If you have never used Bitshares before... but you have used Bittrex or Poloniex... it is time you learn!

This is an IMPORTANT LESSON for anyone who has always used centralized exchanges.

If you have ever heard of Bittrex or Poloniex, Cryptopia, or even Coinbase... you probably heard they are cryptocurrency exchanges that allow you to buy and sell cryptocoins on them.

When bloggers earn STEEM or SBD, a lot of times, they will transfer these coins to a centralized exchange to sell them on the open market for Bitcoin, or any other coin they'd like to invest in.

Centralized exchanges usually start up initially, requiring no account verification and a very high withdrawal rate. Until they get wealthy and popular enough. Then they can afford the legal fees and licensing fees to register as an MSB (Money Service Business).

OH NO! My favorite exchange just changed the rules on me! HEY!

...and....

....that's when a centralized exchange will start implementing new verification requirements for accounts. Soon they will lower the amount you can withdrawal (sometimes to ZERO) until you obey their new rules.

It seems everytime this happens, when one centralized exchange starts implementing new rules, everyone moves over to the next newly launched exchange that doesn't have them.

(..and the cycle repeats. The new exchange gets big, they too change the rules, and another new exchange opens again)

But there is a worse problem with centralized exchanges

...

When centralized exchanges get hacked, mismanaged, shutdown and disappear (like Mt. Gox, Cryptsy, or BTC-E) they take your deposited funds with them.

There is also a different problem, called "front running" that can happen on centralized exchanges. You never know if the prices you're seeing are 100% accurate. You don't know if the exchange is fibbing the numbers when you start filling out your sell bid. This isn't as common, but it can still happen. It can happen, because when was the last time you heard the exchange software and servers were audited? You never really know, do you?

Who runs Bitshares?

Dan Larimer, the same guy who started STEEM, the blockchain, had a first project named Bitshares which is a decentralized exchange. The owners and operators of the exchange are everybody, and anyone. It's like a self sufficient decentralized corporation. It has its own governance too.

To be clear, Dan Larimer isn't in control of Bitshares today. The people who use it are...

Just like steem has witnesses that earn their position. Bitshares has witnesses that earn theirs as well.

By owning Bitshares, you automatically become a stakeholder. But it's different. You DO NOT get paid dividends. So all those new rules about ICO's, and dividends, money from a 3rd party you've hearing in the news lately, does not apply to Bitshares.

Now, it is true, earning dividends and participating in an ICO "could" apply to certain tradeable tokens on Bitshares, But more often than not, people are trading SBD, STEEM, EOS, USD, BITCOIN, ETH, DASH, and many other same coins that centralized exchanges carry too...

So how is using the Bitshares Decentralized Exchange better?

There are so many great points, I'll stick to the most obvious, and most important ones:

• When you deposit an order to BUY or SELL coins, you keep your account private key which signs those transactions. This means every transaction you make, your private key stays on your computer at all times! This is the only way to transfer, buy, or sell from your wallet. This means in order to hack Bitshares, you would have to hack each individual user, because there is no centralized database of accounts. There is no centralized coin wallets for all accounts either.

• The rules of the way things work, do not change, unless the majority of Bitshares holders want them to... That means we all get to have a virtual seat at their board of director meetings. Everything gets proposed and either voted (or not-voted in) before something happens. This means there are no mornings you wake up, and go "what? I've been locked out of my account on the centralized exchange because of some new regulation or new policy?" -- that does not happen on Bitshares!

• Bitshares currently uses the same "Graphene" technology that STEEM runs on. You can pretty feel confident about how fast that is... and how many transactions per second it can handle.

• Bitshares is currently a very good buy right now. It was 0.0038 cents / USD Jan 10, 2017. It was 0.166 cents /USD Dec 10, 2017. It was 0.56 cents/USD on Jan 10, 2018

Now if Bitshares (BTS) was less than 1 cent a year ago, and it is currently 57 cents as of Jan 10th 2018.. What do you think will happen over the next year?

This isn't investment advice. It's just my predictions, your opinions may vary.

So, you're probably wondering... How can I try out Bitshares for FREE?

...

My next few posts will talk about it a bit more.... But if you're an eager person who can't wait. Obviously you can spend the next couple hours reading as much as you can about Bitshares, watch some Youtube videos, and learn what you can.

For now, you can create a free wallet by going to my affiliate link here:

• https://bitshares.openledger.info/?r=intelliguy-bts

• On the screen it will present two options:

• CREATE NEW ACCOUNT or LOGIN

• You want to create a new account. Choose a name that has-a-dash-in-it, since it is your first account. (premium names cost BTS to create)

NOTE: I would recommend using a different username than your steem username to stay anonymous on the Bitshares DEX

• Next, you want to use the WALLET MODEL to create the account. This will allow you to create a "bin" file, which is a file like bts_default_20180112.bin which is your actual wallet protected by a passphrase that you select.

It will say that this wallet has never been backed up. Choose "BACKUP NOW" and then push "DOWNLOAD"

Now you still could use this Browser Wallet your logged into (which I don't like)

• ...but by downloading that "BIN" file you can stop using your browser in a second (keep reading)

Before you do anything next, on the browser screen, push SETTINGS, then push BACKUP

For type of backup, choose the dropdown and select "BRAIN KEY"

(You may have to re-enter the password you initially chose)

Some words will come across the screen, like:

said you forever rabbit frog dumpy pen typewriter pencil hot mouse tiger bear walk

Write these words down on a piece of paper. DO NOT SAVE THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER.
Label this piece of paper at the top:

BITSHARES BRAIN KEY WALLET RECOVERY
Bitshares username: (the username you chose)
Bitshares wallet passphrase (the password you chose)

(and all of those BRAIN KEY words, exactly written in order they are shown)

This paper now goes into your underwear drawer, your jewellery box, or your safety-deposit box at your bank.

After this, in order to open your new wallet, you go here to download the software:

https://bitshares.org/download/

• There is a client for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Once you start your Lite wallet, you can then "restore an existing account" by loading that .bin file you saved when you created your account. Enter your passphrase, and you're in...

What should you do next? JUST LOOK AROUND. Remember, you didn't pay a single penny yet for anything, and now you have a bitshares wallet, you can see the dex. It looks complex at first, but that is only because bitshares is so powerful and has so many options and features.

If it is overwhelming at what you're looking at... don't panic. My upcoming tutorials will help you.

Note: Do not waste too much time, create a Bitshares wallet as soon as you are ready. I do not recommend you start trading with it though, until we can confirm you can fully delete the software and recover the exact same account again.

...I'll be explaining that important step on Friday Jan 19/2018

I'll also be offering to send some free BTS to some new lucky wallet holders too. This gives you a chance to win some free BTS and have them sent to your new wallet on Tues Jan 15/2018 as well, so make a reminder to come back and visit me then!