I hated selling in February, even though it raised enough money for me to quit my job. I was sure I would regret it. As it happens, I was wrong about regretting it, since I now have the opportunity to buy low.

I'm a little confused that people are criticizing me for buying MSC. It seems like the obvious thing to do, both for myself and the project. I understand that lots of money was lost (on paper) when the price fell (nobody lost more than I did), but I fully expect people who purchased even at the peak price to make a fantastic long-term profit. As they say on the bitcoin reddit: HODL!*

Speaking of my buying, for sake of transparency, I'll disclose here that I'm currently putting together a deal for myself and other MSC insiders to purchase a block of MSC from a third-party project which has a block of MSC but needs cash to pay developers (not Maidsafe - I asked them if they would sell some, but they are holding).

I did negotiate a discount off spot prices (by pointing out that selling on the exchanges would lower the price far more). If anybody here is interested in participating in group buys of this sort, you can PM me. I probably can't include you on this particular buy, but there could be more in the future if similar situations arise.

Thanks!

* Not investment advice, just my personal opinion. Talk to your investment advisor, etc etc.

Having all my original MSC back is a VERY appealing psychological milestone for me

I'm not getting any love at 0.0075. Please, if you don't like my price, send me your best offer! I have a couple offers so far, but they are WAY higher!

As I mentioned yesterday, I may just try doing this slowly. I was just hoping to get it done in one fell swoop if there was a big seller waiting for an opportunity . . .

It also occurs to me that I shouldn't hijack our official thread for my own personal marketplace

I'll try to keep it to the reddit post henceforth. Feel free to chat with me there: http://www.reddit.com/r/mastercoin/comments/2cmc8t/anybody_selling_a_big_chunk_of_msc/

Yeah, I did experience some slippage back in February when I did this in the other direction, but it was a huge order, so some slippage is expected. From the PMs I'm getting, it's looking like I'm not going to get filled anywhere near spot prices right now, so maybe I will have to spread it out on MasterXChange and the dEX, or maybe I just need to wait longer. However, I'll be kicking myself though if this is the bottom and I don't get some!

Speaking of the dEX, I'm disappointed there's not more available for purchase on the distributed exchange, which is of course my preferred option. Somebody want to put a big chunk for sale on there for me?

My query is only a few hours old, so probably a lot of potential sellers haven't even seen it yet.

I'm going offline until tomorrow. You guys bombard me with attractive offers via PMs, and I'll get back to you tomorrow, ok?

I see what you mean! I don't recall if I did that then or not (was there even a trollbox then?). I generally post things of interest everywhere I know people are interested in MSC, but I agree that I probably shouldn't have mentioned my private offer in the exchange chatroom - bad form.

Sorry ElDido!

It's hard to move a huge volume through the exchanges. This is exactly how I sold a large volume in February, if you recall: http://www.reddit.com/r/mastercoin/comments/1uo0ft/buy_mastercoins_directly_from_jr_founder_of/

 Now I'm doing the same thing, but buying this time. It worked then, and I expect it to work now.

I love masterxchange!

Hey wait a minute! How did you know that big buy wall isn't me?! Did you snoop?!

I may very well use it, but I am hoping there is some big fish out there who wants to sell a bunch of MSC but wasn't going to use the exchanges for fear of crashing the price to zero with their huge sell. If that person exists, I'm hoping to meet them soon.

So far the offers I've received aren't anywhere NEAR the spot price, so I'll go up a bit. Anybody want to unload their MSC at 0.0075 BTC/MSC?

I had an interesting thought this morning - at today's price (0.007 BTC/MSC), I could easily purchase back all the MSC I sold a few months ago in order to quit my job, and maybe even INCREASE my position to larger than it was after the launch of the project!

I mentioned this to our team internally, and everybody there has turned me down flat (so far).

So I ask you guys - does anybody want to unload a big chunk of MSC all at once at today's hilariously low prices? If so, please PM me.

Also on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/mastercoin/comments/2cmc8t/anybody_selling_a_big_chunk_of_msc/

I think the Mastercoin/Counterparty talk here is interesting. We have open communication channels between our projects, but I haven't heard any serious proposals along merging projects yet. However, given the huge number of people and projects doing this 2.0 stuff, some pruning and merging seems likely at some point. My personal expectation is that one of the projects will get REALLY big, and then absorb/buy the others in order to get their people and sub-projects. Obviously I hope it will be Mastercoin which absorbs/buys the others

The Mastercoin team has been making amazing progress while I've been on medical leave, and I'm super-excited for the Master Core release tomorrow.

Written from the children's hospital, where I have been taking an unanticipated very deep dive into the world of neurosurgery and neurology . . .

Also, we LOVE David Johnston. He is our most active board member. Our protocol would be in much worse shape without his significant investment and ongoing involvement. The API Network was what he was doing BEFORE Mastercoin, and he saw Mastercoin as a great way to enable what he wanted to do with the API Network. Nobody got kicked out of anything - this is his own brainchild, which has to compete for attention among a lot of other really interesting crowd-sales, in an uncertain regulatory environment.

My plan is to invest them in the Master Ecosystem as it grows far faster than coins are burned. You remember my blog post about this, right? http://blog.mastercoin.org/2014/01/24/j-r-coming-full-time/

I think investing in companies building on top of MSC is a far more productive way to reduce my % of MSC held than burning it. It attracts people to our ecosystem, which is good for everyone holding MSC.

Everyone:

In the future, when you see people asking why Mastercoins will be valuable, please point them here:



MASTERCOIN IS FOR B̷̡̍̑ͬ̈̓̊̋̾̐̓ͫͮͣ̚͝U̶̵̷ͩ͑ͤ͛͏R͆̓ͪ͒ͣ̒͗͟͝N̡̈ͯ̿ͧ̋ͬ͆̿ͩͤ̑ͧ̅͢Į̸͑ͪ͐͌ͣͮͮ̿̌̋̽͟͞Ņ̶͗̓̈̿͋̿ͩ̓͒ͣ̎Gͤ̉͒̇̋͜͠

kthxbye

1) There are no minutes, only notes. We decide what to release later so people feel comfortable speaking freely.
2) We don't have a budget, we have a burn rate, which is regularly reviewed by the board.

http://blog.mastercoin.org/2014/06/05/major-improvement-to-crowdsales/

As for what gives MSC value, MSC is used in the distributed exchange. Everything trades against MSC. MSC is used in various ways in the other upcoming features too. In many cases, MSC will be the default currency for a feature, and other currencies can be used in exchange for burning a small amount of MSC.

We have a collaborative paper in progress which outlines the use cases for MSC, and defends the concept of app-coins in general. Look for that soon.

Top dev priority right now is the RPC interface for MasterCore (cross-platform implementation) which exchanges have been asking for. Also, there's the distributed exchange for people who don't like trusting a website with their money.



We keep notes, not minutes, although we do formally track the outcome of board votes. That's burdensome enough, thank you very much.

Please nobody get all worked up about proper parliamentary procedure :-P

We spend money based on how much money we have. We are indeed cutting back expenses currently, and the bitcoin price increases lately have helped a lot too.

If it comes down to raising more money, we can't issue more MSC, so major holders such as myself would have to be diluted voluntarily. If it comes to that, I'll be looking for a long term investor who will hold onto their MSC for a long time! We talk to big-name VC firms all the time, so the assumption internally is that this would not be a difficult arrangement to make if we decide we need more money. It would simultaneously give VC firms a way to take a big stake in the project (which they can't currently do very easily), raise money for the project, and for the MSC holders participating (I presume/hope it would be open to anybody who had a large amount of MSC and wanted to join in), it would line our greedy, greedy pockets with cash we couldn't get through the open market, since the market it so immature and therefore illiquid. The downside of course would be getting diluted, so we're hoping to avoid that scenario entirely.

Please note that I am speaking speculatively - nothing like this has been arranged at this time. Please also note that in regards to being greedy, I can only speak for myself :-P

DGulari had some great points a few posts back - I couldn't agree with him more.

I'm contemplating doing a blog post about MSC price. As far as I can tell, all bitcoin 2.0 technologies have been on a long-term decline for awhile now. Eventually one or more of them is going to turn around and go through the stratosphere (I think we can all agree on that, right?). My goal is for it to be MSC.

I just talked to one of our core people this morning, and he told me he had never sold any MSC he received. I don't know how widespread that practice is (I don't ask), but it definitely reflects the long term optimism I see in myself and the rest of the team. We see the nuts and bolts of what we are building from the inside, and we think Mastercoin is hilariously undervalued, especially when you contemplate what valuations could be reached if we reach widespread adoption.

I wish somebody had recorded the demo our devs gave of the cross-platform wallet proof of concept. It was sweeeet.


Yeah. That's what people have been saying about bitcoin for years. Not saying it couldn't happen, but there are a huge number of regulatory barriers for a bank or other conventional finance instrument to do this. If they DO, they almost certainly lose the decentralization, which is losing the whole point.

Sure, although I should mention that being deflationary isn't the only factor. I believe the biggest factor which drives large price swings is of course risk, and Mastercoin is highly risky. I think we can all agree that bitcoin is absurdly speculative, and that experimental bitcoin 2.0 currencies are more speculative than bitcoin? I sure hope nobody sees these investments as likely to hold a stable value.

Being more deflationary also matters a lot though. The logic is pretty straightforward.

1) Deflationary currencies reward early adopters, in proportion to how early they were
2) The number of early adopters of any new currency is always going to be very small in comparison to the eventual user base if it is successful.
3) A small number of people who hold most of a currency = volatility

Obviously, it's not the only variable, but if you hold all other variables equal, more deflationary = more volatile.