Marketing Fund to Subsidize BitUSD / BitBTC yield?

[CLains]

We are already designing and building such a referral network.

Moons of Jupiter and tropical islands.

[Method-X]

I would highly recommend taking a look at my proposal for a referral program. If you want BitUSD to spread virally, this is what needs to be done.

Advertising > Users > Share value

Advertising brings users which ultimately determines share value.

I agree this is a good idea. Just need to make sure it pays for results like trading activity  and can't be easily gamed.   I think gaming sites give referrers a cut of their profits (profit sharing).  Residual income is a very powerful incentive vs one-time fees.

I'm glad some people are starting to see the value in this idea.

• Commissions would only be paid for referrals that generate income for the DAC (i.e. sales, fees, etc).
• Most every online business offers a referral program.
• There is no core difference between a traditional referral program (Amazon, Commission Junction, etc) and a DAC based referral program.
• Tracking for a DAC based referral program would be more primitive than web based tracking (cookies vs. referral codes).

[/list]

[GaltReport]

I would highly recommend taking a look at my proposal for a referral program. If you want BitUSD to spread virally, this is what needs to be done.

Advertising > Users > Share value

Advertising brings users which ultimately determines share value.

I agree this is a good idea. Just need to make sure it pays for results like trading activity  and can't be easily gamed.   I think gaming sites give referrers a cut of their profits (profit sharing).  Residual income is a very powerful incentive vs one-time fees.

[Method-X]

I would highly recommend taking a look at my proposal for a referral program. If you want BitUSD to spread virally, this is what needs to be done.

Advertising > Users > Share value

Advertising brings users which ultimately determines share value.

[Empirical1.1]

Idea - The 5% inactivity fee

While I'm not a big fan of it, it may be needed for unclaimed stake and to incentivise voting and was part of the original BTSX design so it could be directed by BTSX shareholders for the best interest of BTSX.

If you run some numbers on how much BTSX that could be and what BTSX could be worth July 20th next year, you get some pretty sexy amounts, maybe $5 million at least.

My thinking says that if BTSX did decide to have a 5% inactivity fee, they may decide it's in the interest of BTSX holders if it went to incentivising BitAsset demand and they may decide it would be in their interest to use it to kickstart and bootstrap that BitAsset demand. (Obviously it should not be used in isolation or as a substitute for the other important points listed in this thread and should only start when we're close to getting other things in place necessary for bootstrapping BitAssets.)

What if the inactivity fee was distributed to people who held BitAssets in the preceding year? Or if you really wanted to be sexy over a 100 day period starting soon.

Every day you held 1 BitUSD you got 1 point and on July 20th next year the 5% inactivity fee could be distributed to points holders?

I'm not great at maths, anyone have any idea how much demand that could stimulate? Other thoughts?

[luckybit]

Do you mean that AGS funds would be used to guarantee a min. yield?

How about if it works like this: DACYieldFund / UniversalYieldFund

You're a user and participant in Bitshares X. There is a BitsharesXYieldFund and a UniversalYieldFund.

1) Anyone who donates to the BitsharesXYieldFund would do so voluntarily. There could be perks or reputation consequences for donating to the BitsharesXYieldFund. So suppose you donate $1000 in BitAssets to the BitsharesXYield fund? The fund would hold these BitAssets and when the price goes up the BitsharesXYield would be distributed to BitUSD holders.

2) Assume someone donates to the UniversalYieldFund? This fund would exist as a network of DACs that contribute to this shared Yield fund. This could have all kinds of interesting effects and it could connect economically the DACs in the Bitshares ecosystem.

So Bitshares Music, Bitshares Play, Bitshares X, could all be inter-connected through the UniversalYieldFund. Each DAC would contribute something as it is profitable to this fund and then when one of the DACs isn't profitable the fund would increase the Yield for a BitAsset in that DAC.

Do you think any of these ideas could work? Bitshares X does has atomic cross chain transactions. It can technically implement this idea and it could have either a load balance effect or an effect where every DAC in the network assists other DACs. Sort of like a mutual aid society for DACs making it into more of a Bitshares family.

[luckybit]

I have been thinking that a good way to bootstrap interest in BitUSD is to have the yield subsidized.   A kind of promotion to encourage people to try it out.   

We also need an honest way to account for "projected yield" but I don't know how to do that because there are too many variables:

1) trade volume could increase generating increased fees and higher yield
2) USD supply could increase decreasing average yield
3) USD supply could decrease increasing average yield
4) an unknown percent of USD never claims yield (turn over, short holding period)

Without knowing all of these things it is impossible to predict exactly the yield in BitUSD..

How about you give users a way to directly donate to the BitsharesXYieldFund? Then add that to the Yield as a way to market BitUSD. This way Yield can be privately funded by other DACs. If possible someday why not a UniversalYieldFund where DACs connect privately support the Yield of other DACs?

Donating to the YieldFund should be a one way process. It should allow participants and eventually DACs to donate to the Yield of Bitshares X (and eventually other DACs). Atomic cross chain transactions might be able to do something beautiful if the process is refined.

[GaltReport]

1. pay your employees in bitUSD
2. pay your contractors in bitUSD
3. let the bitshares DNS, Votes, Music etc. integrate bitUSD payment from the start - as easy as possible
4. establish an easy way to convert USD in bitUSD - this will bring new money in the system

we need more purpose for bitUSD and everything else will follow

 Exactly!

Lot's of truth here! 


Edit: Fiat On-Ramps + merchant adoption + best interest we can give without inflation or spending marketing budget on.

Their are 2 arguments at work here.
1. give bitUSD value through utility like the above states
2. add interest/yield to bitUSD

Unless bytemaster knows something we don't and all ready has a plan for option 1 through a deal with a gateway/on-ramp I just don't see the logic of option 2. btsx reached the cap it is at today because of the value of the platform, why wouldn't we apply the same logic to bitUSD?

Well there's money from long term shorts who dont mind competing on fees and not collateral. Assuming two equal systems the one that added the interest from the long term shorts would win, so I'm in favour if adding interest. 

In terms of the marketing fund suggestion, I think, again assuming two equal systems, at whatever stage they are, if one had $1 million of promotional funds to subsidize BitYield for the first 6 months it could probably kickstart $20 million worth of BitAsset demand & as a result would most likely be the one that got bootstrapped. So I see the logic there.

I think if you did this in isolation, that is, without any improvement in general BitUSD utility (i.e. converting to fiat and/or merchant adoption), it would not have a great effect.  Done in combination I would agree it could be beneficial.

Edit:  First thing I did after buying BitUSD as a new user was try to convert to USD and it was not an encouraging experience.

[Empirical1.1]

1. pay your employees in bitUSD
2. pay your contractors in bitUSD
3. let the bitshares DNS, Votes, Music etc. integrate bitUSD payment from the start - as easy as possible
4. establish an easy way to convert USD in bitUSD - this will bring new money in the system

we need more purpose for bitUSD and everything else will follow

 Exactly!

Lot's of truth here! 


Edit: Fiat On-Ramps + merchant adoption + best interest we can give without inflation or spending marketing budget on.

Their are 2 arguments at work here.
1. give bitUSD value through utility like the above states
2. add interest/yield to bitUSD

Unless bytemaster knows something we don't and all ready has a plan for option 1 through a deal with a gateway/on-ramp I just don't see the logic of option 2. btsx reached the cap it is at today because of the value of the platform, why wouldn't we apply the same logic to bitUSD?

Well there's money from long term shorts who dont mind competing on fees and not collateral. Assuming two equal systems the one that added the interest from the long term shorts would win, so I'm in favour if adding interest. 

In terms of the marketing fund suggestion, I think, again assuming two equal systems, at whatever stage they are, if one had $1 million of promotional funds to subsidize BitYield for the first 6 months it could probably kickstart $20 million worth of BitAsset demand & as a result would most likely be the one that got bootstrapped. So I see the logic there.

[Gentso1]

1. pay your employees in bitUSD
2. pay your contractors in bitUSD
3. let the bitshares DNS, Votes, Music etc. integrate bitUSD payment from the start - as easy as possible
4. establish an easy way to convert USD in bitUSD - this will bring new money in the system

we need more purpose for bitUSD and everything else will follow

 Exactly!

Lot's of truth here! 


Edit: Fiat On-Ramps + merchant adoption + best interest we can give without inflation or spending marketing budget on.

Their are 2 arguments at work here.
1. give bitUSD value through utility like the above states
2. add interest/yield to bitUSD

Unless bytemaster knows something we don't and all ready has a plan for option 1 through a deal with a gateway/on-ramp I just don't see the logic of option 2. btsx reached the cap it is at today because of the value of the platform, why wouldn't we apply the same logic to bitUSD?

[xeroc]

With payment processors, do we see them incorporating BitUSD as the standard currency as opposed to the actual BitShares-X?

I HOPE so .. BTSX is just a token and not a currency .. shouldn't therefore be used as such ..

[Final_Acclaim]

With payment processors, do we see them incorporating BitUSD as the standard currency as opposed to the actual BitShares-X?

[GaltReport]

1. pay your employees in bitUSD
2. pay your contractors in bitUSD
3. let the bitshares DNS, Votes, Music etc. integrate bitUSD payment from the start - as easy as possible
4. establish an easy way to convert USD in bitUSD - this will bring new money in the system

we need more purpose for bitUSD and everything else will follow

 Exactly!

Lot's of truth here! 


Edit: Fiat On-Ramps + merchant adoption + best interest we can give without inflation or spending marketing budget on.

[sschechter]

Yup. But if the promotion wasn't successful in increasing demand or merchant adoption (for other reasons such as bugs in the client, lack of usability for the average user, etc.), then it would be a big waste of money. It would just be a wealth transfer from the funder (either I3 if they are using their marketing fund or BTSX holders if they fund it through inflation) to the other members in our community who chose to hold BitAssets. I think it is way too premature to be thinking about this plan (and by the time it is not premature, hopefully the DAC revenue will be large enough that it can sustain 5% yields by itself). There are much bigger barriers to adoption right now that have nothing to do with the lack of high yields on BitUSD. We need a better client. We need a lightweight client. We need better cold storage methods with the ability to sign transactions offline. We need good multisig security so people don't have to even worry about losing the money in their hot client. We need more exchanges and on-ramps for easily getting fiat into (and also out of) the system. These are all orders of magnitude more important right now than an extra 4% yield.

 

[arhag]

What BM is doing is on one hand try to convince people that the price of BTSX is going to be higher, on the other hand, try to convince people that it's better to sell btsx to bitUSD. Isn't this conflicting?

Absolutely agree. BitUSD should (eventually) be useful even without any interest/yield. The whole point of this great innovation called BitAssets was to get price stability so we can have an actual cryptocurrency. Well that and traders speculating on short term price changes of various BitAssets and BTSX relative to one another. But I think most of the demand would come from people using it like a currency. Why would someone want price stability? So that their purchasing power isn't reduced because of volatility. If you aren't purchasing anything in the short term, you don't really care about short-term volatility. If you are just holding for the medium/long term and you really believe in this technology, you would want to hold (or short if possible) BTSX for maximum gain.

Demand for BitUSD will increase once we have goods/services we can actually spend it on. This won't happen until we get some merchant adoption. Having a reasonable yield on top is a really nice addition because it is more than you would get holding that money in your bank savings account, making it more attractive for the regular person to hold their currency as BitUSD in BitShares X rather than as USD in a traditional bank. But BitUSD with yield is still not a substitute for savers holding the majority of their cryptowealth as the high growth BTSX in the medium/long term (at least, this is true in the growth phase of the DAC).

I think the idea is that it would kickstart adoption and bootstrap BitAssets and create a market third parties and merchants would want to interact with, so that when the promotional period ended, the BitAsset ecosystem would be self sustaining.

Yup. But if the promotion wasn't successful in increasing demand or merchant adoption (for other reasons such as bugs in the client, lack of usability for the average user, etc.), then it would be a big waste of money. It would just be a wealth transfer from the funder (either I3 if they are using their marketing fund or BTSX holders if they fund it through inflation) to the other members in our community who chose to hold BitAssets. I think it is way too premature to be thinking about this plan (and by the time it is not premature, hopefully the DAC revenue will be large enough that it can sustain 5% yields by itself). There are much bigger barriers to adoption right now that have nothing to do with the lack of high yields on BitUSD. We need a better client. We need a lightweight client. We need better cold storage methods with the ability to sign transactions offline. We need good multisig security so people don't have to even worry about losing the money in their hot client. We need more exchanges and on-ramps for easily getting fiat into (and also out of) the system. These are all orders of magnitude more important right now than an extra 4% yield.