BitShares is Going to Dominate Crypto in 2018 - Here's Why!
I have spent my first month on this platform reviewing cryptocurrencies and engaging with their communities, primarily with Gridcoin, Bitcoin and Ethereum. It felt only natural to give some attention to BitShares, being my most recent purchase in the cryptosphere. However, the more I have been learning about BTS, the more I came to realise that this is not just a cryptocurrency. In fact, it does not even fall into the same league. BitShares is going to do to the world of business what Bitcoin has done to the world of money - we are at the cusp of something incredible!
The Crypto Evolution
At the dawn of crypto in 2008, we had Bitcoin - a decentralised currency with the potential to disrupt the financial sector.
In 2015, the world of crypto was forever changed as Ethereum appeared onto the scene - boasting a currency with smart contracts, and a Turing-complete development language on its backbone enabling nearly limitless innovation.
Now, we are seeing the next evolution - BitShares - taking market share. This cryptoplatform (calling it a currency would not do it justice) supplies the next evolutionary step in the world of crypto. It builds on the decentralised currency model of BTC, encompasses the versatility and innovation of ETH, and extends out on all fronts to the point where the Bitshares network is an economy in its own right. It is a currency. It is a network. It is a bank. It is a stockbroker, an exchange platform, a breeding ground for innovation - and in the eyes of founder Daniel Larimer it can be thought of as a self-governed country in its own right.
The BitShares Details
Before we get into the details of the platform, and why it has such incredible potential, lets put this out there first:
Each layer has its own unique function, and benefits to the users of that layer. For any of us to enjoy the benefits of the BitShares platform, we do not need to use - or even understand - all the layers. You can pick and choose what layers speak to you and apply to your individual wants and needs. There are far too many layers for us to cover them all right now, but I would like to discuss the core groundbreaking feature that got me excited enough to invest - BitAssets.
BitShares has successfully managed to peg its currency, BitAssets, to traditional stores of value through a wide range of digital tokens representing these assets. In effect, this has eliminated the price volatility that we are used to as running rampant in the cryptosphere. For example, I am able to invest in bitGold and know that it will always trade near par value for gold on any exchange. This is something that we have not seen on this scale before in the cryptosphere. The result is unparalleled stability that enables us to HODL during periods of volatility that were seen in earlier cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Let me put that into a different perspective - BitShares can encompass my entire investment portfolio including stocks, precious metals, oil etc in a way that is decentralised, fair, trustless and unfreezable. I can even use it to automatically pay my rent - in gold or oil should the landlord be that way inclined!
The Future
BTS is built on top of the Graphene high performance blockchain, which means that it is capable of maintaining the current transaction speed of up to 3 seconds (limited by the speed of light in fibre optics cable) and scale comfortably to 100,000 transaction per second in the future. This incredible performance capability allows BTS the throughput to successfully take market share from the traditional fiat financial platform and banking sector. To put this huge throughput in perspective, this enables the network to carry out more transactions that the VISA and Mastercard networks combined are able to process.
The huge throughput potential combined with minimal transaction fees and the decentralised exchange offers phenomenal advantages over traditional brokers, and will see unprecedented adoption by the financial sector over the next year. Even with this system in place, BitShares still has sufficient reserve funds to allow several years of continuous development.
BitShares is not in competition with anyone or anything in the cryptosphere - it is merely filling a void that allows the world of crypto to decentralise the modern economy.
Get involved.
Image credit, in order of appearance:
Bitshares Splash, 3bpblogspot
BTC - ETH - BTS, Custom by @me-shell
BTS Has Layers, Bytemaster
Bitshares Logo, Freedomfeens
Just a little missunderstanding ...
BitGOLD is not backed by actual gold. Nor BitUSD by USD.
All BitAssets are baked by 200% of their value in BTS.
BTS is the collateral used to back the asset.
In the case of gold, every BitGOLD is back with 200% of its gold value in BTS. No fractional reserve, always fully backed.
That's MUCH more interesting this way because, the most BitAsset are created and used, the more BTS are locked in collateral. That shrink a lot the BTS supply creating higher buying pressure.
What happens if one of these assets does a moonshot? Suppose the Gold price is $50,000 tomorrow, 200% backing is nowhere near enough...is everyone forcibly cashed out at the collateral level (200%)?
That actually happened with the Gridcoin equivalent smartcoin - it spiked after the smartcoin was created, resulting in a Black Swan Event, which means there wasnt enough collateral to buy back the smartcoin. Bitshares is built so that such events affect only the MPA (Market Pegged Asset) in question, and the Bitshares network is otherwise completely unaffected. The Gridcoin MPA is now in a locked state, where the holders can claim back an equivalent amount of BTS of that point in time, but trading that asset is discontinued.
There is a proposal to enable reviving Black Swanned assets and markets, but for now they are semi-permanently locked.
Interesting, thank you for the background! That does make sense as an approach. It's like a permanent market circuit breaker when collateral dips too low.
I find I am not confident in my ability to assess these kind of risks with Hero, so I worry about how those that aren't even in crypto could possibly feel confident investing large amounts here.
HERO won't spike by definition. Gold and other traditional assets also move so slowly in comparison to crypto's, that they will be no problem at all. The other side of the problem is the volatility of BTS. However, all these MPA's survived the death trap of past years, where BTS dropped down to 10% of it's peak value. So I think it's safe to say that they have been proven to work as intended. Probably the asset most likely to suffer a black swan today is BTWTY. It is an index fund-like MPA which follows the value of the top 20 crypto's. The value of that could suddenly soar...
MPA's pegged to crypto's are unpopular, as they serve no purpose. MPA's make sense when they are pegged to non-digital assets, which are usually also relatively unvolatile. Thus the risk of Black Swans are usually related to crypto-MPA's, which are of little interest anyway.
Is your argument here that we can't have a black swan in something like Gold (Comex levered, what, 100:1?) or the USD?
No, not at all. Just that margin calls - and hence Black Swans - are less likely to happen with traditional assets than with crypto's. I mean the respective MPA's. Gold, Silver, Oil, USD, CNY are very unlikely to spike 100% in one day, while it is very normal with crypto's. Black Swans can still happen with any MPA.
The shorters have an incentive to support the BTS price if they are short some MPA. Thus, the more MPA's that are issued, the more stable they are likely to be. Bitshares is still relatively young, but it is starting to grow. Black Swans are a part of the growth pains.
Thanks for the added color.
Yes. When they get locked in, It decreases market volatility, and allows mom and pop to dip their feet in! The interesting question with bitGold and the other smart coins is this: What is the market price, and how do we discover it? If you talk to anyone with knowledge of the precious metals, they will tell you that the metals are manipulated by the biggest banks in the world. Price discovery from the standard markets cannot be trusted. We've been talking for some years now about the two prices for gold (physical vs hypothetical) diverging once the manipulation grows past sustainability. Back in 2008/9 and 2011 we saw ebay take up the role of price discoverer. People were willing to pay MULTIPLES over the spot price in order to get coins in hand. I can see Bitshares becoming the place to go for real pricing for gold, even over the COMEX, etc. In that case? What does Bitgold peg itself to? ITSELF! It becomes a floating free market... and once these smart contracts are plentiful, bitshares gets ROCK SOLID. It will dominate, and there will be many tears of regret... imagine chasing Etherium at $300 when Bitshares is at 18 cents.
Chasing ETH seems to be relatively pointless at this stage (especially relative to BTS), as the price appears to be suffering under the endless wave of ICOs of questionable value.
ICOs with interesting coins are moving from ETH to the BTS blockchain, such as Crypviser did.
Crypviser, is the ICO that led me to discover bit shares.
Etherium without the hassle/risk/spam?
Im in. 😂
I guess johnsmith is right. Its all about security and transaction speed and Bitshares dominates these areas.
About ICOs: Expectations are much higher than the product/solution and their real market value. At some point people will realize it.
Haha! I cant wait. Ready for the trip to the moon!
Ready for liftoff? It's happening now. :)
Oh wow, even better than I thought. I have made an edit to reflect this. Thank you for clarifying the system, learning every day! =)
In that case, what happens to the USD converted into bitUSD when poored into the system via, for example, CCDEK? If not held as collateral, where is it kept?
Being able to buy straight into the BitShare market with USD without having to go through a medium like BTC is something I am hugely thankful for as someone with limited exchange experience. It does a lot to simplify the crypto buy-in process for a new investor.
Could you expand a little on the process of moving USD directly to the Bitshare market? I wasn't aware this was an option to bypass first buying BTC. Thanks!
Using CCDEX on DEX you are able to exchange USD for bitUSD, which is an asset on the BitShares platform pegged to the dollar. This can then be readily exchanged into any other asset on the platform. Other than USD, you can also do this with Euro and, from memory, Chinese Yuan
To use CCDEK, you will need to prove your identity before you can use it. Once you are verified, deposits are free and withdrawals are charged at a 3% fee.
Hello, I am wondering if you can share me your knowledge on how to use that CCDEX thing you're talking about? Thank you!
It is a method to move fiat directly into USDT on the Openledger DEX. Just set up an account, and elect to load USD, CNY or EUR. It will walk you through the rest of the process.
How am I going to do that? Do you have a screenshot of some sort?
I do not have Openledger account but I do have a Bitshares client and a wallet installed on my desktop. Will this be enough to do the feat?
Thank you, this is super helpful stuff. Definitely adding you to my follow list.
@dutch is CCDEK a fiat gateway? Can I convert USD from US bank account to bitUSD directly?
THank you for the explanation. It's the same concept with locking up your steem in steem power. This concept would work great if you had long term investors, that is tied has the coin tied up with them for two plus years, giving the project time to mature and gather interest as the value spark but with everyone looking for a project, people gonna pull the trigger once they are in profit. If they can half the available supply, not just Bitshares but Steem we can see a considerably spike in price. With EOS, the initial circulating supply should have gone along with the 7's concept of the symbol and limit the initial supply to 7 million and gradual release into circulation with time.
Sorry for dropping out of the blue here, but this is the last thing you wrote. I advertised you a bit in my last post and even added a picture of your profile info. If you mind tell me and I'll edit.
Cheers! I hope you write something new I can upvote ;)
Much clearer. Thanks.
Bitshares is currently running at 700,000 - 900,000 transactions per day, which is more than Bitcoin and Eth combined. And it is doing so with zero delays, zero security issues and transaction times that average ~ 3 seconds. If you value a crypto token by transactions, ie. actual real world use, BTS is the No. 1 crypto in the world by a huge margin. It has been stress tested to > 10,000 transactions per second and the current Graphene chain can handle 100,000 transactions per second.
The HERO contest kicked off July 4th and aims to increase BTS to ~ $300/BTS over the next 18 months. It sounds ridiculous until you understand what the contest is doing - taking a 5% cash savings account to the mass market. Can you image if you had an app, web wallet or desktop wallet that you could deposit your savings into and get 5% interest paid in realtime, with zero counterparty risk and instant liquidity? Right now the best you can do on a cash savings account is ~ 0.5%. The HERO contest is aiming to bring a gigantic flood of fiat that is desperate for a safe place to park wealth and earn decent interest.
Anyone buying BTS right now is likely to be very, very happy in a year or two.
It's happening! :) Prepare for takeoff.
BTS is doing 700k or so operations not transactions - and far fewer transactions - an arguably important difference. Steem is doing more transactions regardless tmk.
@ned hi there! I don't fully understand this. Wondering what difference does exist between operation and transaction. Thanx master.
Les statistiques, c'est comme le bikini : ça donne des idées mais ça cache l'essentiel ! - COLUCHE
I didn't want to translate such good words ;)
Fantastique
Correct you are - I think transactions are about 80k/day while operations are 700k. I'll admit I don't really understand the difference... but bottom line is that Graphene is really kicking ass compared to anything else on the market. BTS, STEEM and now EOS are going to absolutely dominate crypto in the next 12-24 months.
Sounds good, but why is the BTS price falling?
Maybe BTS can do better than Visa, but never get the chance to prove it, because bigger players control the market.
Pump&Dumpers are slowly loosing their BTS to long term holders. Just look at the long term charts.
The prices of all the altcoins are currently falling, probably due to the upcoming August segwit2x user activated soft fork. Many people are pulling out their money.
Thank you for your answer.
I agree with you about BitShares and hoping after some up and down it will get a bigger share of the market.
Hey there Dutch,
Can you please help me out in understanding the segwit2x better :)?
I read a post in bitcoin-magazine or something like that about this and that bitcoin would be implementing this in august and therefore the price would drop.
What I'm trying to understand is: does this only effect Bitcoin or does it effect altcoins as well? - I'm still trying to wrap my brain around block-chain technology so I'm having a hard time with this :s.
For example, I bought some Litecoin(LTC), Golem(GNT), Ripple(XRP) and Digibyte.
Anything, anyone, please help and advise me. You and your help/advice will be so much appreciated !!!
segwit2x is update for bitcon
so your other coins wount be affected.
simply explanation: segwit2x update meant to increase the number of transaction that bitcoin can make.
the fear is that segwit2x upgrade will cause many problems(to miners and ex.) that will lead to price drop.
hope you got it :)
(rate me plz :) )
Superior technology often wins in the long game. ie. Bitcoin
I like it has PoW but dont like it has ASICs...
Not exactly In the early days the superior betamax lost out to VHS .
But then magnetic video tape lost out to digital. I guess its a type of ebb and flow when it comes to innovation. Or at the least that's the way it was, maybe it will be different in the future.
Only time will tell.
What makes you think BTC is superior? It has inferior TPS and is based on largely obsolete tech at this point. We have seen several iterations of improvement in blockchain tech, currently culminating in Graphene.
yeah, the only thing bitcoin has is that it came first but technically lots of coins are better than BTC
and the 5 million ph/s securing it and most likely the most experienced blockchain dev team.
Nice work it's good
Yes 300 is not that far. In my case its about Aud 360 😁
True Flip {ICO} - Already running a transparent blockchain lottery! Bomb! Bonus 20%! Hurry! :)
The platform is already working and making a profit :)
https://steemit.com/ico/@happycoin/true-flip-ico-already-running-a-transparent-blockchain-lottery-bomb-bonus-20-hurry
@dutch I like your view on BTS. Very interesting. It is exactly what I thought about BTS until like 3-4 weeks ago. Today I sold all my BTS. Here is why: EOS. I am very interested to hear your thoughts in context of EOS which will have more processing power and also a kind of exchange within its BC. So I fear that BTS use cases are going to be very limited - that is why I decided to sell BTS. I might be wrong though. What are your thoughts on this? Is EOS going to cut into BTS share?
Thank you! And also, thank you for giving some insight into your personal trading strategy. You make a good point about the potential for EOS to encroach on BTS territory, but I think they can co-exist and benefit each other. There has been discussion about DEX being ported onto the EOS platform, and I see no reason why that would not hugely benefit both parties.
At the end of the day, the beauty of the Graphene ecosystem is that all the coins/tokens on it can co-exist and support each other. Graphene tech will be the future of crypto, and if BTC throws out its status as digital gold to return to being a currency in the current fiasco, Graphene tech may be crypto's only future (besides some niche altcoins).
Just my 2 cents.
I agree - Graphene is very strong. And yes - I also see that BTS can coexists with EOS. In my portfolio I just wanted not to invest in both and decided to lean towards EOS.
Still I hope all the best for BTS and all who invested into it. I think it is a great platform.
I believed EOS will not be creating its own public block chain. It's designed for large businesses with private enterprise in mind. Am I reading it correctly?
Very interesting; okay time to finally buy some BTS. I've been on the fence for too long. Those transaction numbers are amazing.
So sad I didn't buy BTS in Feb and early March.
I believe the article emphasises that it isn't too late. Your regrets are comparable to wishing you'd bought bitcoin at $25 when the price had risen to $150..
Same here :(
The beauty of the world of investing is that there are always more opportunities cropping up, and they will continue to do so. Yes, you missed the lows, as did 99.99% of everyone else (myself included). At this point, investing was substantially more risky too.
The people that believed in BTS back then are well off now - and they deserve to be for backing BTS when it needed their backing. Likewise, if we back BTS at USD$0.20 and it gets to even USD$1.00 then we are repaid for backing BTS now.
Now EOS is being launched surely this will significantly eat into the value of BitShares as many competitors will be able to jump up around it? Or do you think that it will mean more people will learn the amazing potential of the BitShares platform? I would be interested in your opinion, are you invested in EOS?
I have done a few posts on the EOS ICO and why I now believe it is a serious competitor to Ether - so do feel free to check them out if you are interested.
I view EOS as the R&D department for BitShares. When it's ready, BitShares will simply adopt it like it adopted Graphene without a hiccup. In three seconds.
I agree this is a possibility but it may also bring attention and more money into the ecosystem as well right?
It will definitely raise the profile of all platforms built on the Graphene blockchain, which is good for BitShares.
Yes. All attention is good attention with a long term view.
I am certain that EOS will continue to demonstrate the as-of-yet unused potential of the Graphene technology. I also agree that it enables the creation of BTS competitors with far less effort than it took to create the Bitshares platform originally. However, BTS has had a huge head start in the market - currently being the only available platform in its niche. This counts for a lot, as demonstrated by BTC. Early adoption and general comfort of the public with the platform matters. BTS is actually the first crypto my parents have felt comfortable with, and that means a LOT.
I am not at this point invested in EOS. Will check out your posts though!
Good post and important info, thanks for sharing
This comment has received a 0.14 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @hamzaoui.
I hope so! I bought some more!
What is it goes to take to restore confidence though? I had invested in it for awhile but it didn't end up really going anywhere and I feel a lot of people lost confidence in it.
That was very well written, hoping to see more BTS related articles from you @dutch, exploring those layers into more detail. I feel there is a considerable demand for such articles here on Steemit.
Thank you vortac, I appreciate the feedback. Looking forward to spending more time writing about BTS and GRC in the future. =)
That's true I think so