Colored coins made easy?

[Elwar]

Ok, I've looked into the various different colored coin options out there and it seems strange that there should need to be wallets and protocols built around it.

Couldn't I just declare an address as the source and any addresses transferred to from there are then colored?

For example:
I start a new company and want to use colored coins for stocks.

In the company bi-laws, announcements, website, basically every official location for the company so that it is publicly available, we announce the starting Bitcoin address of:
1NewStartupJsJFbfs2n243Jshayywem342Bart69

and fill it with 100 bitcoins

Then we specify that every .0001 bitcoins is worth 1 share of the company.

When someone buys 1 share then from the 100 bitcoins .0001 bitcoins is sent to a public key that they specify. They now own that share. They can now sell it if they want or just keep the private key and hodl.

Since the blockchain keeps track of every transaction you could just have a website tracking that first 100 bitcoin address and any transactions from there. Any future share actions can easily pull up all of the addresses and their share amounts.

Dividend payment would be easy because you just send it to each public key based on the balance amount. Someone might want to buy 1000 shares so they have .1 bitcoin from the source address. That address would receive 1000 shares worth of dividends.


Am I missing something on why there would need to be a protocol built to do that? (I suppose I should just read the various different protocols to see what value they actually add).

[hodlmybtc]

Check out https://www.coinprism.com/

You can see Overstock's bond on there too.

I checked it out quickly and this is what I think it is:

When you make an account there you can make any colored coin you want, IPO's, assets, collectibles, you can select how many shares etc. there will be.

You get an asset address (starts with an a) that's coupled with your BTC address, your own colored coins can be distributed/sold from that address.

You don't need 100 BTC or something just a bit to pay miner's fees.

So in short you can launch an IPO or whatever you want for cents on the blockchain.

[BrianM]

I was just wondering, how do you picture that you buy a share?
With fiat money through a bank transfer? It would make little sense to send 0.001 to get 0.001 in return.
Unless the price of one share would be 1 BTC, then will you send 1 BTC to get a share (in form of 0.001) in return. What will den prevent the company to just issue new shares. Could be misunderstod as a ponzi scheme.

[hodlmybtc]

You can do a crowd sale on Coinprism

Manage Crowd Sale
Select the address you are using for the crowd sale. After buyers have sent Bitcoin to that address, use this page to forward the proceeds of the sale to a different "storage" address and at the same time automatically issue new colored coins for the buyers.

The amount of colored coins issued depends on how many Bitcoin each buyer has sent, and on the "Price per unit" value set below. The address to which the newly issued colored coins will be sent is the address from which the Bitcoins have been sent.

You can select these options:

- Crowd Sale Address
Select the address to which buyers are instructed to send Bitcoins.

- To address
Select the address where the funds are sent every time a sale is processed.

- Price per share   
Type in the price in Bitcoin at which the asset will be distributed. The amount of colored coins to be issued for evey buyer will be automatically calculated using that value.

- Fees
Choose the transaction fee included in each transaction.

Don't ask me more than this, I just copy-pasted it

[Elwar]

I was just wondering, how do you picture that you buy a share?
With fiat money through a bank transfer? It would make little sense to send 0.001 to get 0.001 in return.
Unless the price of one share would be 1 BTC, then will you send 1 BTC to get a share (in form of 0.001) in return. What will den prevent the company to just issue new shares. Could be misunderstod as a ponzi scheme.

If it is established that the 1 share represents more than just the .001 bitcoin then that value and scarcity would give it added value.

This 5 cent nickel was purchased for over $3 million.

[Elwar]

Check out https://www.coinprism.com/

You can see Overstock's bond on there too.

I checked it out quickly and this is what I think it is:

When you make an account there you can make any colored coin you want, IPO's, assets, collectibles, you can select how many shares etc. there will be.

You get an asset address (starts with an a) that's coupled with your BTC address, your own colored coins can be distributed/sold from that address.

You don't need 100 BTC or something just a bit to pay miner's fees.

So in short you can launch an IPO or whatever you want for cents on the blockchain.

Ok, I think if I read over the white paper on that about 20 more times I might finally understand.

I think the key for me is that it is using OP_RETURN to store the hash on the blockchain (if I'm reading it right), which means that it is not using some third party or a separate blockchain which was my main concern.

I also found this site: http://coinsecrets.org/ which dislays all of the OP_RETURN data being inserted to the blockchain.
It shows one transaction: https://blockchain.info/tx/9805d9729e86168c55575dd1cbcdd65737123eff924f3d409c24d8b77b408793?show_adv=true
with the OP_RETURN of " jWOW, WHAT AN ASSHOLE"

wonder what that's all about...lol

[hodlmybtc]

Yes it's using OP_RETURN on the Bitcoin blockchain.

I think all transactions on coinsecrets.org with (Open Assets) at the end are colored coins.

[BrianM]

Check out https://www.coinprism.com/

WOW  

I had no idea that must be the single coolest thing I have seen... since bitcoin!
I need to try it out, you can basically store any type of information on the bitcoin blockchain, and thereby make it historical. WOW just WOW.