Should BTS end merger vesting BTS early?

[gamey]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

No one commented on my suggestion of just delaying the vesting. Freeze the vesting balances for years.  That would be far preferable to stealing them from people who paid to invest in BTS.

What is the date when all the vesting stops?

I will admit the more I think about it, the more I slide towards agreement but I don't think I'd ever find this a good idea. There is a definite cost in the loss of trust  for the chain. It would be hard to think of worse press than doing this..

[Empirical1.2]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

Apologies for the unclear question, the poll was to delete it,  merockstar has also declared his yes vote void.

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22237.msg289902.html#msg289902

I don't like editing polls after but as a few have been unclear on this point I will put an edit in the OP.

[Shentist]

i think the question is not clear.

if you intent to free my vesting BTS we could do it, if you want to delete it i am against it. I hope this poll is about the first one.

[gamey]

It really comes down to how one sees the vested balances. Does one see them as actual BTS?

I do. I assumed they'll be there just like any other BTS in my wallet. I just am not allowed to access it because the slow drain is supposed to be better than a big dump.

Others apparently see them as something else besides on chain BTS that are temporarily locked up.



This will project has had so many firsts.  If this passes it'll now be the first project to steal funds from users.

If you guys could figure out how to take money from the Larimer clan and leave the rest alone I'd be all for it. As it is there will be far too much collateral damage.

[Thom]

I suspect a lot comes down to how one views the vested balances. I view them as just as legitimate as other BTS, fungible or not. Others seem to take the view that because these BTS are not liquid, then somehow they are in a second class. Obviously I disagree.

Part of the reason they were made vesting was to ensure we retained our devs.

The result is that as part of the merger many people (including the large Dev fund) are taking a long-term vested interest in things. 
Do you really want Toast, Adam, and I to have instant access to a large percentage of all new funds or do you want us vesting with a long time horizon? 

We failed to retain Toast, Adam/FMV is crowd-funding separately and BM is focusing on another DAC.

There is also speculation there has been a lot of selling by key parties...  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22098.msg287894.html#msg287894

So in addition to all of the above, by continuing the merger we may also be inadvertently (though I'm sure they will disagree) funding other DACs at our expense.

We are the single largest holder of PTS by far.  Giving a large stake to PTS and AGS would be massively in our favor.

I understand your POV and perhaps it is the correct one, but continuing the merger is not a competitive/successful business strategy for BTS at this stage imo so it is worth discussing.

I am highly conflicted by this proposal. My gut reaction is that ending the vesting early is breaking a contract, a breach of trust. On the other hand as is pointed out above the primary reason for vesting the ownership was to retain the people those shares were granted to. The contract was flawed, in that it didn't stipulate the retention of vesting rights were contingent on continued allegiance to the granting party (BTS chain).

Nobody can predict the future with perfect accuracy. I've been around since before the merger so I am well aware of the mistakes made along the way, as dannotestein, empirical and others have outlined here. BM / Stan / CNX have been between a rock and a hard place many times trying to keep the vision alive and sustain the team to carry it out. Major contributors have left the team along the way (Toast, Vikram, Nathan, ...) so their efforts in keeping the team together have their limitations, as does the patience of those who remain to see the BitShares vision of a truly decentralized DEX and platform for growth come to fruition and wider adoption.

Unlike other projects BitShares is highly transparent and the tough decisions are not hidden away from public scrutiny. That characteristic is a double-edged sword. I see the decision to end vesting early as a highly controversial move, and one with good points to consider on both sides. I have no stake in the vesting, just to provide full disclosure, so perhaps that taints my judgment. Can anyone claim total objectivity on this matter? Not very likely anyone reading this can.

It is clear that the source of funds have dried up to continue development and even maintenance to sustain the ongoing cost of the dev team. I see this decision as a matter of survival of the BitShares ecosystem, and as such the early termination of the merger vesting shares represents a significant resource (126Million BTS - 6 months @ 700K / day, or ~$500K @ $0.004 / BTS) that could be applied toward putting the crucial, final touches on the great work BM's team brought into existence, like funding xeroc's efforts to document this work so others can easily build on it.

I find empirical's points highly compelling, and although ending the vesting early will definitely have negative effects, so will allowing it to continue, such as funding work on other chains (tho not directly).

We also need to consider what can realistically be accomplished using this $500K pool if it becomes available. How will we organize to prioritize what work must be done to polish up this ecosystem to attract adoption? Marketing, development or maintenance? Who is qualified to do any development deemed necessary? I don't think it's healthy for the long term success of BitShares to look to an exclusive group of devs as the only ones who can contribute to the code base. We need to promote the opposite perspective, than anyone can contribute, and make it easy for them to do so. We need good conventions, practices of code review and procedures for proposing and adopting the contributions made. Much of that is already in place in the form of worker proposals. The community must step up to the challenge of organizing itself to set priorities, milestones and goals to achieve our objectives. We need solid project planing and a roadmap to rally the community and focus our resources. Can leadership like this emerge from within the community or will it languish and falter? Once again this community is given the opportunity to be responsible for itself and not rely on someone else to make decisions. It took quite awhile before a committee was wiling to take on the role of leadership. Will it be the same now, or will we embrace responsibility?

There are many projects that depend on the continuation of the BitShares ecosystem, each of which provides plenty of reasons to be hopeful for the future of BitShares. I feel the same about many of the people who continue to believe in the vision and promise of a freer future and remain dedicated to seeing that vision made into reality.

[btswildpig]

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.

These undesirable side effects may be true, but people always leave out worse consequences of not doing anything.

We were out of funds to work on BitShares.  We were obligated to stop at BTSX and start working on the other chains with the remaining post 2/28 funds.  This would have resulted in multiple unfinished chains, none of which were likely to generate income before funding ran out and the team would have had to disperse in search of work.

The decision was made to get one really solid chain working and producing income before diluting dwindling resources into other new starts which, as you say, were much longer term plays - too long to solve the problem of keeping the team together.

That might have worked except for a down draft in crypto at the time which was generally interpreted as caused by the merger leading to a bigger downdraft caused by blaming the merger.  So BitShares wound up unable (or unwilling) to pay its developers.  We had to invent Graphene and now Steem to keep going. 

The one constant driver that we have always had to face is how to put food on the table while continuing to be available to support the prime vision.

Every single step forward along the way has been influenced by that fiscal reality.   If you are willing to ignore that constraint and imagine some parallel universe where dev paychecks don't matter, then sure, there were lots of more popular paths we could have taken.

Ah , the BTC down trend in 2014 must because of Stan blamed BTC miners's selling pressure , not the selling pressure itself .

[Empirical1.2]

I suspect a lot comes down to how one views the vested balances. I view them as just as legitimate as other BTS, fungible or not. Others seem to take the view that because these BTS are not liquid, then somehow they are in a second class. Obviously I disagree.

Part of the reason they were made vesting was to ensure we retained our devs.

The result is that as part of the merger many people (including the large Dev fund) are taking a long-term vested interest in things. 
Do you really want Toast, Adam, and I to have instant access to a large percentage of all new funds or do you want us vesting with a long time horizon? 

We failed to retain Toast, Adam/FMV is crowd-funding separately and BM is focusing on another DAC.

There is also speculation there has been a lot of selling by key parties...  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,22098.msg287894.html#msg287894

So in addition to all of the above, by continuing the merger we may also be inadvertently (though I'm sure they will disagree) funding other DACs at our expense.

We are the single largest holder of PTS by far.  Giving a large stake to PTS and AGS would be massively in our favor.

I understand your POV gamey and perhaps it is the correct one, but continuing the expensive merger is not a competitive/successful business strategy for BTS at this stage imo so it is worth discussing.

[Stan]

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.

These undesirable side effects may be true, but people always leave out the much worse consequences of not doing anything.

We were out of funds to work on BitShares.  We were obligated to stop at BTSX and start working on the other chains with the remaining post 2/28 funds.  This would have resulted in multiple unfinished chains, none of which were likely to generate income before funding ran out and the team would have had to disperse in search of work.

The decision was made to get one really solid chain working and producing income before diluting dwindling resources into other new starts which, as you say, were much longer term plays - too long to solve the problem of keeping the team together.

That might have worked except for a down draft in crypto at the time which was generally interpreted as caused by the merger leading to a bigger downdraft caused by blaming the merger.  So BitShares wound up unable (or unwilling) to pay its developers.  We had to invent Graphene and now Steem to keep going. 

The one constant driver that we have always had to face is how to put food on the table while continuing to be available to support the prime vision.

Every single step forward along the way has been influenced by that fiscal reality.   If you are willing to ignore that constraint and imagine some parallel universe where dev paychecks don't matter, then sure, there were lots of more popular paths we could have taken.

[gamey]

I agree with Julian. How exactly do we go through this whole merger fiasco and yet still end up losing BM to a competing chain? It's completely ridiculous. Reminds me of when the promise was to focus all efforts on BTS, but then BM goes and tries sharedropping Devshares to AGS/PTS. Then came the brownies. Now obviously Steem.

How hard is it to focus on just one damn project?

But be that as it may it seems pretty obvious that ending merger vesting early would cause more harm than good. Oh well.

So much like the no-dilution crowd, your take is ... BM screwed up, so lets just screw over the chain's potential by finding it acceptable for the majority to steal from the minority ?


edit - Actually the above is not what is going on with the no-dilution crowd. At least those guys are abiding by the accepted rules.

I would have never taken this proposal seriously, but then I noticed the votes. I am a fan of Empirical's work and his support of this project. I just think he got this one very very wrong. I wouldn't lose that much. My vested balance isn't huge or signficant by any stretch, but I assumed it'll be there if/when this project lands on the moon.

I suspect a lot comes down to how one views the vested balances. I view them as just as legitimate as other BTS, fungible or not. Others seem to take the view that because these BTS are not liquid, then somehow they are in a second class. Obviously I disagree.

[gamey]

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.

This is a load of verbose bullshit. The fact is that the vested stake paid the same as the others (minus the considerations of BTC/PTS price fluctuation). You can spin it however you wish, but it is nonsense.  This proposal here is less fair than deflating the existing fungible money supply proportional to the existing inflation. This proposal just robs a select group of people, so it is more acceptable to some.

I understand that some people supporting this will be also losing out in absolute terms. However it is a matter of the proportion people have of fungible stake vs vested. Yes, I sold my purchased stake some time ago, but I have yet to touch my vested balance.  Someone explain to me how I am not supporting the price vs others.

There is no Bitshares royalty. Using Dan's exit as an excuse to fuck those who donated is nothing more than that.  An excuse.

One of the biggest mistakes was Toast just acquiescing to BM's desires.  It is easy to say this with hindsight, so I am not criticizing Toast in this regard. I was never privy to any details. At that point I was still a believer in a lot of the positives from the merge. We learn.

Your selective choice of what was a "gift" is absurd.  There were lots of gifts, but in the end it was mainly BMs decision to move forward unilaterally and people believed what he said at the time. Those with vested balances "gifted" BM's labor to BTS 2.0,  but they can't take that labor back.  The ability to steal is actually possible in the other direction. The result of this constraint are nonsensical rationalizations like the above post.

[svk]

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.

What are #1,#3,#4 and #5  *disasters* in your book?
[I have my own list and " 'THE merger' is close to #2 spot most of the time", just curious what are the rest/in what order]

I'm curious as to what could possibly beat the merger here, what's your #1?

BTW reverseflash is simply the name of a DC comics villain, the nemesis of The Flash. Though your idea was much funnier

Haven't voted but as much as I'd like to vote yes I'd probably vote no, for much the same reasons as Dan N.

[tonyk]

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.

What are #1,#3,#4 and #5  *disasters* in your book?
[I have my own list and " 'THE merger' is close to #2 spot most of the time", just curious what are the rest/in what order]

[julian1]

Looks like Adam hasn't posted here since January. Here's a link to the new kickstarter, in case anyone missed out on investing the first time around.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adamkalebernest/e2e-verifiable-blockchain-voting-software-follow-m

[nomoreheroes7]

I agree with Julian. How exactly do we go through this whole merger fiasco and yet still end up losing BM to a competing chain? It's completely ridiculous. Reminds me of when the promise was to focus all efforts on BTS, but then BM goes and tries sharedropping Devshares to AGS/PTS. Then came the brownies. Now obviously Steem.

How hard is it to focus on just one damn project?

But be that as it may it seems pretty obvious that ending merger vesting early would cause more harm than good. Oh well.

[tonyk]

I though this proposal was a joke...I still kind of do. The only reason why I decided to post is that several other people that usually do not post jokes/nonsense (unlike myself) seem to take the matter seriously.

No, I did not vote "No" cause the poll is a joke, in my view. Even proposing "yes" as a possibility is a joke as well.The tons of new BTS becoming available to dump are bad...real bad (but I have posted my take on that already numerous times). But stopping this is  a total REVERSEFLASH*



*It is probably my non-native speaker take on words here but...flash is when you flash you toilet.... reverseflash is when the stuff comes back up...
No?

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.

I get your point... but it is not fixable...taking real / perceived value from people to achieve another unachievable goal will not do much other than creating an even bigger mess.