A Fee Backet Asset to support Bitshares integration with Open Bazaar?

[R]

Getting smartcoins added to open bazaar sounds good, but yeah a worker proposal is far more reasonable/realistic than a FBA. How much do you imagine this would cost? A couple thousand dollars?

[zapata42]

FBA is a lot more complicated to implement and requires additional work on top of the integration of Smart Assets in both bitshares and openbazaar. So I think it will cost much more to shareholders, and from fav answer I suppose we are not ready to pay a lot for that. I'm not convinced this complexity worth the effort. We should Keep It Simple, Stupid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle).

I suppose you don't have the developper in charge of the implementation yet. So what we need is to be able to go to the OB community and say, "Bitshares is ready to give you X  (bit)USD and help you integrate SmartAssets". This is what I call a bounty and is a special type of worker: a worker with a multisig escrow account, that will release the funds when the implementation is finished.
In your worker proposal you can spread the "bounty" in mulitple tasks: specification, implementation,  management.

* nods *  Yeah, a bounty / worker as you described seems to be the way to go for right now.  I thought FBA's actually existed as they were originally spec'ed, with a working example (the STEALTH token).   
"

Bitshare guru will correct me if I am wrong, but I think there is no easy way to create a FBA currently. There is no UI for it, so it needs code, and it changes the consensus algorithm (= voted hard fork).

[chamber]

FBA is a lot more complicated to implement and requires additional work on top of the integration of Smart Assets in both bitshares and openbazaar. So I think it will cost much more to shareholders, and from fav answer I suppose we are not ready to pay a lot for that. I'm not convinced this complexity worth the effort. We should Keep It Simple, Stupid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle).

I suppose you don't have the developper in charge of the implementation yet. So what we need is to be able to go to the OB community and say, "Bitshares is ready to give you X  (bit)USD and help you integrate SmartAssets". This is what I call a bounty and is a special type of worker: a worker with a multisig escrow account, that will release the funds when the implementation is finished.
In your worker proposal you can spread the "bounty" in mulitple tasks: specification, implementation,  management.

* nods *  Yeah, a bounty / worker as you described seems to be the way to go for right now.  I thought FBA's actually existed as they were originally spec'ed, with a working example (the STEALTH token).   
"

[zapata42]

I'm less convinced by the Fee Backet Asset idea.

Why not offering a bounty paid by the reserve fund for the integration of Smart Assets in Open Bazaar?

If a bounty can get it done better that's cool with me.  I suggested a FBA because that seemed like it would be more appealing to the people putting up the money.   Why do you think bounties rather than FBA's would work better?

FBA is a lot more complicated to implement and requires additional work on top of the integration of Smart Assets in both bitshares and openbazaar. So I think it will cost much more to shareholders, and from fav answer I suppose we are not ready to pay a lot for that. I'm not convinced this complexity worth the effort. We should Keep It Simple, Stupid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle).

I suppose you don't have the developper in charge of the implementation yet. So what we need is to be able to go to the OB community and say, "Bitshares is ready to give you X  (bit)USD and help you integrate SmartAssets". This is what I call a bounty and is a special type of worker: a worker with a multisig escrow account, that will release the funds when the implementation is finished.
In your worker proposal you can spread the "bounty" in mulitple tasks: specification, implementation,  management.

[chamber]

The current iteration was launched in November, 2014

That's wrong. Current feature-rich version you speak of was launched into production on October 15, 2015. 1st year was BitSharesX which ceased all operation on that same day.

Okay, thanks for the correction!

The primary implementer (Daniel Larimer) decided to alter the FBA design to prohibit the distribution of fees collected to the owners of the FBA token. When all this came to light I asked Daniel to explain. He said the idea of distribution of fees collected wouldn't scale and such assets fail the "Howie" test, a legal ruling made by courts in the U.S.A. to identify when an asset is a security in the eyes of the US gov. He instead changed it to some type of token buyback scheme and that was never documented or discussed publicly.

Well, that's unfortunate.  Sounds like we need a worker-proposal to change the FBA mechanism to work as originally described. 

[chamber]

I'm less convinced by the Fee Backet Asset idea.

Why not offering a bounty paid by the reserve fund for the integration of Smart Assets in Open Bazaar?

If a bounty can get it done better that's cool with me.  I suggested a FBA because that seemed like it would be more appealing to the people putting up the money.   Why do you think bounties rather than FBA's would work better?

[chamber]

1)  Is there support within the Bitshares community for funding a Fee Backed Asset (let's call it OBI, for "Open Bazaar Integration") to fund the development costs of replacing Bitcoin with Bitshares in the OpenBazaar ecosystem?

Why not just create a worker proposal instead?

Pushing smartcoins instead of BTS would be smarter, imo.

I agree that the Smartcoins are the killer feature for OpenBazaar.  The idea is that Bitshares would be integrated such that any Bitshares asset could be traded from within OpenBazaar.

I'm up for it being a worker-proposal instead--I simply proposed a Fee Backed Asset as that allows people who can't necessarily code to benefit from helping to create the feature (such as writing the spec, promoting the idea, gathering feedback) .   It also allows one to offer some of the FBA's to the OpenBazaar devs/leads to incentivize them to cooperate.  However, whatever funding mechanism gets it done.   

[Thom]

The current iteration was launched in November, 2014

That's wrong. Current feature-rich version you speak of was launched into production on October 15, 2015. 1st year was BitSharesX which ceased all operation on that same day.

I also believe your FBA concept is based on old information. It has only come to light within the last few months that the way FBAs work is not what was discussed in this community. FBAs were a Eureka! moment of innovation and was an exciting concept when introduced. The primary implementer (Daniel Larimer) decided to alter the FBA design to prohibit the distribution of fees collected to the owners of the FBA token. When all this came to light I asked Daniel to explain. He said the idea of distribution of fees collected wouldn't scale and such assets fail the "Howie" test, a legal ruling made by courts in the U.S.A. to identify when an asset is a security in the eyes of the US gov. He instead changed it to some type of token buyback scheme and that was never documented or discussed publicly. He didn't even inform the investor for the work of this change, and that investor was surprised when he learned it was changed this way. Of the 4 people involved with the creation / management of the very first FBA, only Daniel Larimer knew of this change and he chose not to inform the community.

Although I consider Daniel to be a high-integrity type of person, he is only human and in this case his choice does not reflect a position of integrity.

[pc]

Here is the documentation to integrate new coins to openbazaar:
  https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-go/blob/master/docs/altcoins.md

Apparently they expect a BTC-like API based on "addresses", "scripts" and the like. This is totally incompatible with BitShares' ledger.

[fav]

OB is a great proof of work, but I doubt it'll ever see some decent growth. would not waste money on it

[R]

1)  Is there support within the Bitshares community for funding a Fee Backed Asset (let's call it OBI, for "Open Bazaar Integration") to fund the development costs of replacing Bitcoin with Bitshares in the OpenBazaar ecosystem?

Why not just create a worker proposal instead?

Pushing smartcoins instead of BTS would be smarter, imo.

[zapata42]

I agree bitUSD/bitEUR/bitCNY/... will be a great addition to businesses like OpenBazaar.

I'm less convinced by the Fee Backet Asset idea.

Why not offering a bounty paid by the reserve fund for the integration of Smart Assets in Open Bazaar?

I'm convinced that more bounties like this (for example for Ledger Nano S wallet integration) could greatly improve the ecosystem (more developers, nice marketing, more features).

Here is the documentation to integrate new coins to openbazaar:
  https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-go/blob/master/docs/altcoins.md 

[yvv]

Have no idea, I am not a crypto developer. Bitshares may be good enough if you understand how to build apps on top of its api.

[chamber]

Thanks for the response!  If not bitshares, what would you recommend instead? 

[yvv]

Yes, those who built their business on bitcoin suck these days. Confirmation time is horrible, and fee is ridiculous. Not sure if bitshares would be the best solution to these problems, but they have to do something about this if they want to save their business.

[chamber]

On the OpenBazaar subreddit, I I recently suggested that Bitshares would make a good replacement for Bitcoin within OpenBazaar.  You can read my proposal to them below.

The advantage for Bitshares would be to see potentially much greater demand for Bitshares, thereby driving up the price.  The OpenBazaar Foundation is well-funded, and seems to have a vision that aligns with Bitshares (a private, borderless, decentralized world of trade, open to everyone,  and free of the rentseekers who plague much of the fiat financial markets). 

1)  Is there support within the Bitshares community for funding a Fee Backed Asset (let's call it OBI, for "Open Bazaar Integration") to fund the development costs of replacing Bitcoin with Bitshares in the OpenBazaar ecosystem?

2) As I'm envisioning it, once implemented, Open Bazaar users would be offered a choice to price their goods and conduct payments with  bitUSD (or any other bitAsset).  If they chose bitUSD, then they would be charged a fee (for the sake of argument, let's say it was 1%).  75% of the money would go to the OBI token holders, and 25% would go to the Bitshares network.   

Thoughts?  Does this seem like a reasonable course of action?

Here's the proposal I made on the OpenBazaar subreddit:   

Right now, Openbazaar faces several problems as a result of its reliance on Bitcoin:

* Slow confirmation times.  Confirmations can take days or never complete at all.   
* Expensive network fees.  Network fees often cost more than the cost of the item. 
* Wildly fluctuating prices.  As  I write this (2017-12-22) Bitcoin dropped in price >20% over the last 24 hours.

Bitshares / bitUSD can solve all of those problems.  Bitshares offers:

* nearly instantaneous confirmations (<3 seconds)
* trading fees under $0.20/trade
* price-stability (as stable as the dollar)

These are no white paper fantasies; Bitshares is proven technology.  The current iteration was launched in November, 2014 and has been in continuous operation ever since. 

Here's a brief description of some of the features Bitshares offers:

* Bitshares is similar to ethereum, in that it is the "base" currency, upon which a bunch of other token can be created.  Unlike ethereum--which aims to be a general purpose computer--Bitshares specializes in financial instruments. 

* For example, Bitshares offers Smartcoins.  [Smartcoins are tokens whose price is pegged to a national currency](
https://bitshares.org/technology/price-stable-cryptocurrencies/) (or any asset with a regular, reliable feed).   For example, bitUSD, bitCNY, and bitEuro track the US dollar, the Chinese yuan, and the Euro respectively.  As of this writing, the two most popular Smartcoins are bitCNY and bitUSD; there are 330 million bitCNY in circulation, with a 24 Hr trading volume of 390 M, and 22 million bitUSD in circulation with a 24 hour trading volume of 17 M.

* Smartcoins are backed by Bitshares itself as collateral.  For example, each bitUSD is backed by at least $1.75 worth of Bitshares.  Smartcoins can thus be created by the network itself, without any interface to the legacy fiat system.  As a result,  Smartcoins offer the same benefits as other cryptocurrencies (irreversibility, decentralization, censorship-resistance), but track the price of the pegged currency.   (Note that there's some fluctuation up or down, due to how the peg works.) 

* Smartcoins have three big advantages relative to other cryptocurrencies.  First, they allow people to easily price their goods in their national currency.  Second, Smartcoins tend to be much less volatile than other cryptocurrencies.   This allows both vendors and their customers to better plan for the future, write contracts, and do anything else that requires planning.  Third, they save money, since people can don't have to immediately convert to back and forth between fiat to avoid price volatility.

* Bitshares also offers a built-in decentralized currency exchange; you can trade any of the Smartcoins, User Issued Assets, or other Bitshares based assets (bitAssets), without being forced to hand over invasive personal information, or giving anyone your private keys.  Anyone can become either a buyer and seller on the exchange. 

* Trades on the Bitshares are fast.  In testing, the Bitshares network has supported [transaction speeds as high as 100,000 transactions per second (TPS)](https://bitshares.org/blog/2015/06/08/measuring-performance/), and has supported speeds as high as 8000 TPS in production. By comparison, Bitcoin and Ethereum support under 10 and 20 TPS respectively.  The Visa network supports 45,000 TPS. 

* Fees  on the Bitshares exchange are [very inexpensive](https://cryptofresh.com/fees?asset=USD).  As of this writing, trading fees are less than $0.20/trade. 

For the reasons above, Bitshares is a good fit for OpenBazaar, and integrating it would solve several problems that OpenBazaar is currently facing.  Integrating Bitshares and other bitAssets should also be relatively easy, as Bitshares code was derived from the Bitcoin code base.