How should development time be spent?

Core development wise, tackling the 8.0 project tasks.

UI wise, trying to implement all the features from the reference wallet using modern day web tech stacks.

How to onboard new users?

Promises of regular NFT airdrops for using the DEX?

Encouraging more people to participate in the referral mechanism, perhaps even allowing non-LTM to be referrers?

Perhaps worth creating a chatgpt gpt agent for the custom gpt agent store, for Bitshares? Comparing BTS to other cryptos, referring users to creating an account, etc.

Promoting Bitshares & referring users to BTS DEX on TikTok and similar platforms

How to attract new developers to build apps on top of the BTS blockchain?

Bitshares Beet & BeetEOS multiwallets make it very easy to create BTS blockchain apps, as all key/identity management is delegated entirely to the multiwallet; this allows the developer to focus on building their new features instead of reinventing the wheel handling authentication and safe key storage.

The custom GPT could also potentially drive new developers to Bitshares if we tell the GPT that the BTS DEX needs skilled devs.

Creating a generic worker proposal to reward developers for their BTS DEX contributions would certainly also drive developers to Bitshares.

How to grow the community once again?

Difficult, there were a few major reasons for community shrinkage:

• 2 new coins forked away from BTS, taking away a subset of the BTS DEX community away with them
  • These coins have faded into obscurity, with market caps 1/30th that of Bitshares so perhaps they'll come back to the more stable Bitshares DEX.
• Multiple gateways shutting down burned users in a consecutive manner
  • Openledger, CryptoBridge and Rudex all shut down burning their bridges with the BTS DEX and leaving plenty of users with worthless exchange backed asset tokens on the DEX.
  • Building the tech for new gateways to replace the dead ones, supporting existing gateways and using their liquidity pools will grow their presence on the DEX.
• Steemit -> Hive move
  • We had a huge presence on Steemit, back with the Beyond Bitcoin & Bitshares hangouts, whilst some have come over to Hive, the posting presence isn't as strong. Encouraging people to post about Bitshares topic on Hive and voting for each other could grow BTS DEX social media presence.
• Multiple people abusing the Bitshares trademark
  • People should not be using "Bitshares" in their business ventures; the bitshares investment management community, bitshares international and bithares labs for example, if/when they do wrong, it's perceived as the BTS DEX doing something bad instead of a 3rd party company.

I'd maybe also say we should improve the Bitshares reddit presence, and significantly clean up the bitsharestalk forum potentially by firstly buying the forum from whoever has abandoned it (probably milos).

Further, we really need greater DPOS participation, there's very low visibility from witnesses, and very few people contending for the witness and committee positions despite democracy being a fundamental factor of DPOS