Should you invest in Bitshares or not! I would say [HODL]💰

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Bitshares, as we know came into the news when the value of bitshares surged to $0.20 out of the blue in the month of June, 2017, where the value of bitshares was previously stable at only $0.01. There was no "huge" news or something, but an assumption that people must have realised the potential of bitshares during the month of May and started investing in the coin then!

There was no doubt bitshares offers some interesting technology but that kind of a price surge was not considered 'normal' under any circumstances....

So, what exactly is the potential? Let me list out some important points worth noting that will help you make an informed assumption. And whatever I list is purely from 'official' groups, no telegram 'signal groups' or 'pump and dump' groups as I am very against them.

First of all, it is indeed hard to answer the simple question, "What is bitshares?", Since there are a thousand answers to this question.

At its most inner layer, bitshares is a software, or a distributed multi user database with update permissions managed by a defined set of public key cryptography and rules. Governments once attempted(and still attempt in vain) to regulate cryptographic software, which they lost long back and they no longer regulate it any more. So anyway, Bitshares software is a Public Domain!

Now if we see another layer, we will find a network of users all over the world running the bitshares software and keeping the bitshares blockchain up and running! So bitshares is a network as well!

Now bitshares ledger, that stores the account balances and all is built on two layers: highly distributed network, that is fully transparent, and which is also secured by the latest cryptography.
And as we know, all the ledgers used by banking systems are centralised today, bitshares uses the more secure dustributed networking.

Now an interesting part comes into play which sets Bitshares apart from other cryptocurrencies.
Bitshares is an exchange as well!
Many people even investing in Bitshares dont know about it, and I have seen many people asking me what is the use of the exchange.
I would say, Bitshares is the world's first Decentralised Exchange, which is much different from the 'centralised exchanges' that exist today.
If there is a bit of more support, it might become the exchange of the future! I will write more about the DEx later in this post, so you will have an insight of their exchange.

Lastly, but not the least, I have personally seen bitshares community, I have interacted with a few members, and they are a super strong community. Theymight not be the biggest community, but they are the strongest ones in the entire cryptocurrency market!

Sounds good?

Lets have a look at what they have to offer from their official site:

It is a truly decentralised software protocol with no CEO or office, and they are not a 'company'. Hence its future proof as a blockchain product!
Many companies are already using the bitshares blockchain as their backend for token support or issuance
Self-funding blockchain directly pays to the developers
Atomic swaps on chain!
Huge scalability (100k transactions/second theoretically)
World's busiest blockchain with a record of 920,000 operations on 13th September, 2017
World's most popular DEx, BitUSD and BitCNY stable coins dont require any third party
Bitshares are not just simple tokens, they allow you to vote on who and how the DEx should run!
Cheap fees, median transaction cost is only $0.02-0.03
Confirmations take only about 1.5 seconds!!

So those are some highlights of the Bitshares.

Lets now come to some of the unique features and explain them.

If you open their site, bitshares.org , you will see its not just another cryptocurrency... Its one of the most secure Decentralised Exchange. It may sound complicated, but its cool!
I'll tell you why...

Lets talk about any of the popular exchanges, Poloniex, Bittrex, Hitbtc or anything. They are all centralised exchanges, where they store user's private keys on a secure server. They may use state of the art security to store their keys in a server. But if the Exchange is in any way compromised, all the user's funds will be at stake! This has happened to many exchanges in the past, the most famous being Mt. Gox hack.
Centralised exchanges are easy to use, provides margin trading, and all, but at the cost of security where you have to constantly fear about the exchange being hacked.
So the future lies in trading on a decentralised platform where users will have access to their own private keys. Thats where Bitshares contributed. There are of course other Decentralised exchanges as well, but Bitshares stand outsince they came early in the market, and is open source, and you can trade anything practically...
Have a look at what they have to say:
"Trade Almost Anything
Trade in Gold, Silver, Gas, and Oil in addition to your national currency and cryptocurrencies. Few limits exists on what can be traded on the BitShares exchange, given enough interest. The BitShares exchange can support assets that can track stocks, bonds, indexes, or inflation. Companies can issue their own stock on the BitShares network and allow easy, low-cost trading with complete protection against naked shorting. What other cryptocurrency exchange allows you to trade in gold and silver? Learn more about how BitShares creates trust-free digital assets pegged to almost anything."
So this is an excerpt which has been taken from the site.

https://bitshares.org/technology/decentralized-asset-exchange/

Just go through the site once and you will know the level of effort the bitshares community has put inside.

Bitshares is a financial smart contract platform built on the Graphene technology!

In layman terms, leave all these, you can have complete access to all your private keys, they never store any private keys on your behalf like other exchanges and you should of course have a backup of your wallet just like you have in a normal wallet.
Sonit means hackers need to hack individual accounts to gain access to user's accounts, which will definitely need a million times more effort than hacking an exchange, and we also know how difficult it is to hack an exchange. But hacks happen, as hackers try to find loopholes all the time by exploiting vulnerabilities. So hackers wont even attempt hacking individual wallets in bitshares. So we can rest assured its as safe as a software or a paper wallet.
Now if the bitshares site is hacked, they wont get anything. A successful hack will result in the loss of only 1 user's funds, and not like thousands of users funds as opposed to centralised exchanges. And one more thing I liked abiut bitshares is that they have almost 2 times the value pegged to what you own.
And Bit-USD is pegged to actual USD, Bit-BTC is pegged to actual bitcoin, and Bit-Gold is pegged to actual gold. So when you trade gold, for example, you actually buy that gold, they put it undet your name.... And when you sell (if at profit), you transfer the ownership!
You just need to create openledger wallets on the exchange and trade or store accordingly...
The next important point is the nominal fees. In case of bittrex, they take huge amount of fees per trade. Bitshares has very less fees compared to other exchanges. So its definitely a win-win.

One major drawback is that most of the people get confused on how to trade because in the end, most people want ease of use and not complexities...!

Open the site, and I bet you will need at least a week to figure out the full functionality! Here is a screenshot of the landing page on the trading site. Open Btc means normal Btc only, since they use openledger and peg each openbtc with btc, thats why they have written like that, its just another way of transparency I would rather say! The screenshot below is taken from my mobile in desktop mode..

The main reason why it is so much undervalued right now is that many people dont even want to use something complex.

Look at the four services they use!

Even when bitcoin first came into existance, people didnt want to use such a 'complex' thing, because of the hassles of storing private keys, matching addresses, etc etc.
Once prices surged, suddenly all people started jumping in. Even noobs who dont know what bitcoin is! Same thing will happen with bitshares, as most people dont know much about it now.

I would personally suggest to do some research and check out bitshares as it would be worth it!

And do check out Openledger site as well to get some more insight!
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And also another document from their site which might be useful before you invest.

http://docs.bitshares.org/bitshares/whatis.html

Bitshares is so many things and can do so many things that cannot be filled in just one post.. It represents so many different things for different people.
I'll write more about bitshares once I gather some more info on different things! Do let me know in the comments below on topics which you want me to write on! I'll surely come up with those after some research.

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