if I can contribute any design content(Free of charge) I will.
If you would like to try your hand at an Open-Transactions logo, that would be great.
I have a feeling it means the end of the not so open Ripple idea.
I'm a fan of the Ripple idea (credit lines) and have always said that I would eventually build it into OT.
(Perhaps sooner rather than later, now that cross-server discovery is solved.)
As for the current Ripple incarnation, I hope their technology proves out and that they are successful.
There is no need to bash people who are trying to contribute to monetary freedom.
Fantastic!
One thing I'm curious about is the propagation and validation. With the transaction notification being passed through bitmessage, acceptance is still dependent upon the receiver, correct? Txs therefore can be instantaneous, but might also incur a variable delay?
--- The transaction notification is used in server-to-server wiring of funds, to unlock the escrow on both sides.
--- The servers can negotiate this between each other directly (since Alice and Bob have notified each server of the other's existence.)
--- In essence, this piece is negotiated directly by the two smart contracts.
--- This doesn't have to go through Bitmessage; that's only used for discovery process.
--- The parties can also directly notice the servers, but this is not necessary for it to work.
> Txs therefore
can be instantaneous, but might also incur a variable delay?
I'd say this is accurate, though I would expect it to basically seem instantaneous.
Fellowtraveler, this is very exciting. I've been reading your OT stuff for a while and trying to absorb it all. Are you or your new company going to take OT now and develop it into this P2P exchange application? I think you should because it doesn't look like anyone else is ready to produce a product like this. I'm sure you could garner some serious donations if necessary since you've already proven yourself by putting OT together.
On the commercial side, we have just closed our seed round, and started our second round.
Screenshots of upcoming Monetas iPhone appI can say the p2p exchange technology is definitely coming, probably first in some future incarnation of our systray app, but the timing will depend.
On the open-source side, any donations will be re-donated to various OT contributors for their work.
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I would like a process walkthrough to understand this better.
For specific step-by-step walkthrus of the Bitmessage-related protocols, see the paste bins I posted at the top of this thread.
Here are more details to help clarify...
CURRENCIES
--- Blockchain-based commodities. (BTC, LTC, etc)Keep in mind: Blockchain-based currencies such as BTC will not have a proper "issuer" on OT; instead they will be uploaded directly by users into voting pools, where an OT server can issue units based on the BTC yet simultaneously are incapable of stealing those BTC. (They cannot steal them from the voting pool because they are protected by multi-sig, and they cannot steal them internally because the OT servers are incapable of forging receipts.)
--- Colored coins. (These are real-world assets such as gold, dollars, pork bellies, etc which are accounted-for using satoshis on the blockchain, and are redeemed by their issuer upon demand.)
Important things to remember about colored coins:
1. The issuer of colored coins can never be held liable to freeze specific satoshis, because they have no control over the ledger (it's on the blockchain.) Which is to say, the colored coins
actually do circulate entirely beyond their control. Just as the Federal Reserve issues dollars which then circulate entirely outside of their control, and thus they cannot be held liable for what happens while they are in circulation.
2. This breaks the link on OT between the issuer and the transaction server, since the issuer no longer needs to directly issue their gold onto the OT server. Instead, the issuer uses colored coins, and then those get issued by
wallets into voting pools, to make them available for trading on OT servers.
This means that pressure against the issuer can never result in withdrawing their currency from an OT server, because they don't have to issue it directly onto an OT server, for people to still trade it there.3. Most people will not ever need to redeem their colored coins directly with the issuer of those colored coins. As long as the issuer is good for them, they will be able to redeem their colored coins directly through
other wallets. So the issuer only provides redemption "of last resort."
4. Anyone who
does redeem colored coins at a colored coin issuer,
will be subject to the laws in that jurisdiction, AML/KYC, etc. (So there is no need to violate those laws.)
5. Anyone who buys/sells colored coins will not incur capital gains tax risk, since colored coins, unlike BTC, do not go up in value. (Meaning, a $100 colored coin does not change in value between when it was bought and sold, and thus does not incur capital gains. Consult your attorney on that one BTW.)
LEGACY BANKS
--- Transfers to-and-from the legacy banking system are performed via ACH in the USA, and SEPA in Europe.
--- SEPA transfers are instant. ACH transfers can take 3-5 days. Either way, the OT side of such transactions will use OT's ability to perform escrow.
--- Although people will have the ability to go in-and-out of the banking system, I don't expect this to happen with every transaction. I
do expect it to happen sometimes.
--- I expect that some of
these transfers will happen P2P (SEPA is particularly suited for this) as well as through professional services (probably similar to Ripple gateways.) Any OT Nym could perform such functions.
--- We can automate such things in the wallets, making the actions user-centric, instead of provider-centric.
OPEN-TRANSACTIONS FEDERATED SERVERS
--- Any Nym will be able to upload BTC or Colored Coins into a voting pool (where the OT server cannot steal them) and the OT server then issues the appropriate units to that Nym via OT's unforgeable receipts.
--- The Nyms are
already able to perform escrow with each other, on any OT server.
--- The Nyms are
already able to trade one currency against another, on any OT server.
--- Already you can have the same currencies issued onto multiple OT servers.
BITMESSAGE
--- Bitmessage makes it possible for Nyms to discover each other and OT servers. Thus:
--- Bitmessage makes it possible for Nyms to perform currency wires from one OT server to another, through other Nyms.
--- Bitmessage makes it possible for Nyms to perform cross-server trades (by enabling discovery.)
--- Once discovery has taken place, Nyms can perform escrow, as well as market trading, since OT already supports those things.
For specific step-by-step walkthrus of the Bitmessage-related protocols, see the paste bins I posted at the top of this thread.Whoa...
so, in theory, you can have a zero balance bank account and whenever you go to buy something you load your debit card with just enough to pay the bill by paying with Bitcoins...correct?
I suppose so, yes.
And someone can just write up a program to quickly exchange dollars for bitcoins just for that purpose...
Yes, although at some point we are going to have it in the Monetas systray app. (For starters.)
Bitcoin debit card...
Or is there still a delay?
The delay in/out of a legacy bank account will depend on the legacy banking API you are dealing with.
As far as I know, SEPA is near-instantaneous. ACH, not so much.
What's the important difference with Ripple?
I can't really say, I haven't seen their code.
It still seems to be IOUs.
It's not the same as credit lines, no.
Not that credit lines are a bad idea -- I will eventually be adding them to OT as well.
(Especially now that cross-server discovery is solved…)
Well sure, OT doesn't need them, there doesn't seem to be a "network" per se.
(You can't spam the network.)
---> As far as I understand. I'm still in my bitmessage/Open Transactions reading.
I believe that Bitmessage uses proof-of-work to prevent spamming.
Also consider that
most messages can go directly through OT itself -- Bitmessage is only for
discovery.Also -- even if we swap out the discovery layer for something else, OT should continue to work just fine. (But so far I think Bitmessage is perfect.)
Ok, so the point of bitmessage is to be the network, while Open Transaction is the notary.
Correct?
This is basically correct.
Bitmessage, however, would only be the network
for discovery purposes. All other communications can go directly between OT servers, and P2P between OT wallets.
Fellowtraveler-- if you're willing to do some hand-holding I'd be really interested in making a Chaumian cash transaction through an OT server.
OT's cash instrument uses Chaumian blinding.
However, there are other instruments on OT which do not use Chaumian blinding: cheques, invoices, recurring payments, market trades, smart contracts, etc.
These other instruments, while not blinded, are still pseudonymous, and the receipts are destructible. (It can still prove everything without the receipt history, as long as you have the
last signed receipt.)Sure, OT was around for a while. It just "did not click".
It clicked for me.
all we need is an application that combines the two together to get a running P2P exchange, right?
Yes.
Sounds very exciting. But I don't fully understand it yet, I tried to read some material on Open Transactions and BitMessage but still missing the point. Can anyone summarize what it is that OT and BM do, exactly?
OT is a system for federated issuing and transacting of various currencies. It can work with and without blockchain-based currencies.
Bitmessage is a p2p system for messages as well as subscriptions/broadcasts.
In our proposed protocol, OT federated servers will utilize Bitmessage as a discovery layer to enable cross-server escrow, for the purposes of market trading and wiring of funds between OT servers (and in/out of the legacy banking system.)
You can read more details above.
Also, imagine a hypothetical world where this has already completely been worked out, and a OT+BM based P2P exchange system is fully up and running. Suppose I want to buy bitcoins with euros. Two questions:
- 1. Where or how do I find someone who wants to sell his BTC, and how do we negotiate a price? (as is currently done by the existing exchanges in their market places)
- 2. Where (or to who) do I wire transfer my EUR, and how can I trust I will get the BTC in return?
Please see details above, especially the protocol details in the paste bins I posted.
Oh man I can't wait for OT to be fully functional and usable
OT
is fully-functional and usable. At least, the server and command line, as well as the API and client-side scripts.
There is also a test-GUI, and Monetas will be coming out with real GUIs very soon.
But the real beauty is the things
you can build with OT, by integrating it into your own projects.
We are working on the voting pools, and the p2p exchange stuff will take a bit longer since it was just designed last night.
(Although who knows, if the second round of funding goes well, we might have it out a lot sooner.)
I should mention, BTW, that OT is completely open-source, and any products released by Monetas will be open-source as well.
THe whole point of using OT is untraceability, it's implemented around the Chaumian blind token technology, if you don't want untraceability, you don't want to use OT.
This isn't entirely correct. OT cash is untraceable. But if you want to prove you paid someone, then use an OT cheque instead. (And you'll have a cheque receipt…)
From my understanding of FellowTraveler's initial post, BM is used for matching Bids and Asks by creating an exchange protocol on top of BM that interested parties can subscribe to.
The exchange protocol wouldn't be over Bitmessage, it would be internal to OT.
Bitmessage would be used for the discovery process. See my paste bins.
This won't work. Any bank that starts OT server will be closed for violating AML.
I don't think banks will have to run OT servers.
Any colored-coin issuer can fully-obey KYC / AML.
The issuer would be entirely divorced from the OT transaction servers, which could operate on Tor.
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I can also reveal that Adam Back believes he has solved the problem of homomorphic amounts (so the OT server can't see any of the amounts, on any of the transactions it processes.)
I will be integrating credlib into OT soon and also working with Adam on adding his homomorphic code to OT as well.
