I’m going to start with a confession. Recently, I sold most of my Ethereum and “bonus” Ethereum Classic (ETC) resulting from the forked chain. I’ve invested the whole lot in Bitshares as I believe they are ready for takeoff.
I had been a passionate believer in Ethereum, and I still think Ethereum will prosper in the medium/long term. However, the Ethereum brand has taken a hit following theDAO hack. I also don’t like the way Ethereum Classic has emerged adding an element of confusion to the network and brand proposition. Imagine if there was a Facebook and Facebook Classic?
So why Bitshares?
1. Bitshares are undervalued
The current market cap for Bitshares is $11.5 million. Compare this to the $975 million for Ethereum and $9.2 billion for Bitcoin. Recently, the price of Bitshares is seeing some appreciation but you can still buy it near historic lows.
2. It’s an Exchange!
The Bitshares wallet incorporates a decentralized exchange. Generally cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are traded at large exchanges, which follow the traditional logic of centralization, with a single point of failure for corruption, information-theft, coercion, robbery, fraud, and so on. The recent Bitfinex theft of $60 million is a case in point.
Transaction fees are also lower than traditional centralized exchanges and 20% of the fees go directly back to the network - owners of bitshares. There is an inherent network effect that will result from owners of Bitshares using and referring others to Bitshares. Further, there is an API for the platform that has seen other exchanges like OpenLedger & Freedom Ledger using the core Bitshares platform.
3. Transaction volumes are growing
Transaction volumes on the Bitshares blockchain are seeing significant growth over the last few months. Holders of Bitshares benefit directly from the increase in transactions and % share of fee revenue. This increase in transactions is largely due to Steemit.com which has lowered the barriers to entry in the crypto-currency space.
4. Bitshares is intuitive
I was impressed by how easy it is use the Bitshares 2.0 wallet and light client. The fact that they are integrated with the exchange is a huge benefit over Mist and Myetherwallet. I also like the way you can send and receive Bitshares just by using your username.
5. Graphene Blockchain Technology - 100,000+ transactions per second
Bitshares is designed from the ground up to process more transactions every second than VISA and MasterCard combined. With Delegated Proof of Stake, the BitShares network can confirm transactions in an average of just 1 second. This is a significant speed advantage over other blockchains and a recent exciting development is the Blockpay POS system. Blockpay has partnered with Odoo and there are 60,000 companies using Odoo already for VISA/Mastercard transactions, with a few clicks these companies can start to accept digital payments for free!
This super quick transaction speed combined with low fees means Bitshares is the option of choice for platforms involving a large volume of transactions such as Steem, Blockpay and Peerplays.
@Peerplays is an exciting project. It is a decentralised Peer-to-Peer gaming network and has recently announced a 5% sharedrop to Bitshares (BTS) holders. Another great reason to make sure you are holding Bitshares in your wallet in September!
6. Decentralised ownership
You can directly participate in the Bitshares future direction using delegated proof of stake (DPOS). While not perfect, the Bitshares community has a proven method for worker proposals and voting. You can view some of the proposals that have been approved here. You can purchase Bitshares now and begin to vote on proposals to ensure Bitshares continues to grow and prosper. At a market cap of only $11.5 million your vote does count!
There are many other benefits to Bitshares which I have not touched on here. I encourage you to take a look for yourself. The Bitshares website website is a great starting point. I hope you see you soon in the Bitshares community!