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I realize I have some questions on this thread I need to answer, and I'll try to get to those soon, but I'm just so excited I need to post this first:
SOMEBODY BOUGHT 420BTC WORTH OF MASTERCOINS!!
They left a message: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws"
This is getting serious.
Also, I got a PM asking me how much of my own BTC I have invested. The 1222BTC purchase was 99% of my BTC. I have a couple coins at Coinbase (plus some 4 I bought on behalf of a friend, but they aren't really mine), and less than 1 BTC on my phone. The other coins coming in are from people who think this crazy idea might actually work.
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OK last question, then I am offline until tomorrow what is the most likely (or two most likely) things that will cause your plan to fail?
besides wallet stealing, and government telling you to stop development
That's a great question. I'd say the #1 risk is somebody else doing something similar, but doing it better and/or faster. That's what I worry about anyway. #2 risk would probably be some unforeseen technical hurdle with my plan that can't be overcome. |
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You don't pay sockpuppets, you run them yourself, as you well know.
You're posting here to subscribe to people verbally eviscerating your project without refuting them? You don't even have any defense for yourself and want to let these statements (such as how you're nothing but a dirty conman) stand then?
Whether I'm a dirty conman can only be proven by executing on my project, so that will be my answer to accusations. how does he have 2 hero sockpuppets?
I didn't know until yesterday that I even had them |
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okay, so as I so far understand it, a person with a 1 gold oz can be assured of x MSC's value is worth what he wants for that gold coin because MSC is backed by an agreed amount of bitcoins? If not, initially, what will a MSC be worth?
and until the MSC's Eventually, all the currency mix?
I'm not sure if I understand this question, but it seems to be about what MasterCoins may be worth someday. MasterCoin values will float freely, and can be held in escow as insurance against a target currency collapsing. The initial price of MasterCoins is 0.01 BTC (actually a little cheaper, since you get a bonus for buying early). Where they go from there is up to the market, which will be driven by how well the protocol works and how quickly it is implemented. |
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Dang it sockpuppet! What do I pay you for anyway?!  I'm just posting here to subscribe, and to point out that the coins that all came from the same source were my coins, as I said on my thread. |
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So, if I understand this correctly - what is the ratio of actual bitcoin transactions to protocol overhead?
If this becomes onerous, how do you justify creating a system that isn't opt-in in the first place?
Why not just maintain your own ledger?
The most common MasterCoin transactions take 2 or 3 bitcoin transactions (probably in a single "sendmany" broadcast). I don't want to compete with bitcoin, I want to improve it, which is why I'm not doing my own alt-whatever. Thanks for answering my questions so far.
So, lets say I have 100 MetaGoldCoin in my MSC wallet. This value could drop because the escrow takes them away from me to reduce supply, right? I could wake up the next morning with 95 MetaGoldCoin in my MSC wallet, instead of 100 MetaGoldCoin?
Goodness no! In order to affect the price, the protocol buys GoldCoins which are currently for sale or sells new ones to people currently looking to buy. That action changes the current price. |
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dacoinminster, I am not sure if I like the escrow mechanism. If you can convince me meta coins can be created safely without this mechanism and also intuitive to mastercoin then I may invest.
Yeah, I think you are looking for colored coins. Try here: http://www.bitcoinx.org100BTC just came in a few minutes ago with the message "Good luck, may the force be with Mastercoin!" That is the biggest purchase by far other than my own. Thank you - I'll try to not let you guys down! |
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Final question before I go to sleep, I see you've changed job this month.
It seems strange that in the same month, you're willing to invest $120000 of your own money in a business venture that has a substantial amount of work to be done and that you've been passionate about for a couple of years that you wouldn't work on this full time instead?
What are your reasons for working this around a 9 to 5 when money doesn't seem to be the issue?
I changed jobs this time last year, not this month I really like working at Cozi, and I consider my bitcoins a very long term investment. It would be foolish to live off something which I believe still has a lot of potential for wild appreciation. I am asking if the value of a meta-coin could float freely and not use the escrow mechanism.
That's an interesting question. I suppose you could do that by setting the aggression factor to zero, but that would be very strange because purchasing the new currency would destroy the MasterCoins since they would go into the escrow fund but never come out. I think it would be better to use plain old colored coins for something like that. Speaking of my job at Cozi, please forgive me if I don't post for awhile - I have some things I have to get done today! Thanks for your understanding . . . |
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The attack in Thailand wouldn't have been possible without irresponsible lending by banks in risky real-estate speculations (where have I heard that story before)?
And how about when the Bank of England lost to a speculative attack by George Soros, in which he profited some 1.5b? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_WednesdayWhat makes you think people are not going to irresponsibly lend GoldCoins? I guess it doesn't really matter, since no one is going to buy the GoldCoins in the first place. Faith in this escrow mechanism is not going to exist. It is absolutely true that a central bank cannot keep a fixed exchange rate while also manipulating interest rates in a free market economy. I would never argue against you on that. However, MasterCoin makes no attempt to control interest rates, therefore there is no competing goal to allow a speculative attack. |
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And also, is every mastercoin the same, ie worth equal to every other MSC?
Yeah - sorry, my answers to your earlier questions are all buried in a giant long post I made first thing this morning. It's probably rather hard to read. Well, in principle. Not every Bitcoin is born equal, and I'm sure some Mastercoins will become collectibles. Also, I haven't seen you respond yet to the suggestions (mine, and someone elses) to establish a board of trustees to hold the coins. I'm very interested in giving all the coins to someone else who isn't me. I don't even care if I am a signer on the wallet. The Bitcoin Foundation, or one of a couple different bitcoin companies come to mind. There are also a couple famous bitcoiners I approached. Until I find a partner of that caliber, I'm doing my best to guard the Exodus Address carefully. |
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One question about the spec I find difficult. The concept of reversible transaction. Say I make a payment to John (marked as reversible for 30 days). John spends some of that paying Mark (as non-reversible). Within the window, I reverse the payment to John. What now happens to the money John sent to Mark - is that reversed, and if not, how is the debt filled?
Yes, clearly a reversible transaction won't be spendable until the time limit passes. I should have mentioned that in the spec. |
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Sorry to bombard you with so many questions, just an interested potential investor with a few concerns.
Surely that would make the gold escrow company like e-gold rather than you?
Without the gold in escrow aren't people going to only buy up to the value of the asset, and sell from that point creating a loss of the escrow company as the Thai currency analogy describes above?
If users are the ones issueing GoldCoins and storing gold in warehouses, then what you are talking about is Colored Coins, which has its own project over at bitcoinx.org - it's a technically sound idea which works much like Ripple, but there's not any way to invest in it that I know of, other than just owning bitcoins. The attack in Thailand wouldn't have been possible without irresponsible lending by banks in risky real-estate speculations (where have I heard that story before)? so whats stopping dacoinminster from sending his own coins over and over. after all he controls this address, he can take all the coins out and then put them back in giving himself monumental amounts of MasterCoins plus he gets to keep the bitcoins MasterCoins are free for him   Feel free to watch funds sent to the Exodus address. They will stay there until September 1st. Probably a lot longer than that. And he said he was delaying his purchase to not make everyone mad by getting the best exchange rate, but as per his White Paper today is the best exchange rate :s
Nobody has sent any coins there yet though, and I am delaying my own purchase so I don't make everyone mad by getting the best exchange rate moments after the announcement Smiley
I've actually raised a non-trivial amount of money since the announcement and before my own purchase. You can see the MasterCoin purchases here: http://blockchain.info/address/1EXoDusjGwvnjZUyKkxZ4UHEf77z6A5S4P |
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Has it been posted how the bonus works for purchasing Mastercoins? So for every bitcoin you recieve 100 plus a bonus, how is this calculated?
For example, how many more Mastercoins would I receive if I invested now, rather than waiting a week then investing?
The spec defines the bonus as 10% per week. The deadline is September 1st. Job 1 is probably going to be coding up something that will calculate the exact amounts so people can see what they purchased We already know how well this escrow fund system is going to work. Central banks have been trying it for decades. This makes me think you are not aware of the similarities between your idea and what already exists. You might watch these Kahn Academy videos on how speculative attacks on currencies work to educate yourself: Financial Crisis in Thailand Caused by Speculative Attack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA3sjWwu5-sFor more background, here is the whole Micro/Macroeconomics series. The videos on currency reserves start at #123. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7VHfuWV-Qg&list=SPAEA5E9ACA1508F92Even if you get a bunch of idiots to put money into GoldCoins and got it up to its target value, the idiots will be relieved of their money by speculative attackers. The same thing that happened with the Thai Baht will happen to the GoldCoin. Speculative attackers sold the Baht, knowing that the central bank would use its reserves to buy Baht to keep the value up, because they knew that if they kept doing it the central bank would run out of reserves and have to abandon the peg. Speculators were borrowing Baht and selling it for dollars, knowing they were losing money in the short term, because they knew that if the central bank ran out of reserves they would show a huge profit. In the same way, speculators will sell GoldCoins or borrow them to short them, even though they will lose money in the short term because the escrow fund will be able to buy cheaper, because they know that if they KEEP DOING IT until the escrow fund goes bankrupt, the peg will be abandoned and GoldCoins will undergo a huge devaluation. You should stick to what you are good at and write code for things you know how to do, not dabble in areas in which you lack expertise. I'm aware of these issues. I believe some of these currencies will be able to track their values for a very long time. Others will fail. I'm very grateful that I don't need anybody's permission to dabble |
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What were your thoughts regarding the open transactions project in my last post?
Instead of having an over complicated trading escrow fund shouldn't simply;
1 mastercoin dollar = 1 dollar with only the amount being held in escrow being traded
Same with gold... 1 mastergold = equal value of certain weight of gold held in escrow on day of purchase
Oh sorry. So many questions! Chris Odom of Open Transactions was on the "Bitcoin in the Future" panel with me. I think he's doing some really interesting stuff. MasterCoin isn't designed with Open Transactions in mind, but from my understanding, Open Transactions could be made to use MasterCoin if people wanted it to. Holding actual physical assets in a vault somewhere would make me like that company "e-gold", and I don't fancy the idea of going to jail |
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what secures a derived currency like goldcoin's worth with the example of an ounce of gold? my main question is, where does that ounce of gold sit to secure such a gold coin?
And also, is every mastercoin the same, ie worth equal to every other MSC? Yeah - sorry, my answers to your earlier questions are all buried in a giant long post I made first thing this morning. It's probably rather hard to read. |
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While it is interesting to see that you've pushed a huge amount of funds into this (the vast majority being your own from what I read) - I am yet to even see a single comment from one of the Bitcoin devs.
I think we would all like to hear what they think.
I've talked to some of them privately. I haven't had anybody say it can't possibly work, or that it definitely will work. Obviously if one of them wanted to make a public comment, that would be very interesting to everyone. |
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what secures a derived currency like goldcoin's worth with the example of an ounce of gold? my main question is, where does that ounce of gold sit to secure such a gold coin?
Think of it as the protocol engaging in market manipulation - the interventions being known ahead of time to all. If you are convinced that GoldCoins can't maintain their values without someone holding gold in a warehouse to back them up, then you are saying that you believe my hypothesis is false. We shall see! |
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Is the escrow optional for the supply and demand pic? If so then the argument that it is faulty is irrelevant.
Are you asking if a user-created currency could track a value without an escrow fund? I wouldn't think so. If the escrow fund idea is flawed, then that feature of MasterCoin will fail to work. It will be an interesting experiment, to say the least! |
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copy and pasted quote! "Yes, I will still control the funds I use to purchase MasterCoins. That's why I can go all in" Can you re-word this sounds like you mean you'll make up a number and class that as an investment which I'm sure you don't mean!! I know you've spent a couple of years on it, but it all seems so rushed. It's a bit worrying that your whole system seems to rely on third party escrows, which it looks like you've tried to find without success for your fund raising. I'm also a bit worried about a couple of the points you said above -"the gold coin probably being backed by funds in escrow" sorry probably not exact quote, but if this is the case then you're not backing gold. Surely to create a gold coin you need to have a predetermined value in weight held in escrow backed by a coin. -Also in your paper you comment on strengthening the escrow fund automatically through good trades (by low sell high), when the user above commented people could trade against this occurrence you brushed it off as doing your job and making money... It seems like it was just over looked and would surely undermine the strengthening effect of the escrow fund as described in the paper. Although you're using a different method, it seems there's a lot of similarities in your paper with the open transaction project; (please collect me if I'm wrong on this still reading through there stuff now at a couple of the sources below) http://opentransactions.org/wiki/index.php?title=Abouthttp://monetas.net/They do however seem a lot further ahead with things than you are, could you explain what your idea brings to the table that opencoin doesn't. BTW wow you're funds have just shot up from 35 to 1,257 BTC while writing this so you must be doing something right!! By going "all in" I'm referring to the transfer of my own coins to the Exodus Address, which you noticed. Regarding the escrow fund, my hypothesis is that you don't need to have a physical asset stored in a warehouse somewhere in order to create a virtual currency to track that asset. I haven't yet proven that I am right. Regarding helping the escrow fund, I was referring to the escrow fund creating a "self-fulfilling prophecy" ideally, the escrow fund would never have to intervene under normal circumstances. It's just there to correct persistent long-term deviations from the target. |
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