BTS, as with many crytptocurrencies these days, blurs the boundaries between currency and stock. Buying BTS buys ownership of the Bitshares company. Some may balk at calling it a company, but the founder has himself called it that, amongst several other terms such as a bank and a country! One of the most exciting aspects I see in the Bitshares ecosystem is the prospect of a decentralysed crypto exchange that is ever present and ubiquitous, defended by the blockchain instead of the more traditional defences of existing centralised exchanges which have shown themselves to be vulnerable and suffer from trust issues; there are frightening temptations for "inside jobs" relating to exchange hacks.