dns, bitshares etc) under the one umbrella, and to retain developer resources.

This is the promise that was broken.

It's quite normal for agreements to set aside when the original intention of the agreement cannot be fulfilled or when one side to the agreement fails to perform.

(And in the real world, damages would ordinarily be paid for breach and loss).

[Erlich Bachman]

THe people who vote yes are people who probably don't have any vested balances.

those are the people whom we are trying to get to support the current BTS Price.  not you and i who have vested balances

its the age old choice we have again:

do you want more shares with low value or less shares with more value and distribution question

[gamey]

If anything the vesting period should just be delayed .. so if BTS survives then these people are treated fairly and not robbed.  If it doesn't, well not as much harm done.

I no longer hold any BTS except my vesting balance which I hadn't planned on selling, but with the support in this thread it makes me think I should get moving ASAP.

[gamey]

if they are done developing, then yes, that's why the vesting period was created (to guarantee support for the duration of the vesting period). if the devs are  still developing, then no.

IMO it was done for serveral reasons. One was because it gave Bytemaster a way to not have to work on DNS and let him pursue what he really wanted to do. This was a huge mistake as he should have just left DNS alone.  I don't think censorship resistant applications hold much interest to BM. 

The main reason however is that it prevented people who donated and paid for development of BTS to not be 100% robbed. I don't think there was ever any 'guaranteed support'.

It would also be a huge blackeye on Bytemaster's reputation.  He could shuffle his feet around and go '.but ... if... not my fault ..... karma is a bitch'  but thats not how a lot of people will see it.

[gamey]

It would be a huge blackeye on the project further removing any faith in the project what so ever.  Exponential compounding of errors it would seem.

If you didn't donate to AGS post snapshot #1 for the original vision then I have no idea why anyone donated period.

THe people who vote yes are people who probably don't have any vested balances.

[Erlich Bachman]

if they are done developing, then yes, that's why the vesting period was created (to guarantee support for the duration of the vesting period). if the devs are  still developing, then no.

[Empirical1.2]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

That's ok, it's a controversial topic and may not be in the best interest of BTS overall. 

You don't have to vote to spend more on development if you don't want to, that's your choice.

But the merger is costing 700k a day, 5 million BTS a week. Do you think BTS can afford spending 50-60 BTC a week on it, even though it's not achieving many of the original outcomes?

Do you think people who paid much more for PTS/AGS/DNS would sell their vest shares at this low price ?

Yes,  it looks like a lot of the whales especially have been selling. https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22098.0.html

It would be interesting to see how many merger shares are claimed and moved though.

[btswildpig]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

That's ok, it's a controversial topic and may not be in the best interest of BTS overall. 

You don't have to vote to spend more on development if you don't want to, that's your choice.

But the merger is costing 700k a day, 5 million BTS a week. Do you think BTS can afford spending 50-60 BTC a week on it, even though it's not achieving many of the original outcomes?

Do you think people who paid much more for PTS/AGS/DNS would sell their vest shares at this low price ?

[Empirical1.2]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .

That's ok, it's a controversial topic and may not be in the best interest of BTS overall. 

You don't have to vote to spend more on development if you don't want to, that's your choice.

But the merger is costing 700k a day, 5 million BTS a week. Do you think BTS can afford spending 50-60 BTC a week on it, even though it's not achieving many of the original outcomes?

[pc]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting.

Oh yeah. Breaking promises has a great tradition here. I'm sure breaking another promise will let the BTS price explode.

Not.

Oh, btw, who should code that hardfork? Nobody wants to pay for a worker because that would be dilution, right?

[btswildpig]

End it as in pay out remaining balances or completely stiff the people who signed up for the original vision ?

The latter, stiff the people (like you and me) who have shares still vesting. (Though I wouldn't say we all signed up for the vision, DNS/BTSX/PTS lost millions of dollars in value at the time & it was pushed through with very little voting stake.)

It's costing BTS a fortune per day and not achieving many of the original outcomes, so I would vote to end the merger even though I have a few hundred thousand BTS still vesting. Though it's obviously up to others (who have already received 70% of their vesting shares) and other BTS shareholders if they think that's in the best interest of BTS overall.

I think it will hopefully that mean we can spend a lot more on our valuable developers and development without impacting the BTS price as much, the combination of which should make BTS more valuable.

what could this possibly accomplish ? Another demonstration that "BTS would move heaven and earth to feed their few developers at the expense of all/some investors" ?
Though I hate the merger .... I can't support this .