Crypto-currency and Ming. What is BitShares?

To answer the question 'What is BitShares?' For me, perhaps, is the most difficult. BitShares means a lot of things for different people, and there are thousands of different ways to understand what it is.

This post will tell you about what BitShares is for me, its founder. But, before we go into the numerous answers to this question, let me give you a short account. BitShares is one of the most important tools that can defend the freedom of any community; Idea, whose time has come. I am sure that after reading this post you will agree with me.

All the forces of the world do not have as much power as there is an idea, whose time has come. - Victor Hugo

There are many different levels of understanding of BitShares. Each has its own advantages and uses.
BitShares is software

At the most internal level, BitShares is software. To be precise, BitShares is a distributed, multi-user database with the ability to update, controlled by a certain set of rules and public key cryptography. This level is not very interesting to many, but it is important. The program is in the public domain, easily copied and modified and, most importantly, it is protected by the right to freedom of speech. This means that nothing can stop BitShares at this level, except as a global event that will destroy all digital data in the world.

Once the government attempted to regulate cryptographic software as a weapon and a tool for taxation. Having failed, it refused further attempts to control the spread of free software. BitShares software is Public Domain.

BitShares is a network

At the level above, BitShares is a network. A network of computers belonging to people from all over the world using BitShares software, whose databases are synchronized according to the rules set by the software. A BitShares network can exist if there are at least two computers connected to the Internet. This distributed network of computers guarantees reliable protection of the database from failures. Each individual computer on the network contains a complete copy of the database of the entire network, so no one can change the public record. This permanent public record is the basis for the higher levels.

BitShares is the registry

The register is a database containing information about accounts and transfers between them. Every bank, company and organization dealing with finances has its own registry, which keeps track of who owns what. The BitShares registry is very reliable, because it operates under two levels of care: a highly distributed network that is completely transparent and protected by the latest cryptography.

Compare this to other registries that are prevalent in the world now. Paper registers may be lost, stolen, altered, burned, or misregistered. Digital registries such as Quick Books or Quicken, which have centralized management, can be updated, modified, copied, sold, etc. Advanced registries, which are used by banking systems, still experience a human factor, a lack of transparency, have only a few backup copies and often contain internal contradictions.

Ask the owners of MF Global: where did the depositors' money go? Ask any big bank: who actually owns gold and how many times the same ounce was pledged - they can not say for sure. Nowadays registries used all over the world are deeply flawed when it comes to the reliability of property protection. How do we know this? Have you ever heard of a fake financial statement? The current registries have a technologically obsolete protection against malicious revisions. The main protection is manual reconciliation, which takes a lot of time, means, is not public and is reliable only if we trust the auditor (remember the case of 'Enron').

The BitShares registry changes the course of the game by a much needed new word in the reporting.

BitShares is the Company

Companies are simply joint property controlled by registries in a common enterprise. Companies issue shares that are merely registry items that track what percentage of the company belongs to whom. Companies are managed by a board of directors elected by shareholders whose votes are recorded in the company's register. Companies have a business model with which shareholders hope to make a profit, and they keep detailed records of all business transactions, which, in theory, can be checked by shareholders to make sure that management does not appropriate the money.

In the case of BitShares, the database monitors ownership of shares known as BTS. Each share can vote for delegates, the top 25 delegates after the vote takes responsibility for the operation of the software, maintaining the functionality of the network and a number of other tasks, for which it receives wages from shareholders. BitShares is a company that deals with the processing of transactions for a commission, the income from this business is distributed among the shareholders through the repurchase of shares.

BitShares is a stock exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a company that maintains a register containing information about shareholders and debt obligations of companies. She earns money on commissions for transactions and issues her own shares. Like the New York Stock Exchange, BitShares allows people to monitor their shares or debts and trade them within a distributed registry.

BitShares is a bank

Banks are companies that maintain a register to track debt with a security in the form of another asset, such as housing. This debt is calculated by the money spread all over the world, such as dollars, euros, yuan, etc. Banks receive revenue from interest accrual to borrowers and attract capital by paying out interest to depositors. BitShares creates a dollar debt secured by a pledge in BTS. This dollar debt is BitAsset, namely BitUSD. BitShares supports any number of BitAssets, including BitGold, BitSilver, BitOil, and so on. And whereas ordinary banking practice is an unsustainable business with partial redundancy, BitShares uses at least 175%, and often more than 300% of the reserve. While ordinary banks use illiquid assets to secure (pledge) debt obligations paid on demand, BitShares uses highly liquid BTS as collateral. While ordinary banks rely on taxpayers, depositors of BitShares can directly claim a security.

Finally, BitShares has the best banking. For more understanding, read my article 'BitShares as a Bank' or a detailed article explaining how the market-related assets (MPAs) work on BitShares, from Lance Kasper. I highly recommend this material for reading to everyone.
BitShares is the currency

Anything can be used as money under certain circumstances. Gold, silver, giant stones, paper, debts, cigarettes - all this was used as money. Rich and influential often used as bearer shares (paper certificates of shares). In the case of BitShares, a huge amount of assets can be used as money, including BTS, BitUSD, BitGold and BitSilver. All these assets have the properties of homogeneity, divisibility, transportability and the inability to forge them.

Earlier I said that the best money is like a Streaming Drive. It is capable of moving value through space and time with the utmost speed and minimal loss. Gold is an excellent example of the movement of value in time - it was extracted 1000 years ago, and it still stands to this day. Fate money issued by the state has a shelf life of less than 100 years, during which time their value is slowly lost. Unfortunately, gold and paper money are not very effective when moving in space. The physical transportation of gold coffers or hundred-dollar bills over long distances and across borders is a long and expensive business.

Bank deposits are very effective for moving the value in space through bank transfers, but they are expensive and relatively slow (take days). Bank deposits can also lose all their value, and it is easier than paper dollars, because banks from time to time become bankrupt.

With BitShares and BitGold, you get many properties similar to gold (such as price, stability and total absence of intermediary risk) and the advantages of bank deposits (you can transfer millions of dollars to BitGold to the other end of the world in a matter of seconds).

Whether you use BitShares (BTS) as virtual bearer shares, BitGold as a virtual gold deposit with a security of 300% or BitUSD as an alternative to partial bank deposit deposits, BitShares provides the best money / currency in the world.

BitShares is a Community

A software package that supports a distributed network, by itself, costs nothing without people coming together to determine the cost of the BTS. Each BitShares member increases the overall value of the registry and gains value from other community members. It all starts with a small group of people. A few years later, BitShares grew from an idea into the world community with thousands of people.

Communities are formed around social values ​​and principles. They support each other 'from and to'. As the founder of BitShares, a community formed around principles, I call them this: Creating decentralized market solutions to protect life, liberty and property rights for everyone.

BitShares is a country

Countries are what become communities that have become large and strong enough. The countries are sovereign and issue their own currency. Countries are run by elected governments, such as the Senate or Parliament, like the witnesses of BitShares. While we have a long way to go, but my vision is to develop BitShares to the point at which the ecosystem will be able to eliminate the government's influence on our daily lives. This means that all resolution of disputes and enforcement of laws will be carried out by the BitShares community in a non-violent manner, using smart contracts, liabilities, insurance and other BitShares registry systems.

BitShares is the idea ... the time has come. The specifics of the software, network and registry to a certain extent limit BitShares now. But the idea behind BitShares, BitAssets and non-violent self-management is so powerful that all the forces of the world can not stop it. The idea will live in one form or another. The whole concept of finding numbers in the register of its value lives entirely thanks to the collective intelligence of the BitShares community.

No matter in what form the registry exists, it is important that we share the general idea of ​​who has what. We no longer need state arbitration of property rights. BitShares, software is just a tool that allows our community to reach a unanimous consensus on property rights. This is in many respects similar to the Rai Stones - huge fixed stones that are used as money, because the community recognizes them as such and gives them value.

By the standards of the world, BitShares is a small city.

Source: author