Ixcoin TODO

[Vlad2Vlad]

Friction,

I'm not sure what you were planning in regards to the special METAcoin, but I think it would be best if the Foundation did not issue its own coin:  We allow free markets [Laissez faire] to
decide which user defined coin will turn out to be the "special metacoin".

I think from a legal standpoint this is also the best option, for obvious reasons.

As I keep repeating.... there is no need for a special metacoin.

All that is needed is the technology be ported over for IXC and then we let people do whatever they want to do.

Ok, sorry.  I'm all mixed up in this debate.

[jamaer]

Friction,

I'm not sure what you were planning in regards to the special METAcoin, but I think it would be best if the Foundation did not issue its own coin:  We allow free markets [Laissez faire] to
decide which user defined coin will turn out to be the "special metacoin".

I think from a legal standpoint this is also the best option, for obvious reasons.

As I keep repeating.... there is no need for a special metacoin.

All that is needed is the technology be ported over for IXC and then we let people do whatever they want to do.

Ok, sorry.  I'm all mixed up in this debate.

No need to be, your comment was perfectly understandable and on the spot. It seems that Friction is only mudding waters. What Vlad is talking about is of course what Friction used the term asset [created by the Foundation].

If you listened to the audio broadcast that I posted, it should be clear that an IXCP is only needed for the betting functionality.   IXCP is essentially what they call a 'proxy coin'.   To implement this,  the foundation can just create a asset that buys and sells IXC at a 1:1 rate.  That is all that is needed,   no complicated burning process is needed.

No need for *a* meta-coin.  Anyone can create their own asset.  So the foundation can create its own asset that has a 1:1 backing with IXC.

[kraizi]

If I'm making a bet in ordinary CP (using XCP), I need to find a partner who valuates
the bet differently and  trusts the feed provider. In this Friction's modified version, the partner needs additionally
to trust (and use) the same user definied currency. Too complicated at least in the short term, and therefore I don't
see many people using bet-functionality without a "specific" metacoin (hence fewer use for Ixcoin). In the long run,
this might actually be working once markets would have sieved out the de-facto standard for the metecoin out of user issued
assets/currencies.

As I see it, IXC is the obvious de-facto standard coin for betting, ordering, etc.  It's just not a metacoin. 

If the proper IXC transaction validations are added natively to IXC and maybe a few other changes in Counterparty to recognize this, IXC can act just like "the" metacoin.  This would be the best of both worlds.  It removes the redudant metacoin which could potentially compete with IXC for popularity, and it all but ensures IXC as the common currency.  This should increase IXC transactions considerably.

I'd recommend we at least look at how much extra work it would be to actually implement the native IXC hooks needed to make this a complete solution.  That way a competing metacoin won't emerge as the common currency before IXC is well entrench in this role. 

[Vlad2Vlad]

If I'm making a bet in ordinary CP (using XCP), I need to find a partner who valuates
the bet differently and  trusts the feed provider. In this Friction's modified version, the partner needs additionally
to trust (and use) the same user definied currency. Too complicated at least in the short term, and therefore I don't
see many people using bet-functionality without a "specific" metacoin (hence fewer use for Ixcoin). In the long run,
this might actually be working once markets would have sieved out the de-facto standard for the metecoin out of user issued
assets/currencies.

As I see it, IXC is the obvious de-facto standard coin for betting, ordering, etc.  It's just not a metacoin.  

If the proper IXC transaction validations are added natively to IXC and maybe a few other changes in Counterparty to recognize this, IXC can act just like "the" metacoin.  This would be the best of both worlds.  It removes the redudant metacoin which could potentially compete with IXC for popularity, and it all but ensures IXC as the common currency.  This should increase IXC transactions considerably.

I'd recommend we at least look at how much extra work it would be to actually implement the native IXC hooks needed to make this a complete solution.  That way a competing metacoin won't emerge as the common currency before IXC is well entrench in this role.  

I'm all for a complete solution:  This should be done right the first Time around.

And don't let miner uptake get in the way.  I think I can get the proper pools to adopt the new iXcoin code, IF it's a big and unique upgrade.

[Vlad2Vlad]

You guys all thought I was crazy last year when I said we had a massive stealth buyer of IXC who was manipulating the price.  I said he's probably got millions of IXC.

Well lookie here.

Someone has gone through a lot of trouble shuffling millions of iXcoins around.


Why?!?  


Why bother with a supposedly shitty dead coin?  And it all started right around when I started blowing the whistle last year in May [maybe another coincidence].

And I can't believe all you hackers and programmers couldn't find this all this time while telling me I was crazy!!!


Enjoy:


http://block.al.tcoin.info/address/xmnwvUr77cdZ7dRopsQah86b6169Dgotfm


http://block.al.tcoin.info/address/xew5QEjjBrCDF7wcaVa6bVcqGfFUb6JZee

[Vlad2Vlad]

You know what makes me really angry?

I've been wrecking myself doing fund raisers and pitching in iXcoins myself and all along some rich a-hole (or a hedge fund or bank) with millions of iXcoins has been sitting around just laughing at us.

It makes you also really wonder why someone with millions of IXC never bothered to update the client or the source code.

2 years it was left neglected.  It definitely wasn't a lack of money.

It's as if they purposely wanted to let IXC run that long without any interference of any sort.

Almost like someone wanted to test the root source code and prove its stability before doing any updates.

Maybe that's why our 2 week update took 5 months.

Thomas, you sumbitch, come clean, I'm sick of your games!!!

[cinnamon_carter]

the blockchain can reveal a lot of information ....

You guys all thought I was crazy last year when I said we had a massive stealth buyer of IXC who was manipulating the price.  I said he's probably got millions of IXC.

Well lookie here.

Someone has gone through a lot of trouble shuffling millions of iXcoins around.


Why?!?  


Why bother with a supposedly shitty dead coin?  And it all started right around when I started blowing the whistle last year in May [maybe another coincidence].

And I can't believe all you hackers and programmers couldn't find this all this time while telling me I was crazy!!!


Enjoy:


http://block.al.tcoin.info/address/xmnwvUr77cdZ7dRopsQah86b6169Dgotfm


http://block.al.tcoin.info/address/xew5QEjjBrCDF7wcaVa6bVcqGfFUb6JZee

[mmpool]

I've been wrecking myself doing fund raisers and pitching in iXcoins myself and all along some rich a-hole (or a hedge fund or bank) with millions of iXcoins has been sitting around just laughing at us.

Those addresses look like an exchange or pools hot/cold wallet - with shuffling funds around to prevent fragmentation.

[ushuai]

I've been wrecking myself doing fund raisers and pitching in iXcoins myself and all along some rich a-hole (or a hedge fund or bank) with millions of iXcoins has been sitting around just laughing at us.

Those addresses look like an exchange or pools hot/cold wallet - with shuffling funds around to prevent fragmentation.

It's probably vircurex since it was the earliest exchange for iXcoin.  Cryptsy didn't open until May 20th, 2013, and iXcoin would have been listed even later.  But of course an exchange doesn't actually own all the coins.  The coins likely belonged to dozens or hundreds of different customers.

[Vlad2Vlad]

I've been wrecking myself doing fund raisers and pitching in iXcoins myself and all along some rich a-hole (or a hedge fund or bank) with millions of iXcoins has been sitting around just laughing at us.

Those addresses look like an exchange or pools hot/cold wallet - with shuffling funds around to prevent fragmentation.

Pools?  I thought about that,

But...

One wallet Alone had at one point over 4 million IXC.

There's no 1 pool with that much IXC.

It would take way too much hash power to accumulate over 4 million IXC.

And if it is a pool, then all those coins would belong to lots of people.


LOTS!!!


So all this time nobody called in their coins?  Nobody transferred to a personal wallet, an exchange, and nobody sold any significant IXC?  Cause that number only seems to grow, very consistently.

What are the odds of that?

For sure the likes of CEX.io has a lot.  Like the 1.5 million IXC wallet.  I can believe that much, that's totally possible.  But over 4 million?

Anybody know how many merge miners [roughly] we have out there?  CEX.io claims 180,000 customers.  Are they all merge mining?

That's just 1 pool.  So if those are pool coins then that would mean we could have well over 300,000 different people holding some IXC.

And many of them would hold at least 100 IXC.

This would make IXC the most evenly distributed coin in the world.

Would be nice to get someone from one of the major pools chiming in with some real data about individual average IXC holdings for merge miners.

That would be a HUGE revelation, as Jamaer pointed out, the competitive advantage of a well, fair and evenly distributed coin is rare, crucial and takes a long time to accomplish!

[Vlad2Vlad]

I've been wrecking myself doing fund raisers and pitching in iXcoins myself and all along some rich a-hole (or a hedge fund or bank) with millions of iXcoins has been sitting around just laughing at us.

Those addresses look like an exchange or pools hot/cold wallet - with shuffling funds around to prevent fragmentation.

It's probably vircurex since it was the earliest exchange for iXcoin.  Cryptsy didn't open until May 20th, 2013, and iXcoin would have been listed even later.  But of course an exchange doesn't actually own all the coins.  The coins likely belonged to dozens or hundreds of different customers.

Try thousands or tens of thousands.

Cryptsy could have millions of IXC, I personally, at one point had 500,000 in Cryptsy, before I pulled them to a cold wallet.

Here's the problem with the exchange theory.

These wallets show a very consistent growth in iXcoins.

An exchange would see wild fluctuations as people sell, transfer and withdraw large amounts.  Like I pulled out 500,000 IXC in just 1 day and I did the same from vircurex when I moved to Cryptsy.

These wallets are not showing any downward fluctuations.  They show consistent and massive accumulation.

And no exchange has ever been that stable.  People don't trust exchanges that much.

The pool theory is more likely but that's still a stretch.

[mmm01]

You know what makes me really angry?

I've been wrecking myself doing fund raisers and pitching in iXcoins myself and all along some rich a-hole (or a hedge fund or bank) with millions of iXcoins has been sitting around just laughing at us.

It makes you also really wonder why someone with millions of IXC never bothered to update the client or the source code.

2 years it was left neglected.  It definitely wasn't a lack of money.

It's as if they purposely wanted to let IXC run that long without any interference of any sort.

Almost like someone wanted to test the root source code and prove its stability before doing any updates.

Maybe that's why our 2 week update took 5 months.

Thomas, you sumbitch, come clean, I'm sick of your games!!!

"Even if all of the individuals in a large group are rational and self-interested, and would gain if, as a group, they acted to achieve their common interest or objective, they will still not voluntarily act to achieve that common or group interest." -The Logic of Collective Action

"If the members of a group rationally seek to maximize their personal welfare, they will not act to advance their common or group objectives unless there is coercion to force them to do so, or unless some separate incentive, distinct from the achievement of the common or group interest, is offered to the members of the group individually on the condition that they help bear the costs or burdens involved in the achievement of the group objectives. Nor will such large groups form organizations to further their common goals in the absence of the coercion or the separate incentives just mentioned. These points hold true even when there is unanimous agreement in a group about the common good and the methods of achieving it."

The only logical answer would be the cost of updating the client or the source code (in terms of time and money spent without ensured return of investment) outweighed just holding the coins and hoping for the best. Getting all of these coins could have also just been a game to this person as it stands to reason that if they were/are already rich in the first place buying/mining coins that you can hold on to in case they grow in profit would only cost an initial amount of money (that one who is rich could afford to lose). In this way lack of genuine concern for the coin could be a possibility, especially if I imagine someone with exorbitant funds. They would probably invest in as many coins as possible (i.e. your diversify proposal), and so if one coin fails there are many others to hope to make profit off of.

[Vlad2Vlad]

The indifferent rich man theory makes sense.

It's a possibility.

[kraizi]

From the Counterparty wiki we have the following description of BTC trades.

"Trading BTC on the distributed exchange

Suppose Sally makes an order to trade [asset] in exchange for BTC, and Alice makes an order to trade BTC in exchange for [asset]. Upon placing order1, Sally's account is immediately debited, as usual, and, once Alice has placed order2, it is matched with order1. However, her BTC is not debited from her account, and the protocol will not send her Sally's XCP until Alice sends her BTC using Counterparty's btcpay function. If Alice sends the BTC using btcpay in fewer than 10 blocks, the protocol will send her the XCP and thereby complete the transaction, otherwise, the trade expires, and the protocol will re-credit Sally's address with [give_asset]. "

The only fundamental difference between a trade of two CP assets and a trade of an asset and BTC (or IXC in our case) is that BTC is not escrowed.  But BTC trades ARE allowed.  The key difference is that the person holding BTC must do their send transaction FIRST (using btcpay) before the CP asset is sent to them.  Sending BTC first bypasses the problem of BTC not being escrowed.  A BTC trade is probably slower than a purely asset to asset trade, because at least one confirmation of the BTC transaction may be required (not sure how many confirmations CP requires) BEFORE the CP asset is sent to complete the trade.  Requiring BTC to be sent first rather than simultaneously doesn't really matter.  The end result is the same.  A trade is completed.  We should be able to do the same with bets using BTC (or IXC in our case).  There may need to be some tweeks of CP code to allow bets in the native currency, but it may not be too involved since it's already done in the trade algorithm.

The other important thing to note here is that btcpay appears to allow us to implement the complete Counterparty feature set (send/receive, trades, bets) WITHOUT changing any native code (no change to the native blockchain transactions validations).  The only drawback is that any trades with the native coin (IXC) requires perhaps 1-6 extra block confirmations to complete each trade.  If we can live with that the only change would be in the CP code, and hopefully minimal at that.

[Vlad2Vlad]

Ok, Ive been drinking alot of rum but.... really. feel the love..

Don't drink and buy.  lol.

I'm surprised ixCoin popped up in volume charts given the buy was just the usual bot purchase [medusa13 pointed out].  That was pretty expensive though, up to 15,000 Satoshi.

This is impressive given most coins are making new all-time lows.  

This is the positive correlation [to Bitcoin] I was talking about last year.

[jamaer]

The other important thing to note here is that btcpay appears to allow us to implement the complete Counterparty feature set (send/receive, trades, bets)

Unfortunately not. You can not really have bets, and the orders involving IXC would be somewhat limited. This is the escrow problem, which stems from the Ixcoin (bitcoin) implementation: there are no balances only transactions. So in order to commit yourself to a bet with IXC as the currency (or commit to an IXC order) you need to send IXC to some adress. Where? How the money is transfered from there as the bet finalizes? In orders involving IXC one could go around the problem (as they do in CP with the "btcpay") by declearing that IXC orders are not escrowed and the matched IXC orders are only fulfilled after the other party pays IXCs (and if he doesn't pay within certain time window the order is cancelled). That really doesn't work for bets, and it is rather clumsy even for IXC orders.

Actually, that was essentially Friction's second last proposal (i.e., CP without a specific metacoin by just stripping off CP features that need the escrow for IXC). That implementation would be then nothing but ColoredCoins. Why not then implement the ColoredCoins directly?

[jamaer]

the competitive advantage of a well, fair and evenly distributed coin is rare, crucial and takes a long time to accomplish![/b][/i]

This is why I was (still am, but I doubt F is ready to implement it) proposing the CP implementation such that the metacoin (IXCP) is created with the "spin-off" mechanism. Every owner of IXC would get their share. Nobody could claim that's not fair. Other altcoins can not copy the mechanism as their coins are either immature (too young) or suffer from initial IPO (POS coins) in that respect. And if the "distribution block" would be announced well in advance, anyone wishing to get on board with CP-IXC would still have time to buy IXCs from an exchange. That would benefit IXCoiners with no interest in CP even before IXC-CP is launched!

There is an additional side effect of the proposal. The IXCPs would be distributed to real IXC addresses. That means that anyone holding their IXCs in a mining pool or in an exchange wallet at the time of the distribution would be effectively donating their IXCPs to the strorage owner. I guess lots of IXCPs from miners who don't care would end up to the mining pools. Another incentive for mining pools to keep mining after the block reward goes to zero (they want to secure their large amounts of IXCPs).

It occured me that the time when the block reward goes to zero is approaching pretty soon (what block is it? What's the estimated time?). That would be a nice time to launch the CP with my proposal (all IXCs in circulation!).



 

[Vlad2Vlad]

Jamaer,

The more I think about your idea the better It sounds.

And September is close at hand.

What I don't get though is what happens when you spend all your IXCPs?

Cause it doesn't sound like IXC and IXCP are tied together.

So I spend all my IXCP's and I still have all my IXC's or vice versa.  This could lead to IXCP taking over IXC or nobody caring about IXCP.  Shouldn't these be linked somehow so as you spend IXCP an equal amount of IXC is also spent?  This would also eliminate the dilution effect of adding IXCP.

[mmm01]

Vlad are we getting good news today?

[kraizi]

The other important thing to note here is that btcpay appears to allow us to implement the complete Counterparty feature set (send/receive, trades, bets)

Unfortunately not. You can not really have bets, and the orders involving IXC would be somewhat limited. This is the escrow problem, which stems from the Ixcoin (bitcoin) implementation: there are no balances only transactions. So in order to commit yourself to a bet with IXC as the currency (or commit to an IXC order) you need to send IXC to some adress. Where? How the money is transfered from there as the bet finalizes? In orders involving IXC one could go around the problem (as they do in CP with the "btcpay") by declearing that IXC orders are not escrowed and the matched IXC orders are only fulfilled after the other party pays IXCs (and if he doesn't pay within certain time window the order is cancelled). That really doesn't work for bets, and it is rather clumsy even for IXC orders.

Actually, that was essentially Friction's second last proposal (i.e., CP without a specific metacoin by just stripping off CP features that need the escrow for IXC). That implementation would be then nothing but ColoredCoins. Why not then implement the ColoredCoins directly?

Yes, I see the problem with bets if IXC is not escrowed since the looser doesn't have much incentive to pay up because they don't send any funds until they know they've lost.  With orders both sides generally want the order to go through at the time they submit, so it's more doable with IXC.  The issues would probably be with orders which aren't filled immediately.  Someone my move their IXC, but that only results in no order occurring, not someone loosing their funds.

So for bets we would need a betting proxy asset, because all assets come with escrow.

It may be true that a stripped down CP feature set could be done with ColoredCoins, but we also need to look at future growth.  Even if CP is only partially implemented, it still has more potential for feature growth than ColoredCoins, so why not stick with CP.