Will BitShares Breathe Again?
Just curious what the current consensus on BitShares is. I still hold some, but I'm not sure if that's very wise at this point. Seeing Dan's latest Steemit post on how the DAO is going to be dead-on-arrival and parallels to BitShares' "failures", I'm left to wonder if there's any viable way for BitShares to break free from its current state of paralysis. Is it just stuck? Will there ever be a solution to the problems outlined in Dan's post? Is there just no fundamental way for the DAO/DAC concept to be efficient (and therefore profitable) with a decentralized management structure and we should just give up?
I miss the good ol' days of BitShares...Stan's pump posts (are we still on for this summer? :P)...excitement on the BitSharesTalk forums at the innumerable future possibilities (remember the possible Ethereum partnership thread? lol)...tonyk, ander, method-x, et al...
Sigh...sorry, guess I'm just being down these days. All my investments and investment-decisions have been crap. In the interest of full disclosure I do hold a little STEEM (just a wee little), so hell let's see where this one goes.
BitShares is still evolving at a decent speed in my opinion. It's matured from an experiment where radical changes were being made, to a practically useful platform being enhanced for stability and usability. A number of 3rd parties have started building on top of the infrastructure now that the code base is more stable and rule changes are slower and more predictable.
I also don't agree with the thesis that's been advanced by the Forbes article mentioned elsewhere on Steemit that decentralized management isn't possible (I'm not sure what BM's stance is on this) . This idea that decisions have to be made by one man or some elite team is commonly thrown around, often with the excuse that paralysis results from anything else, but I consider it utter nonsense. More people analyzing a problem and discussing solutions almost always yields better results, in my opinion. And this extends to the final decision making process as well. Most of the worst decisions made about BitShares development and marketing were unilateral ones made with limited or even no input from the community.
In my opinion, the problem for BitShares in terms of funding new projects is mostly just a disagreement between Cryptonomex and the largest stakeholders. Please note that this is just my opinion gleaned from reading posts on the forums, even though I'm just going to make statements without prefacing each one with "In my opinion" :-) The largest stakeholders feel that Cryptonomex didn't manage the money it was given well and that tentative proposals for future enhancements put forward by Cryptonomex had high price tags or limited utility. Some people have stated that Cryptonomex didn't put forward any new proposals, but I saw a number of them, some of which I thought were useful but many of which didn't seem to be worth the required investment. Please note I say this despite being a shareholder in Cryptonomex. The last worker proposal made by Cryptonomex (formally proposed by BlockTrades, but with much of the work performed by Cryptonomex employees) was the blockchain maintenance worker proposal, and I think this was the most valuable proposal in terms of results and costs. It's true that this proposal ultimately got voted out after operating for a while, but I think this was more a side-effect of general voter unhappiness, and I suspect it could get voted back in with some campaigning. But it's problematic to do at this time as both Cryptonomex and BlockTrades are currently tied up in other projects.
The other problem for getting a new proposal for modifications to the Graphene code base by anyone other than Crytonomex employees is one of credibility. Graphene is a reasonably complex piece of software and it requires very experienced C++ coders to comprehend it's nuances in order to successfully modify the code. So if someone other than Cryptonomex wants to put forward a proposal, they need to convince the stakeholders that they have the required skillset.
Decisions not only can be decentralized but can be delegated to AI or machine intelligence. SO not only can you distribute authority away from the human singleton but you can move information processing capability to AI in a personal exocortex scenario. Collaborative filtering can work only if all the humans involved have intelligent agents to help them process information at an enhanced rate (intelligence amplification).
So you do not need to rely on human expertise as long as something in the system has expertise, and you do not need humans to sign off on everything because intelligent agents can be delegated with authority. Some of us already believe properly implemented intelligent agents can be trusted more and reliable than people.
I've liked this idea for governance ever since I first read about something like it a few decades back in Raymond F Jones' Man of Two Worlds (also titled as "Renaissance"). I don't remember much of the story at this point, but this idea has always stuck with me. I'm not a big proponent of representative democracy after seeing it's weaknesses and failures and I think we need to experiment with truer forms of democracy that can be enabled via technology.
Every day I'm amazed what a brilliant piece of tech BitShares is. :-)
The fact that there is life on the chain despite BM's "sabbatical" makes me very optimistic.
BitShares is still a critical part of our vision at Follow My Vote (and I am working every day to get our software to a point where it can do useful and interesting things on BitShares). Right now I am actively working on implementing the integration between our voting app and the BitShares blockchain (though I need some help getting integrated with the BTS web wallet family), but it's slow going since I'm mostly coding alone right now.
Once we have usable software, we plan to drive as many users as possible to the BitShares platform via our software and services. Initially, they probably won't have any idea what BitShares is or how to use it, but we've got some UIAs on BitShares (see VOTE and MERIT) that our users will hold (within our software), and we plan to write some docs on how to buy or sell those assets in the BTS exchange which will introduce our users to the wider world of BitShares at the point that they have a need which it fills.
It is our belief at Follow My Vote that what BitShares needs most right now is a self-contained, useful app running on its platform. We intend to provide that app.
That being said, once again, I need some help to get the BTS web wallets ready for integration with our app, to provide our users with the easiest transition from only knowing about FMV's software to using BTS directly. And I'll also take all the help on our own software that I can get; it's all open source on GitHub, and we reward contributions with MERITs! :)
Voters don't need to know about Bitshares. Just my opinion but I think the stealth approach is in the best interest of penetration of the graphene technology in the voting (political) sector. Politics and brand building don't usually mix well.
I'm not sure if this counts as a "pump post", but it addresses your underlying question:
Elvis has not left the building
There is more than just "talking" about the project: Actual work. And
there are many parties still heavily working on improving bitshares.
I am sure that if CNX had the funds that Ethereum had, then they could
handle the development load for Steem and BitShares all together, but it
seems they currently can't. Anyway, I don't see this as an issue as
BitShares is a great product as it stands, it just needs more utility
and awareness.
I agree .
Bitshares has gone too far in a little earlier .
That's all.
Bitshares for me its the most useful project in cryptocurrency at this moment. I am working on several Bitshares project and I know a couple of others that are too, so there are different people from all over the world promoting and talking about bitshares which is reason enough to be optimistic about the future.
You are right .I am holding opne.dao and trans.dao in Bitshares. As a exchange Bitshares is very excellent.
I think BitShares will stay and it will evolve.
In my opinion it just has usability issues that need to be solved asap.
People expect a simple and intuitive UI and a clear way how to do things.
That's what Cryptonomex is doing absolutely right in case of STEEM now, what was not the case when they built BitShares.
I hope they will work on it again in the future to improve it with all lessons learned from STEEM.
Thought I'm not sure STEEM Power is a good investment opportunity but I think it will succeed from a usability and technology perspective.
If Ronny succeeds building the new frontend for OL I believe BitShares can attract much more traders.
And I still believe that BitShares can become the defacto standard chain for financial services of all kind.
In the case of further funding I think the worker concept is great it just needs more shareholders voting for ongoing development.
BitShares still needs a lot to succeed. The technology is there, but that's the only real plus aside from the businesspeople who are building things around it. If any of those projects are home runs, that could do huge things for BitShares. If not, it probably will struggle along and maybe it will continue to grow slowly.
The sad thing is that still no one knows about it or understands how it could make life better for them.
And the final negative is the governance, which turned into a fucking mess that crippled any sort of progress. Any major business would build their own back end or license it rather than be subject to the whims of that community. I would put my money on STEEMIT and hope that the best elements of BitShares can be combined here someday.
I love the tech of bitshares but the politic and the amount of understanding required to make decisions is way above me.
BitShares is a long-play that provides a useful service that takes time to mature. The best thing for BTS right now is stability and predictability.
It needs liquidity. Nice platform with low liquidity is like building an arcade with no gamers showing up. Or worse to build a new console to replace "centralized" arcades yet no one buys the console. Or worse they buy the console but don't know you can play games over the Internet so no need to go to the arcade.
People who are not part of geek culture and who do not like to test new technology will have to lose their money to centralized exchanges or find the limits of what they already do before they will look to something new. Bitshares is new but most people think why not just keep using Poloniex? It is only when you can't find that new DAO token on Poloniex or you can't do a certain kind of financial function anywhere else will people have to switch for the most rational reason of profit seeking.