What is Bitshares? The Ultimate Beginners Guide

BitShares (BTS) is a decentralized exchange platform for trading digital currencies without leaving the blockchain network. BitShares is trustless, fast, and able to scale with use. BitShares is a decentralized exchange platform aiming to destabilize the way we currently buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Not content with users having to convert to fiat currencies (like USD and EUR) in order to stabilize their investments, BitShares has created an exchange platform built on the blockchain.

What is BitShares?

BitShares is an investment currency with its own digital currency, BTS. With BitShares, users can trade and invest in an essentially unlimited list of assets while taking advantage of the blockchain’s security. BitShares has the features you expect from a traditional trading platform, but with the added advantages of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, such as decentralization.

It used to go by the name ProtoShares (with PTS tokens) and is a peer-to-peer distributed ledger plus network. Dan Larimer, who co-founded Cryptonomex, EOS, and Steemit, created BitShares in 2014. With BitShares, users utilize BTS tokens as collateral for a range of decentralized financial services, such as currency rails, derivative creation, banking, smart contracts, and decentralized exchanges.

The traditional way of buying and selling cryptocurrencies on an exchange is to convert your coins to and from fiat currency. This means that every time you want to buy or sell cryptocurrencies, you lose the anonymity inherent in the cryptocurrency and blockchain platform.

While centralization is understandable (exchanges have a need to tie cryptocurrency prices to real-life assets like USD or gold), there is also the need for a more decentralized, anonymous system, and that’s where BitShares comes in. The BitShares blockchain platform allows users to convert their cryptocurrencies to stable assets by converting those coins into another cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to a real-life asset (for example, BitUSD is tied with the value of USD).

What Is Graphene?

Graphene serves as the basis for BitShares. Graphene is an open source C++ implementation of the blockchain that also serves as a consensus mechanism. Graphene has also seen real-world usage via Steemit.com and PeerPlays.com.

Because BitShares is based on Graphene, it has the same scalability as that blockchain implementation. Graphene can handle as much as 100,000 transactions per seconds. With this figure, BitShares can handle more transactions each second than MasterCard and VISA combined.

Where to buy, sell and trade BitShares

BTS can be purchased on the BitShares Exchange itself by trading it for another digital currency, however, it is as well available on the following exchanges: Binance, Poloniex, Gate.io, ZB.com, LiveCoin, AEX, Cryptopia.

How is BitShares different from Bitcoin?

BTS differ from Bitcoin in a number of ways, its main goal is not to be a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, but a full-fledged exchange system with value tokens (such as BitUSD or BitGold) tied to real-life assets.

The BitAsset

Online exchanges are centralized systems. The database is stored on servers controlled by the exchange alone, and you need to create verified accounts to use its services, usually involving scanning your passport or driving license. Bitcoin and altcoins are still relatively young concepts and still suffer from wild swings. For this reason, there remains a need for a way to convert cryptocurrencies into a stable asset – often USD. Exchanges serve this need by allowing users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies by converting from and to USD, EUR, and most other common fiat currencies.

BitAssets are BitShares’ answer to this. A BitAsset is a coin pegged to a real-life asset. Its value mirrors that real-life asset’s value. For example, the BitAsset BitUSD follows the value of USD. This way, you can convert your BTS into BitUSD, the same way you would convert BTS to USD, without leaving the blockchain itself. This keeps your anonymity, is instantaneous and costs less in transaction fees.

Using BitShares to transfer money

To transfer BTS works just like other altcoins, all one needs is a BTS compatible wallet. Follow the following process

• Scan or enter the recipient’s address in your wallet. First, you will need a public wallet address provided by the recipient of your BTS. This can either be an address of letters and numbers or a QR code that you can scan.
• Enter the amount of BTS and send. After entering the previously agreed-upon amount of BTS into your wallet, and confirming that you have the necessary funds, simply send over the coins. The transaction will be received instantly and verified in a few minutes.

How to get BTS

You can accept BTS s payment for goods and services. Though BTS is not widely adopted yet by merchants and users, nothing stops you from accepting BTS as payment for products and services if you’re an online merchant or service provider.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://www.cryptomartez.com/2018/05/bitshares-ultimate-beginners-guide.html

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