I haven't looked at BitShares for some time. When I first discovered it, I was very excited. But it seemed over complex (with memberships and things like that). Also I wondered about the commitment of Dan Larimer, who launched it, then abandonded it to launch Steemit, which he has also now abandonded and is working on something else.
I will have another look at it. Maybe there have been developments since last year. Thanks for the article, anyway.
Another way to look at it is to understand that it is actually completely decentralised, like actually really. No-one is in control, nor can anyone claim that status. It's completely in the hands of it's own stakeholders, even more so than Bitcoin, which is practically in the hands of mining pool operators. What other blockchain can claim that? It has sure been hard to find any kind of direction for development, but it's starting to form. Bitshares is overcoming the problems other blockchains haven't even bumped into yet.
Dash?
I've heard that the majority of masternodes are controlled by a core group, and there is also a clear god-of-dash person. I'm not saying that is necessarily a bad thing :-), but it's different. It they want to be really decentralised, out of control of any single individual, there is still some hard problems to overcome. Another question is whether it is worth it? Is decentralized decision making actually any good? Many seem to disagree, as do I to some degree. However if it turns out to work, it could be highly resistant to attacks of many kinds.
That something you are talking about is EOS.IO which I'm assuming Dan expects to encompass all the capabilities of BitShares and Steemit and become the next big thing.
Right, thanks. I hadn't been paying attention!
The membership thing is less complex than it might sound. It is a one-off payment in BTS that will reduce all transaction fees from that point on to 20% of non-member users.