There would be an issue with conflict of interest when setting bounty payouts. For instance, Willett can set a bounty for a feature, and in the case he expects no one would pick up such a bounty an artificially high bounty would be set.

Doesn't this mean you are the only investor who bears zero risk for investing, and so have a heads-I-win-tails-I-get-my-money-back situation?   If this is genuinely as good an opportunity as you represent it to be, and the number of coins created (and therefore the relative value of each) is determined by the total amount of investment.... You see where I'm going with this?  You have the most to gain, and you hold no risk whatsoever.

I think it would be more appropriate to have these funds create and finance a non-profit foundation dedicated to stewarding the development of Mastercoin, with the funds being controlled by a fragmented key.

The concept here is really solid, and I think it's fine to fundraise in this fashion but I am uncomfortable having the entire finance under the control of a single individual even if he is the founder and especially if he is the largest investor and primary beneficiary of funds.  That is not investment, it is savings being rewarded as the highest of risk activities.

. . .

 I would encourage you to put together a board of reputable community members to allay this concern because currently what you're offering is to implement something at your own time with you set to recieve an enormous reward commensurate with a large investment when really you have no skin in the game at all.   

I'd love to get paid a fair hourly wage for what I do, but i'm more concerned with making it happen because if I don't do it nobody else will, than I am maximizing my potential revenue.  It seems like you're trying to have two cakes, and also eat some pie.   

I'm sorry to disappear for 3 days and then dredge this up, but I can see that you and I have a difference of opinion on the time frame here, and on the idea of the value of the "black swan" events in a commodity speculator's portfolio.  But even if you continue with these attempts at a trustless representational currency, let me very respectfully ask you to also include the ability for people to create their own (trust-required) exchangeable entities, with a reference to a signed legal document describing the entity in its genesis block.  These new "currencies" could be a mortgage, stock in a company, a commodity with real backing, etc.  That is, add "native" support for colored coins within your system.  Whether or not your trustless representational currencies work, these trust-backed currencies will be very valuable, will utilize most of the same software infrastructure as your trustless and would make MasterCoin still useful if your trust-backed currency system does not work.  PM me if you need some impl help maybe I can find some time...

I've been thinking about the fundraising part, and I can concede that being able to eat and keep a roof over your head is equitable. I'm just concerned about the nature of fundraising when it is paired with:

 
Upon further consideration, that is the real 'meat' of my argument, in addition to the overall blockchain impact - which I'm not very pleased about, since I have no way (at this time) to say "no thank you, I will not verify your data". Bitcoin being what it is, it should be opt-in - the same way it is for what version of client you choose to run (unless we fork so hard we have to select one).

That's another problem, isn't it, it takes off and then we're talking not only about multiples of bandwidth/storage, but the ability of the main bitcoin devs being able to pick up the pace for future expansion and improvement. And since I've never bought the early-stressor argument either, please don't try it, it isn't very convincing.

Hi JR :-)

Thanks for accepting my friend request on Facebook, I clicked the button whilst searching for your email address, which I then subsequently found at the top of your Mastercoin paper.

I think Mastercoin is a fascinating concept, and I thought I'd write and make friendly contact and offer my services as an animator.

I read your original paper and the meme-version last year and thought it was great, I'm glad to see the project maturing and I wondered if you think it would be a good time to create an animation to explain the idea (much like the we-use-coins animation) in anticipation of the launch in September for the purposes of publicity and general understanding.

Here's the last one I did with my team here in London for a bitcoin mining service called 'Cloudhashing'. https://vimeo.com/70218869

Best wishes
Sincerely

Richard Boase

but you won't be able to do anything with a mastercoin, at least until you get betting in for there to be any sort of market use, correct? then from there the sky's the limit?

OK so you basically lose or gain 20% mastercoins if you sell respectively. Doesn't really matter from a buyers perspective as long as Mastercoin holds some value but;

Wouldn't this sort of price fluctuation in the parent currency (let's just call the parent Mastercoin as not to confuse things further) completely undermine the viability of an escrow fund;

An escrow fund could be supporting a child currency at a cost of 1 Mastercoin worth $10 one day and 1 Mastercoin worth $15 the next day in which case the premise of the Escrow funds health based on buying "cheap coins" no longer makes sense because the Parent currency doesn't have a stable price.

i think to him, the coins will now be part of the fund. Not his to spend freely as he wishes, exactly, but for MSC's sake. For instance, with the fund, he won't be buying a car with it, I hope!

will mastercoin be initially worthless? I'm sorry, you probably explained this in other words but initially, what gives mastercoin that worth? its escrow, right? how do you put worth into this escrow?

do i have this idea right that if this works, if everything distributes as planned, maybe say 1000 years down the road everything would trade at an equilibrium point?

You're confusing the question by adding other things in I'm not asking about, I'm asking very specifically what happens in Scenario 1) and 2) do you mind answering with your mathematical workings please?

OK so;

-I buy 5 master coins for $100

-I spend 5 master coins on 100 $1 coins, I suppose I have to pay slightly over a $1 from these perhaps $101 for the lot if I'm buying directly from the escrow fund with a 1% aggression factor.

Now Master coin value goes either up or down in value while the child currency stays relatively stable;

Please can you describe for me what happens to my investment in the child currency if;

a) Mastercoin rises in value 20%
b) Mastercoin decreases in value 20%

ah, gotcha. price stabilization of bitcoin and by extension every other currency

so likely end result is that Mastercoin, if the protocol does what it says it does perfectly, becomes what it's named—a sort of supracoin

Yes I'm not suggesting they do, but don't all other currencies have to be purchased with MasterCoins?

OK I'll try again,

-I buy 5 master coins for $100

-I spend 5 master coins on 100 $1 coins, I suppose I have to pay slightly over a $1 from these perhaps $1.01 if I'm buying directly from the escrow fund with a 1% aggression factor.

Now Master coin value goes either up or down;

If it goes down in value 20% I gain 20% mastercoins but no extra value.

If it goes up in value 20% I lose 20%

Is that correct?

You are a fucking scammer nothing else.

and thanks for proving me right.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266386.msg2848752#msg2848752

No it doesn't matter if it's you, what do you see as the escrow fund taking as a cut for buying and selling, or in other words what % can it drop by before they start buying back given the point of the escrow is to pay buyers the value of the coin back

Let me try your thought experiment, on the basis people only buy up to the value of backed assets for $1coin

Escrow fund $1000

market buys 1000 $1coin @ $1 each Q) Why are people buying $1 coins with no infrastructure supporting their use and no speculative value isn't this a bit of a chicken and egg situation?

$1coin trade at around $1 but with no practical use for them and no speculative value demand drops and people start to sell

Escrow fund buys 500 $1coin for $500

Q) by definition an escrow means the original purchaser handed that money to you on trust that it was backed so when you pick up "cheap coins" how much do people lose off there originally backed sum?

can you clarify the points above as can't really do a thought experiment without clarifying those points first!
 

I suggest your first bounty should be the following:

10 BTC to anyone who can convince 50% of your investors that your system is economically unsound and not viable.  

I will no longer respond until such a bounty is posted.