BOOM!
Ever since @billbutler introduced me to BitShares, and I learned about the technology, I've thought about upgrading my account to a lifetime membership. When the price of BitShares mooned in June of this year, it was so expensive in USD terms, I figured I'd never do it. I also heard at some point they might lower the fee. Now that we're below $0.05, I figured... why not.
I'm committed to using decentralized exchanges as much as I can because it's a better, more secure model for owning and using your cryptocurrency. The last time I looked at the benefits of lifetime memberships, I didn't think they made much sense or would ever be worth the cost. You can find out all about it here: https://bitshares.org/referral-program/
Instead of thinking about it in terms of the cost, I decided to think about it in terms of commitment. I'm committed to this platform, and I like the idea of keeping track of how many people I refer to BitShares over the lifetime of my account. I'm sure some of you created BitShares accounts because you heard about it here on my blog.
If you haven't yet, here's your chance! You can now use my referral link:
https://bitshares.openledger.info/?r=luke-stokes
I don't expect this referral program to make me money or get a return on the cost of becoming a lifetime member, but I do like having it clear that I'm committed to the platform. I transferred over some STEEM, bought some BitShares, and upgraded today.
Speaking of... if you have BitShares on Bittrex, get them off today! They are delisting the coin tomorrow. Create a BitShares account and transfer them there.
While you're at it, you may even want to buy some more.
Yes, there are other projects out there which plan to bring a solid, decentralized exchange experience to the world, but BitShares has been doing that for years already. Yes, they have a lot of work to do in the UX/UI and with marketing. That said, the blockchain technology itself is still far superior to most anything else out there right now. The built-in pegged asset features are pretty amazing also.
Be your own bank. Control your own value. BitShares can help.
Previous posts related to BitShares:
- My Altcoin Investments: A Steemit Story
- Playing in the Margins: bitUSD and BitShares on Open Ledger
- Reading the BitShares Whitepaper
- Questions from a BitShares Newbie
- A Simple Example of Shorting the U.S. Dollar With BitShares
- 9 Day bitUSD Loan Result: 19,821 BitShares and 199 ZAPPL for Free
- Are you Shorting Fiat Currency yet?
- I Got Margin Called on HERO Today. Things Don't Always Go Up.
- Do Cryptocurrency Speculators Fear Utility?
Thanks for three really good points:
I really appreciate the way you add links to relevant articles and your previous posts on the same topic. This makes it much faster and easier to follow up with deeper research. I will be following up by reading the previous posts, as I am extremely interested in the bitshares decentralised exchange, and my several attempts to figure how to use it have failed. I should read your previous bitshares posts in chronolgical order. It’s not clear which is the latest or earliest post. I’ll figue it out.
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I think they are in order from top to bottom. Enjoy the ride!
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Great! I will start at the top.
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Thanks to your articles I finally moved a bit of my tiny bitcoin into Steem through BitShares.
I'm not sure how much Steem I would need to register for a 0.01 upvote.
I suspect that BitShares being a DEX I'll at least use it for exchange/transfer if not for investing, yet.
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I've found I understand bitshares and openledger more than some of the other exchanges out there. Maybe that says something about my strange mind. Who knows. Haha
Thanks for the reminder about bittrex. I don't have any bts over there, but today would be a good day to track their prices for a buy opportunity before they delist.
Have a great one!
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Very well put and I love bitshares honestly picking myself a ton lately at pennies! Also correct that just going to 10 cents or even back to 15 cents we will see a 100% to 200% increase!
That's pretty hard to do right now at bitcoin prices even with the big $500 increase today of bitcoin we are only at 10.49%
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I was researching and discussing BitShares with a bunch of steemians yesterday - the most common complaint was the user interface. If the October 15th update is a big improvement there, I would not be surprised to see the price move up.
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Anything's possible. Even with an improvement, there will probably be many more improvements that still need to be made. :) Their marketing needs work as well.
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Not sure why everyone hates the interface. It's preferable to Bittrex...
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@lukestokes This article does not seem to have drawn as many comments as your other articles, yet it has a similar number of upvotes to some of your more commented posts.
As with all articles, there are some very short comments here, and a few questions which are answered in the blog. This leaves me with the impression that some of the people commenting have not read the blog, or just given it a fairly cursory glance.
I don’t know, but is there a financial motive to comment “awesome post”, or something short like that?
Another thing struck me:
134 votes (including my own)
104 unique page views (including 2 of my own from different I P addresses)
14 comments, of which only a couple are meaningful.
It doesn’t feel right. The ratios sound wrong. More votes than views? So few meaningful posts compared to to so many views? It feels like the real involved humans are overwhelmed by the bots.
The solution must somehow lie in the money distribution algo.
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No, your confusion is valid. Most of the successful authors here are supported by bots (myself included) and those bots are controlled by humans. For example, I use https://steemvoter.com/ with about 65 rules in place right now. Many are for friends of mine who created accounts but haven't posted yet. The idea is, if they do post (even if I don't see it), they will get rewarded. I also support authors I think do a consistently good job and provide valuable content to Steemit. I want to incentivize them to continue doing so while also earning curation rewards for myself. The theory being, more valuable content on Steemit raises the value of the site for everyone here, so those who have invested in Steem Power should regularly vote for good authors who are adding good content.
The people who comment "awesome post"... well, I don't know why they do it. Some of them are bots. Some of them are not very intelligent people. Some of them don't have much experience with online communication. And some are playing a numbers game, commenting as often as they can in hopes someone will give them an upvote. Others even go back to their old "Good job!" comments and self-vote them up to take more of the rewards pool for themselves without getting noticed (since they will do it days later).
Steemit isn't designed to be fair in the equality sense. It's more like a lottery. The rewards curve has changed to be linear, so this less true than it once was, but some aspects of who gets rewarded and who doesn't still apply. I posted about that here, but you can probably get more from just reading the white paper directly.
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Hmmmm. I haven’t explored bots yet. I’ll make a memo to myself to look at steemvoter.com.
Another thing which is puzzling is how some spammers have such high scores. For example, look at this obvious fraud spammer. I flagged one of his comments. I guess the usual warning in this case is not worth the effort. Yet despite the obvious evil intentions, nobody else flagged him, and he has a high-ish score of 41.
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please allow me to add to that issue of flagging. as for me i guess you should reach out to the person and ask him why he keeps repeating the same thing and tell him it can be considered spamming and if he goes on you will need to flag him.
then you would have given him the chance to explain and at the same time put him through because not everybody knows this thing.
And a question i want to ask is would you have upvoted it if it was somethimg else.
A lady flagged one of my post saying i stole somebody's work. Well i used a little help and i did not know i was supposed to reference it. It was a mistake and as a matter of fact i was a novice then. To me i felt bad. Not because she flagged me but because one she did not warn me or try to put me through and 2, she would have just passed by without upvoting if there was nothing wrong with the post. i Messaged her on chat and told her it was a good thing she did what she did. She was trying to keep the community clean. but i asked her why she did not upvote other post that she was sure were mine. she only gave an excuse. As human beings we have different opinions and i respect your opinion but at the same time i think i can share mine too. As for me i think flagging should come after warning and it should be done in a way that it will not be seen as an act of wickedness. If someone that jhas been upvoting me suddenly flag me because i made a mistake i will be glad about it and have it in mind that he just wants me to be better. But if someone like you that i have never heard from before i will not be happy about it at all.
if the guy is a spammer, he deserves some punishment but you need to be sure before you dish out the punishment and dont do it because you have the ability to do it. Do it because it is the right thing to do. Are you upvoting original works or you are just going around flagging people because of your sp. like @surpassinggoogle said
What do you think will happen if you flagged him unjustly?
I respect the community and its rules so i uphold originality. You can check my wall to confirm that. Thank you for being a good steemian
steem on
I am not saying i am justified with all i have said but i just shared my opinion
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Hi ewuso. I totally agree with everything said. Especially sending a warning before downvoting or flagging. I usually do the warning in even fairly blatant cases. However once in a blue moon it goes beyond spam. It’s spam and almost certainly “scam”. If it’s spam only then it’s a warning. If it’s spam that smells like ‘scam”, then it’s more serious.
The following is the typical text of one of my warnings:
“Munawar1235: This comment is for your benefit so you don't find others downvoting or flagging you.
Please help keep Steemit free of spam posts.
If you like a post, it is generally sufficient to upvote it unless you want to join in the debate.
In this case you did not even upvote the post.
Short comments like “awesome”, “nice post” “amazing post” or “really helpful” are generally not seen as part of the debate on the topic ,and if repeated across multiple posts, may be interpreted as spam.
Downvotes or flags can lower your reputation, can result in the removal of rewards, and may result in your posts not being seen by others.‘
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yeah thank yhu for this. Together we can make steemit greater.
keep steeming
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The reputation score is far from perfect. Maybe that person really has "an important issue to discuss". You could connect with them in Discord to find out, if you really want to. :)
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It must be really really important for him to tell everyone.
I’d better take some bitcoin with me, just in case it’s about some mix-up over a Nigerian contract and funds which could come my way in return for a small fee. Always best to check these things out. What’s a few bitcoins of fee compared to the millions I get in return?
By the way, did you hear about the Nigerian who died? They found $28 billion of cash in his appartment. It seems he had been trying to give it away for years, but nobody would answer his emails.
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hoe come you know so much about Nigeria?
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Voting is easier then writing a thoughtful comment.
Since most people don't deplete their voting power.
A 70+ member is always a good bet.
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I don't see how BitShares can be called a DEX when there is still a counterparty risk using OpenLedger?
It's not decentralised and DPoS as a consensus mechanism just copies the old political style voting system we have now.
IMO the only thing it has going for it is the amount of transactions it can handle but then a DB could do better.
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OpenLedger only deals with the
OPEN.<etc>coins, right? I thought their balances could be confirmed on chain as well?But yes, I do agree a DEX where each coin involved your own private keys for the actual coin (not a derivative) would be preferred. The DEX part means individual actors on the blockchain use the blockchain protocol to transact between each other, without a central authority keeping track of the order book, etc.
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Congratulations to you man....anyone buying bitshares now or investing in bitshares is a potential millionaire already,just like when people bought btc very cheap...am also getting a lot of steem and bts cox i so much believe in them,especially bts,a decentralised exchange....thats just too good...i have heard cases where funds are been stolen on bittrex and other centralized exchange...bitshares is the future,am not surprised the price is down now...the price increase is in the future so buying bitshares now is like securing your future...tnx for sharing some extra detail about bts
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wow, congratulations my dear @lukestokes ...glad to see that you are doing great and now a life long member of bitshares. I wanted to upgrade but cant login with may open ledger password (which was never changed). Hope they will resolve the issue but staffs are not helpful. Glad for you and wish you a blessed weekend.
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all in all, what now? what does that even mean to be a lifetime part? apologies, nooby fellow here
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Check the link the referral program I included in my post which explains things a bit.
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I really like the exchange - like anything it takes a bit of time and practice, but once you know what you are doing it works really well
Just started using the margin capability to buy some more BTS - with a bit safety margin...
Cheers
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Bitshares: baus-85
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Your account was created 33 days ago. :)
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You've got to start somewhere...
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Congratulations on your lifetime membership in Bitshares. I am a fan of it also but in a much smaller way.
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Congratulations @lukestokes! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
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Thank for sharing @lukestokes
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What are the benefits of becoming a lifetime member? Is it just the fees/affiliates share?
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That's about it as far as I know.
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O thanks for letting me know this. I'll defnitely use the referral today as I need to get my bts off bittrex :/
How much for the lifetime membership?
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It's in the first screenshot.
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Haha oh crap sorry I looked right over that.
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A friend of mine also told me to invest in bts. Infact i got 5 bts in a referral programme he did. I have not been into coins before. Just when i got to steemit that i started learning about them. I guess i will just buy $20 worth of bts and see how it goes.
i have all my earnings in steem, been following @jerrybanfield and he seems sure that value of steem will rise
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so, what now? what does that even mean to be a lifetime member? sorry, nooby guy here
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I linked to a full explanation in my post. :)
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Excellent. Congrats on the Lifetime Membership. I've also thought about it and will probably join as it is the only trading exchange I'm using now.
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Please stop upvoting this moron scammer! EVERYTHING he is charging people for is available for FREE! DO NOT SUPPORT THE SCAMMER @jerrybanfield!!
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Wow, you created an account just to flag him and post these comments? 25 comments now telling other people he's a scammer? Have you considered some people will happily pay for free content if it's packaged in a way they can easily consume? Are you a customer of his who is not satisfied? Does he have many unsatisfied customers who haven't received requested refunds?
Seems there's more value we can provide by encouraging each other rather than attacking and ridiculing each other. I hope if you've personally been harmed in some way which is driving you to invest time into this, well, I hope you get some healing and restitution. As it stands now, it seems like you're spamming the blockchain comments some might consider libel. That could get you in trouble and you might get flagged a bit yourself.
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Buying BTS from STEEM isn't too hard. I've been buying some lately via OpenLedger. Yes, there are fees, but they are rather small. open.STEEM charges 0.2% which is less than many exchanges and the BitShares DEX fees are tiny. Whenever we transfer from one coin to another, we're going to have to pay someone to maintain those servers and supply liquidity. There's no free lunch, as they say.
What I haven't yet tried is getting registered with CCEDK so I could do direct wire transfers. I had a friend who tried and it was erroring out on him when uploading his identity documents. For now, I'm okay with using on ramps like Coinbase. If I buy via GDAX, then there are no exchange fees.
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