MasterCoin: New Protocol Layer Starting From “The Exodus Address”

[dacoinminster]

I posted a new bounty suggestion / feature request - let's have the greasemonkey script.

Is there a better place to post feature requests? (Well we can post them here / the google group, but we should really have some organized issue tracker. How about a github repo?)

For convenience reading, here is the feature request:

It would be nice if the MasterCoin Greasemonkey script would parse mastercoins transactions on top of blockchain.info. E.g. these are transfers of 2 MSC and Test MSC to my address:

http://blockchain.info/tx/dc5c346e1b7ee7de135a34eab255afc48e2d9092553f32c1a80030e0438b61ec
http://blockchain.info/tx/bfadadcbf9e67eda7359d628645473ce7753d4048964d94340e4acfbbf15de5c

Is there a way to get the GreaseMonkey script to work on the individual tx pages and not only on the Exodus addy page? For example, if I visit my TX log:

http://blockchain.info/tx/407e0a6ae2986693c8e5d35b2e47f973af35239fc53e8561137ee5f320195682

I don't see Mastercoins purchased, but if I visit the overall Exodus address page I do....

Just a quibble I guess, not that I don't love seeing everyone else's transactions!

Theoretically, MasterCoin parsing could be implemented entirely using greasemonkey. However, this would be extremely non-scalable. I've been trying to focus development efforts on scalable python/C++ code, but there is certainly room to do some Greasemonkey bounties if you guys would like to see that script become more capable.

[jadair10]

Wagner2014,

Just the act of sending coins to the address is all that is needed to purchase mastercoins. Coins received at that address and at what date and time before aug 1st is how your mastercoin total is calculated. The greasemonkey script is just to calculate the amount of mastercoins purchased(seems to be a little bug in it now).

The unconfirmed transaction from the address ending with "enarfs" where there was another confirmed transaction earlier from the same address seemed to cause the greasemonkey script a little hiccup.

[dacoinminster]

Have you guys noticed that we've been getting a lot more investors lately? I'm pretty sure that is because of this coindesk article: http://www.coindesk.com/mastercoin-to-create-new-altcoins-in-bitcoins-block-chain/

The article does a really great job of presenting what the project is all about, and we seem to be getting a lot of new investors from it.

[dacoinminster]

Wagner2014,

Just the act of sending coins to the address is all that is needed to purchase mastercoins. Coins received at that address and at what date and time before aug 1st is how your mastercoin total is calculated. The greasemonkey script is just to calculate the amount of mastercoins purchased(seems to be a little bug in it now).

The unconfirmed transaction from the address ending with "enarfs" where there was another confirmed transaction earlier from the same address seemed to cause the greasemonkey script a little hiccup.

I'm not seeing a hiccup - can someone post a screenshot?

[ripper234]

Ron, I think you have earned considerable additional credit for receiving MasterCoins on the giveaway thread

The slides I looked at really threw me for a loop when some of the pictures had English words right-to-left instead of left-to-right - it took me a minute to figure out, but I assume this made sense to people who are used to reading Hebrew.

Thanks!

The slides are supposed to make sense in English as well ... which slides looked weird to you?
If you saw it on slideshare, I think I know what you mean - the translation from powerpoint to slideshare wasn't that smooth - please check the original powerpoint version (here is the link again).

[dacoinminster]

I got this email this morning:

Dear Mr. Willett,

I know you are busy so I will keep my question short. I am very
interested in Master Coin from the basics I have read about (I have
today downloaded the protocol specification to read through it in
detail), and plan on contributing to your cause before 1 September 2013.

I would like to attend a conference in where you and your colleagues are
likely to be speaking about MasterCoin in the future. Due to limits of
my funding and budget (and I live overseas from the U.S.), I have to
choose my conferences wisely. I was for a moment thinking of attending
the crypto currency conference coming up in early October 2013 in
Atlanta, but I'm not so sure I would learn much about MasterCoin. Do you
have any suggestions on what conferences I might be able to attend in
the near future (remainder of this year or next)?

Thank you!

I haven't made plans to attend more conferences yet, but I think a good use of project funds might be to pay travel expenses to a couple conferences. I think most of you would agree? I'd be able to raise the profile of MasterCoin in the bitcoin community, which should positively impact the price of MasterCoins.

However, my wife doesn't much appreciate it when I run off and leave her with the children, so I'd probably only go to ones where I could bring my family with me, which would raise the cost and lower the number of conferences I could attend. We'll see if the oversight board even wants to pay for all that out of project funds. If they don't, or if there is more than a couple conferences a year which need MasterCoin representation, we'd probably need to designate someone else to go.

I know my family is a drag on this project - sorry guys :-/

[dacoinminster]

Ron, I think you have earned considerable additional credit for receiving MasterCoins on the giveaway thread

The slides I looked at really threw me for a loop when some of the pictures had English words right-to-left instead of left-to-right - it took me a minute to figure out, but I assume this made sense to people who are used to reading Hebrew.

Thanks!

The slides are supposed to make sense in English as well ... which slides looked weird to you?
If you saw it on slideshare, I think I know what you mean - the translation from powerpoint to slideshare wasn't that smooth - please check the original powerpoint version (here is the link again).

Yeah, that looks fine. I was viewing the powerpoint presentation on an Android phone when I first saw it, and some of the images had text that read right-to-left, but I don't see that on my PC. It might have been a weird artifact of whatever Android app was interpreting the presentation.

[Tachikoma]

Would it make sense to get an exodus address for (bitcoin) testnet?

Good point- why not?

"Test MasterCoins" were created for this purpose - everybody gets the same number of MasterCoins and Test MasterCoins, and both run on top of the main bitcoin block chain. This simplifies development somewhat.

The problem is that developing clients is much easier on testnet without risking your real life bitcoins. As I understand it I need to send real bitcoins around in order to create MasterCoin transactions; plus I need to use real public/private keypairs in my codebases. I rather use testnet for these purposes as exposure of keys or wrong transactions are not hurtful.

tl;dr I rather send testnet bitcoins to oblivion then normal bitcoins. 

[dacoinminster]

The problem is that developing clients is much easier on testnet without risking your real life bitcoins. As I understand it I need to send real bitcoins around in order to create MasterCoin transactions; plus I need to use real public/private keypairs in my codebases. I rather use testnet for these purposes as exposure of keys or wrong transactions are not hurtful.

tl;dr I rather send testnet bitcoins to oblivion then normal bitcoins. 

Hmmm. I'm not sure how your private keys would be exposed. How could that happen? Are you thinking of developing web services which you are worried might get hacked?

I figured people wouldn't care about blowing up half a cent per transaction, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm not opposed to TestNet MasterCoins, although I am trying hard to restrain the scope of this project - maybe this would be another good thing to create a bounty for if lots of people want it.

[dacoinminster]

Somebody just sent 44.72135955 BTC to the Exodus Address!

That puts us over 1000BTC of investment from outside investors. Sweet . . .

I think maybe they were trying to purchase an even number of MasterCoins (script says: 4810.07060139 MasterCoins purchased).

If they actually managed to purchase an even number of MasterCoins, that would be pretty impressive, given that the bonus is calculated at 1-second granularity

[Tachikoma]

I figured people wouldn't care about blowing up half a cent per transaction, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm not opposed to TestNet MasterCoins, although I am trying hard to restrain the scope of this project - maybe this would be another good thing to create a bounty for if lots of people want it.

Currently I'm messing around (with ruby) to see if I can get a simple wallet software going on top of bitcoin-ruby. I'm pretty sure I will fudge up a few transactions while developing so I just figured I would make the risk as small as possible. My master coins currently reside on a Electrum address which I rather not import in development software for the obvious reasons. Although I can solve this by 'buying' some more on a development specific address so I guess I will opt in for that option.

[dacoinminster]

I figured people wouldn't care about blowing up half a cent per transaction, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm not opposed to TestNet MasterCoins, although I am trying hard to restrain the scope of this project - maybe this would be another good thing to create a bounty for if lots of people want it.

Currently I'm messing around (with ruby) to see if I can get a simple wallet software going on top of bitcoin-ruby. I'm pretty sure I will fudge up a few transactions while developing so I just figured I would make the risk as small as possible. My master coins currently reside on a Electrum address which I rather not import in development software for the obvious reasons. Although I can solve this by 'buying' some more on a development specific address so I guess I will opt in for that option.

You can also send the ones you already bought to a new address, using the same code I am using to do the giveaway thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg2919863#msg2919863

That post links to the python source code as well as a compiled executable

[dacoinminster]

In the interest of total transparency, I just sent 4.5 BTC to the Exodus Address on behalf of a friend. He gave me cash to buy him some bitcoins a few weeks ago, which I have been holding for him, and when I told him about my project, he wanted to invest his bitcoins.

They don't belong to me, but I technically have control over them since I am holding them on my friend's behalf. Probably nobody cares, but I figured I should mention it.

My dad also said he was going to write me a check, so I'll do the same thing for him if he does.

Obviously, I warned both of them to only invest what they could afford to lose

As mentioned in the quote above, I'm also investing on behalf of my dad. This MasterCoin purchase for 4.418 BTC was made by me today on behalf of my dad: http://blockchain.info/tx/20e5b8b7b408a433fff1f39fbd4ae4b10de1cdf8b6dd9f31453e0fa14cac3f78

Again, probably nobody cares, but I just want to be transparent!

Also, thanks to whomever just sent in 50BTC! Are we perhaps picking up some steam in this last week of the fundraiser?

[Tachikoma]

You can also send the ones you already bought to a new address, using the same code I am using to do the giveaway thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg2919863#msg2919863

That post links to the python source code as well as a compiled executable

Yeah; I looked at it and it's pretty straightforward. I just wanted to try to make a 'real' wallet-client; one that can do the actual sending as well; and give you a balance etc.

[dacoinminster]

You can also send the ones you already bought to a new address, using the same code I am using to do the giveaway thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg2919863#msg2919863

That post links to the python source code as well as a compiled executable

Yeah; I looked at it and it's pretty straightforward. I just wanted to try to make a 'real' wallet-client; one that can do the actual sending as well; and give you a balance etc.

Watch out: if you do that, you may find yourself the recipient of some money from our project funds

Unrelated note: Anybody watching the Exodus Address probably saw a whole bunch of tiny transactions a few minutes ago; those were MasterCoin (and Test MasterCoin) sends as part of the giveaway thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=272577.msg3014323#msg3014323

[ripper234]

FYI, we just got a post in a Hebrew tech news site called Telecom News, following my presentation last night.

Besides my creepy smile, the post does a good job of explaining MasterCoin to a non tech-savvy audience.

Googled Translated version here, appearantly when you translate MasterCoin to the Hebrew מאסטרקוין (literal translation), and then back to English via Google, you get the German-sounding "Hmastrkwein"

[freedomno1]

Well I still am learning how the Mastercoin system works but I'll contribute to passing around the idea.

I borrowed bybitcoins post and added a few more things since it made a nice template and posted it in a topic in the forums and on the asicminer forums.
1EByjy9e4FeGZuTV4Rx5hbf4PnFt7jGh8M
Best of Luck with your proof of concept and design

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279860.msg2996791#msg2996791
https://asicminer.info/forum/index.php?page=Thread&postID=258#post258

Nobody noticed the first one, and it looks like the second one got deleted. Oh well; you tried.

1.0 Test MasterCoins: http://blockchain.info/tx/75a33ab549f1980b2a10bd8b5641e01094dcfeaf5a116a82bdd48a4bb3c5c02d
1.0 MasterCoins: http://blockchain.info/tx/cdfd4bbf985eefd5139cc23ce367b6a7a7fef0b2d3f1f72baf86ef3b37b61398

Thanks for the Mastercoins I will have to try harder

I received the Mastercoins via my QT wallet if I send my remaining balance to the exodus address how would I differentiate them from the bitcoins I received from other sources.

As an implementation question I can differentiate the two Mastercoin transactions above.
However how would it work if I transferred the balance in my wallet to exodus.
(Would they be recalculated as part of a mastercoin or are they identified as mastercoins already)

When reading the paper I noted this part that said

"all transfers of value are still stored in the normal bitcoin block chain, but higher layers of the protocol assign additional meaning to some transactions."

If that higher layer of protocol design is assigned to the current test coin and mastercoin I possess how do I determine it's existence

Sorry if this question is a bit confusing still on the learning curve.
Off to catch up on 28 pages

[ripper234]

BTW:

1.
Can we start a Weekly MasterCoin update threads?
SunnyKing does this with PPCoin and PrimeCoin, and I think it's terrific. It's one concentrated thread where only you can post, that provides clear updates about "the state of the coin".

2.

Is there a better place to post feature requests? (Well we can post them here / the google group, but we should really have some organized issue tracker. How about a github repo?)

...

Theoretically, MasterCoin parsing could be implemented entirely using greasemonkey. However, this would be extremely non-scalable. I've been trying to focus development efforts on scalable python/C++ code, but there is certainly room to do some Greasemonkey bounties if you guys would like to see that script become more capable.

What about my suggestion to open some centralized place to coordinate feature requests?
It can be Trello, Github, or whatever ... but it should be something.
Is this the official mastercoin github organization?
Could I be added as admin?
Can we open a repository on it (let's call it "Project" or something), and just use it to collect issues and feature requests?

Or, alternatively ... whatever other suggestion you'd prefer (as project lead, the system should be whatever system you're comfortable with the most)

[ripper234]

Can you add reddit.com/r/mastercoin to the OP?
It's an important link for the redditors among us.

(P.S. we really need a website ... let's start discussing an appropriate bounty?)

[Infinum]

This project seems like a hybrid of hedge-funds and central banking build on top of Bitcoin protocol.

The idea about building layers on top of BTC is sound but MasterCoin's escrow proposal is flawed. Currencies/Assets that are hedged with escrows never go down gracefully, they always implode violently and no price fixing/parameter tuning can change that - it is just how it works in practice. Many Gold ETFs will fail in the next 2 years for precisely this reason.

MasterCoin as it stands now could be called a benevolent scam - you will try to build it because you believe in it but it will fail as it can not work in the long run by design

Packet timing attacks and escrows bankruptcies will be the two main reasons for its downfall.