The Million-to-Billion Club
One of the most exciting things about digital currencies is that a million dollars can quickly become a billion. Bitcoin did it first. A million’s worth of Bitcoin in 2011 soared to a billion in just three years. Ethereum is on track do it in two. There may be more. BitShares enthusiasts expect to break all of those records. Here’s why.
In just five months, BitShares boomed 100x from 1/3 cent in January to 1/3 dollar in June. The decentralized exchange and smartcoin™ factory on a blockchain only needs to add one more zero to claim the record - with 18 months left to go. To make things more interesting, BitShares aims to spot its competitors those first two zeros and then add three more – just because they can.
That will be 100,000x total growth in two years.
Now it has the strongest backing and the best marketing.
To actualize this moon shot, BitShares and the Hero Foundation have conceptualized The Billion Hero Campaign. As of June 10, 2017 the Hero Foundation has set aside $1M worth of BitShares (3M BTS) at that 33.3 cents/unit cost to be given away when it has grown to one billion in value. This will be a 1000x climb to $333/unit. This targeted growth will make BitShares the number one digital currency in the world with a market cap approaching One Trillion Dollars.
This is not really that surprising, since BitShares is already the industry leader in every other relevant category.
Where BitShares is already #1
You can’t grow if you’re too slow. In the end, it will not be about current market caps, but how well each competing network is suited to meeting global demand.
Transactions per Day. BitShares routinely sets new records for most transactions processed in one day – long since eclipsing the combined single-day records held by Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Raw Throughput. Bitcoin and Ethereum are already saturated, forced to ration their processing to the highest bidder. Bitcoin maxes out with only 7 transactions per second (TPS) for the whole world to share! Ethereum chokes at 27 TPS. BitShares routinely breezes through thousands of transactions per second. As demand grows, the current version can be simply dialed up to 100,000 TPS on commercially available hardware.
Transaction Speed. Bitcoin and Ethereum can take hours or even days to complete a transaction. BitShares completes all transactions in under three seconds.
Profitability. The two erstwhile “leaders” are unprofitable, together burning hundreds of millions of dollars more than they earn. BitShares is already profitable, having reduced its operating expenses to a tiny fraction of a percent of the others.
Combining these metrics, BitShares is eight orders of magnitude more cost effective than Bitcoin. Eight orders of magnitude is the performance difference between a horse and a starship. It’s this kind of difference and accelerant that serious investors look for.
Incredibly, Bitcoin viewed as an unmanned company, does just one simple business function: transferring ownership of its tokens from one account to another. BitShares, on the other hand, is a complete digital currency exchange and smartcoin™ factory offering hundreds of smart contract financial products and services on a single real-time industrial grade network. BitShares can scale to serve the digital financial service needs of the entire planet. The others simply can’t.
The Hero. BitShares with the Hero Foundation is offering the Hero on its real-time, industrial grade network. This is a stable digital smartcoin™ backed by the counterparty-free equity of the BitShares network itself and mathematically pegged to grow against the US dollar by 5% APR. The Hero is the digital currency that the masses will actually want! Where else can the average person get the functional equivalent of a completely liquid certificate of deposit that grows by 5% APR and can be “wired” to anyone in the world in under three seconds? Details are found at sovereignhero.com.
Why haven’t you heard about this before?
Why isn’t every industry journalist buzzing about this?
BitShares has historically been infamous for its lack of marketing, instead becoming an industry darling for the robustness of its technology. With the partnership with the Hero Foundation for the Billion Hero Campaign, BitShares is now ready to step into the light.
BitShares New Marketing Dream Team
Unlike the other leaders in the “Crypto Industry”, BitShares will be taking its products and services directly to mainstream users and not just industry insiders. Gone are the days of courting coin speculators and narrow vertical markets on specialty forums trolled by geeks and misfits. BitShares wants the attention of every major demographic from millennials to boomers, from capitalists to philanthropists, and from sovereign first nations to the entertainment industry.
Digital Launch is known for its “To Market Strategy” and for building some of the best-known celebrity brands on the planet. On the 4th of July (Global Independence Day) Digital Launch took control of the global branding for BitShares. Thanks to Heroic investors and BitShares technology, Digital Launch has a virtually unlimited performance-powered budget and a billion-dollar prize to draw attention to the message of the campaign; which is to empower, fund and help maintain the independence of altruistic groups and organizations. Twelve teams lead by Hero Ambassadors will participate in the Billion Hero Campaign. The top team receiving $300,000,000 in funding and the final team receiving $10,000,000 in funding. This massive philanthropic campaign is already attracting top-tier talent from every continent around the globe.
The Billion Hero Campaign
A recent post on the BitShares spinoff Steemit, a blockchain powered social media network, Steemit underscores the passionate philosophical goals of the Billion Hero Campaign. Goals that the BitShares community hopes will drive global adoption.
“Shall We Play a Game?
In this game you will master a new global financial system. One that solves most of the problems you’ve had with the old one. One that could greatly improve your own prosperity while directing One Billion Dollars, to the twelve best humanitarian causes on the planet. Yes, BitShares is giving away a billion dollars just to show everyone how to escape the current system. The economic matrix that’s been pulled over your eyes interfering with your economic health and well-being since before you were born. It won’t cost you anything to play, but what you learn by playing could make a huge difference in your own life and in the lives of others you will help. Keep your own money growing rapidly in your own wallet safe from all foul play. Help fund your favorite cause and give the world its first Honest Money. Money that is "Of the People, by the People, and for the People.”
The Billion Hero Campaign is open to anybody and no purchase is necessary. Teams score by helping their members learn how to use the powerful features of the BitShares network for the maximum benefit of their own members.
every single participant’s own savings account is doing the same thing.
Imagine the reality TV series Survivor meeting The Amazing Race with luminaries from every demographic/tribe imaginable are encouraged to enlist their legions of supporters to help claim the prize for their cause. The Hero Foundation is already seeing some of the most globally respected benevolent individuals stepping up to compete against some of the world’s most controversial figures. Causes range from the generous to the capitalistic to the most frivolous you can imagine. There may be thousands of teams competing, but only the top twelve tribes can win a piece of the Billion Hero Prize. Who will be able to appeal to the right mix of humanity’s most base and noble motives to bring together a winning coalition?
Top Tier Leadership Pursuing a Billion Dollars for their Causes
A group of diverse individuals has already expressed interest in leading teams to win one of the twelve prizes for their most cherished causes. Some are globally acclaimed. Others may be controversial. Some are relatively unknown in the mass media world but highly recognized in the field of consciousness. Since anybody can form a team, this list is expected to grow and grow and grow. Who will prevail to deliver this momentous victory for their cause and team? To enter your own team or to follow the action go to, www.BillionHeros.com.
It has the best technology, the most appealing products,
and has the most powerful marketing strategy the industry has ever seen.
And it has a cause: Restoration of humanity's financial freedom.
Cheers!
Stan Larimer, President
Cryptonomex
The Godfather of BitShares and the HERO
About the Author -- Stan Larimer
Follow Me On Steemit - The Social Media Platform That Pays
Please Connect To Me On Linkedin!
Greatest Hits
Bitcoin and the Three Laws of Robotics
Engineering Trust with Charles Hoskinson
The Origin of BitShares
Why I will never give up Christianity
The Hero from BitShares Island
Key Links
Here are some of the best links for inquiring about us:
The Original HERO Definition Post - “The Hero from BitShares Island"
https://steemit.com/bitshares/@stan/the-hero-from-bitshares-island-5
The Billion Hero Challenge Announcement
https://steemit.com/hero/@stan/the-billion-hero-challenge
The Avant Garde Magazine Special Issue
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1313226
The Video
By far the best resource for new people is our “TED Talk” in front of a live studio audience in Hollywood. Everyone loves it for some reason. There is no better way to know all about us in one sitting.
So after a month of messing with HERO I've come to the following conclusions:
The HERO contest lives or dies by convincing a lot of people to use HERO as a 5% savings account
This requires a lot of non-crypto people to transfer fiat to HERO, which is going to require a simple and easy on-ramp. I don't see anything in the HERO contest materials about the on-ramp for non-crypto people to move fiat into HERO easily and quickly. This literally has to be like an Interac e-transfer that automatically buys HERO - users don't even see the DEX.
Non-crypto people are going to need an iOS and Android app to use as a wallet and to check the status of their savings. This wallet is also going to need to enable them to convert to/from fiat seamlessly. This is probably the most critical part of the contest and will determine whether the HERO sees widespread adoption or not. A clean, simple app is key. All people are going to want to see is their balance in their native currency increasing by 5% every month. They should not even see HERO. Just $XXXX and the number gets bigger every day. Basically: transfer money to our app and it will grow at 5% until you transfer it back out.
There needs to be millions of HERO tokens available in a very liquid market for this to work. This requires hundreds of millions of BTS to be locked up as collateral. I personally created more than 500 HERO and have now settled every one of them due to volatility and absolutely awful margin calls. I lost over $20,000 USD of value in a month trying to bring HERO to market - BTS went from .30 to .20 and anyone trying to get HERO off the ground got killed. There is a lot of risk in creating HERO that has been glossed over in the marketing materials, and if whales are going to create millions of HERO - and put hundreds of millions of BTS at risk as collateral - there is going to have to be a very convincing plan for steadily increasing the price of BTS. I personally feel a few whales have dumped the BTS market to squeeze HERO collateral and create an entry point for themselves. Whales could easily roll the market up and down and make a fortune for themselves shorting and buying back HERO at the expense of the average Joe. This is a huge problem. There needs to be steady upward pressure on BTS in order to convince a large part of the market to short HERO.
More as it develops!
I'm thinking this all sounds great but didn't bitcoin get its value from:
When bitcoin was regarded as stable enough it was picked up by the Chinese and now it is regarded as a digital gold. I mean gold is a hedge against inflation right?
First I thought BTS are shares so stock! Now @stan you talked about it being a currency, ok sounds nice. But (look another one!) if you look at Steemit, @aggroed posted a distribution of the (whales) wealth on Steemit regarding HF19 a while ago.
Outcome: not the 1% no the 0,1% of whales owned the most wealth.
Since Steemit is based on Bitshares but made so to kindle long term growth, how can you expect the same thing doesn't happen?
can't agree more!
Logical reasoning. BTS is showing a downward trend since 12/6. Short term correction?
This is an absolutely stunning idea! I really think the hero coin will be a huge success. I also agree that the method for mass adoption needs to be incredibly simple. This is revolutionary if bitshares can pull it off!
Sorry, 1 trillion dollars in market cap? So, almost twice as big as microsoft? Anyone who takes this claim seriously is either incredibly naive and ignorant, or mad.
A... trillion... dollars...
Get serious.
Do you know how big the derivatives market is? 1 Trillion X 1000.
Bitshares is the FUTURE of derivatives.
This. If you look at the existing FIAT currency markets, there's an unfathomable amount of value on these centralized systems.
I had no idea the derivatives market was that large. Wow.
Just wait till some FIAT market bubbles start popping.. then we'll see who in the world has been investing naively ;D
Hello stan, Some great info here Thanks. I can see you really know what your taking about so I wanted to ask you, Would you give my some feedback on what you think about my points in this blog?
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@warrenvee/could-the-9th-july-a-good-buying-day-how-do-crypto-airdrops-affect-the-markets
Thanks
Brilliant post Stan and I am happy I am a part of it being a lifetime member of Bitshares. I am doing my bit by building a mobile friendly website to help share the technology http://bankofbitshares.com. Voted and Promoted
Good morning from northern Europe. I've been following and learning The Hero Challenge about two months. One can say that the Day One has arrived. I'm keen to see what kind of steps this challenge will take during the first days and weeks. Small steps or even bigger ones?
Whatever happens I want thank you Stan for all your efforts. Learned a lot about cryptos only following BitShares/Hero. I hope you do well with your/our project. Take care.
Obviously, Dan is the Man.
And you got a lot of support in the right direction; we can all use help to visualize the future ahead.
4 my taste, it's a bit "rah sis boom bah" but it's all good too...
I am a true believer in this incredible potential and prosperity coming our way. It is a given, I do not believe it will be derailed, I can see it myself, and the Larimer family is helping the entire world chart that course.
From my own family, thankyou!
Intelligent people might find it hard to understand how the average person loves "rah sis boom bah" - and so misses out on the best rises (think ETH and many others).
Sorry, I have no freeking clue what you are talking about, but you can try again..
I'm referring to what you said, that "4 my taste, it's a bit "rah sis boom bah" but it's all good too...".
I also don't like sounds-good-marketing-talk, but it's apparently a huge factor in the success of most other cryptocurrencies, so it's nice that Bitshares is getting some marketing talk too. I tend to underestimate it's power, and focus on technology, fundamentals and community, which is why I missed the biggest rises like ETH, DASH, XMR, and all the ETH ICO's.
I have a special gift of being able to explain simple things in a hard way :-)
@stan,
Thanks for this perfect article, it describes A-Z about what I was seeking last week.
When I was at http://coinmarketcap.com/ I have noted a new crypto named as BitShares and I could see it has a good future as well. But I didn't research and didn't invest on that coin so far. Now your article helped me remove all barriers and I think it's time to join the Billionaires club.
Thanks for sharing this amazing post!
Cheers!
Stan, thank you for posting this. I've been following HERO for a while and own a small handful. Listening to you on the Beyond Bitcoin podcast leading up to the announcement and now reading this, has me very optimistic about the future of BTS!
Buy BTS and become million
It remains to collect a few hundred thousand to buy :)
*Trillion
"As of June 10, 2017 the Hero Foundation has set aside $1M worth of BitShares"
"billion-dollar prize"
I think you should stop referring to this as a billion dollar prize. This is no more a billion dollar prize than creating a 1 BTC prize "to be awarded when BTC are 1 billion each " is.
In fact at today's prices, it's more like a $666,000 prize. By definition.
"Gone are the days of courting coin speculators and narrow vertical markets on specialty forums trolled by geeks and misfits. "
Ah, so that's what we are doing here. Don't think too highly of the crypto community? Don't you think you should convince the skeptics here before you go for mom and pop?
How and why are the masses suddenly going to take up and support this rather complex new instrument? Explain to my mom, concisely, why she would put money in this, and assume if you say things like "guarantee a 5% rate if interest on a freely traded asset" she immediately responds with "How?"
I don't have an axe to grind, I'd like to be convinced. But these kind of claims require strong evidence:
"This will be a 1000x climb to $333/unit. This targeted growth will make BitShares the number one digital currency in the world with a market cap approaching One Trillion Dollars."
EXACTLY WHY I MAKE MY OWN COMMENTS AS I DO
Convince me, without just throwing links at me, and make it 5 minutes, while you are at it.
But you can point me to the 1 hour show, when I'm convinced, so I can show mom...
I have similar feelings. Great as an advertisement, but low on actually explaining how this is supposed to work. Don't take this too harshly but the way the articles on the sovereignhero website are written, would want to make me run away fast. Stick to logic and facts: that hrlps your project much more.
HERO is a market pegged asset created on the Bitshares network, similar to bitUSD/bitCNY/bitEUR. The price feed is increased by 5% each year. That's it, if you want a further understanding of how MPA work: http://docs.bitshares.eu/bitshares/user/mpa.html
I think that it's not that inappropriate - the prize will be released once the value rises to the amount stated, which if/when it occurs the $1m will be worth $1b. They're even being transparent in stating that the current amount was $1m invested, so nobody should be under the false impression that they have $1b at this immediate moment to give away.
RE: 5% rate increase - it's simply the modification of the price feed each year, there is no other external factor required to ensure this 5% rise occurs.
I can only speak for my soon to be 81 year old mom who enthusiastically invested in bitshares yesterday and is also interested in Hero. to quote her, "I'm sick of paying a bank to hold my money at least with this there is a chance for some growth before I die." The general public may be more hungry for this than anyone imagined.
I fear they are a lot more resistant to change than your mom is, however. My mom won't even look at Steemit, because "it's too complicated". No problem with Reddit though, just problems with change.
You lost me at "Ethereum is on track do it in too." ETH is already worth Billions.
Show me where a $1 million ETH wallet became worth $1 billion. Could happen later this year, but not yet.
You never said wallet, but if that is the case show me a $1 million BTC wallet that became a $1 Billion dollar Bitcoin wallet.
maybe satoshi's wallet?
You can see all the wallets, he may have a billion worth of Bitcoin in different wallets but definitely not in one.
Doubtful... I think ETH has helped build the cryptocurrency market up a lot. People have gained confidence and it has led to investment in other altcoins but from recent events I'm now more doubtful as to whether it will remain as the top altcoin for very much longer.