Hi TheZerg!

I followed the posts on bytemaster's thread with great interest, since obviously I have similar goals.

You are quite right that some currencies will fail. For instance, if I define a currency that appreciates at 10% a day, it will definitely not be able to track that. In fact, I plan to create some currencies of that type, just to watch them die. I think we will learn a lot about how to tune the parameters for real currencies from their deaths.

The point is not to make currencies that never fail, but rather to make currencies that can conceivably track their target values for a very long time before finally degrading in a graceful and predictable fashion when nobody wants them anymore.

I deleted a few troll posts, and a few troll-feeding posts (sorry - I know you guys were just trying to defend me, but feeding the trolls just encourages them). I did also leave a couple troll feeding posts if I thought they might add value in some way to the discussion.

I think I've waited long enough, so I went ahead and transferred my own funds to the Exodus Address. As expected, I am the biggest purchaser by a couple orders of magnitude!

Hopefully I can make those MasterCoins worth a lot of money someday, and bring some of you along for the ride!

Ok. I'm back. Here's my shot an answering all these questions:



Ripper, you are the best. Really man. Thanks for registering Mastercoin.org - I thought about registering ExodusAddress.com or something like that, but I figured if I was successful, I would just come up with a name for my company and register that instead. I think maybe the first use of Exodus Address funds when September 1st rolls around should be to reimburse your purchase.

I tried really hard to get the Bitcoin Foundation to hold the funds, but they were too busy. I also asked various bitcoin companies if they would hold the funds and pay me as an employee, but they all wanted me to work on THEIR projects

I like MSC. There are probably a bunch that will work.

I really appreciate your comments on the paper - I'll work on a slightly modified version incorporating some of those suggestions at some point. It seems right now that my biggest concern should be producing some source code


I guess I did miss that question. My understanding is that blockchain.info uses client-side JavaScript rather than a hosted wallet, so it should be ok. I updated the OP with a comment to that effect.



Definitely agree that figuring out how to decrease supply was the hardest part (Did you notice that I did it a lot differently in this revision?)


Here in the States we say "Ben Bernanke-esque"

Yes, the escrow fund will behave predictably. People will absolutely trade based on what they anticipate it will do, but that is trading FOR the escrow fund, not against it. You'd be doing the escrow fund's job, and making some money too


1) Yes
2) Yes, +10%
3) Yes. Only way to purchase is with Bitcoin, because this is completely traceable by anyone parsing the block chain
4) Good question! My hypothesis is that you can store funds in escrow to back that ounce of Gold, rather than a real ounce of Gold.


Yes, I will still control the funds I use to purchase MasterCoins. That's why I can go all in, while the rest of you have to decide if I'm nuts, a scammer, or maybe could really pull this off


As implied above, I actually intend to buy a large number of them - probably around 24 hours after the announcement. I really believe this will work, and I want to own as many of them as possible.


Funding it like a kickstarter.


I got tired of waiting for someone else to implement my paper (first draft was published January 6th 2012), so I decided to give it a shot.


This method provides in-chain traceability of which addresses funded the project. Also, regular kickstarter doesn't accept projects collecting money as investments. (Bitcoin kickstarter probably would though)

The other reason is that I don't really have a target amount of funds I am aiming for. I'll be doing the work either way, but I can do it faster if I raise some cash.


Hey Alex. I think think if this is successful then it will be possible to make thin clients. For instance, the code scanning the block chain doesn't need to run in the same place as the code signing the transactions.

Aside: killerstorm is the primary dev working on colored coins, who came up with the term "meta-stable" after reading my first draft. He is awesome.


Oops! I fixed the OP to say 100. Thanks!


That works great until something better comes along. I want the meta-stable coins to fail gracefully.


How well the escrow fund will work remains to be seen. The challenge will come when a lot of people want to exit one of these meta-stable currencies all at once because something better came along. Something better WILL eventually come along (tomorrow or in a thousand years), and when a currency does fail, I want it to do so as gracefully as possible.

Are you guys really all my sock puppets?? Dang, I wish I had known - I could have used you a lot of times in the past!

I will indeed continue deleting any posts such as the one above. I'm going offline for the night, but I would ask others on this thread to please avoid feeding the trolls (by responding to them) - I will delete the abusive posts whenever I get online again and see them.

Thanks you guys for your support. I hope I will be able to have some "proof of concept" code soon.

Yup! J.R. Willett is my very public identity.

There definitely are ways that the escrow fund could fail. For instance, if I base a currency on a datasource that simply appreciates at 10% a day, the price stabilization method will eventually collapse.

Cool. Let's see what I can do:

His #1 concern is centralization, but my plan is no more centralized than bitcoin, other than that I have a fundraiser at the start. I think this comes from a misunderstanding of a concept from my earlier paper.

As for the economic concerns:
1) Seems to be based on the earlier version of my paper
2) Seems to assume that one cannot control prices by controlling supply. I believe that is false. While the fed has indeed printed a lot of money, they could drive the value of the dollar to zero if they wanted to print billions of dollars and give them to every person on the planet.
3) Is about other methods of accomplishing this, such as his, which I have looked at enough to know that I didn't want to go that direction (However, I have the highest respect for bytemaster, and I know that he is working on some cool stuff)

Does that help?

Thanks!

It also helps to have self-moderated threads

Unfortunately, Reddit remains (mostly) a spiraling cesspool of ignorance.

OK - because the concept of "GoldShares" are from the last version - I dumped that idea for something simpler in the specification.

I have followed your work on BitShares with great interest, but as you can see, I'm taking things in a different direction

Thanks for your thoughtful input.

I think perhaps you are replying based on the previous version of my paper?

Yes! A successful MasterCoin will give the regular bitcoin devs terrible migraines, as the block-chain explodes in size even faster. However, I've done my best to make sure that most transactions will be transfers of value, which is what bitcoin was designed to do.

10? The number of confirmations should be the same as any other bitcoin transactions, especially if sendmany is used.

Very true. Hopefully I can provide the features people are asking for fast enough to stay in front 

Best question yet.

I have thought about this endlessly. You can't begin to imagine how many nights I laid awake thinking about this. My first proposal had a much more complicated method of providing stability, but I think I've boiled it down to the essence of what is needed.

I actually plan on running some experiments with unsustainable currencies (where the data stream the currency is based on just keeps publishing bigger numbers), just to see how long they last and how they die. I'm hoping that will help tune the parameters for real currencies.

Holy crap! People are actually sending me money!
http://blockchain.info/address/1EXoDusjGwvnjZUyKkxZ4UHEf77z6A5S4P

A LOT of money.

Holy holy crap batman.

That is a very good question. It depends a lot on how much money I raise. Huge funds would imply I could move pretty quick. I'm not counting on that though. I'm anticipating a pretty small investment from the community, and a much slower rate of progress (see the risks document)

Definitely open source.

Also, I made that meme! Did you find it in my signature?

I was trying to explain why I didn't just build my own alt currency, but I'm afraid my bitcoin snobbery comes through a bit there. I should at least acknowledge that some of them are running some interesting experiments, however many horrible also-rans there may be

I did a co-founder search awhile back:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1fqgn0/will_you_be_my_cofounder_professional_salary/
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=226215.0

I got some replies but nobody really had what I needed then.

The protocol may change as it gets implemented. Right now is just the fund-raiser. I agree it would be cool to have multiple people helping me hold the coins. I approached several people about helping me hold the coins m-of-n style, but they were all too busy.

Yup! Everybody running the protocol scans the block chain looking for the encoded protocol messages.

Bitcoins are still needed to pay transaction fees. No getting around that.

I wouldn't say that any bitcoin devs have explicitly endorsed this, just that I sent a preview of the spec to several of them, and the ones that responded were encouraging.