BitShares fee schedule

in #bitshares7 years ago

Given all the recent discussions about Bitcoin's transactions fees. I thought I should take the time and quickly explain how the fee schedule work on BitShares.

Paying fees

One very interesting feature of BitShares is that users can basically pay their fees in any asset, not just using BTS. The only requirement is that the so called fee pool of the asset that you want to use to pay the fee is filled sufficiently. This is the job of the issuer. When you pay your fee in an asset other than BTS, then the fee is exchange implicitly with that fee pool at the so called core exchange rate. That rate as well as the funds in the fee pool are maintained by the issuer.

Example: You are sending bitUSD to Bob, but you don't own any BTS - why would you if you only want to deal with smartcoins? In this case, you can pay your fee in bitUSD. How much bitUSD you need to pay depends on the core exchange rate and the fee associated with a transfer (see below).

Different fees for different actions

Obviously, BitShares has many more features than just transfers like in Bitcoin. We call these features operations and there are over 30 of them. Each operation has it's own fee associated with it.
That said, you pay around $0.01 for a simple transfer while you pay over $100 for the creation of a worker.

Fee Management

Internally, all fees are denominated in BTS (even if you can pay them in another asset). This leads to a basic problem. Since BTS is a volatile asset, it could rise and fall significantly in value - and with it, the fees.
Furthermore, experiments need to take place in order to identify a good pricing model for each operation/feature.

For this reason, the inventors of BitShares allowed the fee schedule to be updated by the so called committee. The people in that committee are voted by the shareholders and can propose a fee change. After approval of a new fee schedule by at least 50%+1 of the committee members, the new fee schedule will be installed and automatically activated.

Current Fee Schedule

A year ago, I took the initiative, wrote down a fee schedule and proposed it to the committee. It was accepted and is installed ever since (the price in USD terms hasn't changed much since).
However, since BitShares is gaining traction again, I feel we should revisit the current fee schedule and update it accordingly.

The current fee schedule is denoted in USD to make easier sense of the numbers. Don't be surprised, but the configuration of the fee schedule is over 1,500 lines long. Mostly because there is a brief discussion for every single fee associated with the operations.

Current BitShares Fee Schedule Configuration

Any kind of input is highly appreciated.

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I finally invested in some bitshares today, though they aren't in my open ledgers wallet yet (I'm there as luke.stokes). I should have listened to @billbutler a while back and invested then. Glad to be onboard with some skin in the game, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. I think the Open Ledger exchange is a great idea, and I wish it had more volume.

I've read a bit about bitshares, but I know there's so much more to learn. If you have any interesting intro posts/videos you think I should check out to get up to speed on, I'll appreciate any links you can share.

Oh, I set you as my proxy voter for what is in my open ledger account. Figured you know what's up. :)

I was pointed to this Bitshares TV playlist some time ago, its pretty good in my opinion!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjgfpSQFJTLpKmTGCG8FjvDFbfst6F-x5

Those are relatively old videos, but they still apply. The guy just gave up.

I really enjoyed watching these last night. Thanks @kenny-crane!

If you haven't yet seen them you can read my ongoing series "Turning Bitcoin Into Steem - The Evolution of BitShares". @Stan has also written a great deal about BitShares' origins and evolution you can find here: https://steemit.com/bitshares/@stan/bitshares-greatest-hits-and-spinup-links

Thanks, I'll check them out!

Congrats on your Bitshares investment! The forums have lots of info.. If you want to read things Dan Larimer wrote before, look up the user bytemaster and read his previous posts.

You'll also notice that steemd.com for STEEM looks very similar to cryptofresh.com for BTS

fees are too big now, have to be changed. especially vesting withdrawal fee.

pay 293 BTS to get 53 BTS is crazy ;)

You are basically complaining about a $2 fee for claiming BTS worth 0.28$ ..
Have you read the reason for why this fee is set to $2?

this is what you are missing. its not just me but other users too. to even get this "fee" one has to pay for LTM, then get users to the network. in exchange person gets this fee as a thank you.

in 2010 or 2011 there was a faucet with some crappy shit called BTC. it was giving 1 BTC per claim or maybe 1,5 BTC even. it was worth less than a cent. do u think it was worth for me to click there this few times ?

im speaking of my 53 BTS not your 30 cents. people have to pay for LTM, get people to use the DEX and as a thank you they have to pay 290 BTS to claim their affiliate %. ive never heard of affiliate program that makes you pay for withdrawals.

in my opinion all fee should be paying according to the formula:

  • Transfer fee in BTS = 0.01(value determined by the committee) bitUSD x (Current market price or feed price for bitUSD:BTS)

Now would look like this :
Transfer fee in BTS = 0.01 bitUSD x 177.79824 = 1,77629 BTS

  • Order fee in BTS = 0.0001 bitUSD x (Current market price or feed price for bitUSD:BTS)

Thus, in one move we would be independent of changing BTS prices forever.

Probably due to performance reasons, such a query (Current market price for bitUSD:BTS)
would have to be performed periodically

That is exactly what we are doing on Bitshares using the script that I linked above.
All that needs to be done is to update the BTS-denominated internal fee schedule on a regular basis to properly track USD prices. But we didn't see the need for it on the last few months because the price only got cheaper.
Now that the price started to rise again, we will soon need to refresh the fees anyways

Great news, thanks for the info!

Thank you for bringing this up and showing all of us the importance of a decentralized governance system. I agree with your recommendation and hope the committee moves swiftly to improve our platform to accommodate an increasing value that is coming our way.

Wow, this is an awesome documentation and description of each fee in the BitShares Plattform: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BitShares-Committee/Instructions/master/usd-denominated-fees/config.py

At the current state, I do not see the urge to update the fee schedule right now. Since all fees are nominated in USD terms, no matter how much the BTS price raises, the fees for account creation, transfers etc. are locked in USD terms and stay low.

I am also not a fan of reducing the fees any further because that would limit our future spending capabilities and drain our reserve pool too fast. Remember 20% of all fees are collected in the reserve pool and used to pay for the workers and pay the witnesses. If we kill the DEX income streams with too low fees, we will kill our future growth potential as well.

Since we do not have any inflation to fund future worker proposal, the DEX is living of the fees it earns.

Anyways, there is one fee change I would welcome. That is the implementation of the 0 transaction fee scheme from steemit. I think that is a great feature and would allow us to conquer the micro transaction market too. The 0.01 USD fee for transactions could be charged on a different operation for compensation.

Best regards,

Chris4210 - BitShares Committee

I have not looked real close to the fees over time, but @xeroc pic of fees is also what seems familiar to me, which seems to point to a conclusion the USD/BTS ratio is not functioning?

Hi @Xeroc - not sure if it's me being stupid but I think I might have noticed something you should update - do you have a private method of contact?

I have been on Polo and Bittrex looking at this again recently.

I do not have much.... but I know for a fact, for months now, I want to be part of BitShares.

I have not done all the research, but part of why I want to be involved, and obtain some, is because of Dan Larimer who built it and I respect.

I need to research this more.... I am just not in a good spot since the car running me over has disabled every area of my life.

I hope I do not miss the boat on this community.

Nice post by you.

I have had a BTS wallet for months, knowing I wanted to be involved. I am barry-dutton and also there is my Polo and Bittrex wallets I hope to fill with BTS one day somehow LOL

If you are in touch with Dan, please tell him I said hi!!!!

Thanks for the information and I actually plan on investing more into Bitshares, my favourite sleeping giant... Namaste :)

Agree....sleeping giant. The wallet is a great and has so many features that many would find user friendly. Time will tell if this coin can regain faith.

Thanks for the post. I don't know much about Bitshare, Bitcoin is more popular in my country. Maybe I'll try investing in it.

People who are still at bitcoin phase have already taken the first step toward Bitshares :-)

I am worring about fees for orders... I think they should be insignificant. Even $ 0.0001 for market makers can be a disaster. Also would love to see maker-taker model.

The more information we can get about this stuff, the better.

Upvoted

@shayne

Thanks for sharing..
Great post.
Follow, upvote, and resteem.
@xeroc

However, since BitShares is gaining traction again, I feel we should revisit the current fee schedule and update it accordingly.

You didn't say it, but my guess is since Bitshares is going up in value, you'd like to lower the fees to compensate for BTS which is more expensive to obtain.

Is that basically correct?

If so, I disagree that the fees need to be updated at this point. $177 for a lifetime membership this late in the game seems fair to me. The moment it goes over $200, let's change it then. :)

And lets not be too eager and hasty to change the fee structure just b/c the marketcap is currently up, that could change tomorrow. Such adjustments need to be considered cautiously and with a longer term perspective in mind.

Totally agree with you. I didn't mean to initiate the discussion about changing the fees soon, but rather wanted to inform new shareholders about the stuff that will hit them eventually, namely: updating the fee schedule

I totally agree. My intension were to keep the shareholders up to date on this general topic.
Personally, I would also rather keep the BTS fees as they are and only change them if things get too expensive. But we need to let people know about it and educate them, that's the purpose of the post!

Resteem & Upvote

wow, amazing.!!
good luck

I will look into this. Thanks for the info!

Thank you @xeroc! I will follow up on your information.

thanks for good information... waiting for next posting....^^

Thanks for the informative post!

Wow super informative! Thanks for sharing!

Hey, I'm new on here - I'm a travelling acrobat! Would you be able to check out my page and tell me what you think?

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This is really appreciated, thanks for sharing!!!

by little you get to greatness continue to make good post that you manage to be very great. I'm trying to do the same follow me I'll follow you

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