In terms of the margin trading, if Tether is actually in trouble, that could help shore it up IMO.  As for what is behind some of the strange responses I've seen on reddit from a Tether dev -- I have had similar thoughts as yours concerning the FUD manipulation being employed.  I can only think of three reasons to make the statements I saw: either (1) Tether's really aren't backed up fully by reserve USD or (2) they are backed up by reserve USD, they just want to create enough uncertainty so they'll be a temporary Tether price drop that they can profit off... OR finally (3) Tether is fully backed by USD but they can't fully say they have the reserves because by making statements like that they could be exposing themselves to libertydollar type prosecution. I'm hoping it's #3, or at worst some of 2 and 3.

but it has nothing to do with crypto. it's all to do with taiwan's slack regulations. there's a ton of non crypto payment processors who were attracted there because of that and now they have the same problem.

I've seen it on many sites and even referenced here in a couple of posts but have no clue what it is in the least and it's price points seems to stick around the $1.00 to .9999 mark which would seem to say that it's tethered to the $1 mark in USD but I have no clue how it's used at all.

Enlighten me and thank you all

Hi Craig,

It`s nice to see someone from the team taking the initiative to answer here. I really appreciate that. I understand that message is just to say do things at your own risk but one thing I don`t understand is that, if Omni is safe, secure and old enough to mature and become a "rock-solid" software, why do you still have a very serious, scary looking message there?

I want to remind everyone that the message says
- This software should be considered as "Alpha Level". not even beta.
- Your everything can be lost due to glitches and bugs
- Don`t use it for significant amounts of BTC

These are pretty bold and scary statements. What I undestand from your message is that software is safe, solid and mature enough to be used for big amounts but the message says the opposite.

So I`d appreciate if you can elaborate the conflict a bit more.

PS: Still haven`t used Omni yet because of that msg.

who else has heard this could be happening? chinese whispers or reality?

I don`t really trust company references anymore. Peer reviews and user experiences are more trust worthy nowadays. That`s why I haven`t tried it yet. But since there is not much info about the safety of it anywhere maybe I`ll put a small amount in a wallet and start from there. Hope more people would write here about their experiences

Can anyone please explain the difference between ethereum vs waves and Omni. Marketcap wise there is no comparison but other than that what are the difference. How is ethereum better than there two other platforms and others that are in the market.

Also is waves second in this market or some other coin. Omni seems similar with tether maidsafe and synereo using it it but don't know why it is so undervalued.

Some clearification would be appreciated.

Quick question. What actually gives the OMNI tokens value?

Hi Craig

What you think is Omni's pros and cons versus Counterparty? I don't now mean that Omni have Tether and and Maidsafe and Counterparty have Storj and Spells of Genesis. Can you please list 5 pros and 5 cons like you think it?

It seems tether is bouncing back to the peg. Can anyone explain why it deveated from the peg for a few days?

Was it just uncertainty amongst tether holders due to bitfinex causing some to sell at a loss?

It looks like price rise might have been related to the bitfinex token bfx. Can anyone explain if that is the case?
Ie: did omni need to be bought for creation of bfx? How does omni coin factor into projects like these? As opposed to just the omni protocol

I've got a question..   what community are you talking about ? 

The Decentralized Exchange, phase II (token exchange) has been live on testnet for several months.  The past two months' development related to the DEx have been devoted to cleaning up the math (with increased precision), cleaning up the math (perfecting the matching engine), testing, and cleaning up the math.  Decentralized exchanges aren't easy.  And it works.  A release is tentatively expected within the next 6-8 weeks, with approximately a month's worth of blocks until the live blockheight (to allow integrators time to integrate).


The development direction of Omni comes from two sources: really good ideas, and what integrators are asking for.  We've been compiling a list of the "what if's" and the "wouldn't it be nice if's."

Some examples of the "wouldn't it be nice if's":
1. We'd like to be able to select which assets my address can receive.
2. We'd like to tag which addresses can receive our asset.
3. We'd like better pending transaction support.
4. We'd like a send-all function.
5. We'd like a crowdsale function that works with bitcoins.
6. We'd like to change attributes of our asset.

Some examples of the "what if's":
1. What if an asset could carry a unique identifier, per token?
2. What if we could "tag" addresses that we trusted?
3. What if we could pass partially signed transactions as payload within an OP_RETURN?
4. What if you could send a message along with your send?  What if it were encrypted?

And the list goes on.  

However, there's a real world need on the other side of house as well:
1. We need something that can make transactions in Java (OmniJ)
2. We need RPC calls to pull unspent transactions for multisig addresses
3. We need RPC calls to output raw transactions to be signed
4. We need a mobile-friendly web wallet to hold our assets
5. We need APIs to poll information about assets


The result of the election was that the four open seats were filled, by myself, Antony Vo, David Gilman and Patrick Dugan.  

I'll chime in with the rest of them on this thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/omni/comments/36d60w/board_elections/


Caring about Omni and shouting it from the hilltops are two different things.

David Johnston did not stand for re-election during the recent board election due to his focus on Factom.  He is still a mastercoin holder as well as an Omni advocate and technologist, and we consider him a good friend.  He is not actively involved in the development of Omni.

Judith is extremely active on social media on behalf of Omni and a number of innovative projects.  I am on phone calls with her almost daily with integrators as they progress through their projects and new integrators looking to get started.  She is the engine behind basically all Omni communication with partners.  

The energy you see for projects that use Omni for their assets (MaidSafe, Synereo, La'Zooz, Tether, etc.), is in many ways because we think they're extremely good ideas, in addition to using Omni as their platform of choice.  

Less visible are the deep integrations.  Projects such as Factom, Tether and others spur additional third-party development (hardware based transactions, mobile-to-mobile applications, etc), some of which are in stealth mode.


You need to watch the repos: https://github.com/OmniLayer
Most DEx RPC calls were completed (many were still stubs a week ago), STO functionality was revamped, and we got good news from one of the deep integrators.

The four members you mention were the ones present at the weekly all-hands that added something to the agenda document.  Not present (nor tracked) are the integration developers who are working on their projects that use Omni.  


Personally, I feel like I'm still building something. :-) But I think your definition of "finishing" includes the following things delivered by the Omni technologists in the past two years, of who I am extremely proud:

1. The idea: JR.
2. The first crowdsale, ever: David, Ron, BitAngels, Mastercoin
3. The original parsers: Maran, Jeff, Zathras, Grazcoin, Grimetz, Bitoy
4. The original block explorers: http://masterchest.info
5. The original web wallet: https://masterchain.info
6. The original desktop wallet: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=484025.0;all
7. The first decentralized exchange, ever: Zathras, Grazcoin, Bitoy, Curtis
8. The first decentralized crowdsale, ever: http://maidsafe.net
9. The first mastercoin exchange: https://masterxchange.com
10. The flagship web-wallet reference client: https://omniwallet.org
10. The addition of asset extensibility (used by Tether, Synereo, La'Zooz)
11. The addition of asset proportional distribution "Send-to-Owners" (used by La'Zooz)
12. The release of OmniJ (Sean's amazing work being used by several outside projects)
13. The release of OmniSharp (Shannon's library for .NET and web developers)
14. The release of Omni Wallet Desktop for Windows: http://blog.omni.foundation/2015/03/09/official-release-omni-wallet-desktop-for-windows/
15. All of the integrations across many many blockchain companies (see the list on http://omnilayer.org)


At least one developer works full time on Omni (possibly two - both are anonymous and I have no idea if the other one actually ever sleeps).  Judith lives in Israel but is on phone calls with me at hours where she should've been asleep for 4 hours, so I'm assuming she's full-time as well. :-)

The rest of us are working on projects that relate to, or rely upon Omni.  Contributions that go into Omni come from a variety of sources (GoCoin provided the ruby code to parse incoming pending transactions, for example, in use by ShapeShift.io and others, Leverage Holdings provided test code for automating DEx transactions, etc).

Omni is an open-source project that many of us believe in - to create a free and fair financial system based upon the rules of math, where creative developers and entrepreneurs can leverage these tools and create applications never before conceived.  We do it because we know what it can do.


All of the funds from the Mastercoin crowdsale were invested in the development, and have been spent, as of December of 2014.  A small amount remains to keep the domains renewed and the servers running.  Companies currently sponsor development on Omni either with funds, or with resources.  We've found that resources are as good as funds.  People are building on it because they know what it can do, too.

Thanks for the awesome questions!

Craig

HI Folks,

Wondering if someone in the Mastercoin world can help me.

I have a 10 MSC that I acquired a year or so ago, the old fashioned way with original command line software thingie.

I have my MSC listed on the masterchain.info site through my BTC address.

Do I need to convert them over to another place? Is there an official exchange where I can now sell the MSC for BTC?

Sorry to be out of the loop, its been a while.  ://

Thanks!!

Hollings

Thanks Craig  

Where can I find any updates on Tethers' legal progress and money transmitter license?
 the latest article is from July 2014 - http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/07/08/dollar-backed-digital-currency-aims-to-fix-bitcoins-volatility-dilemma/

Tether Limited (“Tether”) is a limited company incorporated pursuant to the Hong Kong Companies Ordinance. It is wholly owned by Tether Holdings Limited, a BVI business company incorporated pursuant to the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004.

Tether is registered as a Money Services Business with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (MSB Registration Number 31000058542968). Tether is establishing a relationship with a U.S. financial institution for purposes of better servicing Tether users in the United States, the details to be announced by May.

Tether is concluding a principal–agency agreement with RenRenBee Limited (“RenRenBee”). RenRenBee is licensed as a Money Services Operator by the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department (Licence No. 13-09-01265). Pursuant to the agreement, RenRenBee will provide anti-money laundering compliance work and customer due diligence procedures as agent for Tether as principal.

Through these and other measures, Tether is undertaking customer due diligence, record-keeping, and reporting procedures consistent with U.S. law and with the Hong Kong Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing (Financial Institutions) Ordinance.

Tether Limited currently has accounts with Cathay United Bank and Hwatai Bank in Taiwan, both of whom are aware and confident that Tether’s business model is acceptable.  In addition 3 more banking partners will be announced in the coming months. 

These banks are satisfied with our processes and also satisfied that our business operates in accordance with Taiwan off-shore banking regulations, as all of the banks had been requested to check this with their own legal, compliance and head-office before opening accounts (also at our own request).  It was our goal from the beginning to have a compliant operation and to provide the maximum level of comfort to our banking partners here.  In addition these banks have and are working with other Bitcoin based businesses.