http://blog.mastercoin.org/2013/12/06/first-full-time-scientistdeveloper-hired-peter-todd/I am delighted to announce the hiring of our first full-time scientist/developer. Peter Todd is a heavy-hitter with a deep knowledge of the bitcoin network and a long track-record of doing great theoretical work on crypto-currencies. He initially had some very harsh words for the Mastercoin project, but like many of you, he forms his opinions based on data and logic, and is willing to change them when the data and logic change. I’m proud to say that after further review and seeing our progress to date he is now excited to be involved with this project.
Peter’s role will be largely research-oriented. We will look to him to find attack vectors and suggest changes to the spec as needed to avoid them. He will also be contributing code towards these same goals.
Peter will go wherever these attack vectors lead him, including recommending ways to jump to a different block chain if that ever becomes necessary. Everything Peter does will be open-source and completely available for others to learn from and use.
Peter is currently wrapping up other responsibilities, and hopes to start full-time on Mastercoin February 1st.
Note: I know you’ll all be glad to hear that our #1 priority is hiring developers for new features. However, those hires are in various stages of negotiation, or for various reasons can’t be announced yet. The hires that we can currently announce shouldn’t be taken as evidence that we are not working very hard on hiring feature-focused developers as soon as humanly possible. I hope we’ll be making several more announcements on this front soon.
|
|
|
|
|
Guys,
I can say with some confidence that Ron is not watching bitcointalk threads, so if he needs to clear up questions about who is doing what, you'll need to email him directly, preferably use info (at) mastercoin (dot) org, since several people will see your questions who might want to weigh in.
He is taking the initiative in hiring devs, and he's having lots of conversations with lots of people. Things are bound to be chaotic while we get this all figured out.
Thanks!
|
|
|
|
Pull request 6 merged: Mastercoin messages that also have a reference output to the seller address, for instance if the buyer wants to change his offer, should not be counted towards the actual purchase of Mastercoins. Pull request 7 merged: ## Unlocking features
Not all features described in this document are active by default. Each feature will be unlocked on a certain block once it's deemed stable. Only Test Mastercoin transactions will be allowed if a feature is not unlocked yet. All other messages will be invalidated. The only exception to this rule is the Simple Send message, this has been enabled since Exodus.
I consider both of these changes quite uncontroversial. We agreed to #6 awhile back, and it is super-obvious to me that we must take the approach outlined in #7. If this is controversial to anybody, please let me know. |
|
|
|
I'm about to make a couple payments from 1Exodus, including sending more BTC to secure storage: 200 BTC to 18S23kiGWkgVtsUuXMkvLohGxhVasujyMa 200 BTC to 1G6YQefEZEweatGsmVJFDRVSySYTzgXWg6 200 BTC to 1L2uRf8ShoDTZ67cU4Wq8VLJbFddvr5jWS 200 BTC to 1NccyJvcPhu3qhZ7LwFBbQygFsNGDjLdT4 200 BTC to 19jvwkkn9r27w479zAdLS51JXzPjVaR56A Also, a payment to prophetx for his work on our blog: 0.24691358 to 1GFC6Kc1UiH8m48EPCFpK7j8Cs9hbyyF55 Ledger of all project expenditures is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtCyUJvk_IyNdGpVcnpBN2tOczFmbVRnck5TWjZuRFE#gid=0Thanks! |
|
|
|
Please put my sell order on the book: 1750 MSC for sale at 0.7 BTC each. I previously said I was going to wait for the distributed exchange before trying to sell these, but Ron (our Executive Director) pointed out that if someone is willing to pay this price before then I should make the coins available. If this order gets filled before the DEX is live, that would mean I could work on Mastercoin full-time sooner than otherwise. I realize this sell order is a ways away from the current price, but maybe now people will stop complaining about the lack of coins available to buy  |
|
|
|
|
Hey guys,
I just got back online after spending several days offline focusing on my family. I see my name mentioned over and over again on the preceding pages. Let me see if I can help . . .
I see a lot of speculation about if/when/whether I will quit my job to focus full-time on Mastercoin. I am currently working on this, but I think you guys are giving me way too much credit. Do you realize that something like 99% of the work on this project has been done by other people? Once I kicked things off, other people got very enthusiastic and essentially took it over. This is an open-source decentralized project. If I got hit by a bus tomorrow, everything would keep going quite nicely without me. Also, even when I DO finally come aboard full-time, I think it's safe to assume I won't be taking a salary from the Mastercoin foundation, because I intend to continue my infuriating habit of being offline evenings, weekends, and vacations (just like I did for the past few days). Yes, I will have a lot more time for Mastercoin, and the project will benefit from that time, but it isn't going to be a game-changer.
At some point I remember saying that if we voted on what features to work on next, I planned to abstain. This was because it seemed wrong for me to hold the keys to ALL the project money AND use my large stake in MSC to bully what we worked on. However, I've been divvying up our project funds for security reasons, and once we move to a decentralized bounty system, this will be far less of a concern, and I will be perfectly happy to vote on how those project funds are used, along with the rest of you. Certainly I won't be able to dictate the direction of the project without a lot of you agreeing with me.
Finally, a few words about the criticisms that have been leveled against our project technically. Yes, we need to change how we roll out features a bit, mostly by limiting each new feature to Test Mastercoins until they are well tested, then announcing a block number after which the new feature will be valid for use with real Mastercoins. This is an unbelievably simple thing to do, and since we haven't rolled out the distributed exchange yet for MSC, no harm has been done in this area yet. Something so stupidly simple is not worth the pages of flames I see here and elsewhere about this topic.
I'd guess that I see about fifty inquiries every single day about Mastercoin here and elsewhere that deserve a response. Currently, those questions are answered by whoever happens to have some time, whenever they get around to it. We're working very hard to improve this situation, but we will always be decentralized, and therefore we will always be somewhat chaotic.
One of my near-term goals for the spec is to add proof-of-stake voting on distributed bounty allocation, and my biggest challenge there is to figure out how to avoid the chaos of decision-by-committee. I think the right answer will probably be to use proof-of-stake voting to elect someone to be in charge of a chunk of money for a chunk of time, rather than having every stakeholder second-guessing every expense.
My biggest priority right now is to get our devs focused on this project full-time. We're currently discussing that with them, but they each have their own unique situation.
Thanks for your patience while we work through our growing pains.
|
|
|
|
that suggestion was turned down i believe
great to know Can someone from the board confirm that JR's proposed buy back was turned down? Indeed it was. From a practical standpoint, too much monetary friction (like you said with the developers cashing out), among other things. Thank you. Was this decision published somewhere? The fact that there is any ambiguity regarding the result of such a major decision is a bad thing. I suggest that the board think of a way to publish important decisions that is hard to miss. I don't believe so. The board didn't approve of the actual proposal of the buyback in the first place to even declare that a decision was made. This is still being discussed as of today, but it seems unlikely at this point. I still think it is the right thing to do, but we can't do it without a pretty clear consensus. |
|
|
|
|
We really want our own subforum, although it need not be mastercoin-specific - just an area for projects using the bitcoin block-chain for interesting stuff.
|
|
|
|
Guys - this is yet another example of a spec-interpretation issue with more than one right answer. I originally did not intend MSC messages to count as BTC payments for purchases, but if that makes things simpler, then I'm ok with that. However, keep in mind also that we want to keep the user interface simple, and these mini-purchases might confuse people. As you know, we're working out the details of hiring some of you full-time. Depending on how that works out, one of you will probably be in charge of coordinating these discussions and making decisions when it's not too controversial. I'll get involved on the controversial ones |
|
|
|
|
I like this approach. I plan on putting distributed voting in the next version of the spec, and voting on fees should be built-in to that spec change.
One thing I plan to add is a way to transfer voting rights to another address. For instance, people will want to transfer voting rights from their offline wallet in storage to their online wallet. Or Bob might be busy with other things, but he knows Alice is heavily involved with these issues and he trusts her so he transfers his voting rights to her temporarily.
|
|
|
|
|
Excellent. This is much needed.
|
|
|
|
I don't think we need fees on betting, since 0.5% of the bet goes to the data ticker operator, which effectively creates a fee. I agree that there should probably be some kind of minimum fee for creating an escrow-backed currency, which should go straight into the escrow fund backing that new currency. I really want anti-spam fees to be floating, reacting to both under-use and over-use of the system. For smart property, I'd suggest we set a target for how many new property ids should be created per month, and adjust the fee accordingly. In order to avoid a "land grab", the target should probably start low, but get a lot bigger in the future. A few numbers: - In the U.S. we get a few hundred IPOs every year (https://www.google.com/search?q=%22ipos+per+year%22). I'm guessing that probably translates to a couple thousand per year internationally.
- With 7B people in the world (http://www.census.gov/popclock/), I'm guessing there are probably 500M distinct pieces of real-estate? However, using smart property for real estate (vehicles, etc) is still a LONG way off
- We have room for up to 4 billion different currency and property IDs in our protocol
It would seem that the most efficient way to set the fees would be to have MSC stakeholders vote on what the target number of properties created per month should be. MSC stakeholders will be able to see how spammy property creation is at any given time. The fee itself would then float, based on that target set by the stakeholders. If we ahave 5x too many properties issued over the past 3 days, multiply the fee 5x from what it was 3 days ago. If we are 2x below target, cut the fee in half. I think 0.01 MSC is a good starting point, as you suggested. Until we have proof-of-stake voting, I'll suggest 100 properties/month would be a good target. But since we probably won't have 100/month at first, we should probably start lower and work our way up. I'd suggest we target 10 properties the first month, 20 the second month, 50 the third month, and 100/month thereafter. This is just a straw man to start discussion. I'd like to hear what everybody else thinks. |
|
|
|
Poll Question:
Do think that the Dev MSC "Distribution Rate" should be fixed by the MSC protocol, in order to mirror the Dev MSC "Generation Rate"?
A. Yes, full speed ahead! Lets distribute 100% of Dev MSC generated each month, proportionately to each developer's contributions. That's what they are for! When the Distributed bounty system is launched it should be set at this same predictable Distribution Rate.
B. Yes, however things are early and we should be conservative. Lets distribute 50% of Dev MSC generated each month, proportionately to each developer's contributions. Save up the other 50% of Dev MSC for the hand over to the distributed bounty system when its launched in the future.
C. No, the Dev MSC are just part of the Mastercoin open source project development funding budget, along with the BTC from the Exodus address. And we should not tie the funding budget to any set rate, but should instead alter it daily, weekly, monthly based on project needs.
I think these three options to answering the question roughly capture the three proposals in this thread.
We can word smith these a bit, but I'd like to post this fairly soon and leave it up for a week or two and see where we are before the Christmas holiday kicks in and folks disappear for a while until mid January. I believe this is a very important decision.
The poll is a great idea. I like the options presented here, but I'd also like some way for people to vote on whether (and how much) we should convert our BTC to MSC. If somebody wants to create that poll, I'd be grateful, otherwise it will have to wait until one of us gets to it Yeah. I think a poll would be a good idea. We have discussed the options enough and if more discussion is needed we can do it in the topic that includes the voting. |
|
|
|
|
I think it would be cool to have a mastercoin daemon (probably just name it "MasterDaemon" or something -mastercoind sounds too official).
We seem to be doing pretty well with no reference implementation so far. The various devs implement a piece of the spec, find differences and corner cases, discuss them, resolve them, and then repeat. If I were to contribute code, it would probably just be pull requests against one or more of the existing code-bases.
|
|
|
|
97% of my MSC are now split between 10 offline cold-storage wallets which are in a safe deposit box at the bank, where I expect to keep them for a long, long time. I'll sleep so much better at night now.  |
|
|
|
What an interesting suggestion! One general question raised to mind regarding governance: Did the Board discuss this suggestion among themselves beforehand, or was J.R.'s post the first time members of the Board heard about this?
Regarding the proposal itself, I might support it, if the facts show that the change would motivate highly-skilled devs to commit more time for developing Mastercoin. Hopefully the board will gather feedback from the lead developers before making any decisions?
The fact that this would enable dacoinminster work with MSC fulltime is a huge upside from my point of view.
Regarding voting, this should either be asked from people who verifiably own considerable amount of MSC, or decide it within the Board after collecting feedback. What I wouldn't like to see is that random +1 comments affect the decision. Naturally good comments and viewpoints need to be gathered from everyone.
Listing e.g. top 50-100 wallets (as the status is today, when the suggestion was published), and gathering votes to a public thread wouldn't be too difficult technically.
I'm very interested to see what group of people the Board decides should be part of making the decision.
I've been trying to get the board to agree to do this for awhile now. Now I'm trying to leverage a bit of community pressure |
|
|
|
I think the dev salary discussion is completely out of scope. This is a project built on top of Bitcoin, funded entirely by Bitcoin, and thus, salaries are paid in Bitcoin. If you don't like that, you can instantly cash out to USD as soon as you get paid. What currency you end using is not one of the Foundation's concern, and nor should it waste time accommodating for the desires of devs who don't believe in BTC ( ffs, am I still on Bitcointalk ?? ).
Also, I don't follow your reasoning on why we would rather hold funds in anything other than BTC. Everyone here knows BTC is the fastest appreciating currency of the three discussed (of all, for that matter..).
What would we gain by getting out BTC that will compensate for the (probable, given the btc rising trend) loss of total value ??
I can only think of a little stability as the answer for that, which brings me to what Ron said a couple posts ago: I agree when he says we need some kind of hedging, but still, given the current trendline I wouldn't go 50/50 MSC/BTC but maybe a bigger stake in BTC instead.
Ah . . . wut? BTC is appreciating faster? I think you are extrapolating on way too short of a timeframe. MSC is WAY up against BTC since it launched. |
|
|
|
I would never have started this project if I couldn't also invest in it. Maybe somebody else would have, but not me. I invested early both to collect a bigger share of the pie from the early adopter bonus, and to show that I was serious. (Note that the early adopter bonus was NOT about risk, it was about momentum). In 2011, right after bitcoin exploded up to $5 each, and everybody was having heart attacks saying it couldn't last, I predicted that the world's first trillionaire would come out of something like bitcoin ("Bitcoin price increases are just getting started": https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=7985.0), and because of that fervent belief I never sold a single bitcoin (except to pay my mining expenses), despite 90% drops along the way. I would be incredibly wealthy right now, but I only ever invested $200 in my bitcoin mining scheme. I really wanted to go all in, but I didn't, because my wife thought I was crazy (she still does, actually). I think something like Mastercoin has a pretty good shot at reaching a market cap well in the trillions of dollars. I don't particularly want to be a trillionaire, but if it isn't me it will be somebody else, and I'm frankly afraid of what somebody else would do with all that money, so I'm not stepping back from the opportunity either. Trillions of dollars for MSC is still a long LONG ways off, and it is certainly possible that one of our competitors will crush us, but I have my eyes on the horizon. I'm playing a VERY long game here, as I have since 2011. Are you guys? |
|
|
|
Likewise.
Is the purpose of the Foundation really just to "serve the holders of Mastercoins", or is it something broader such as shepherding the protocol so that it gets developed and adopted? This proposal might accomplish the former by bumping up the market price of Mastercoins in the short term, but I think it sacrifices the latter. It seems shortsighted as a bounty structure moving forward.
Right now in the main Mastercoin thread there is a parallel discussion about how devs with spouses/kids/mortages find BTC bounties scary enough. Isn't shifting to pure MSC bounties -- an even more speculative form of remuneration -- counterproductive?
Or, to put it another way: so many startups lack the kind of funding that the Foundation has acquired, by accident AND design, through its deep BTC reserves. Trading away too much of those BTC reserves for MSC is sort of like putting the Foundation back into the position of the disadvantaged startups that have to say: "sorry, can't pay you a real salary right now, but if we make it big some day your stock options will make you rich!"
Whatever the actual motivations, the optics are just bad. This smells like a decision motivated by greed.
That's a really good point (about the devs wanting something stable). However, they will be able to immediately sell their MSC for BTC and cash out to fiat if they desire, which is not true of startups paying stock options. What it comes down to is that if the foundation is going to hold money in a wildly unstable crypto-currency, I'd rather it be MSC than BTC. If we want stability, it should be USD in our bank account, not BTC. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
