This thread has been created to try to provide a no-hype summary of critical information you might just want to know about.
At launch, the big gold-rush excitement will be about signing up new users since those who do will receive up to 80% of the lifetime fees generated by every user they sign up. (So you can get a share of the blockchain's profits without owning any of the BitShares yourself.)
Is this a decentralized coin or a gym membership?
Sounds like a top-down corporation to me.
Feel free to delete my post which I assume you will. I can copy it to an unmoderated thread.
It's neither a decentralized coin or a gym membership.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYpmy6guxqQIt's not top down, it's bottom up, and it's not technically a corporation. The law dictates certain things and in order to not have legal risk it is styled as a membership based organization. This is because membership based organizations can offer discounts and other benefits with minimal legal risks.
I'm not a lawyer so please don't consider me an expert but this is just what I remember from the discussions. You are free to think of Bitshares as a decentralized semi-autonomous membership cooperative instead of a corporation. Compared to Bitcoin it's not really top down because you can elect your leaders, hiring and firing, based on shareholder voting.
It is for these reasons that I thing Bitshares and in particular Bitshares 2.0 (DPoS 2.0) fits into a niche.