BitShares and Mastercoin - a comparison

[ripper234]

@Ron Gross


1`. Also, how would lots of stuff on top of bitcoin protocol, like social networking, work without clogging the blockchain which is already over few gigabytes in size?

2. Care to address the issue of dividends? Some make the claim Protoshares pays dividends while Mastercoin doesn't.

3. ProtoShares pay dividends by taking capital from say a "company" who does an IPO. That "company" will lose 20% in profits/pri proceeds paid to Angels and Protoshare owners. A company starts with 80% of the raised capital and or will have to pay 20% of its profits. I assume companies trying to do an IPO using Mastercoin will get access to 100% of the capital and won't be forced to pay anything to Mastercoin owners. Is that correct?

Thanks for the questions:

1. The final design of Mastercoin is not settled yet. Peter Todd is joining the Mastercoin Foundation as of Feb 1 to tackle these exact issues. One possibiliy is a merged mined alt chain or some other design. In any case, Bitcoin has the task of supporting a lot more load in the future, and there are some promising directions to changes in Bitcoin to allow this kind of load.

2. These are just two different models. Decentralized Applications / Decentralized Autonamous Communities/Corporatiosn don't have the pay dividends in order to be profitable. In fact, I see the dividend model as inferior ... the decision when and how to pay dividends is rather arbitrary. When the tokens that represent "shares" are valuable and liquid, there is no need IMO for dividends. Mastercoin will enable entities managed on Mastercoin (Smart Property / DA) to send dividends if they want, but that's quite up to the specific application/organization to decide.

3. As noted in #2, while Mastercoin itself doesn't use dividends, companies using Mastercoin to IPO will be able to use the dividends model if they choose. Our spec contains dividends since version 0.3.5 (November).

[1714151599]

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[1714151599]

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[1714151599]

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[Herp]

@Ron Gross


1`. Also, how would lots of stuff on top of bitcoin protocol, like social networking, work without clogging the blockchain which is already over few gigabytes in size?

2. Care to address the issue of dividends? Some make the claim Protoshares pays dividends while Mastercoin doesn't.

3. ProtoShares pay dividends by taking capital from say a "company" who does an IPO. That "company" will lose 20% in profits/pri proceeds paid to Angels and Protoshare owners. A company starts with 80% of the raised capital and or will have to pay 20% of its profits. I assume companies trying to do an IPO using Mastercoin will get access to 100% of the capital and won't be forced to pay anything to Mastercoin owners. Is that correct?

1. The final design of Mastercoin is not settled yet. Peter Todd is joining the Mastercoin Foundation as of Feb 1 to tackle these exact issues. One possibiliy is a merged mined alt chain or some other design. In any case, Bitcoin has the task of supporting a lot more load in the future, and there are some promising directions to changes in Bitcoin to allow this kind of load.

2. These are just two different models. Decentralized Applications / Decentralized Autonamous Communities/Corporatiosn don't have the pay dividends in order to be profitable. In fact, I see the dividend model as inferior ... the decision when and how to pay dividends is rather arbitrary. When the tokens that represent "shares" are valuable and liquid, there is no need IMO for dividends. Mastercoin will enable entities managed on Mastercoin (Smart Property / DA) to send dividends if they want, but that's quite up to the specific application/organization to decide.

3. As noted in #2, while Mastercoin itself doesn't use dividends, companies using Mastercoin to IPO will be able to use the dividends model if they choose. Our spec contains dividends since version 0.3.5 (November).

Internet bandwith and storage space keeps growing at an exponential rate. I remember the early days when PC which used to have only 20mb of hard drive and dial-up models limited to 9kbps bandwith. Now we have terrabytes of storage available for very low cost in any retail store and cheap fiber link connections. Perhaps a huge blockchain won't be such an issue, though people also consume much more data these days.

What I see happening in the case of Protoshares/Bitshares and their Autonomous Corporations, is that many of their potential clients would opt for the free alternative of Mastercoin, where they won't have this pressure of paying 20% off their IPO/earnings. I mean what incentive would I have as developer to pick them over Mastercoin?

Not many people put price on this, but the branding and name itself is much better in case of Mastercoin, while Protoshares/Bitshares is confusing and they seem to be very tech savvy oriented, which leaves out all the mainstream crowd. They seem to have very smart and creative people behind the project but seem to have a blind spot when it comes to the psychological side of things and that's probably the most important one, if you wanna get your message out there. Not all of the outside world is made of geeks and they really push the envelope of the geeky side. Took me quite some time to even figure out their Angel investment model. It's almost like they've went out of their way to make it complicated. Sure, every geek out there appreciates a mind bending puzzle but it kinda` undermines what they're trying to achieve.  

[coinrevo]

repost later

[ripper234]

Internet bandwith and storage space keeps growing at an exponential rate. I remember the early days when PC which used to have only 20mb of hard drive and dial-up models limited to 9kbps bandwith. Now we have terrabytes of storage available for very low cost in any retail store and cheap fiber link connections. Perhaps a huge blockchain won't be such an issue, though people also consume much more data these days.

Very true

What I see happening in the case of Protoshares/Bitshares and their Autonomous Corporations, is that many of their potential clients would opt for the free alternative of Mastercoin, where they won't have this pressure of paying 20% off their IPO/earnings. I mean what incentive would I have as developer to pick them over Mastercoin?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but this is not the way I understand Protoshares.

My understanding is that Protoshares entitles its owner to 10% of any future project/DAC released by Invictus, but not 10% of any future project released by 3rd parties (how can it?). So I don't think this point of comparison is correct.

The big advantage of Mastercoin IMO is having one unified network to trade all these different assets ... as opposed to different blockchains with some ideas of implementing a decentralized exchange on them, but nothing concrete. Our decentralized exchange is in advanced testing and nearly complete, and I expect to have Smart Property traded on that network within a few months.

[Herp]

Internet bandwith and storage space keeps growing at an exponential rate. I remember the early days when PC which used to have only 20mb of hard drive and dial-up models limited to 9kbps bandwith. Now we have terrabytes of storage available for very low cost in any retail store and cheap fiber link connections. Perhaps a huge blockchain won't be such an issue, though people also consume much more data these days.

Very true

What I see happening in the case of Protoshares/Bitshares and their Autonomous Corporations, is that many of their potential clients would opt for the free alternative of Mastercoin, where they won't have this pressure of paying 20% off their IPO/earnings. I mean what incentive would I have as developer to pick them over Mastercoin?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but this is not the way I understand Protoshares.

My understanding is that Protoshares entitles its owner to 10% of any future project/DAC released by Invictus, but not 10% of any future project released by 3rd parties (how can it?). So I don't think this point of comparison is correct.

The big advantage of Mastercoin IMO is having one unified network to trade all these different assets ... as opposed to different blockchains with some ideas of implementing a decentralized exchange on them, but nothing concrete. Our decentralized exchange is in advanced testing and nearly complete, and I expect to have Smart Property traded on that network within a few months.

Invictus expects 3rd parties to also honor the so called "Social contract" (bad choice of name imo with socialist connotations).

This is info taken directly from their website:

Statement of Social Consensus a.k.a. “Social Contract”
.............................

In this document, we are for the first time formally defining our view of the integrated Social Consensus for ProtoShares, AngelShares and BitShares. We also clean up the language to better comply with the laws of our jurisdiction. To that end, Invictus will only develop, endorse, support and promote DACs that meet all of the following applicable consensus requirements:

For all third party DACs:

Allocate at least 10% of its equity to ProtoShares holders at genesis.

For all Invictus sponsored DACs:

Allocate at least 10% of its equity to ProtoShares holders at genesis.
Allocate at least 10% of its equity to AngelShares holders at genesis.
Allocate the last 80% at the discretion of each DAC developer.

So basically if these 3rd party DACs don't honor the "social contract" they won't be endorsed and supported and probably treated as outcast pariahs or regarded as lame and evil by the community as a result.

http://invictus-innovations.com/social-concensus/

[ripper234]

Internet bandwith and storage space keeps growing at an exponential rate. I remember the early days when PC which used to have only 20mb of hard drive and dial-up models limited to 9kbps bandwith. Now we have terrabytes of storage available for very low cost in any retail store and cheap fiber link connections. Perhaps a huge blockchain won't be such an issue, though people also consume much more data these days.

Very true

What I see happening in the case of Protoshares/Bitshares and their Autonomous Corporations, is that many of their potential clients would opt for the free alternative of Mastercoin, where they won't have this pressure of paying 20% off their IPO/earnings. I mean what incentive would I have as developer to pick them over Mastercoin?

Perhaps I'm missing something, but this is not the way I understand Protoshares.

My understanding is that Protoshares entitles its owner to 10% of any future project/DAC released by Invictus, but not 10% of any future project released by 3rd parties (how can it?). So I don't think this point of comparison is correct.

The big advantage of Mastercoin IMO is having one unified network to trade all these different assets ... as opposed to different blockchains with some ideas of implementing a decentralized exchange on them, but nothing concrete. Our decentralized exchange is in advanced testing and nearly complete, and I expect to have Smart Property traded on that network within a few months.

Invictus expects 3rd parties to also honor the so called "Social contract" (bad choice of name imo with socialist connotations).

This is info taken directly from their website:

Statement of Social Consensus a.k.a. “Social Contract”
.............................

In this document, we are for the first time formally defining our view of the integrated Social Consensus for ProtoShares, AngelShares and BitShares. We also clean up the language to better comply with the laws of our jurisdiction. To that end, Invictus will only develop, endorse, support and promote DACs that meet all of the following applicable consensus requirements:

For all third party DACs:

Allocate at least 10% of its equity to ProtoShares holders at genesis.

For all Invictus sponsored DACs:

Allocate at least 10% of its equity to ProtoShares holders at genesis.
Allocate at least 10% of its equity to AngelShares holders at genesis.
Allocate the last 80% at the discretion of each DAC developer.

So basically if these 3rd party DACs don't honor the "social contract" they won't be endorsed and supported and probably treated as outcast pariahs or regarded as lame and evil by the community as a result.

http://invictus-innovations.com/social-concensus/

Wow, seriously?
I did not know that. That's ... lame.
Thanks for sharing.

[Herp]

Wow, seriously?
I did not know that. That's ... lame.
Thanks for sharing.

You're welcome. Mastercoin is clearly the best option at this point. Can't wait for the Windows cold wallet to come out. This is one key ingredient that's missing.

[ripper234]

You're welcome. Mastercoin is clearly the best option at this point. Can't wait for the Windows cold wallet to come out. This is one key ingredient that's missing.

Thanks

I will be putting some time soon to build a clearer roadmap for the project ... stay tuned.

[bytemaster]

This only applies to DACs that use code developed by Invictus or would like to be promoted by us.  Obviously we cannot enforce any particular behavior (See MemoryCoin 2.0 which did 1%).

However, if you build off of BitShares and related code, then paying 20% for using the codebase as a starting point for your DAC is very reasonable.   

Mastercoin solves a different problem.  Wish you all well and good luck in 2014!

[bytemaster]

FYI: we have an entire sub-forum at bitsharestalk.org dedicated for discussing Mastercoin and related projects.  You all may like to stick with Bitcointalk, but may have more in common with our user community.    If you have any questions I am very responsive over there, but I only check this forum occasionally.

There is certainly room for us to work together.

[Herp]

This only applies to DACs that use code developed by Invictus or would like to be promoted by us.  Obviously we cannot enforce any particular behavior (See MemoryCoin 2.0 which did 1%).

However, if you build off of BitShares and related code, then paying 20% for using the codebase as a starting point for your DAC is very reasonable.   

Mastercoin solves a different problem.  Wish you all well and good luck in 2014!

What I get from what you're saying is a bunch of conflicting information. It's a bit disingenuous to make one pitch to your potential developers and another one to your protoshares investors. I get it that one one hand you'd like people to buy your protoshares being incentivized by dividends and on the other hand you'd like to draw in developers and try do downplay the dividends as optional. You can't have it both ways though. On your forums you make the claim to your protoshares crowd that all DACs will most likely pay the social contract % and that that's most likely scenario/outcome. On the other hand you come here and say "well some guys only paid 1%" so you can get away with that though you don't mention the reputational damage from not meeting expectations and complying with your "social contract". You're not telling the full story but half-truths basically and not sure you're doing yourself any favors.

[bytemaster]

One last post and I will leave you to your coin, but I wanted to let you all know that we are also doing a bounty campaign to build things out with an estimated $2 million worth of bounties to be started over the next 2 months.  Many bounties already in place.   You can visit our forums for information.  

We have a 10 PTS ($200) bounty for referring a C++ developer who wins one of our C++ bounties.  
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1832.0

[bytemaster]

This only applies to DACs that use code developed by Invictus or would like to be promoted by us.  Obviously we cannot enforce any particular behavior (See MemoryCoin 2.0 which did 1%).

However, if you build off of BitShares and related code, then paying 20% for using the codebase as a starting point for your DAC is very reasonable.   

Mastercoin solves a different problem.  Wish you all well and good luck in 2014!

What I get from what you're saying is a bunch of conflicting information. It's a bit disingenuous to make one pitch to your potential developers and another one to your protoshares investors. I get it that one one hand you'd like people to buy your protoshares being incentivized by dividends and on the other hand you'd like to draw in developers and try do downplay the dividends as optional. You can't have it both ways though. On your forums you make the claim to your protoshares crowd that all DACs will most likely pay the social contract % and that that's most likely scenario/outcome. On the other hand you come here and say "well some guys only paid 1%" so you can get away with that though you don't mention the reputational damage from not meeting expectations and complying with your "social contract". You're not telling the full story but half-truths basically and not sure you're doing yourself any favors.

http://invictus-innovations.com/social-concensus

Google defines a Social Contract as “an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits.” Another term that means the same thing is Social Consensus.  We use the terms interchangeably, but prefer Consensus because it is more accurate and because the term “contract” may invite undeserved scrutiny by regulators in many jurisdictions.   It also emphasizes the two-way nature of the consensus.  It is beyond our control to prevent a copycat from forking our open source code in a way that fails to honor our promises.  It is up to the market to reject this, or not.

We did not launch MemoryCoin so we did not break any promises.

[bytemaster]

This only applies to DACs that use code developed by Invictus or would like to be promoted by us.  Obviously we cannot enforce any particular behavior (See MemoryCoin 2.0 which did 1%).

However, if you build off of BitShares and related code, then paying 20% for using the codebase as a starting point for your DAC is very reasonable.   

Mastercoin solves a different problem.  Wish you all well and good luck in 2014!

What I get from what you're saying is a bunch of conflicting information. It's a bit disingenuous to make one pitch to your potential developers and another one to your protoshares investors. I get it that one one hand you'd like people to buy your protoshares being incentivized by dividends and on the other hand you'd like to draw in developers and try do downplay the dividends as optional. You can't have it both ways though. On your forums you make the claim to your protoshares crowd that all DACs will most likely pay the social contract % and that that's most likely scenario/outcome. On the other hand you come here and say "well some guys only paid 1%" so you can get away with that though you don't mention the reputational damage from not meeting expectations and complying with your "social contract". You're not telling the full story but half-truths basically and not sure you're doing yourself any favors.

http://invictus-innovations.com/social-concensus

Google defines a Social Contract as “an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits.” Another term that means the same thing is Social Consensus.  We use the terms interchangeably, but prefer Consensus because it is more accurate and because the term “contract” may invite undeserved scrutiny by regulators in many jurisdictions.   It also emphasizes the two-way nature of the consensus.  It is beyond our control to prevent a copycat from forking our open source code in a way that fails to honor our promises.  It is up to the market to reject this, or not.

We did not launch MemoryCoin so we did not break any promises.

We are working on a Software License that will help enforce the consensus.
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1708.0

[ripper234]

We did not launch MemoryCoin so we did not break any promises.

First, I'd like to apologize for my from-the-hip "lame" reply. I didn't mean to use offensive language, this just came out as I was so surprised to learn of this social contract AKA monitization model. I obviously haven't read the ProtoShares contract well enough and the fault is mine ... it was just so counter-intuitive for me to learn this now (FYI I am a PTS holder myself and still I only ever imagined that the 10% ownership relates to projects launched by Invictus). I'm really excited to be working on similar concepts to you guys, and look forward to a continued productive and clean idea exchange without name calling.

There's something I'm not getting.

How the market responds to a new DAC will depend upon how well that DAC is perceived to have honored the emerging Social Consensus.

(http://invictus.io/funding-angelshares.php)

If a DAC is useful and solves a real world problem - why do you think the market will "punish it" if it doesn't donate to ProtoShares/AngelShares holders? 20% is quite a large amount of a DAC to just give up.

[bytemaster]

We did not launch MemoryCoin so we did not break any promises.

First, I'd like to apologize for my from-the-hip "lame" reply. I didn't mean to use offensive language, this just came out as I was so surprised to learn of this social contract AKA monitization model. I obviously haven't read the ProtoShares contract well enough and the fault is mine ... it was just so counter-intuitive for me to learn this now (FYI I am a PTS holder myself and still I only ever imagined that the 10% ownership relates to projects launched by Invictus). I'm really excited to be working on similar concepts to you guys, and look forward to a continued productive and clean idea exchange without name calling.

There's something I'm not getting.

How the market responds to a new DAC will depend upon how well that DAC is perceived to have honored the emerging Social Consensus.

(http://invictus.io/funding-angelshares.php)

If a DAC is useful and solves a real world problem - why do you think the market will "punish it" if it doesn't donate to ProtoShares/AngelShares holders? 20% is quite a large amount of a DAC to just give up.

Because if the DAC is open source and obviously useful, then PTS and AGS holders will fork it and compete.  Having a larger initial network effect may give PTS and AGS holders the advantage against the upstart.

[ripper234]

Because if the DAC is open source and obviously useful, then PTS and AGS holders will fork it and compete.  Having a larger initial network effect may give PTS and AGS holders the advantage against the upstart.

What is the network effect exactly?
Nothing, initially, is obviously useful. It starts with a 0 market cap and the market learns of its usefulness over time.

If someone launches a useful DAC that indeed grows in usefulness and market cap over time, by the time anyone wants to fork it, it itself might have the network effect, and not PTS/AGS holders.

What interaction is planned between different DACs? Is there an actual software network connecting the different DACs, or are you referring to the social/marketing network?

[romerun]

I've found the Bitshare thing is quite wtf. They released cpu intensive protoshare coin, diff rose so damn quick that after a few days it's impossible to mine for small players, so coins are sieged by serious miners just like other coins, then a couple months later they released memory coin 2.0 that wtf benefits protoshare owners, a boring scrypt coin just to make protoshare more valuable, then they released anther wtf angelshare having the similar scheme as mastercoin exodus. Not totally that I missed the protoshare bus, but their coin distribution scheme seems to be way more evil than MSC's. Also I haven't heard they've done anything significant to the actual bitshare development.

[bytemaster]

I've found the Bitshare thing is quite wtf. They released cpu intensive protoshare coin, diff rose so damn quick that after a few days it's impossible to mine for small players, so coins are sieged by serious miners just like other coins, then a couple months later they released memory coin 2.0 that wtf benefits protoshare owners, a boring scrypt coin just to make protoshare more valuable, then they released anther wtf angelshare having the similar scheme as mastercoin exodus. Not totally that I missed the protoshare bus, but their coin distribution scheme seems to be way more evil than MSC's. Also I haven't heard they've done anything significant to the actual bitshare development.

MemoryCoin was not released by US nor was it based on scrypt...  given you don't have your facts straight I just have one thing to say.. 'wtf'?

[charleshoskinson]

I've found the Bitshare thing is quite wtf. They released cpu intensive protoshare coin, diff rose so damn quick that after a few days it's impossible to mine for small players, so coins are sieged by serious miners just like other coins, then a couple months later they released memory coin 2.0 that wtf benefits protoshare owners, a boring scrypt coin just to make protoshare more valuable, then they released anther wtf angelshare having the similar scheme as mastercoin exodus. Not totally that I missed the protoshare bus, but their coin distribution scheme seems to be way more evil than MSC's. Also I haven't heard they've done anything significant to the actual bitshare development.

You forgot to mention the firing of their CEO

MemoryCoin was not released by US nor was it based on scrypt...  given you don't have your facts straight I just have one thing to say.. 'wtf'?

Didn't you guys contract the guy who created memorycoin to build protoshares?