More Bitshares Greed

[Newmine]

I'll go ahead and predict that within a few months some "phantom" delegates will get voted in at 100% pay. Either controlled by the devs or by someone attempting to tax the blockchain without actually working for it.

I don't have a lot of money, and I'm normally not a betting man.

But man. I want to take this wager.

how about 30 bitUSD?

It wasn't a bet but, I'll bet you 5 bitUSD (easy amount, I will follow through with) if a Dev controls (by control I mean ends up with a majority of the shares per block produced by that delegate as some people are acting as surrogate delegates already) more than one delegate or some unknown 100% paid delegate appears to be voted in, a mystery delegate.

[1714824914]

1714824914

[1714824914]

1714824914

[FandangledGizmo]

The problem with voting is, it's fundamentally flawed, because most people are fundamentally stupid and have no idea what's best let alone to do research on what's being proposed.

This is a very good point however in the case of a blockchain, I'll take voting over mining pools any day of the week.  At least all stakeholders have a vote where as anyone can buy hash power and simple non mining users have no say.

You can buy stake the same way you can buy hash power, with money. If I had $10 million to buy mining equipment for BTC, couldn't I take that $10 million and buy 1/4 or the BTS shares instead?

The difference is when you put $10 million into BTS/NXT/BTC/Doge you increase the value of the coins for the holders, with mining you make mining & power companies rich and usually coin holders get poorer as they're diluted via mining to pay for it.

Also you can look at the sell wall for any crypto... If the CAP is $40 million, $10 million doesn't buy you a 1/4 of the stake, it will buy you very, very little. Even with huge pacing.

Getting 25% of Bitcoin,  3.5 million Bitcoins would be very hard and make BTC holders very rich, meanwhile Ghash and others have shown getting 40%+ of hashing power is quite possible, while not making Bitcoin holders wealthier in the process at all.

[sumantso]

I think you'll find that 2cool4skool (if DE is him, which really wouldn't surprise me   ) is driven by a very serious philosophical belief in decentralisation and the original vision of Satoshi N., so dismissing him (and other Nxt'ers like myself) as simple trolls is getting dangerously close to being FUD.

Its getting off-topic so I will try to keep it short. We can continue over PM if you so wish.

I was interested in NXT sometime after the initial launch after I had overcome the disappointment of not getting in early and a decent portion of my portfolio in it. I had some trouble with the wallet so I checked out nxtforum to see if anybody else is having a problem, and during that time I saw that coolschool guy. He came across to me as childish who keeps shouting and making fun of others only to serve his own interests. Now, there are people like that everywhere, but I was quite shocked to see the other members supporting him and joining in with him and I decided to end my NXT interest there.

I'm a puny investor and you didn't lose anything, but don't try to portray him as something more than a greedy troll.

[EvilDave]

@sumantso:
I will continue to sporadically defend 2Kool...not against accusations of trollness ('coz, well, he is, kinda) but against the greed accusation.
He's pulled a lot of trollish stuff, but I really don't believe that greed is his main motivation. Good old-fashioned decentralised crypto-anarchy is.

Anyhow, not going to turn this into an off-topic session of 'Yes, he is' versus 'No, he isn't'
I am sorry that your experience with 2Kool soured you on NXT, I'd just like to point out that NXT has a lot of other viewpoints and beliefs contained within its community, and we do our best to be inclusive, not exclusive. 

If you want to come on over to Nxtforum.org again and have another look, check this out and maybe contribute:

https://nxtforum.org/general-discussion/price-speculation/msg146011/#msg146011
https://nxtforum.org/pub-crawl/live-free-or-die!!!!/

You'd be more than welcome.....

My own personal position on the philosophy underlying crypto-currency is, btw, pretty much in line with 2Kools, but I'm somewhat more tolerant of other approaches.

[jabo38]

This thread is FUD.

The idea was just to leave as default voted, which I don't like at all as it undermines the trust in BTS, buy anyway could be changed in a few clicks.

You just confirmed my OP and agreed with it. Did you mean the title was FUD? If so, I will go pull all the links where Bytemaster and Stan telling the community Bytemaster was going to go work for VOTE because AGS funds were soon to be gone and DACsun, the front for I3 in Hong Kong, had no money to pay Bytemaster to stay on board and he would leave the BitShares X. Let's all not forget that Bitshares X, the Exchange, or the "ideal free market financial system [IFMFS]" was Bytemaster's original idea, obligation and the reason most of us migrated to Bitshares and gave them money. For him to come out and say he was going to abandon a project because he wasn't going to get paid after he collected $millions to see the project through is greedy. That's why I titled the thread that.  He paid himself $100K or more in salary, and then received a couple $100K in BTS and he supposedly had no obligation to stay and maintain what he started? He would then be allowed to start a competitor DAC VOTE, And siphon money out of them to do the same thing there as he did for BTSX? That's like Bytemaster delegate signing all the forked chains just to be on board the longest one in the end. Don't you think at this point the BTS earned by the Devs is enough incentive to see this through? How many full time Devs does it take? I think BTC has 2-3 full time. We have supposedly 9? 9 full time and we can't get a anything released on time or anything stably released. 1.0 is already scheduled 3 months later than first announced. Let's not even go there yet.

I've always had a raised eyebrow.  So many levels of money from day one, to even just using the platform, and so many promises not met.  In fact, just about everything that is promised changes in some way. 

On a different note, I found bitreserve.  They do in one simple easy step what bitshares is trying to do in multiple steps.  Yes, it is centralized, but they in real time update their reserves so there is no fear of a whale jumping the Bitshares ship and crashing the market. 

I for one would much rather use Bitreserve than Bitshares anyday.  So much simpler and easier. 

[FandangledGizmo]

This thread is FUD.

The idea was just to leave as default voted, which I don't like at all as it undermines the trust in BTS, buy anyway could be changed in a few clicks.

You just confirmed my OP and agreed with it. Did you mean the title was FUD? If so, I will go pull all the links where Bytemaster and Stan telling the community Bytemaster was going to go work for VOTE because AGS funds were soon to be gone and DACsun, the front for I3 in Hong Kong, had no money to pay Bytemaster to stay on board and he would leave the BitShares X. Let's all not forget that Bitshares X, the Exchange, or the "ideal free market financial system [IFMFS]" was Bytemaster's original idea, obligation and the reason most of us migrated to Bitshares and gave them money. For him to come out and say he was going to abandon a project because he wasn't going to get paid after he collected $millions to see the project through is greedy. That's why I titled the thread that.  He paid himself $100K or more in salary, and then received a couple $100K in BTS and he supposedly had no obligation to stay and maintain what he started? He would then be allowed to start a competitor DAC VOTE, And siphon money out of them to do the same thing there as he did for BTSX? That's like Bytemaster delegate signing all the forked chains just to be on board the longest one in the end. Don't you think at this point the BTS earned by the Devs is enough incentive to see this through? How many full time Devs does it take? I think BTC has 2-3 full time. We have supposedly 9? 9 full time and we can't get a anything released on time or anything stably released. 1.0 is already scheduled 3 months later than first announced. Let's not even go there yet.

I've always had a raised eyebrow.  So many levels of money from day one, to even just using the platform, and so many promises not met.  In fact, just about everything that is promised changes in some way.  

On a different note, I found bitreserve.  They do in one simple easy step what bitshares is trying to do in multiple steps.  Yes, it is centralized, but they in real time update their reserves so there is no fear of a whale jumping the Bitshares ship and crashing the market.  

I for one would much rather use Bitreserve than Bitshares anyday.  So much simpler and easier.  

Yes BitReserve have assets in a bank that are audited. Pity that banks work on fractional reserve, usually with 10% or less collateral and that collateral is questionable & many Western ones have made plans for bail-ins.

The beauty of funds on a blockchain is they're all 100% accountable no fractional reserve and in terms of BitAssets they have an average of 300% BTS collateral behind them.

http://www.bitsharesblocks.com/assets/asset?id=USD - Collateral and it's history is shown in nearly real time, I much prefer blockchain auditing.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

I think you'll find that 2cool4skool (if DE is him, which really wouldn't surprise me   ) is driven by a very serious philosophical belief in decentralisation and the original vision of Satoshi N., so dismissing him (and other Nxt'ers like myself) as simple trolls is getting dangerously close to being FUD.

Its getting off-topic so I will try to keep it short. We can continue over PM if you so wish.

I was interested in NXT sometime after the initial launch after I had overcome the disappointment of not getting in early and a decent portion of my portfolio in it. I had some trouble with the wallet so I checked out nxtforum to see if anybody else is having a problem, and during that time I saw that coolschool guy. He came across to me as childish who keeps shouting and making fun of others only to serve his own interests. Now, there are people like that everywhere, but I was quite shocked to see the other members supporting him and joining in with him and I decided to end my NXT interest there.

I'm a puny investor and you didn't lose anything, but don't try to portray him as something more than a greedy troll.

[Newmine]

This thread is FUD.

The idea was just to leave as default voted, which I don't like at all as it undermines the trust in BTS, buy anyway could be changed in a few clicks.

You just confirmed my OP and agreed with it. Did you mean the title was FUD? If so, I will go pull all the links where Bytemaster and Stan telling the community Bytemaster was going to go work for VOTE because AGS funds were soon to be gone and DACsun, the front for I3 in Hong Kong, had no money to pay Bytemaster to stay on board and he would leave the BitShares X. Let's all not forget that Bitshares X, the Exchange, or the "ideal free market financial system [IFMFS]" was Bytemaster's original idea, obligation and the reason most of us migrated to Bitshares and gave them money. For him to come out and say he was going to abandon a project because he wasn't going to get paid after he collected $millions to see the project through is greedy. That's why I titled the thread that.  He paid himself $100K or more in salary, and then received a couple $100K in BTS and he supposedly had no obligation to stay and maintain what he started? He would then be allowed to start a competitor DAC VOTE, And siphon money out of them to do the same thing there as he did for BTSX? That's like Bytemaster delegate signing all the forked chains just to be on board the longest one in the end. Don't you think at this point the BTS earned by the Devs is enough incentive to see this through? How many full time Devs does it take? I think BTC has 2-3 full time. We have supposedly 9? 9 full time and we can't get a anything released on time or anything stably released. 1.0 is already scheduled 3 months later than first announced. Let's not even go there yet.

I've always had a raised eyebrow.  So many levels of money from day one, to even just using the platform, and so many promises not met.  In fact, just about everything that is promised changes in some way. 

On a different note, I found bitreserve.  They do in one simple easy step what bitshares is trying to do in multiple steps.  Yes, it is centralized, but they in real time update their reserves so there is no fear of a whale jumping the Bitshares ship and crashing the market. 

I for one would much rather use Bitreserve than Bitshares anyday.  So much simpler and easier. 

I actually think BitReserve is worse. The thing I loved about BitShares is the fact that there is no counterparty risk with the assets. BitReserve operates on a promise that they will deliver, and Bitshares has made those promises too. And broken and altered them. So if a relatively quasi decentralized project breaks and alters promises, what could stop a fully centralized company, which according to some has a shady CEO or founder, from breaking promises. Post Mt.Gox and now BitStamp, I don't think it is impossible or improbable that some other huge player/business will scam or be hacked. Notice how the protocol is never the problem with BTC these days, it's just the centralized infrastructure built around it that causes all the problems.  If Bitshares had 1001 delegates and a sweeping all encompassing delegate vote/fire system it would be pretty decentralized. I.e a system where users can set parameters to auto de-vote people when certain reliability or performance flags are raised without having to manually do it upon community request. 

In the meantime Bitshares needs to focus on what they have and build that up so they don't have to worry about what they are going to be paid in the future. The whole "I want to make the world a better place, but I won't do it with out getting paid" crap is total bullshit. If you concentrate on trying to make Bitshares worth 5 cents more, 5 freaking cents more your now $2k a month salary turns into $8.4K a month. Or what you were supposed to rely on, your 100 million shares or more, they would be worth $6.5 million and you wouldn't have had to tax the blockchain at all because you got a lifetime salary from AGS donations.  But instead of working on the exchange and building worth, Bitshares is being blogged about, not marketed, diluted for some bullshit that we all know will never be what was sold to the Koolaid drinkers as it was going to be, has a now guaranteed constant sell pressure as with POW miners (at least everyone in POW has the ability to extrapolate some amount of coins and decide to sell or hold), and forked so I3's pockets can be fatter now and fatter than Gate's and Buffet's wallets if the pie in the sky rhetoric ever comes true.

[StanLarimer]

Wow, I finally agree with Newmine:

We want BitShares value to go up by 5 cents.  
(For starters.   )

So, how about helping us get the word out about its awesome potential rather than spreading harmful disinformation like your posts in this thread?  

After all, when you scare new people away falsely, you hurt:

1.  The hardworking developers who are working for annual salary of $22K right now.
2.  The hundreds of people in the BitShares community who are helping out every way they can.
3.  The thousands of people who hold BitShares and want to see those 5 cents soon too.
4.  The people you scared away - who will never get to know what everybody else at bitsharestalk.org knows (or will learn it too late, like most of us learned about Bitcoin too late.)

Of course, when we grow by that 5 cents, that's 400% gain at the cost of the less than 2% being spent on salaries at the moment.  Then we can either:

1.  Stop issuing equity in exchange for that work - spectacular growth doesn't have to go on forever, or
2.  Say, how about spending another few percent to get another 400% gain?

In any case, it will be the people who hold the BTS that will decide when they've had enough growth.  

[ThomasVeil]

Gosh Stan, you're just posting air. If you already bother to come here and reply, then at least pick one of the many issues he raised and answer.

I mean, I don't care either way - just watching this like I would watch an Breaking Bad episode. A guy that says repeatedly how he's all in to help humanity - fully motivated - with "integrity and passion in his eyes"... but then demands more money on top of the millions he got already, else he'll leave for better pastures.... well... interesting complex character. I'll definitely wanna stay and watch where that plot goes.

[StanLarimer]

No one ever indicated any intention to leave for any reason.  Inconceivable. That's another total fabrication.

All of the funds donated have been spent carefully and documented on public spreadsheets.
They were spent in the most tax-efficient way possible with the understanding that time is of the essence in this industry.  Admittedly they didn't go as far as hoped due to the steady decline of Bitcoin's purchasing power, but they got the job done.  And we got innovation after innovation as a result.  In fact, there is a whole family of independent blockchain businesses based on the resulting BitShares Toolkit.  Check them out.

But a project leader needs to look after his team and make sure they are funded.  Expecially one with Bytemaster's grand vision.  There is much to do in a very competitive arena.  There is really no limit to what can be done with the BitShares model.   We are engineering a whole new alternative financial system - inside the secure and incorruptible confines of a blockchain.  The sooner we recognize the need for a sustainable growth funding model the faster we can get there.

That led to the most recent and best innovation (and most obvious in hindsight). If BitShares is a decentralized company, then it ought to act like one.  Startups often pay their employees in equity. BitShares is a decentralized start-up. The ability to allow its employees to work for equity gives BitShares a unique advantage (until everyone else realizes this is the obvious way to grow the entire industry).  It  adds a few percent of new equity each year (far less than Bitcoin's inflation rate) to pay developers and marketers to grow the pie for all stakeholders - increasing the value of its equity.  This strategy ensures a sustainable funding model for robust growth -- as long as the shareholder continue to vote for it.  And why wouldn't they?  If they get even a few percent annual growth they are ahead of the game.  We expect it to be more like a few hundred percent.   Time will tell, but I think its a great bet.

Read all about our lessons learned here:  http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2014/12/26/Stop-the-Crowd-Sales-Long-Live-Crowd-Funding/

Read some of the many detailed posts at bytemaster.bitshares.org or listen to a few interviews with Max Wright at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtCVRIwcBYU&index=1&list=PLjgfpSQFJTLqbgHm8mkgPdD-ma7t0bRhK

That's the best way to judge this team's integrity for yourself and see that all of this is for real.  I hope to see you over at bitsharestalk.org once in a while.  You owe it to yourself. 

[DecentralizeEconomics]

Gosh Stan, you're just posting air. If you already bother to come here and reply, then at least pick one of the many issues he raised and answer.

I mean, I don't care either way - just watching this like I would watch an Breaking Bad episode. A guy that says repeatedly how he's all in to help humanity - fully motivated - with "integrity and passion in his eyes"... but then demands more money on top of the millions he got already, else he'll leave for better pastures.... well... interesting complex character. I'll definitely wanna stay and watch where that plot goes.

You really need to lay off the BTS devs.  You know they're practically a charity case.  I don't know how they make it.

Now, I'll be the last one to say that making money is a bad thing.  I think it is safe to say we all got involved in cryptocurrency, regardless of our ideology, to at least make a little money.  It comes down to the issue of figuring out who is being honest and who is being disingenuous.

Since Stan is hanging around here, I'd like to here his response to a post I made earlier.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=905385.msg10009591#msg10009591

"Proof-of-Stake was designed to wrest control of the security of the chain from the profiteers and re-establish it back where it belongs which is in the hands of the currency users.  It is the right of every currency holder to be able to secure their own investment.  This is the core ideology behind PoS and decentralization.  No one should be forced to "delegate" the security of their investment to another individual.

Bitshares' DPoS algorithm is "Proof-of-Stake" IN NAME ONLY.  It does not in any way embody the principles of the PoS movement or the original decentralization movement of Bitcoin.  It forces centralization upon its users and makes them "delegate" the security of their investment to other individuals.  Regardless, if these "delegates" are unique or not, it does not matter.  Being a currency user in a PoS system means YOU have the undeniable right to protect your own investment.

Bitshares' is NOT a "Proof-of-Stake" system.  I would say it is best described as Proof-of-Parliamentarism.  I hesitate on this description because at least with regular parliamentarism the "delegates" can be verified to be physically separate individuals regardless of their lobby induced leanings.  Needless to say, DPoS does not empower the currency holder, but instead holds them at the whims of delegates.  At best, such a system adds unnecessary centralization and strips stakeholders of their rights, but at worst, it is a breeding ground for scams, corruption, swindling and deceit.  It is morally bankrupt to portray DPoS as "decentralized", "Safer than a Swiss bank account", "Proof-of-Stake" or quite frankly "a cryptocurrency algorithm"."

I'd specifically like to hear him address how he figures that DPoS is an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism.  In addition, how does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?  Can you please prove for all parties that this attack on your consensus mechanism has been thwarted and that this individual no longer controls a delegate?  Please provide verifiable blockchain proof.

Although, maybe you are of the same opinion as one of your developers, toast.  He believes that multiple delegates being controlled by one individual isn't a problem.  If you agree, please explain why having any type of consensus mechanism is needed for Bitshares at all.  If not, why does one of Bitshares' devs mislead people to believe otherwise.

[StanLarimer]

Ok, these are legitimate questions which I will try to help with, although I'm just an old retired rocket scientist.  We'll probably have to get one of the devs in here to cover the fine points when one of them comes up for air.

But here's a good recent post that can provide a starting point:

http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/bitshares/2015/01/04/Delegated-Proof-of-Stake-vs-Proof-of-Work/

The essence behind our thinking is that all systems tend toward centralization, and it is best to recognize this fact and specifically engineer controls into the system to manage it.  Without such controls, Bitcoin has centralized into about six or so entities who decide what software is "official".  People who join pools don't really provide any decentralization.  They just lend (delegate) their processing power to somebody running the actual signing software.  Pretty centralized and nothing really anyone can do about it.

Bytemaster recognized that providing a mechanism where stakeholders explicitly delegate their signing authority to authorized signers would allow token owners to reclaim that control - rather than leaving it to those who have unilaterally claimed the role by virtue of their ability to assemble a large centralized mining operation.  If one of those Bitcoin central miners start's misbehaving, well there's not much the community can do about it.   If the two biggest collude, well, game over.

Why 101 for DPOS?  Well, its less centralized than six!  But anyway, going from 1 to 2 delegates doubles your security.  Going from 100 to 101 adds less than 1%.  Yet each delegate added increases the cost linearly.  So its simply a case of diminishing returns on how much you want to pay for security.  Going beyond 101 simply doesn't buy you much.  We chose it as the sweet spot, but 50 or 150 would still be reasonable.

Another factor he recognized is that there is really very little damage that a rogue delegate can do.  Producing an invalid block simply gets her fired.  Recognizing that everything a delegate does is inspectable and detectable, the shareholders can quickly detect any misbehaviors and summarily fire the offender.  Again, stakeholders control their own destiny.

You do raise a valid temporary concern.  What happens if the community of stakeholders decides to vest trust in fewer than 101 unique delegates?  What breaks?

Well, 101 is just an arbitrary number that is much, much greater than six.  It's entirely possible for the community of stakeholders to decide that, for a period of time, they want to hire the services of an individual or small business that brings so much value to the ecosystem that its worth assigning more than one delegate slot to that individual.  Think of your favorite big name in the crypto industry.  What if the block chain could hire her at the expense of multiple slots?  Would the shareholders want to do that?  Should they have the authority to do that?

Of course.  BitShares is a company!  If the owning stakeholders think that will make them more profitable and grow faster, why can't a company decide to do that?  

In the short term, while shares are worth pennies, the hard limits on how much a single delegate can earn sometimes requires combining several delegate revenue streams to come up with a full time salary for a highly sought-after individual.  By the time those shares reach 5 cents apiece, there should be no further need to merge streams and things will settle down to 101 independent delegates.

In fact, by the time BitShares reaches Bitcoin's market cap, each delegate will be one of 101 small businesses, selected by the stakeholders, each using a revenue stream of several million dollars apiece to grow the ecosystem.  Powerful stuff to look forward to!

So your concern is really a harmless startup transient.  Security is already far better than it was for Bitcoin at this stage in its development.

As for Bytemaster having a lot of voting influence?  Not really.  He controls a small percent of the votes and usually waits for the community to show a strong liking for a candidate before deciding how he will vote.  He can easily be overridden (in ten seconds) by any small coalition of voters, should they get the urge to do so.   Most of the time they are content to rely on his judgement, but that is under constant vocal review every day at bitsharestalk.org.

Remember, BitShares is a company, not a currency.  It is a unmanned, decentralized company that produces and trades interest-paying "smart currencies" as its product.  So judge it by whether it is a good idea and implementation for a company, not a currency.  Then you can get past all the accepted rules that (may or may not) apply to future currencies and see clearly what the investment opportunity truly is here.

If you want to get really excited about where this is going, read Bytemaster's latest article about BitShares as the future of exchanges.  http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2015/01/05/The-Future-of-Crypto-Currency-Exchanges/

And if you'd like to get your questions answered in person, Bytemaster hosts a public meetup using Mumble every Friday at 10 or 11 Eastern Standard Time. It's not unusual to have 50 people attending from most time zones around the world.   Join us and ask your questions there.  Then evaluate whether his live answers to a world-wide audience measure up to your expectations of a serious industry leader.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

Why 101 for DPOS?  Well, its less centralized than six!  But anyway, going from 1 to 2 delegates doubles your security.  Going from 100 to 101 adds less than 1%.  Yet each delegate added increases the cost linearly.  So its simply a case of diminishing returns on how much you want to pay for security.  Going beyond 101 simply doesn't buy you much.  We chose it as the sweet spot, but 50 or 150 would still be reasonable.

You are assuming with your figures that each delegate is unique.  It is my understanding that there is no way to prove the delegates are independent.   Furthermore, I don't agree with your rational that limiting delegates is "a case of diminishing returns" because the cost of paying for security in PoS is negligible.  The ONLY reason PoW exists in Bitcoin or PoS exists in NXT is to prevent sybil attacks.  It seems that since DPoS cannot prevent such attacks that it is FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED and therefore, Bitshares is NOT A CRYPTOCURRENCY.

Another factor he recognized is that there is really very little damage that a rogue delegate can do.  Producing an invalid block simply gets her fired.  Recognizing that everything a delegate does is inspectable and detectable, the shareholders can quickly detect any misbehaviors and summarily fire the offender.  Again, stakeholders control their own destiny.

You are assuming that all stakeholders will be diligently watching the chain for bad actors.  I can guarantee you this isn't the case.  Of course, there is "little damage A rogue delegate can do", but as I assume you know, the issue lies in multiple delegates colluding together and the fact that with DPoS it is IMPOSSIBLE to know how many delegates one individual controls.

It's entirely possible for the community of stakeholders to decide that, for a period of time, they want to hire the services of an individual or small business that brings so much value to the ecosystem that its worth assigning more than one delegate slot to that individual.  Think of your favorite big name in the crypto industry.  What if the block chain could hire her at the expense of multiple slots?  Would the shareholders want to do that?  Should they have the authority to do that?

You are doing so at the expense of chain security.  This is a TERRIBLE IDEA.

So your concern is really a harmless startup transient.  Security is already far better than it was for Bitcoin at this stage in its development.

No, it's not.  PoW and PoS will always be more decentralized and secure than DPoS because it is mathematically provable through PoW and PoS that the chain is secured by a verifiable amount of hashpower or stake.

If I want to attack Bitcoin's PoW algo, I have to acquire 51% of the hashpower.
If I want to attack NXT's PoS algo, I have to acquire 51% of the stake.
If I want to attack Bitshare's DPoS algo, ALL I have to do is convince the stakeholders to vote me in.

This will become a bigger problem if the Bitshares ecosystem grows and it becomes more profitable for a malevolent actor to pursuade stakeholders to vote them into multiple delegate positions.

Can you please answer my previous questions?

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?
3 - Can you please prove for all parties that this attack on your consensus mechanism has been thwarted and that this individual no longer controls a delegate?  Please provide verifiable blockchain proof.
4 - Are you of the same opinion as Toast, that multiple delegates being controlled by one individual aren't a problem?   If you agree, please explain why having any type of consensus mechanism is needed for Bitshares at all.  If not, why does one of Bitshares' devs mislead people to believe otherwise.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

Of course.  BitShares is a company!  If the owning stakeholders think that will make them more profitable and grow faster, why can't a company decide to do that?  

In the short term, while shares are worth pennies

Remember, BitShares is a company, not a currency.  It is a unmanned, decentralized company that produces and trades interest-paying "smart currencies" as its product.  So judge it by whether it is a good idea and implementation for a company, not a currency.  Then you can get past all the accepted rules that (may or may not) apply to future currencies and see clearly what the investment opportunity truly is here.

As per your own words, since "Bitshares is a company, not a currency", I can only assume Bitshares are a form of equity.  This fact should be most unsettling to any Bitshares' holders who believe the Bitshares' platform is dependent on I3's continued development.  It is my guess that Bitshares, the company, is in violation of numerous US securities laws.

In fact, by the time BitShares reaches Bitcoin's market cap, each delegate will be one of 101 small businesses, selected by the stakeholders, each using a revenue stream of several million dollars apiece to grow the ecosystem.  Powerful stuff to look forward to!

This seems like some type of poorly designed Communist ploy to provide subsidies to businesses paid for by the stakeholders.

[FandangledGizmo]

Of course.  BitShares is a company!  If the owning stakeholders think that will make them more profitable and grow faster, why can't a company decide to do that?  

In the short term, while shares are worth pennies

Remember, BitShares is a company, not a currency.  It is a unmanned, decentralized company that produces and trades interest-paying "smart currencies" as its product.  So judge it by whether it is a good idea and implementation for a company, not a currency.  Then you can get past all the accepted rules that (may or may not) apply to future currencies and see clearly what the investment opportunity truly is here.

As per your own words, since "Bitshares is a company, not a currency", I can only assume Bitshares are a form of equity.  This fact should be most unsettling to any Bitshares' holders who believe the Bitshares' platform is dependent on I3's continued development.  It is my guess that Bitshares, the company, is in violation of numerous US securities laws.

In fact, by the time BitShares reaches Bitcoin's market cap, each delegate will be one of 101 small businesses, selected by the stakeholders, each using a revenue stream of several million dollars apiece to grow the ecosystem.  Powerful stuff to look forward to!

This seems like some type of poorly designed Communist ploy to provide subsidies to businesses paid for by the stakeholders.

I personally view BitShares as currency/company hybrid.

I want voting control, I don't want miners or anyone else to have it. BitShares gives me that. Hashers care about profits at the expense of Bitcoin holders hence why Ghash.io got over 40%. If Bitcoin holders had the voting power that wouldn't have happened.

You argue that 101 delegates is not decentralised enough but also argue that it's hard to individually vet delegates as unique. This process gets harder for the collective the more delegates you have. In a 500 delegate system it would be easier to get 251 fake delegates in place because the average shareholder simply couldn't process that many. With 101 we know who the majority are and at this stage are sometimes more happy with a high reputation, high trust individual having two positions. Over time the 101 number could change depending on what the free market deems optimal. I can't say it's immune from attack ever but it's the best decentralised system by far out there atm imo.

Your last point about it being a communist system is wrong. Whereas Bitcoin's distribution makes miners money, our distribution will be spent on developing & marketing BitShares. Imagine if the $500 million spent on miners a year was spent on developing & marketing Bitcoin. I think it's a tragedy that some of the best Bitcoin developers have to worry about making rent. Our maximum dilution is much lower than Bitcoin and I expect shareholders will keep it much, much lower in practice.

Over the last year, BitShares has made some decisions I vehemently disagreed with but there was no malicious intent. They felt they were adding value for shareholders every step of the way. Now that the funds have been spent and development is funded via the blockchain, it's up to us as a decentralised collective to
decide our future & make those decisions going forward.

The BitShares decentralised exchange & BitAssets are a technological triumph, arguably the most advanced blockchain in crypto. All accomplished in a year. Besides Daniel Larimer, the reason is because we have a lot of highly talented, well salaried developers. I'm certain BitShares will continue to pull away from the competition as it is able to innovate and develop at a much faster pace than competitors.

[bitcoin2.0]

OP topic is not being implemented.  End of discussion:

http://thevalueswan.com/is-bitshares-undervalued-by-60-times-60x/

oops, wrong link:

I wasn't suggesting any thing be guaranteed.  Core developers could always be voted out even if by default they were approved.  

It is clear there is a lot of controversy over this, so it will not be implemented.

Wow, that was easy.  Vote for what features you want implemented in your coin.  Eat your heart out bitcoin (and BitStamp too:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wczMKASQk6s&index=2&list=PLjgfpSQFJTLqbgHm8mkgPdD-ma7t0bRhK

).

[StanLarimer]

As per your own words, since "Bitshares is a company, not a currency", I can only assume Bitshares are a form of equity.  This fact should be most unsettling to any Bitshares' holders who believe the Bitshares' platform is dependent on I3's continued development.  It is my guess that Bitshares, the company, is in violation of numerous US securities laws.

We've had lots of fun with metaphors over at bitsharestalk.org and bitshares.org.  Two of the classics, written by Dr. Charles Evans, are linked here:

http://bitshares.org/decentralized-autonomous-jedi-mind-tricks/
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/a-bitrose-by-any-other-name/

Bottom line is that metaphors are helpful in explaining certain concepts until the light bulb comes on for people.  There is a duality to BitShares that allows you to view it as a currency or a company.  Both are true, depending upon the context.  

My favorite way to look at it is that BitShares are shares in a company just like Bitcoin are shares in a company.  (Just because I called Bitcoin a company in the classic article that introduced the concept of a Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) -- http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-and-the-three-laws-of-robotics/ doesn't suddenly make Bitcoin subject to securities laws.)

Both Bitcoin and BitShares are volatile crypto-currencies on their faces.  But, BitShares viewed as a company (a blockchain like Bitcoin) does much more.  It runs a full-up unmanned crypto-exchange providing decentralized trading services and the ability for users to create currency and commodity derivatives backed by BitShares collateral.  That's what we call BitAssets (BitUSD, BitGLD, BitBTC, etc.)  These are the real currencies we are aiming for.  Products of BitShares "the company".  These are what give you stability (pegging to real world assets) and pay you interest.  So, inside a single Bitcoin 2.0 currency you have a whole new financial system on a blockchain.  Speculators can use the built-in exchange and trade BitShares tokens thinking of them either as shares or coins or fuel tokens, or whatever metaphor makes sense to them.  Consumers just deal with the BitAsset products - the "smart coins".

So simultaneously you can find BitShares in the top 5 on coinmarketcap.com and BitUSD at around #35 as a non-volatile "smart coin" that tracks the value of the US dollar.

So we shouldn't get wrapped around the axle about the implications of a particular metaphor someone is using to explain a particular concept about BitShares.  I personally jump between metaphors a lot when explaining things to people.   My intent is to show that the design decisions are reasonable when viewed in the right perspective.  It helps people escape from preconceived mindsets and appreciate what we have here.

In reality, BitShares is a Whole New Animal.  We can only describe it like the classic story of blind men describing an elephant while touching its many dissimilar individual parts.  Hope this helps.

[StanLarimer]

You are assuming that all stakeholders will be diligently watching the chain for bad actors.  I can guarantee you this isn't the case.  Of course, there is "little damage A rogue delegate can do", but as I assume you know, the issue lies in multiple delegates colluding together and the fact that with DPoS it is IMPOSSIBLE to know how many delegates one individual controls.

PoW and PoS will always be more decentralized and secure than DPoS because it is mathematically provable through PoW and PoS that the chain is secured by a verifiable amount of hashpower or stake.

If I want to attack Bitcoin's PoW algo, I have to acquire 51% of the hashpower.
If I want to attack NXT's PoS algo, I have to acquire 51% of the stake.
If I want to attack Bitshare's DPoS algo, ALL I have to do is convince the stakeholders to vote me in.

Can you please answer my previous questions?

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?
3 - Can you please prove for all parties that this attack on your consensus mechanism has been thwarted and that this individual no longer controls a delegate?  Please provide verifiable blockchain proof.
4 - Are you of the same opinion as Toast, that multiple delegates being controlled by one individual aren't a problem?   If you agree, please explain why having any type of consensus mechanism is needed for Bitshares at all.  If not, why does one of Bitshares' devs mislead people to believe otherwise.

I spent a long time answering each of these questions in great detail further above.

Since 101 delegates is just an arbitrary number that could have been 50 or 150, the fact that the number of independent delegates might vary if shareholders allow it is not a big deal.  To become a delegate, you really have to work to convince people to vote for you.  You have to develop a reputation.  You can destroy that reputation in 10 seconds by misbehaving - because everyone can see what you are doing.  We all instantly know if you signed a bad block - and we know who did it.

That's the big difference.  We know who did it.

As for Bitcoin, there's no way to know how much hash power is controlled by one individual.  We do know that too much is controlled by too few.  There is no way to know if a couple of the big pools or mining farms are colluding either.  In fact, they openly do it when a problem comes up.  And we do know that the only way to unseat them is to acquire a huge amount of hashing power from somewhere.  The only way to acquire similar power in BitShares is to drive everybody's price up trying to acquire a large stake.  We like those kinds of attacks.

With BitShares, a misbehaving delegate is instantly flagged to all shareholders who immediately wake up, vote him out, and go back to sleep.  It only takes one person paying attention to raise the alarm.  Then it takes several more trusted experts to verify the problem and post their opinion.  Then the rank and file owners respond and the problem is gone.  You can't do that with Bitcoin without inciting a damaging fork war - at huge cost to enforce any discipline at all.

Bottom line:  My only purpose here is to give fair-minded individuals a chance to recover from disinformation in the OP.  All these issues have been put to bed over the past 18 months in countless public discussions on the way to becoming a Top Five cryptocurrency.  We are all available to answer questions at bitsharestalk.org and in the live world-wide Mumble sessions every Friday.  Stop by if you are intrigued and want do your own homework.   I leave you with the chance to discover the magnitude of the opportunity for yourself.  Or you can wait until everybody agrees that it was obvious.  By then it will be too late to be an early adopter.  Choose wisely...




 

[DecentralizeEconomics]

You argue that 101 delegates is not decentralised enough but also argue that it's hard to individually vet delegates as unique. This process gets harder for the collective the more delegates you have. In a 500 delegate system it would be easier to get 251 fake delegates in place because the average shareholder simply couldn't process that many. With 101 we know who the majority are and at this stage are sometimes more happy with a high reputation, high trust individual having two positions. Over time the 101 number could change depending on what the free market deems optimal. I can't say it's immune from attack ever but it's the best decentralised system by far out there atm imo.

I argue that it's IMPOSSIBLE to individually vet delegates as unique IN BITSHARES because DPOS is vulnerable to SYBIL ATTACKS.  This is not true for Bitcoin or NXT because you either have to own the hashpower or the stake.  The ownership of the hashpower or stake is what provides the resiliency against sybil attacks in these two systems.

Bitshares DPOS is NOT "the best decentralized system by far out there".  This is an OUTRAGEOUS statement.  You are either misinformed or being disingenuous.  Are you going to try to convince everyone that limiting forgers is in the best interest of decentralization?  NXT's PoS system DOES NOT LIMIT FORGERS!  There are over 101 forgers securing the NXT blockchain.

Your last point about it being a communist system is wrong. Whereas Bitcoin's distribution makes miners money, our distribution will be spent on developing & marketing BitShares. Imagine if the $500 million spent on miners a year was spent on developing & marketing Bitcoin. I think it's a tragedy that some of the best Bitcoin developers have to worry about making rent. Our maximum dilution is much lower than Bitcoin and I expect shareholders will keep it much, much lower in practice.

Bitshares is imposing a TAX which redistributes wealth from currency holders to businesses.  This is the very definition of Communism / Crony Capitalism.  Being a NXT stakeholder, I would be upset if my stake was subject to a TAX imposed AGAINST MY FREE WILL to fund businesses in which I have NO INTEREST!

My favorite way to look at it is that BitShares are shares in a company just like Bitcoin are shares in a company.  (Just because I called Bitcoin a company in the classic article that introduced the concept of a Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) -- http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-and-the-three-laws-of-robotics/ doesn't suddenly make Bitcoin subject to securities laws.)

The fact of the matter is that Bitcoin and NXT are NOT shares in a company.  They are decentralized systems which have no incorporated entity behind them.  They are simply a token which are used between like-minded individuals.

Bitshares(TM) is a corporation based in the United States dealing, as you say, in "products" such as "currency and commodity derivatives" and "trading services".  From your explanation it seems that Bitshares is a trademarked "COMPANY, NOT A CURRENCY" selling "shares" that attempts to pass itself off as a currency to avoid US security regulations.

I spent a long time answering each of these questions in great detail further above.

Actually, you didn't answer all of these questions.

Since 101 delegates is just an arbitrary number that could have been 50 or 150, the fact that the number of independent delegates might vary if shareholders allow it is not a big deal.  To become a delegate, you really have to work to convince people to vote for you.  You have to develop a reputation.  You can destroy that reputation in 10 seconds by misbehaving - because everyone can see what you are doing.  We all instantly know if you signed a bad block - and we know who did it.

That's the big difference.  We know who did it.

From this statement, I am going to assume you believe multiple delegates being controlled by one individual, which is the very definition of a Sybil attack, isn't an issue.

Can you please explain then why Bitshares needs any type of consensus mechanism at all?  I assume you know the purpose of all consensus mechanisms is to prevent Sybil attacks.

With BitShares, a misbehaving delegate is instantly flagged to all shareholders who immediately wake up, vote him out, and go back to sleep.  It only takes one person paying attention to raise the alarm.  Then it takes several more trusted experts to verify the problem and post their opinion.  Then the rank and file owners respond and the problem is gone.  You can't do that with Bitcoin without inciting a damaging fork war - at huge cost to enforce any discipline at all.

How can you be SURE that you eliminate all delegates controlled by the misbehaving individual even if some of their delegates don't misbehave?

Can you please prove for all parties that this attack on your consensus mechanism, referenced to on YOUR FORUM at https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10937.0;all, has been thwarted and that this individual no longer controls a delegate?  Please provide verifiable blockchain proof.

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?