Was there any clarification on the terms and conditions of this proposal?
Putting aside the dilution argument, I felt $100 for $1000 with limited strings attached would be very quickly gamed.
I can only speak from online poker experience, but many new sites offer lucrative deposit bonuses to attract new users. However the terms and conditions require you to play X hands essentially and as the poker site charges 5% Rake, these promotions largely pay for themselves.
If there was a poker site where I could just deposit $1000 and remove with minimal hassle $1100 the next day, it would be gamed incredibly quickly by people who have no intention of playing on the site and you wouldn't need a referral bonus as it would spread quickly. Even if it was for BTSX, you'd have poker players happily depositing $1000 if they could easily remove $1100.
So atm my conclusion is that the terms and conditions would have to be pretty strict. A much more prudent referral bonus would be necessary.
It seems that perhaps $25 BitUSD for $250 with a $10 referral bonus seems more realistic as a starting point. (Also it seems that it if it didn't generate enough interest it could be raised after 30 days as opposed to starting too high.)
(Perhaps the terms and conditions could be a 30 day time-lock before the $25 BitUSD is released)
* I think the smaller deposit + bonus could work better anyway as people would feel it is too risky to put $1000 on a new system.
If it was awarded to the first 50 000 new users it would cost roughly $1.5 million
50 000 users would be depositing > $13 million BitUSD which would boost the value of BTSX by $40 million. I personally struggle to see BTSX CAP not being $200 million with all this happening which means only 15 million BTSX would be needed to pay for this.
In other words 0.75% of BTSX could end up incentivising up to 50 000 new users.
That seems like it could be achievable without dilution and dilution would only have to be kept as a last resort tool.
(I seem to recall there could be up to 2.5% of BTSX via AGS earmarked to primarily support BTSX development. If that was true perhaps 0.75% could go short pre-promotion for 30 days and the BTSX gains would possibly be enough to pay for the program without eating in to the budget.)
Edit: Obviously BTSX is a virtual vault but the following report on what it takes banking consumers to switch and how much they hold in various accounts could be useful particularly from page 18.
It seems interest rate is the primary driver
http://www.fca.org.uk/static/documents/market-studies/ms14-02-interim-report.pdf