Bitshares (BTS)
- Symbol — BTS
Description
BitShares (BTS) is a brand of open-source software based on the as blockchain technology as used by Bitcoin. Unlike bitcoins, which do not produce any income for their owners, BitShare can be used to launch Decentralized Autonomous Companies (DACs) which issue shares, produce profits and distribute profits to shareholders. As such, BitShares is about making profitable companies that people want to own shares in, thus creating return for the shareholders.
The first DAC launched by this proces was called BitSharesX, a decentralized asset exchange based in Hong Kong. BitShares was originally
launched under the name of ProtoShares (PTS); it was later renamed to BitShares (BTS) and “reloaded” in November 2014 by merging several products into BitShares (BTS).
Features
Some of the key features of Bitshares are:
- Price-Stable Cryptocurrencies: SmartCoins provide the freedom of cryptocurrency with the stability of the
dollar - Decentralized Asset Exchange: A fast and fluid trading platform
- Industrial Performance and Scalability: Over 100,000 transactions per second (Though questionable)
- Recurring and Scheduled Payments
- Flexible withdrawal permissions
- Referral Rewards Program: Network growth through adoption rewards
- Dynamic Account Permissions: Management for the corporate environment
- User-Issued Assets: Regulation-compatible cryptoasset issuance
- Stakeholder-Approved Project Funding: A self-sustaining funding model
- Transferable Named Accounts
- Delegated Proof-of-Stake Consensus
- A robust and flexible consensus protocol
Technology
Delegated proof of stake -DPOS
Delegated proof of stake mitigates the potential negative impacts of centralization through the use of witnesses (formally called delegates). A total of N witnesses sign the blocks and are voted on by those using the network with every transaction that gets made. By using a decentralized voting process, DPOS is by design more democratic than comparable systems. Rather than eliminating the need for trust all together, DPOS has safeguards in place the ensure that those trusted with signing blocks on behalf of the network are doing so correctly and without bias. Additionally, each block signed must have a verification that the block before it was signed by a trusted node. DPOS eliminates the need to wait until a certain number of un-trusted nodes have verified a transaction before it can be confirmed.
This reduced need for confirmation produces an increase in speed of transaction times. By intentionally placing trust with the most trustworthy of potential block signers, as decided by the network, no artificial encumbrance need be imposed to slow down the block signing process
BitShares Smart Contracts
Smart contracts are contracts that get executed on the chain.On BitShares you can only INSTALL those contracts by upgrading (read hardforking) the network (In contrast to ethereum where you can just put anycode on the blockchain).However, in contrast to Bitcoin, hardforking BitShares isn’t much of a hazzle because you can simply bring it to the shareholders attention and have them approve your code (another difference to ethereum).Once the shareholders went through rigorous testing of your code, they give approval and the network can easily migrate over withing seconds.
- Algorithm: SHA-512
- Proof Type: PoS
- Total Coins Mined & Total Coin Supply: 2511953117
History
Launched in 2014, BTS raised the equivalent of 5904BTC primarily in BTC and about 400 BTC worth of protonshares (415,000PTN). At the time it was worth around $3.6 Million.
More information on the history of Bitshares can be found
here.
Issues
Bitshares is not as compitative as other exchanges:
- It has higher fees, there are deposit and withdrawal fee (currently at about 2% each way via blocktrade.us).
- They need to incentivize liquidity providers in the primary markets we wish to target. That means getting exchanges to open bitasset markets. That means reducing fees for those that create liquidity on the internal exchange.
- They need improve the user interface so that it is comparable to what traders are accustomed ( Graph of historical trade price at the top, order form beneath this graph, order book beneath order form and not on the side in weird format that we find it now. )
- They need to stop advertising bitshares as a cryptocurrency and just advertise it as an exchange. People don’t care how technology works they just want the same level of convenience that they are accustomed to on other platforms.
- Though Dan the founder should do things that kill the price of bts, because some of his decisions are effectively killing the potential of a system that is better than alternative solutions a system which you have tirelessly worked on for the past 2 and half years.
- The need new committee members and more decentralize control of the network.
- Currently a centralized system of governance where Dan arbitrarily decides shows failure of DPOS
- Risk of community failure may prove DPoS is a failure as some in the community did not feel the way without notifying trading rules, chanes were made and were not notified properly making Cryptonomex a loss.
Source: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=19191.0
