I'm getting lots of PMs from people who missed the deadline to buy MasterCoins from the Exodus Address (MasterCoin is not an alt-chain - it is a new protocol layer being built on top of bitcoin - read about it here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.0). If you missed the deadline, or you are an early adopter looking to sell, this is the place for you!
MasterCoin/Bitcoin exchange will happen on a distributed exchange (hopefully soon), but in the meantime, I'd like to provide a meeting place for buyers and sellers, and a bit of guidance about how to go about buying and selling MasterCoins.
Some sellers are trying to get 100x-200x returns overnight, which might be a bit premature, but whatever MasterCoins are worth over the next few days, we will find out on this thread.
To buy OR sell MasterCoins, you need this software in order to make sure the transaction sending MasterCoins is properly formatted:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg2919863#msg2919863 New: You can also try this website, which has the same functionality:
http://mastercoin-explorer.com (note the disclaimers on this site - it has limitations, and may still have some bugs)
If you are curious what the software is doing, you can read a complete breakdown of a send transaction here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=265488.msg2940318#msg2940318Also, buyers will need to do some due diligence to make sure the seller actually has the MasterCoins they claim to have. Just seeing a correctly formatted transaction doesn't mean anything if the seller doesn't actually have MasterCoins to sell! If the seller got the MasterCoins via the Exodus Address, this is a bit easier, since you can check to make sure the address actually owns MasterCoins here:
http://blockchain.info/address/1EXoDusjGwvnjZUyKkxZ4UHEf77z6A5S4P?offset=0&filter=0Note that if a MasterCoin purchase has multiple input addresses, ONLY the largest input actually owns the MasterCoins!
If a seller received their MasterCoins on the giveaway thread, or purchased them from an early adopter, the due diligence gets harder. You have to check the validity of the transaction that sent them MasterCoins AND check that the address which sent them actually owned MasterCoins. Once MasterCoins have been sent a few times, this will be a very burdensome, manual process.
Also, you must check to make sure the owner hasn't already sent their coins to someone else. This is also manual.
Update: MasterCoin-Explorer.com now traces the history of MasterCoins which have been bought and then sent through the block-chain! However, this code has not been widely tested, so you should still double-check everything the best you can.
Yes, this will become considerably easier in the future, especially once we have the distributed exchange running. At that point, I expect MasterCoins will be considerably more expensive. If you're willing to do some learning now, you might still get a good deal.
Obviously there is no escrow currently for MasterCoins, so if escrow is used (I'd recommend it), the bitcoins will have to be the ones held in escrow.
User MaxMint set up an order book to keep track of the current bids and asks:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApGPLGUd5ZCzdHFxbnhHQjBDSDVKamY5UHlWdkNMNWc#gid=0Happy trading!
