Some great discussion in this thread, very inspiring!
Whatever dev path we go down I don't think we need to feel rushed to get something out fast, just to be in 'the game'. That's what issuing the ORA asset token satisfies in the short-medium term. Day traders can have their fun (and at 427 trades to date they certainly are), and 'investors' can buy-in & sell-out as they choose, and it doesn't have to effect the dev side of ORA too much. I'm focused on the longer term, and I won't be selling any of my ORA until many years from now. I will give some away though, and buy some more for some day trading 'fun', but I'm in for the long haul!
I'd like to think that we have enough time to develop the dev 'road map' and our 'community processes' first, and if that takes a little while to do then I don't have a problem with that. In my mind it's 12:05am in crypto land, and the vast majority of humans are still fast asleep when it comes to decentralised blockchains & distributed financial networks. The real crypto explosion when combined market cap gets into the trillions hasn't started yet, so it's better to focus on the bigger picture now, and weigh up all our options BEFORE we begin the dev journey! It's still anyone's guess, but I think the real crypto contenders wont really start to battle it out in the mainstream until 2016, so that's still 2 years away.
Good communication that keeps people informed of our progress is critical, and I'd love for someone to step up into that roll if there's anybody keen to help with that now, but if the market consensus on our progress ebbs & flows a bit during development, and if that causes some price volatility from time-to-time, then that's a good thing IMO, as it keeps the day traders interested, and that gives us more exposure.
The long term believers in this project will either hodl, buy more, or do a bit of day trading for fun & profit, or some combinations of all those options. Hopefully the true believers will earn some bounties too!!
Now that ORA is tradeable we're not a 'boring' crypto by any means, even during development, and that's a BIG advantage compared to many other coins. We can resist the 'must get on multiple exchanges as fast as possible or we'll die' mentality. We really can! There's no rule book on how a coin 'should' be developed. The day traders can 'party' 24/7 on the NXT AE for a long time ... there's no deadline for that stage of ORA in my mind. The dev team can explore multiple options until they are happy that ORA is finished, and they're satisfied that ORA solves the challenges we set out for it during the planning stage (i.e. NOW). If that takes longer than with most other coin projects I'm not going to let than worry me.
As for the specifics of which dev path we go down - Qora or bitshares - new innovation vs straight clone - I'll probably be guided more by the expert opinions in our community rather than relying on my own limited technical knowledge. I am, however, a strong believer in the idea that most successful products are more of a synthesis of existing ideas with lateral thinking making a new connection, rather than being based on truly 'new' ideas & concepts. Most NEW products & services rely heavily on existing products & services for their origins, and good designers, engineers & architects are always 'extending' what already exists. Those who sit and wait for inspiration to create something 100% NEW & unique will probably wait a lifetime, unless they are a genius, which most of us aren't
Look at an iPhone for example, a great product that packaged existing 'things' together in a new way. An iPhone is basically a mash-up of 'cloned' bits & pieces from other devices.
Only a true genius can come up with an original idea, or concept, or invention that is truly 'new'. There's only been a small handful of truly innovative thinkers through history, (e.g. Newton, Einstein, Tesla), so how can we explain the massive amount of human knowledge and inventions? Most inventions are based heavily on copying existing ideas, 'cloning', lateral thinking. Most people build on the work of others, repackage existing 'things' in different ways, copy & modify etc etc
This happens in all fields of human learning and creativity. In music it's very common. One great example of this process is when Jazz musician Miles Davis combined Jazz musicians with electric instruments in the late 60's and almost single-handedly created a whole new style of music that went on to influence all musicians ever since. Jazz music previously existed, and so did electric instruments & amplification, but before Miles Davis nobody thought to put the two together. The end result is something incredibly cool, and very 'innovative', but the stroke of genius is in the 'synthesis' of two existing things, so the end result was achieved from 'copying' existing ideas & techniques, but in a new way.
The world is full of these examples. The Supermarket was born when a shop clerk waiting in line at a cafeteria 'synthesised' the functions of a 19th century 'grocery store' with a self-serving food cafeteria. Someone else thought of putting the shopping basket on wheels, and so invented the shopping trolley, but the basic idea of a Supermarket came from a new combination of two existing types of shops (cafeteria & grocery store). Lateral thinking is very powerful.
I think the sensible strategy with ORA is to work out what we want ORA to 'DO', and then we look at ALL available crypto coin platforms and synthesis existing solutions with new code where it's needed. The first task is deciding what goals we have for ORA, what problems will it solve that other coin platforms have missed. If we can't answer that question, then that would imply that a 'perfect' coin already exists, and if that were the case we should probably stop ORA asap and go and support that coin instead! ORA must solve a problem that hasn't been done yet, or solve it 'better' than an existing option. We have to make the end user better off!!!
IMO there are a lot of really interesting coins on the market, but none of the big contenders has achieved the perfect combination of features yet, so there's plenty of scope for a newcomer like ORA to offer something "NEW", even if what we do is synthesis ideas & code & features from existing coins, and tie them all together into something unique, like electric Jazz, or a Supermarket
