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Offline yellowecho


Leads to question if we really need a leadership for bitshares .. who is strat. leader of nxt?

The Bitshares software ecosystem, once launched, does not need a CEO, nor is Daniel it's CEO.

Daniel is the CEO of Invictus Innovations, which is a virginia based real life corporate entity that has investors and is the trustee of funds invested via angelshares.  There will always be a CEO of Invictus, but it wasn't always and doesn't always need to be Daniel whose skills seem better suited for other roles.

In this mumble session, at about 56 minutes:
**corrected link** http://beyondbitcoin.libsyn.com/hangout-051014-dan-larimer

... Daniel makes the point that Charles Hoskinson's work style was to be on phone, talking to people, selling-the-vision all day, everyday.

Daniel said he had never seen anyone do that kind of job as well as Charles.

So here's a bold move with salutary consequences: Hire back Charles Hoskinson as the CEO of I3.

Bring him in with you, and let him do what he does best.

If I3 did something like that... Charles and his team at the front end, and Daniel and his teams at the backend, this organization would fly.

From my very limited knowledge of Charles and I3, it seems that I3 and the Bitshares ecosystem are ingrained in a political philosophy that Charles is less passionate about.. so I don't foresee him coming back to I3 (especially now that there's Ethereum the works).


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Offline liondani

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Daniel said he had never seen anyone do that kind of job as well as Charles.

+ 5 for Daniel


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Offline werneo

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Leads to question if we really need a leadership for bitshares .. who is strat. leader of nxt?

The Bitshares software ecosystem, once launched, does not need a CEO, nor is Daniel it's CEO.

Daniel is the CEO of Invictus Innovations, which is a virginia based real life corporate entity that has investors and is the trustee of funds invested via angelshares.  There will always be a CEO of Invictus, but it wasn't always and doesn't always need to be Daniel whose skills seem better suited for other roles.

In this mumble session, at about 56 minutes:
**corrected link** http://beyondbitcoin.libsyn.com/hangout-051014-dan-larimer

... Daniel makes the point that Charles Hoskinson's work style was to be on phone, talking to people, selling-the-vision all day, everyday.

Daniel said he had never seen anyone do that kind of job as well as Charles.

So here's a bold move with salutary consequences: Hire back Charles Hoskinson as the CEO of I3.

Bring him in with you, and let him do what he does best.

If I3 did something like that... Charles and his team at the front end, and Daniel and his teams at the backend, this organization would fly.
« Last Edit: May 25, 2014, 02:38:27 am by werneo »

Offline CLains

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Thoughts surrounding the products matured organically. The dictum for now is "hype precedes value" - specs and launches serve as hype material. Recognize it.


Offline JoeyD

I do not agree with the notion that it would have been better to release bitsharesX on old technology and then slowly try to catch up with all the better, faster newer stuff like Ripple, Nxt and others, while simultaneously having to support, bugfix and upgrade the old crud. I do not see how that would have been faster, cheaper or easier let alone better for the bitshares reputation.

Developing a blockchain toolkit that can at the very least compete with the newest technologies out there and then building stuff on top of that, is a sound strategy even if several of the DACs fail. Why should you not at least aim to compete with the best and fastest solutions?

Btw, why would making a pow-blockchain version of the bitsharesX-concept be faster? Listening to the uploaded dev-hangout podcast did not leave me with the impression that a pow-version was easier or faster to develop than a dpos-one. Even simply implementing a bitcoin core full node with new code has not been particularly fast by any metric, so why would it magically be any different for bitshares? Just looking at the alt-coins forked of the bitcoin clones and how they lack any real profound alterations or upgrades, to me suggests that it is not the best base for a DAC-toolkit.

Offline solaaire

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As far as I see, Dan has made one major strategic decision so far: to defer the development of bitshares (btsx) in favor of creating a new consensus system (DPOS).

 ...

here is a question i have: i see the value in upgrading PTS to DPOS, but what advantages does DPOS provide for future projects like LOTTO, DNS, and ME? Blockchain sustainability for sure... but if that is all, then perhaps most of these projects could have been launched on regular blockchains and then upgraded to DPOS at a later time. But perhaps developing DPOS will give critical insight to developers that will greatly improve their future projects. Who knows? Not this guy.

The other major strategic decision was to re-architect the bts x code to make it easier to make the rest of the other DACs, which is the other half of the major delay. So we get the rest of the DACs faster and the $$ advantage of DPOS will be multiplied by however many DACs would have launched in between the non-DPOS release and the upgrade.

awesome, thanks for filling in some of the gaps toast

Offline JoeyD

I was always under the impression that AGS was a Kickstarter like fundraiser to get some technology off the ground and developed, I also don't understand why people saw it as a speculation tool, nor that it would give them decision-making rights. If the community would be in charge of decision making on technical subjects I would not have donated anything at all and that is not because I have blind faith or other such bunk, but because I'm a vehement disbeliever in the viability of design by committee.

Unfortunately the spreading of panic and public outcries might help set a trend and scare future projects away from going this route. Unrealistic expectations and inexperience with the risks, failures and delays that are usual in completely new and experimental ideas and technology plus the enormous amount of miscommunication trying to interact with a crowd, makes crowdfunding look like more hassle than it's worth. Especially when compared to going with VCs who have more funds, the experience, extra know-how and contacts and less personalities to interact with. I know a lot of companies that have done their own Kickstarter who are consequently no longer interested in doing another one.

What I expect some other projects (outside of bitshares) will be doing, or are in fact already doing, is getting behind the scenes VC-funding and only doing a public crowdsourcing-look-a-like as part of their marketing when distributing their coins as a ready to market product. I really hope I'm wrong about this, because I'd like to see decentralized fund-raisers get more traction.

Offline amencon

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If DPOS fails we can always use POW with miner rewards paid from dividends as was the very initial plan back when BTS X was just "bitshares"

That's actually exactly the point, we could have started with that and would have had the product long since out for testing, ideation and expansion.  Do you think it was better to do it in the order performed?

Where we are now, yes, though I'll admit that a priori there was no way of knowing if it was a good decision. But also I don't expect to be able to sell you on "the delays due to architecture improvements will pay dividends in the long run!" so I will shut up and go back to work.
Yup I don't think anything more will resolved through discussion at this point.  Finish it and let a successful DPOS system be your at least partial vindication for any deviation from the original sales pitch.

Of course even then I don't think it will definitively answer which course of action would have been "better", but with a working new platform released I don't think many will care much.  Then the focus will be on marketing and other DACs.

Happy coding Toast.

Offline bitmeat

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Leads to question if we really need a leadership for bitshares .. who is strat. leader of nxt?

The Bitshares software ecosystem, once launched, does not need a CEO, nor is Daniel it's CEO.

Daniel is the CEO of Invictus Innovations, which is a virginia based real life corporate entity that has investors and is the trustee of funds invested via angelshares.  There will always be a CEO of Invictus, but it wasn't always and doesn't always need to be Daniel whose skills seem better suited for other roles.

Right, that's why I said it is also my preference to see strategic leadership, however the way Dan works (and most developers are like that Dan is no exception) is that he does iterations of trial and error which is very agile and can produce amazing results. However in an agile environment you can't really force it "strategically" as much, since the only way to advance is through the projects natural progression.

Also why if I was running this project I would make sure people like Dan can cooperate and compete at the same time and just have fun in the lab. While their result is being used in a more strategic manner.

In fact I can still do that, since everything all these coins and developers invent is open source. I'm in a wait and see mode at the moment.

Offline toast

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As far as I see, Dan has made one major strategic decision so far: to defer the development of bitshares (btsx) in favor of creating a new consensus system (DPOS).

 ...

here is a question i have: i see the value in upgrading PTS to DPOS, but what advantages does DPOS provide for future projects like LOTTO, DNS, and ME? Blockchain sustainability for sure... but if that is all, then perhaps most of these projects could have been launched on regular blockchains and then upgraded to DPOS at a later time. But perhaps developing DPOS will give critical insight to developers that will greatly improve their future projects. Who knows? Not this guy.

The other major strategic decision was to re-architect the bts x code to make it easier to make the rest of the other DACs, which is the other half of the major delay. So we get the rest of the DACs faster and the $$ advantage of DPOS will be multiplied by however many DACs would have launched in between the non-DPOS release and the upgrade.
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Offline solaaire

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As far as I see, Dan has made one major strategic decision so far: to defer the development of bitshares (btsx) in favor of creating a new consensus system (DPOS).

Without actual data, its hard to do any real analysis. If NXT is an indication of the future, it would appear at least some of the market wants to move away from mining. if this trend continues, which i believe it will (again, no real data), then developing DPOS appears to be a good move.

on the other hand, sticking with the original bitshares plan wouldve gotten the flagship product to market much faster, which could have been huge! But honestly, btsx seems pretty damn complicated. even if the software made it to market quickly, would invictus have had the capability to effectively demonstrate the products value to the market? it is hard to say, but im leaning towards no

here is a question i have: i see the value in upgrading PTS to DPOS, but what advantages does DPOS provide for future projects like LOTTO, DNS, and ME? Blockchain sustainability for sure... but if that is all, then perhaps most of these projects could have been launched on regular blockchains and then upgraded to DPOS at a later time. But perhaps developing DPOS will give critical insight to developers that will greatly improve their future projects. Who knows? Not this guy.

As it stands, bitshares is having a hard time gaining trust/traction. Whether it was intended or not, i think releasing better versions of products that people are already familiar with (dpos, lotto, dns, etc) could go a long way in creating trust and increasing the user base before the big experiment is released.

i agree with jae, i think at this point in the game Dan's technical insight is critical for the role of CEO. as the landscape grows, CTO might be a better position for him, simply because he seems to enjoy software/systems development more than organizational development.

Offline toast

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A CEO is a leader, Daniel is a developer and the only reason he is the person with all the pieces in his head is because he's making it up as he goes and the plan keeps changing.  Have I mis-stated the situation?

We have a consistent disagreement about whether "the plans keep changing" is a good or bad thing. I have no life and can keep up all the way down to the nitty-gritty details, and also I've had a chance to interact a bunch with the core team in person, so I could see how this might not be the common opinion.

I invested in AGS under the belief that it would be spent to develop the bitshares ecosystem as is judged best by Stan and Dan. I wouldn't trust anyone else to constrain their decisions, if a CEO had come in and said "actually no, Dan, you must develop BTS as was planned originally" I would have been very unhappy. In fact any time work is delegated away from these two I have been unhappy with the results.

You brought up a good point:
The Bitshares software ecosystem, once launched, does not need a CEO, nor is Daniel it's CEO.

I think eventually there should be AGS-style fundraisers for many different "labs", who each can independently promise yet another 10% shares of their own DACs to their donators. Maybe this should have happened from the start so people could split their donations to go to whichever leader they thought would do best. I'd still be 90%+ in AGS because I'm all about the theory and I think we have only seen good news on that front from I3. Truthcoin is the only other group I would have invested in.

You have a point about this forum being reduced to a bunch of loyalists. So where's the AGS competition? When MSC couldn't get their shit together, XCP appeared. People who "got it" all the way *and* disagreed with MSC existed, so an alternative appeared.

Really the only source of conflict here is from people who thought AGS spending would be determined by "the community" instead of by I3. Perhaps the biggest leadership mistake was doing anything to suggest this was the case ("to develop bts ecosystem!" should be "to develop bts ecosystem as determined by Dan and Stan!", and such).

If there is demand for different leadership, someone should step up and offer an alternative to AGS. Heck, I plan to do so once we get the core tech and first few DACs out. Why haven't we seen this yet? I think it's because people don't want it enough.
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Offline jae208

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I think that Dan's technical skill gives him great insight as CEO. Unless we can get Larry Page on board I don't know of anyone that would be better at the job.  ;D
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Offline AdamBLevine

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Leads to question if we really need a leadership for bitshares .. who is strat. leader of nxt?

The Bitshares software ecosystem, once launched, does not need a CEO, nor is Daniel it's CEO.

Daniel is the CEO of Invictus Innovations, which is a virginia based real life corporate entity that has investors and is the trustee of funds invested via angelshares.  There will always be a CEO of Invictus, but it wasn't always and doesn't always need to be Daniel whose skills seem better suited for other roles.
Email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com

Offline xeroc

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Leads to question if we really need a leadership for bitshares .. who is strat. leader of nxt?

Offline AdamBLevine

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Marketing and strategic leadership are fundamentally different.  Bitshares lacks leadership.  Note that is different from decision-making, which can be done by just making an arbitrary decision.

A CEO is a leader, Daniel is a developer and the only reason he is the person with all the pieces in his head is because he's making it up as he goes and the plan keeps changing.  Have I mis-stated the situation?
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Offline toast

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I agree that Bytemaster is best at focusing on the technical issues and he is doing that very well. However I think that if there is a different CEO in place even though I would love to see that happen, will take away from bytemaster's passion in the project and there might even be power struggle. Because the CEO will not be able to just pick a strategic direction, he will also have to convince Bytemaster that his decisions are the correct ones.

Agree, right now it seems like every single other team member is missing at least one piece of the puzzle. I would not choose to replace any of BM's competencies with a PR/marketing competency, would not add value IMO even though we are weak in that area now.
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Offline bitmeat

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I agree that Bytemaster is best at focusing on the technical issues and he is doing that very well. However I think that if there is a different CEO in place even though I would love to see that happen, will take away from bytemaster's passion in the project and there might even be power struggle. Because the CEO will not be able to just pick a strategic direction, he will also have to convince Bytemaster that his decisions are the correct ones.

Offline AdamBLevine

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

This is why I don't understand you Adam.  You know I welcome critique and debate and yet you post things like this.

Bytemaster != the community. I know you do, Dan. But your father doesn't.

Indeed, I was talking about the community that defends you, not you.

Thanks for clarifying.   I think that the community as a whole is open minded, though at times we all lose site of the fact that we are all real people just trying to do our best with what we know.

My critique is this: You guys know what you want to do and have committed to this course, so critique whether welcome or not is ineffectual because you've got the resources to act on your vision and failing to run into an immovable object you're going to do what you've decided on.

Are there plans to replace you as CEO at any point?  I feel like you really want to be the CTO.
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Offline bytemaster

I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

This is why I don't understand you Adam.  You know I welcome critique and debate and yet you post things like this.

Bytemaster != the community. I know you do, Dan. But your father doesn't.

Indeed, I was talking about the community that defends you, not you.

Thanks for clarifying.   I think that the community as a whole is open minded, though at times we all lose site of the fact that we are all real people just trying to do our best with what we know. 

For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline AdamBLevine

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

This is why I don't understand you Adam.  You know I welcome critique and debate and yet you post things like this.

Bytemaster != the community. I know you do, Dan. But your father doesn't.

Indeed, I was talking about the community that defends you, not you.
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Offline xeroc

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stan ones gave a nice analogy using pilot and passangers ... I might start citing that more often .. i fully support him on this

Offline toast

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

This is why I don't understand you Adam.  You know I welcome critique and debate and yet you post things like this.

Bytemaster != the community. I know you do, Dan. But your father doesn't.

Seriously? If anything I would say Stan is the one more receptive of criticism. What would you call these threads?

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4688.0
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4684.0

Again, not following advice does not equal ignoring advice.
It is literally impossible to follow 100% of advice you are given.
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Offline bytemaster

Quote
You're peaking my curiosity now. The obvious thing is that they collude with someone buying the lottery ticket and tell them the secret. Why wouldn't they do this? Is each delegate responsible for the funds of his personal lotto? That would be the obvious re-alignment, but you'd have to assume all delegates were interested in running lottos. If delegates have different ownership from shareholders there would be obvious agency problems.

Multiple delegates (say, 51% or even 100%) put in secrets towards a shared hash, so even one honest delegate ensures you cannot predict the result. The worst you can do is refuse to reveal in response a particular winner, but the clients can auto-fire if they detect that.

It is actually possible to have the lotto ticket buyers keep their tickets secret until after the number is drawn.  In this way no one can be sure who the real winner is until after it is too late to change it.
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
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Offline bytemaster

I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

This is why I don't understand you Adam.  You know I welcome critique and debate and yet you post things like this.
For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline toast

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If DPOS fails we can always use POW with miner rewards paid from dividends as was the very initial plan back when BTS X was just "bitshares"

That's actually exactly the point, we could have started with that and would have had the product long since out for testing, ideation and expansion.  Do you think it was better to do it in the order performed?

Where we are now, yes, though I'll admit that a priori there was no way of knowing if it was a good decision. But also I don't expect to be able to sell you on "the delays due to architecture improvements will pay dividends in the long run!" so I will shut up and go back to work.
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Offline bitmeat

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I suggested that there is a way to do it in that order, but community backfired saying they would rather have it done right, and other argument was that it would introduce technical challenges when trying to switch from one to the other. Which is complete BS because you can just update the source code and make it a rule that after say block 10,000 or whatever we are comfortable with you start using he new algo.

Offline AdamBLevine

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If DPOS fails we can always use POW with miner rewards paid from dividends as was the very initial plan back when BTS X was just "bitshares"

That's actually exactly the point, we could have started with that and would have had the product long since out for testing, ideation and expansion.  Do you think it was better to do it in the order performed?
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Offline toast

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If DPOS fails we can always use POW with miner rewards paid from dividends as was the very initial plan back when BTS X was just "bitshares"
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Offline CLains

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You are clearly right that both dPOS and Bitshares X is an experiment (remember, so was NXT, and so was Namecoin, etc.).

If Bitshares X fails, dPOS chains can still bloom. If dPOS fails however, things are looking more bleak. If that is the case, then either they copy the code of someone else and still get Bitshares X and the other products up. Or, if both of those options fail, they still have a lot of the funding tied up in BTC, so if BTC goes up, they can keep working for a long time yet.

Now, if dPOS works there will be a lot of buzz around the new technology, even with just a test chain. Plus, LOTTO, .P2P and whatever else will raise the market cap of PTS and provide lots more funds to work with. If Bitshares X even so much as shows promise on top of that I think we are going to da moon and beyond.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2014, 10:52:50 pm by CLains »

Offline toast

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Quote
You're peaking my curiosity now. The obvious thing is that they collude with someone buying the lottery ticket and tell them the secret. Why wouldn't they do this? Is each delegate responsible for the funds of his personal lotto? That would be the obvious re-alignment, but you'd have to assume all delegates were interested in running lottos. If delegates have different ownership from shareholders there would be obvious agency problems.

Multiple delegates (say, 51% or even 100%) put in secrets towards a shared hash, so even one honest delegate ensures you cannot predict the result. The worst you can do is refuse to reveal in response a particular winner, but the clients can auto-fire if they detect that.
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Offline MolonLabe

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Quote from: Bytemaster
There has been significant progress and developments over the past several days.   One of the most significant is the introduction of a random number generation scheme and random delegate selection today.   This was done for two reasons: it resolves a security vulnerability discovered with sequential DPOS and it facilitates one of the more challenging parts of the Lotto DAC.
This is not an explanation. I hope you already know that....

MolonLabe,

Thanks for your input!  I think you bring up some real risks and this project is not without risk, at least from my level of knowledge of it.  I also think you are trying to ask important questions and I appreciate your focus on the tough technical obstacles. 
You're welcome.

That said, to me it seems bytemaster is working on the right problems and I think solving these problems could have a big impact on the world and be VERY valuable if they are solved, don't you?
Of course. The question is "what approach is most likely to actually get the problems solved" hence my concern about the simultaneous risks.

I also think bytemaster might be in a tough position in that as a leader for bitshares he must weigh projecting some confidence rather than saying "hey guys I'm stuck here and have hit a roadblock, is there anyone who knows enough to help me think through this without wasting my time making me explain a million things from scratch that they don't understand."
Sounds awful. I wouldn't do it. I'd say "you invested, go away and let me do my work." I'm so crazy I might even dock people their investment if they continue distracting me.

Have you taken time to read the source code and try to have a deep understanding of implementation?  It's not a criticism either way, I am just curious if you are a programmer etc.
Yes, but one thing that frustrates me, as I mentioned, is that the rules appear to change frequently. It takes a lot of effort to refocus on everything, and I think it indicates some lurking instability in the idea-generating process. Not that I'm a fan of peer review, but usually ideas are passed around to a few people before the work/investment is made, and therefore last minute changes are less frequent.

Well Bitcoin right now is widely deployed, so changing the core block validation algorithm would inevitably cause massive disruption to Bitcoin services and therefore the price as well.
No it wouldn't. Do you really believe that? A carefully staged, thoughtfully tested improvement? No one would care.

Therefore core Bitcoin developers are dis-incentivized from acknowledging that anything else in the cryto space could possibly provide a better solution than what Bitcoin offers. So Im not particularly interested in what core Bitcoin developers have to say.
This sounds like a rationalization. If gmaxwell endorsed dpos as a work of unique genius, you're saying you "wouldn't care"? Instead you'd probably be posting about it everywhere. There is constant disagreement from the Bitcoin devs, they are not a unified anti-Altcoin conspiracy. We already know that Bitcoin works, but feel free to suggest your own experts.

The fact is that mining leads to centralization - everyone agrees that something needs to be done about it.
No they don't (I don't, for example). Even if it did there is P2Pool. There are like 12 mining groups in perfect competition selling totally homogenous hashes. Even if there were only 1 mining pool there wouldn't be centralization. Google may not have competitors, but it faces competition.

On the issue of whether BitAssets will track properly - the underlying theory is that when a BTSX holder sees that each share is trading for $100 on the centralized exchanges, he will act in his own self interest and never demand any less than 100 BitUSD for his shares. He cant ask for any more than that because he knows that other buyers will bid at 100 BitUSD per share. On the short side the exact same psychology happens. Therefore the buyers and shorts will reach consensus at the real price of each share, and the correct amount of BitUSD will be created.

So yes BitUSD is going to track the price of "real" USD.
I am familiar with the arguments against my position (that BitUSD will not track). You, however, are not.

Well here is a reason to care - are you happy with the status quo...only banks are allowed to create dollars...corrupt opaque central bank backed by violence...use the blockchain to give that power back to the people...issue dollars backed by a real trustworthy asset...government lies.
I'm sorry but this is clearly political babble. I was not asking for reasons to care, I was asking if anyone would care. Surely you hold the opinion that people should care more about central banking, but they don't so care. Completely fatuous and embarrassing remark on your part, you've played into AdamBLevine's hand like the fool he predicted you'd be.

It's the delegates that provide the secret.
You're peaking my curiosity now. The obvious thing is that they collude with someone buying the lottery ticket and tell them the secret. Why wouldn't they do this? Is each delegate responsible for the funds of his personal lotto? That would be the obvious re-alignment, but you'd have to assume all delegates were interested in running lottos. If delegates have different ownership from shareholders there would be obvious agency problems.

For convenience sake would it be possible to split your points up in separate threads, because you've listed quite a large number of different topics that might make the discussion more confusing rather than enlightening. Maybe one for each number or main point of critique?
I think that, as you say, the posts have been made. I suppose the thesis of this post is that dpos should be tested separately from BitsharesX, which should run purely on proof of work until the novelties of BitsharesX can be tested. My comments about BitsharesX were just to reinforce how serious the simultaneous-risk problem is.

I might be even more critical about the chances of success for the entire blockchain ecosystem than you are MoLoLabe.
If you can't criticize, you can't optimize. :D

I've run out of time and have to run, so I hope you don't take my not responding to all your points as a token of ill will or any of the other original and very creative interpretations and assumptions about all members of the forums.
Nope. Again I would prefer the problems be avoided rather than addressed, through smaller projects.

Offline JoeyD

MoLonLabe not only am I worried about the points you listed, but I could even add a whole lot more, so I personally welcome the discussion of your points. Quite a few of your points have come up several times, but often on unrelated topics and have gotten buried since.

For convenience sake would it be possible to split your points up in separate threads, because you've listed quite a large number of different topics that might make the discussion more confusing rather than enlightening. Maybe one for each number or main point of critique?

First off, I have a bit of a different take on point 3. I do not agree that bitcoin was written by a genius programmer (doesn't mean he wasn't a genius in many other areas) and fixing that apparently takes quite the army of genius coders and a lot of time and effort. This sort of makes the case for the need to at least try to do the coding right from the start. As for big name supervision, I was under the impression that the person who has discovered most of bitcoins fundamental bugs was also asked to vet the bitshares code.

One of the biggest issues in my point of view (second only to the quality of the code produced by the invictus-team) is that the community- and informationmanagement has not been and still isn't at the level it should be, neither on this forum nor on the website. I don't know all the details why that is, but I do know that it isn't being done as well as other open-dev communities are doing it, like for example blender.org, raspberrypi.org etcetera.

Instead of trying to sell a consumer-product, I think the focus should be on the community first and foremost and I do believe a part of that responsibility lies with Invictus. I personally don´t care about any fancy website, but would like to see something like a blog regularly updated with the more elaborate updates and explanations, a central stickied post on the forum with a todolist, listing what has been done and what needs to be done and things that would be nice to be able to do. That thread with the todolist could maybe also list why some choices had to be scrapped or changed and why delays have occured.

Just those two central points of reference would make finding correct information a whole lot easier imho and maybe help foster more discussion like this thread. Having no real central easy to browse point of information and history also leads to confusion and rumors like the one about the "choice for dpos", because now it looks like Invictus just randomly choose to go with dpos over pow which is not what happened.

Btw I myself don't see pow as any less experimental as (D)PoS. To me pow is not a proven concept at all and also not the guaranteed solution to all things as I have seen some people suggest. Hell I doubt even Dr. A. Back is that much of a believer in it. But then again I might be even more critical about the chances of success for the entire blockchain ecosystem than you are MoLoLabe.

I've run out of time and have to run, so I hope you don't take my not responding to all your points as a token of ill will or any of the other original and very creative interpretations and assumptions about all members of the forums. I'm just one individual and I do not represent the entirety of the bitshares-community if such a thing is even possible.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2014, 06:07:37 pm by JoeyD »

Offline Overthetop

MolonLabe,

Thanks for your input!  I think you bring up some real risks and this project is not without risk, at least from my level of knowledge of it.  I also think you are trying to ask important questions and I appreciate your focus on the tough technical obstacles. 

I think the more people we have that are thinking deeply about these things the better. The more people that take the time learn enough to really get on the same page and see the obstacles clearly the better (this is very important, but very difficult for many).  Perhaps a lot of people take a leap of faith and trust bytemaster rather than asking tons of questions to try to get up to speed, because they know he only has so many hours in a day.

That said, to me it seems bytemaster is working on the right problems and I think solving these problems could have a big impact on the world and be VERY valuable if they are solved, don't you?

I also think bytemaster might be in a tough position in that as a leader for bitshares he must weigh projecting some confidence rather than saying "hey guys I'm stuck here and have hit a roadblock, is there anyone who knows enough to help me think through this without wasting my time making me explain a million things from scratch that they don't understand."

Have you taken time to read the source code and try to have a deep understanding of implementation?  It's not a criticism either way, I am just curious if you are a programmer etc.

I don't think people on the forum hate criticism in principle, it's just people don't always agree on what is a valid criticism; not all criticism is well thought out.  Also, a lot of people don't feel like they have a good enough understanding to fully evaluate all the more technical criticism.
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Offline toast

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

Come on man, not following your advice is not the same as ignoring it. I for one always stop to read what you say when I'm skimming any thread. Nobody perceives you as the enemy.

I wish I could say I were more familiar. When I see, for example, "Charity" I usually just don't even open the link.

p2p appears to actually solve a problem related to distributed trust, and already exists, so sure. Wouldn't lotto require random number generation? Is there a reader's digest version of who checked the technical details and incentive structure of that? I'm afraid I just decided it wasn't worth looking into. Can you convince me that it is?

Moreover, and to the point, will they use proof of work or dpos?

I think the lotto random number works something like:
You buy a lottery ticket and submit with your lottery ticket the hash of a secret, then when drawing the lottery everyone reveals their secret and a hash is taken of all of them and that hash is the random number that determines who wins your lottery.  No one else knows your secret and no one can lie about what their secret was after the fact.


It's the delegates that provide the secret.

I'm afraid I just decided it wasn't worth looking into. Can you convince me that it is?
No, tl;dr is "delegate secret/reveal".
Quote
Moreover, and to the point, will they use proof of work or dpos?
DPOS. I understand your anxiety here.

Do not use this post as information for making any important decisions. The only agreements I ever make are informal and non-binding. Take the same precautions as when dealing with a compromised account, scammer, sockpuppet, etc.

Offline AdamBLevine

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

Polite/technical critiques are highly valued.
Crude/ad-hominum critiques, not so much.

 :)

Is the OP Crude/ad-hominum?
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Offline Agent86

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I wish I could say I were more familiar. When I see, for example, "Charity" I usually just don't even open the link.

p2p appears to actually solve a problem related to distributed trust, and already exists, so sure. Wouldn't lotto require random number generation? Is there a reader's digest version of who checked the technical details and incentive structure of that? I'm afraid I just decided it wasn't worth looking into. Can you convince me that it is?

Moreover, and to the point, will they use proof of work or dpos?

I think the lotto random number works something like:
You buy a lottery ticket and submit with your lottery ticket the hash of a secret, then when drawing the lottery everyone reveals their secret and a hash is taken of all of them and that hash is the random number that determines who wins your lottery.  No one else knows your secret and no one can lie about what their secret was after the fact.

Offline Agent86

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MolonLabe,

Thanks for your input!  I think you bring up some real risks and this project is not without risk, at least from my level of knowledge of it.  I also think you are trying to ask important questions and I appreciate your focus on the tough technical obstacles. 

I think the more people we have that are thinking deeply about these things the better. The more people that take the time learn enough to really get on the same page and see the obstacles clearly the better (this is very important, but very difficult for many).  Perhaps a lot of people take a leap of faith and trust bytemaster rather than asking tons of questions to try to get up to speed, because they know he only has so many hours in a day.

That said, to me it seems bytemaster is working on the right problems and I think solving these problems could have a big impact on the world and be VERY valuable if they are solved, don't you?

I also think bytemaster might be in a tough position in that as a leader for bitshares he must weigh projecting some confidence rather than saying "hey guys I'm stuck here and have hit a roadblock, is there anyone who knows enough to help me think through this without wasting my time making me explain a million things from scratch that they don't understand."

Have you taken time to read the source code and try to have a deep understanding of implementation?  It's not a criticism either way, I am just curious if you are a programmer etc.

I don't think people on the forum hate criticism in principle, it's just people don't always agree on what is a valid criticism; not all criticism is well thought out.  Also, a lot of people don't feel like they have a good enough understanding to fully evaluate all the more technical criticism.

Offline Stan

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.

Polite/technical critiques are highly valued.
Crude/ad-hominum critiques, not so much.

 :)
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract of any kind.   These are merely my opinions which I reserve the right to change at any time.

Offline liondani

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Wouldn't lotto require random number generation? Is there a reader's digest version of who checked the technical details and incentive structure of that? I'm afraid I just decided it wasn't worth looking into. Can you convince me that it is?
Moreover, and to the point, will they use proof of work or dpos?

Quote from: Bytemaster
There has been significant progress and developments over the past several days.   One of the most significant is the introduction of a random number generation scheme and random delegate selection today.   This was done for two reasons: it resolves a security vulnerability discovered with sequential DPOS and it facilitates one of the more challenging parts of the Lotto DAC.

We have implemented UPNP networking.


Offline MolonLabe

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I wish I could say I were more familiar. When I see, for example, "Charity" I usually just don't even open the link.

p2p appears to actually solve a problem related to distributed trust, and already exists, so sure. Wouldn't lotto require random number generation? Is there a reader's digest version of who checked the technical details and incentive structure of that? I'm afraid I just decided it wasn't worth looking into. Can you convince me that it is?

Moreover, and to the point, will they use proof of work or dpos?
« Last Edit: May 23, 2014, 02:11:08 pm by MolonLabe »

Offline toast

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A smaller project, like .p2p or lotto?

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Offline MolonLabe

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 >)

I thrive on enemies.

Offline AdamBLevine

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I think you'll find critique is not welcome from the community here, and providing any will make you the enemy.

So enjoy that.
Email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com

Offline MolonLabe

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This project is already asking people to accept many separate significant sources of uncertainty at once:

1] The "economic experiment" (that BitAssets will track real assets, which I personally don't believe in at all).
2] The economic model of this experiment (which I also don't believe in, as shorts have asymmetric fragility and inferior optionality).
3] Software/technical bugs (which have interfered even with Bitcoin [written by many programming geniuses] several times over its history).
4] Market response (Will a critical mass of merchants care bout this? Will a critical mass of traders use this?).
5] Other (legal response, competition, forking the project, theft/poaching/organizational decay).

However, on top of that, you are adding [6] a completely new consensus mechanism, "delegated proof of stake", which is less than 2 months old? Have any big names in cryptocoin security, eg Gmaxwell or andytoshi, endorsed this mechanism? Have any third-parties (ie, not positive bias, cognitive-dissonance fueled I3 investors) endorsed the mechanism? Have any notable people commented on it at all?

Worse, still, will there be Something New two months from now? Something that is even less understood and tested?

Why doesn't anyone else care about this?

I am not an investor in Bitshares, but I would like to see something in Bitcoin 2.0 space succeed. Surely it would be wiser to stick to an idea which already exists, yet is struggling to maintain trust or vitality (like e-gold), and start small by blockchaining it in as similar a way as possible. Take an existing service, like Dropbox (not like insurance or lending, which require complex and novel customer service and human input, nor something like Music-distribution which really isn't an industry at all anymore), and just copy it by changing as few things about Bitcoin as possible. Even this is likely to be impossibly risky and technical.

I'm sorry to say that it is my opinion that a great deal of money and talent will go to waste here. I can't imagine this project succeeding (ie running for 1 year without significant economic or technical problems), without more than a year of testing.

Pick a smaller project!