Literally 0 of the problems with the election were caused by Counterparty, why would that affect the price?! I don't think I'll ever understand the markets...

Bitcoin Blockchain* 

The smart contracts system in Counterparty will be 100% compatible with the Ethereum one. This means you can run vitalik's shellingcoin...  Also why would anyone have to be compensated? (Although smart contracts also make this possible.)

After all, nobody compensated the devs of XCP! Welcome to the world of open source... many people simply enjoy solving problems, and if they bought a lot of xcp they can benefit from improving the protocol. In fact, the core xcp team is exactly the same as any other investor. Theres no difference in incentive at all.

Also hundreds of thousands of people are currently in consensus that BTC is fine. From security experts to multinational enterprises. If something is proven to be better, then im sure the BTC devs will consider that. This isnt something the xcp devs have any control over, theyre focused on coding and improving xcp. The underlying system (Bitcoin) is up to miners, network consensus and the core dev team.

Isn't that entirely up to Bitcoin miners and core developers? POW, POS, DPOS... thats for the Bitcoin network to decide. Counterparty can adapt if necessary.

Pegged assets are possible using smart contracts/shellingcoin/etc...

And its difficult to predict the future of Bitcoin in the next 5 weeks let alone years.

Here are some (slightly) technical questions from Reddit, answered by core dev PhantomPhreak. I've heard a few of these in person too, so I tried to put them in a more 'readable' format for future use:

http://coinedtalk.com/xcp-core-developer-talks-tech/
http://www.reddit.com/r/counterparty_xcp/comments/2w6nbs/technical_knowledge/

It's always easier to trade using XCP. And XCP is the gas for smart contracts, which is burned (destroyed from the supply).

I know this has been repeated to death, but Medici is still using Counterparty.


Yep! You can move the price by 20% with only 4 to 10 BTC. I've seen it happen...

Ah, I thought nobody would ever ask! Here's my chance... I actually do have a few ideas:

• The simplest and most abstract way is to attract more projects to use it.
• Create a website such as http://bitcoinwisdom.com for the dex
• Hire UX/UI experts to rework the open-source Counterwallet
• Develop alternative trading interfaces and wallets for the distributed exchange.
• Create a mobile trading interface for the distributed exchange.

Smart contracts make it possible to implement pegged assets and other interesting solutions.

Awesome, I think this is exciting news for developers that want to use Counterparty.

Also it seems some people may have missed this, it's from the Counterparty Foundation news page:


http://counterpartyfoundation.org/notes-from-the-second-counterparty-foundation-board-meeting/

BTCD is an alternative implementation of a Bitcoin full node (like Bitcoin Core formerly known as Bitcoind).

These current improvements to Counterparty are purely structural and make the entire implementation more 'modular'. In very simple terms this makes it much more friendly to developers, by breaking up the structure of the code into separate 'compartments'. You might need one part, but not the other. You might to connect one with something, but not something else. Etc. It also makes it clear what part of the code is fragile to change, and what can be changed freely.

This is a direct response to various concerns voiced by the community, as some projects and developers faced challenges. This move towards a 'plug-in' mentality, clarity and expansion is essentially a statement by the developers showing that Counterparty is not a standalone 'program'. Counterparty is an open-source protocol that invites developers to experiment and explore.



As JahPowerBit said, You can make light wallets, GUIs and applications with much less effort now.

For people following the Counterparty project on github (something I really recommend), you may have noticed that documentation is being completely redone as well. https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP

It's easy to deduce that this is a clear effort in speeding up the development of 3rd party applications, reducing the learning curve and risk for new developers, and creating a more stable platform.

Let's get coding, party people

DarkEmi, you're awesome for being honest and apologizing like this. And as you said, in a decentralized Bitcoin platform we are fighting the system, not each other.  

It's best to look at the ratio of BTC/XCP rather than the dollar value. Counterparty is a toolkit to extend Bitcoin, so it makes sense that the price is tied closer to BTC value rather than fiat. Currently the volume is really low. So if you want to buy a larger amount of XCP, you will push the price up a lot...

XCP just had a 1 year anniversary. And look at how much time Bitcoin had to get mainstream... yet it's still just taking first steps. In this moment in time there is no cryptocurrency where you can say generalize that high price = utility and competitive advantage.

If the Bitcoin price is already confusing, the price of XCP is even more confusing.  

BTC needs to become more mainstream, and then we will likely be able to see things clearer. For now BTC is still dominated by miners and speculators, rather than actual users.

A lot of these strange 'ideas' I always see resurfacing on Bitcointalk and other forums seem to be primarily driven by irrational fear.

Counterparty has billions of other uses apart from Medici... You're basically saying "Will Bitcoin be an abandoned sandbox if Coinbase shuts down?" The answer is thankfully a resounding no in any case. Look at GEMZ, Storj, SWARM, Foldingcoin, Bitcoin Tangible Trust, LTBCOIN, etc. And that's just the beginning.  

And Overstock has repeatedly confirmed (as recently as last week) that they will be using the existing Counterparty platform. It's been repeatedly confirmed by the devs in this very thread too:

https://twitter.com/BitcoinCenterNY/status/557341163821498369
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395761.msg10216793#msg10216793

And the most effective token to trade against will always be XCP. There's absolutely no question about it. It's the native token of the protocol, and the fuel for smart contracts.

P.S. No Counterparty developers have ever abandoned Counterparty, and they will continue working on Counterparty as mentioned earlier in this thread. Their commitment is as much logical as it is ideological.

No problem!

Meanwhile, you could get familiar with Serpent PoC7 (the scripting language for smart contracts). When the features reach the main network (around 2-3 months?), by that time you will know everything you need to get started.

Currently, not on the main network (which uses real BTC and XCP). However, everything that you describe is possible with smart contracts. Once those are finalized, security audited and live on the main Bitcoin network, all of this will be possible. It's been estimated that this will be sometime around March or so.

You could distribute them by using a burning process instead of selling them, like Counterparty did with XCP.

Bitcoin blockchain.

From the information publicly available now it's pretty clear that it will use the Bitcoin blockchain (there really is no logical reason to make a new one), and yes. 

I talked to MasterXchange. No funds are lost or missing. Just withdrawal issues