Bitsquare is not based on bitshares - they both propose to enable *decentralized trading*, but reach that goal through very different means, and arguably with different goals in mind as well.

Bitsquare is much more geared towards going in and out of the *legacy* banking system in a decentralized way (as in, you do not need to sign away your rights and provide a company with a sample of your DNA (only slightly exaggerating there :-))).

You can trade crypto-to-crypto with Bitsquare as well, but in my opinion what makes it unique (and thus distinguishes it from Bitshares) is that you can trade fiat money peer to peer with other people.

While Bitshares also enables you to trade in and out of fiat, there are some differences.

To begin, it is not peer to peer. There is a centralized company who takes your cryptographic tokens, and exchanges them for money in a bank account.

Then, there is the fact that at the moment there is really one company only providing this service, and they are based in Europe - which means, unless the customer is also in Europe, the fees and delays will most likely not be worth the hassle.

It is a vision of many Bitshares users that in time there will be a global network of such companies, but for now that is just a dream.

So, both bitsquare and bitshares are decentralized trading systems, but bitshares is more geared to quickly exchanging crypto-tokens in a decentralized (and not peer-to-peer) manner, with the possibility of exchanging crypto-tokens for fiat (in a non-decentralized, with counterparty risk, and not peer-to-peer) as well.

Bitsquare is a decentralized peer-to-peer trading system, (in my opinion) more geared and better suited for trading in and out of fiat.

Both are excellent pieces of software, with excellent use cases.

I am a big fan of both.