Bitshares. First Impressions.
So, I jumped onto bitshares a week before the crash. I've been reading up on Dan and his ventures, and had already found and purchased some EOS tokens. The idea of an operating system on the blockchain was really innovative. For the first time, I began to see a purpose for P2P computing besides the transfer of assets from one user to another.
With my discovery of EOS, came Steem and Bitshares, and I opened up an account. I transferred in some bitcoin and looked around, but didn't do anything.. just clicked around and got familiar with the interface. Finally, I transferred all my bitcoin balance into BTS.
Then I woke up early one morning and saw that bitcoin had dropped from the mid $4K level to mid $3K. I had about 3500 BTC and went on, thinking I might want to do something. Then I read about the Chinese rumors of exchanges and IPOs and realized it was going to be nasty.
I opened Bitshares and looked at the markets. bitUSD? What is that? I did a bit of reading and realized it was a dollar-tracking device and I went onto the exchange.
It took a few clicks to figure out what I was doing, and frankly, the interface is a bit too static for me. I didn't know about reload, etc. I placed an order for bitUSD and in a few seconds, all I owned was US dollars.
I went to work and forgot about it.
That evening, before I went to bed, I opened my bitshares app and I suddenly went from 3500 BTS in my account to almost 7,000 BTS. What the heck? Bitcoin had gone through the floor, but my bitshares value was held.
I watched the market, and when BTC had reached about 2900 US, I repurchased by BTS.
First Impression? Pretty good.
The interface is still a bit dodgy, and it feels like it doesn't react to the market as fast as it should. I finding myself reloading often to ensure I'm seeing the real-time market conditions.
That said, I doubled my bitshares BTS/BTC position overnight. And it cost me less than a couple BTS to do it.
Bravo Bitshares. Bravo EOS. Bravo STEEM!
The UI is getting overhauled right now - Bitshares has a reserve fund with tens of millions of dollars in it and it is being used for upgrades as we speak. What you experienced was the power of smart coins like bitUSD and bitCNY. They track USD and CNY faithfully but, unlike USDT, are backed directly and transparently by 200% worth of BTS collateral. USDT claims to be backed by USD in some bank account no one has ever seen.
Bitshares also allows you to short assets using your BTS as collateral. Think BTS is going to skyrocket? Short USD or CNY and profit. Think BTS is going to dump? Short BTS and profit.
Bitshares is a trader's dream come true. No government, no hackers, no crooks, cheap trades, secure wallet and exchange all in one. I've been using Bitshares for three years and love it!
Thanks for the input. I sensed this was coming, but its good to hear it is moving forward.
Any idea when the snapshot will take place for the REAL hard fork?
There's no need to ever reload the ui as everything is updated in real time. Keep in mind blocks arrive only every three seconds so that's the frequency of updates, but that's still way better than most other chains.
Of course if you have a dodgy internet connection or are connected to a poor api server your mileage may vary.
@svk I am impressed with all your knowledge about bitshares. Thanks for sharing all of these with the steemit community. I first read a post from you from a good amount of months ago about the TREZOR and how you were able to connect STEEM with it. Any progress on that? Can we put steem or bitshares secured with Trezor? I am now following you, and definitely your post and knowledge deserves to be read for many people in the steemit community. Following you now @gold84
Thanks for the reply!
Interesting. There is no visual element, other than a number change to give the user the impression this is happening.
Maybe an update clock icon.. some movement, would give the user the assurance that the interface is talking to the exchange...
The orderbook flashes when something changes there, and the depth chart updates in real time. This is similar to any centralizes exchange, although I suppose the lack of volume in some markets can make it look static.
The problem is lately whales have been selling to themselves at super low prices to entice others to sell. The price is not going to take off until someone buys their bags and stops their little game.
I would think growth of the network would solve this, no?