Talk about being behind the curve on this one. And yet, maybe not. Yesterday I chose to spend some time and learn what BitShares was all about. The more I learned, the more I fell in love with this trading platform. For whatever reason, when I first heard about BitShares I shrugged it off as I seem to do with most things.
There is only so much time in the day to learn! Even then, it is better to learn something later than never at all. If you have never heard of BitShares, I hope this post perks your ears. If you have but don't know what all the fuss is about, then you are in for a treat.
Decentralized
One of the main advantages of cryptocurrency is that it is decentralized. No one company or person has control over the asset. Any coin or token that claims to be crypto but has some degree of centralization, I don't invest in. I'm not an investor but a nerd that loves privacy and free speech.
If the majority of tokens and coins on the market are decentralized, why are we then using centralized services to buy, sell, and trade? When we use a site like Bittrex, we hand over a lot of security and are at a big risk of losing any wealth stored there.
NEVER STORE CRYPTO ON A CENTRALIZED EXCHANGE
The reason we don't want to store much wealth there is due to the fact that we ultimately do not have control of our keys. When we send STEEM to Bittrex it is technically in their control. If they shut down without warning we lose any wealth stored there. This is exactly what happened to MT. GOX.
BitShares is completely different. It decentralized, making it impossible for governments to shut down or hackers to have one area to attack. Furthermore, we are able to store wealth there without the need to worry about BitShares being hacked and losing our funds. This is because each account is controlled by the owner.
I do not think it is a smart choice to use BitShares as the sole place to store your coins though. You personally could be hacked and then all your wealth could be wiped out. However, this is a much better solution than any centralized exchange. Just make sure you treat your password with the utmost security.
Fast
Just like Steem, the BitShares blockchain has a mere three second blocktime. This is very important when trading crypto back and forth. No one wants to set a bid and miss out because the blockchain-based exchange is too slow. These fast blocks lead us into our next point.
Undervalued
BitShares is both a decentralized exchange and a cryptocurrency, and this currency is greatly undervalued. This is for the same reason we talked about in the post Do Not Underestimate STEEM. The token is inexpensive and handles almost one million transactions per day. Which places it third only to STEEM and Ethereum.
As we did in the post about STEEM, let's see what the price of one BitShare would be based on the 'AVI' as listed on Blocktivity.info. In case you did not see the last post or have never been to Blocktivity, here is what the AVI is all about.
This index takes the Bitcoin value (market cap) and the number of transactions (Tx) per day and makes it an index set to "1." Then, it varies with the other blockchains' data. The index grows when the blockchain is very active and its market cap is low. A blockchain with the same amount of Tx as Bitcoin but with only half of its market cap would have an AVI of 2. From the investor point of view, it would be twice as valuable as Bitcoin because it would have the same level of activity with only half the market cap. - blocktivity
from blocktivity.info
On the site, Blocktivity has the BitShares 'AVI' listed at 410 as I write this. Which means it is undervalued by that much based on the number of transactions it currently handles and its price. So we can say that BitShares is worth 410 times its current price which is about $0.22 right now. In order to hit an 'AVI' price of 1, a single BitShare would be worth $90.20 USD. Not too bad for a coin many people thought was dead.
bitUSD Tether And Others
Within BitShares there is a list of several different sites that offer services on the BitShares blockchain. bitUSD is an example of such. In this case it is pegged the purchasing power of one USD. I wish I'd learned about this before the recent pullback all across crypto. I never trusted 'Tether' but bitUSD seems a better option.
Then we have bitGold and bitSilver. These are tokens that reflect the price of both gold and silver in USD. So if one troy ounce of gold would cost $1337.00 USD, one day, so would that token. The same goes for bitSilver but at a much lower cost. These are awesome alternatives to a dollar tether.
It is not just BitShares that offers these contract tokens on the network. Any site that we may use to access the BitShares blockchain can issue their own contracts backed by another asset. One such example is open.EOS, where the price of this contract is the same as the current price of one EOS.
from wallet.BlockShares.org
We can buy these contracts with the BTS we have in our account and trade them around just as if they were EOS. The upside to this comes when we factor in the speed of the blockchain and the fact that it is a blockchain. If we own 100 open.EOS, the OpenLedger site has to have that many EOS on hand.
This is for us for when we wish to hold the real coin in another wallet. With the blockchain it would be much harder to participate in fractional reserve lending of these coins unless the witnesses change via a hardfork. This same function applies to any site connected to the BitShares blockchain.
But Wait! There's More!
This is only the beginning for me in my BitShares journey. As I learn more I will be more than happy to share what I come across. One of the aspects I need to understand more about is the contracted tokens. Sending OpenLedger some Ethereum in order to trade open.ETH on the BitShares blockchain seems odd to me.
I am all about holding my own keys and coins. However, if it is hard coded that these portals can not have less of a coin than contracts for said coin, I may give it the old college try. Even if I don't send coins in return for contracts but trade into them with BTS I will never use a centralized exchange again.
Thanks for reading!
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions. or found a typo!
I'm using BitShares for half a year now and it's AWESOME! Also having account on Bittrex, but I just not using it at all, having a DEX.
I just shoked how few people using DEXes now (
ANYONE who is in ctrypto must know BTS for a practical reason.
Preach it brother
xD
Yes - Bitshares is a great platform. Thanks for walking through the details.
And right now is one hell of a time to buy should one choose to do so. At 23.6 cents right now, it's a good deal. It was at almost 1 dollar just last week so right now you'd get nearly 4x the amount of BTS for your money by comparison. When a big dip like this happens, I hope people make the effort to learn about it like you did.
I know! such an awesome deal. To bad I don't have any fiat to covert to BTS :D
You can't use some SBD to buy it? That's what I do.
Yes you can move both STEEM and SBD to BitShares and that is what I will most likely do in the future
You're so nice for commenting on this post. For that, I gave you a vote!
Thank you guys. I just have a lot of faith in Dan's vision and his work ethic as well as the technology he creates. Steemit has been very good to me so as soon as I felt the time was right I started diversifying a little with my Stemit earnings :)
i wish that i dont sell bitshares when was much cheaper than now :(
Good article, thanks.
I'll certainly take a look at it. It seems dumb that we're all trading decentralised assets on a centralised server that is prone to government legislation, control and audit, or worse, shut down and run away.
I've never looked past BTS, but I'll certainly go take a look at the exchange, thanks!!
Following.
Thanks for the follow!
hahaha I know right! That is the main reason I am going to focus my trades on BitShares as much as possible from now on.
Thanks for this intro post! I think the lending and arbitrage parts of bts is even more interesting, but I´m in the same boat like you and still have to figure out how this works... The reasons, why I haven´t yet taken the time to learn more about it is, that 1. the trading volume on the DEX is extremely low, 2. the number of traded coins is marginal and 3. everyone and their grandmother seem to think, that EOS will be way better and bts is a dying project.
I am a bit sick of the EOS hype train lately. It's going to be a great project if BitShares and STEEM say anything for Dan's ability to create amazing blockchains.
I don't think EOS in going to throw off BitShares at all. It is in third place for the total number for transactions per day and it's not clogged up. Guess only time will tell how it all unfolds.
Thanks for the comment!
Me too, but I used todays cheap sale prices to get some more EOS, just in case the hype gets real proof in some months ;) I just commented on another post with a similar topic - sometimes it makes me sick that people prefer to buy into hype instead of things that simply work - but good to have common people like you, so that I don´t need to feel like a complete alien ;)
Same. I am not one to invest in speculation. So many cryptos have no product and only promises. That is why I am only bullish on STEEM, BitShares, Bitcoin Cash, and Civic at this time.
I just got into buying a small pile of bitshares a day or two ago, and setup an account there maybe a week ago. I am late to the party as well, but at least I'm there!
I don't think we need to worry. This very well could be the bottom for BTS but I'm just a nerd not a financial adviser ;)
Your post had been curated by the @buildawhale & @ipromote team and mentioned here:
https://steemit.com/curation/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-01-18-18
Keep up the good work and original content, everyone appreciates it!
Thank you so much for adding my post! I will continue to create the best original content I can each day for as long as steem is around and I'm alive. xD <3
Interesting info. I was not aware of http://blocktivity.info/
This is a measure of value.
The transactions should not be compared only in quantity, some transactions are in average more valuable (bitcoin vs steem), some are faster than others (ETH vs bitcon), some numbers of transactions are on a raising trend...
Bitshares is intresting. The only other decentralized exchange I have used was EtherDelta. I must say bitshares is alot more user friendly than EtherDelta. Are there any decentralized exchanges that support fiat deposits?
I am not sure, some bitshares sites used to but is seems like they do not any longer.
This post has been deemed resteem & upvote worthy by your friendly @eastcoaststeem ran by Steemian @chelsea88
Thanks for the reminder. I haven't tried BitShares yet, but I have bought it on Poloniex, ironically. You can also trade ETH, BTC, EUR, USD and all kinds of tokens on the Waves blockchain. Anybody can create easily a token, so watch out what you're buying. And it's just as easy to give away tokens to Waves holders. I received airdropped tokens that were worth more than half of my Waves coins.
BitShares can do all of that as well. I'll give Waves a look, thanks for tipping me off to them.
Informative article, I am going to take a closer look at BitShares. It would at least be a good way to do a small investment test.
Thanks for breaking it down for us.
You are welcome!
Great info. I actually have all my money locked in bittrex. I learned my lesson
Sorry you had to learn that the hard way. I wish you all the best moving forward.
Go and read article in my other comment! It could be great info!
p.s. Discover the new way of TA here @. I hope it is helpful info! Could be of great use! I write TA articles and posts, start initiative Upvote Myself no More and series For Better Steemit @. Check my blog an meet you in my comments.
Thanks for sharing what you learned! I’ve been curious about this project after seeing it was one that Dan Larimer worked on. Think I’ll have to give it a shot now :D
Let me know what you find after. I am always open to learning new things and making sure I hit all my bases.
Thanks for this. I bought some BTS again today at 36 cents. The price has gone further down but I am out of funds at the moment. I have liquid Steem and SBD but do not want to sell so low.
Hehe just made yesterday a big post about bitShares and now you are in my feed. Bitshares is a really usefull software and still so underrated. The decentral nature makes this platform a big thing for future, also the developer team have big plans for this year.
haha crazy how that works eh?!
Call it kismet...but I have been seeing more and more signs lately about the dangers of using a centralized exchange. Everything that I have invested in so far...apart from Bitshares...is on Bittrex! I now feel the urgency of fixing this...and want to store all of these different coins somewhere else decentralized...but I have no idea where. I have Exodus...and OpenLedger...but they are not compatible with all of my coins and it's really difficult for me to keep track of everything all over the place...and if I were to use some of the individual coin wallets! Is this why hardware wallets come in handy? Or paper wallets? These are very new terms to me...maybe you would consider writing a post...or you already know of one that teaches the difference? I wonder if there is a decentralized exchange or wallet that accepts and stores everything listed on Bittrex?
That is the main reason I have not invested heavily into any coin that I can't stick in a hardware wallet.
These keep you safer than most other methods but still can not hold every coin out there.
I'll add it to my list :D
Chances are slim at this time but BitShares has a lot of coins listed but not as many as Bittrex
Thank you for your response! I need to learn more soon about which hardware wallets will work for my more important investments. For now though...it looks like I will be downloading extra desktop wallets...or cores as they seem to be called? These feel a lot safer since they are provided by the blockchains of the actual coins themselves.
These can only be as safe as your computer is and it is always a good idea to assume your computer is compromised.
Well...maybe not completely safer...but hopefully more compared to the alternative? How do you choose between keeping the coins in an exchange that could suddenly vanish...or keeping them somewhere they could be hacked? I know there isn't any perfect solution...but I am having a really hard time seeing which options have more pros than cons.
The coins in an exchange can still get hacked. Hardware wallets keep the private keys offline 100% of the time. That is why they are the safest way to store crypto at this point in time.
I'm also devoted BitShares user and trade only on BitShared DEX. It's so awesome cool place that all who read this comment have definitively try this platform.
And what son mentioned here! Transfer of funds from here on Steemit to BitShares is also very fast and easy. I think every Steemian have to have a BitShares account.
Bitshares rocks
Upvoted and followed you!
p.s. Discover the new way of TA here for BitShares #7 and Steem #7 is explained in detail why. I hope it is helpful info! Could be of great use!
Thanks for the support!
You are my man!
This my article speaks for itself: Why IRS can bust you on centralized exchanges and not on Bitshares!. It had been written 2 weeks after i set up an account on BitShares.
When you send your moneis to Openledger, you get a token, that tokens means "we are reserving the amount of bitshares that your holding is worth" . And thats what you trade. Of course you can still freely deposit like in any other exchange.
Thanks for the input!
i think you talk about a important topic...i am excited and impressed to see your post..... i waiting for your next post....i wish for your best of luck brother
Cool ! Thanks for your Post, I will add some more BTS for sure 👍
Thanks for reading and commenting!
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wall i like this article great learn many things
Awesome post!
You are convincing me to use bitshare, hmmm
I like it though
hahaha i like it too :D
thanks for pointing out BTS for us
... had almost forgotten it existed