BitShares is a decentralized platform designed to provide a more efficient global payment network and is commonly used for securely trading cryptocurrencies without any intermediaries. It was originally launched in July 2014 under the name ProtoShares (PTS) but was rebranded to BitShares (BTS) less than a year later. The platform is powered by the BitShares (BTS) token, a native utility token that can be used for several purposes, including the creation of smartcoins known as “BitAssets,” which can have a variety of parameters and can represent practically anything — such as reward points, collateralized fiat-pegged tokens and IOUs. The BitShares platform is managed by a decentralized autonomous company (DAC), which allows BTS token holders to decide the future of the platform, and decide which features to add next. It runs on an open-source blockchain implementation known as Graphene, which is reportedly capable of processing up to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) — making it faster than both MasterCard and VISA combined. As of January 2021, BitShares is in the process of a relaunch, and will be going through several major changes throughout going forward.