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Author Topic: Colored coins VS Mastercoins - Which one is better?  (Read 18860 times)
dillpicklechips (OP)
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October 17, 2013, 04:49:16 AM
 #1

(I don't fully understand them so I'm posting this)

Are they even similar? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each? 
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October 17, 2013, 09:28:20 AM
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(I don't fully understand them so I'm posting this)
Are they even similar? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each? 

Colored coins are highly limited functionally because they do not include the breadth of message encoding which Mastercoin uses.  However, some will say that Mastercoin is damaging to the blockchain as this same encoding leaves a sort of residue of unspendable outputs all scattered about.  My understanding is that Mastercoin is trying to improve that with a more elegant way of encoding messages into the blockchain without abandoning bits of bitcoin.
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October 17, 2013, 02:19:58 PM
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However, some will say that Mastercoin is damaging to the blockchain as this same encoding leaves a sort of residue of unspendable outputs all scattered about.

Can you explain why this is?

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October 17, 2013, 02:33:44 PM
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Mastercoin offers an array of different features which are not present in Bitcoin. If you do some research, you will see that Mastercoin improves on the Bitcoin protocol, and it is much better than the colored coin concept in many regards.
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October 17, 2013, 02:42:08 PM
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Neither Mastercoin nor colored coins support SPV security. You can't tell if you've received a payment unless you are running a full node and storing the entire index (extended with an additional index for the overlay coin). And storing/updating the additional index could be arbitrarily expensive, especially if you want to support many different colors.

Most mobile phone clients use SPV security. You probably can't have a comparably secure phone client for colored coins or Mastercoin.

It doesn't seem like colored coins adds too much to the index, since it has the same structure of existing txouts - you could just associate an optional tag in the same LevelDB you use for ordinary bitcoin outputs. Also any effort core-devs take to keep the index small (like discouraging dust) will also help keep the colored coin indexes small (although it may increase the cost of spending them). I have no idea what the complexity of running a Mastercoin index is, but I suspect it's much larger.

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October 17, 2013, 02:52:18 PM
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A detailed comparison between Mastercoin and colored coins is available at http://w3.reddit.com/r/coloredcoin/comments/1o6yke/colored_coins_or_mastercoin/ccpgy0x.

Colored coins are technically superior and based on a much stronger conceptual foundation. Mastercoin is more ambitious, aspiring to offer more features than colored coins. Colored coin proponents aim to develop a truly p2p platform, while Mastercoin is much more centralized and managed to raise funding with promises of getting rich quick.

Neither Mastercoin nor colored coins support SPV security. You can't tell if you've received a payment unless you are running a full node and storing the entire index (extended with an additional index for the overlay coin). And storing/updating the additional index could be arbitrarily expensive, especially if you want to support many different colors.

Most mobile phone clients use SPV security. You probably can't have a comparably secure phone client for colored coins or Mastercoin.
Not true. Colored coins transaction validity is local, and therefore verification requires just the relevant tx subgraph, which is small. This means SPV clients can definitely work.

Mastercoin, on the other hand, uses a message system for updating a global state, and thus does not support SPV.

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October 17, 2013, 03:05:31 PM
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Most mobile phone clients use SPV security. You probably can't have a comparably secure phone client for colored coins or Mastercoin.
Not true. Colored coins transaction validity is local, and therefore verification requires just the relevant tx subgraph, which is small. This means SPV clients can definitely work.

What bounds the size of the relevant tx subgraph?

I think I was wrong and you do not need to keep the entire UTXO index to validate colored coins. But you would need to keep a similar index for every utxo that bears a color you're interested in. I think this is what you mean by transaction subgraph.

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October 17, 2013, 03:10:16 PM
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managed to raise funding with promises of getting rich quick.
Total nonsense.  It sounds like you are bitter that colored coins has no viable funding model.  JR never wrote a word about 'get rich quick'.  Don't try to associate scammy fund raising with Mastercoin just because your pet project is dead on arrival.

Colored coins are technically superior and based on a much stronger conceptual foundation.
More nonsense.  Mastercoin has some less than perfect tricks - they are trying to find ways to clean those up.  Colored coins are in fact technically inferior because they will never be able to support most of the functionality being build into Mastercoin protocol.  You are unbelievable Meni.  

Are you going to continue to beat down Mastercoin merely because you missed the deadline to participate?  What a stupid reason to argue colored coins is 'superior'.  Colored coins is dead.  That project is finished and nobody is working on it.  If somebody does decide to waste some hours on it, they do not get paid nor benefit in any other fashion.  It is merely a fun place to burn up a few hours while you are supposed to be doing real work.  It uses the same non-profit model as all the other loser projects which are assured to make little or no progress.  Colored coins is and always will be a mere hobby for people who love to waste time.  Mastercoin, if they crack a few more technical hurdles will be a very worthy and profitable project.  Don't worry, it is not too late.  You can buy Mastercoin here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287145.320  Actually a very good deal at .03 BTC / MSC.  Note the last buyer was the project leader JR!  Even JR is paying 3X the original price.  

Mastercoin made fantastic progress in the last month.  Colored Coin - got a pretty video with a stupid mascot.  
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October 17, 2013, 03:46:35 PM
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managed to raise funding with promises of getting rich quick.
Total nonsense.  It sounds like you are bitter that colored coins has no viable funding model.
Open-source, decentralized platforms generally lack a good funding model. They rely on the vision and hard work of their proponents to move forward. It's easier to raise funds for centralized services, but those are just that - centralized services which should not be relied on at scale, just like the legacy financial system.

So yes, it's unfortunate that a choice has to be made whether to do something good or to do something fast. But it's clear to me what the choice should be. We have a saying about driving recklessly - if you end up in a hospital, it doesn't matter how fast you get there.

JR never wrote a word about 'get rich quick'.
You're right, he didn't say "quick". He certainly did try to convince people they'd get rich though. And he did design Mastercoin so that issuing is done over a month, as opposed to Bitcoin which is issued over many years.

just because your pet project is dead on arrival.
Colored coins are alive and well, thank you for the concern.

Colored coins are technically superior and based on a much stronger conceptual foundation.
More nonsense.  Mastercoin has some less than perfect tricks - they are trying to find ways to clean those up.  Colored coins are in fact technically inferior because they will never be able to support most of the functionality being build into Mastercoin protocol.  You are unbelievable Meni.
That's not being technically inferior, that's being less feature-rich.

Are you going to continue to beat down Mastercoin merely because you missed the deadline to participate?
Funny. See this transaction? That's the second ever investment in Mastercoin (it was beat by 3 seconds to being the first). And it was sent by - you guessed it - none other than myself. I still keep those mastercoins. I made additional investments in Mastercoin, which I've since sold for a profit.

Colored coins is dead.  That project is finished and nobody is working on it.
No. It's just not being hyped as heavily as Mastercoin.

If somebody does decide to waste some hours on it, they do not get paid nor benefit in any other fashion.  It is merely a fun place to burn up a few hours while you are supposed to be doing real work.  It uses the same non-profit model as all the other loser projects which are assured to make little or no progress.  Colored coins is and always will be a mere hobby for people who love to waste time.
Real work = doing something meaningful. True, sometimes such efforts don't come with an immediate reward, but that is a price true visionaries are often willing to pay. Working on CC is much more beneficial to society than supporting Mastercoin.

Mastercoin, if they crack a few more technical hurdles will be a very worthy and profitable project.
Good luck.

 Don't worry, it is not too late.  You can buy Mastercoin here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287145.320  Actually a very good deal at .03 BTC / MSC.  Note the last buyer was the project leader JR!  Even JR is paying 3X the original price.
I've just finished selling most of my MSC, why would I want to buy them now Huh

Mastercoin made fantastic progress in the last month.  Colored Coin - got a pretty video with a stupid mascot.  
Colored coins has made steady progress for many months, and will hopefully continue to do so long after Mastercoin's 15 seconds of fame are forgotten.


All in all, it saddens me that members of the Bitcoin community, who should appreciate decentralization over proprietary services, are so supportive of Mastercoin.

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October 17, 2013, 03:48:37 PM
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Most mobile phone clients use SPV security. You probably can't have a comparably secure phone client for colored coins or Mastercoin.
Not true. Colored coins transaction validity is local, and therefore verification requires just the relevant tx subgraph, which is small. This means SPV clients can definitely work.
What bounds the size of the relevant tx subgraph?

I think I was wrong and you do not need to keep the entire UTXO index to validate colored coins. But you would need to keep a similar index for every utxo that bears a color you're interested in. I think this is what you mean by transaction subgraph.
I don't know of an easy way to bound it, but as an SPV client you don't need to be aware of all transactions of your desired color. Only those that your output traces back to.

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October 17, 2013, 03:49:15 PM
 #11

Mastercoin offers an array of different features which are not present in Bitcoin. If you do some research, you will see that Mastercoin improves on the Bitcoin protocol, and it is much better than the colored coin concept in many regards.

But some of the Mastercoin features are stupid. For example, transient data like the bid/ask orders do not require consensus.

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October 17, 2013, 03:53:42 PM
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Neither Mastercoin nor colored coins support SPV security. You can't tell if you've received a payment unless you are running a full node and storing the entire index (extended with an additional index for the overlay coin). And storing/updating the additional index could be arbitrarily expensive, especially if you want to support many different colors.


This is not entirely correct. All you need is to link the colored coin all the way back to the genesis of the color, and the link could be obtained by SPV. E.g. someone sends you a color coin. You look for its parent, grandparent, ......, until you find the genesis.

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October 17, 2013, 04:09:47 PM
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managed to raise funding with promises of getting rich quick.
Total nonsense.  It sounds like you are bitter that colored coins has no viable funding model.
Open-source, decentralized platforms generally lack a good funding model. They rely on the vision and hard work of their proponents to move forward. It's easier to raise funds for centralized services, but those are just that - centralized services which should not be relied on at scale, just like the legacy financial system.

Unbelievable!  'vision and hard work of their proponents to move forward'  This is why your project is going nowhere.  There is another word for 'free' - it's 'worthless'.  If your people don't get paid - it's a hobby.  There is no motivation to get it moving.  So it will sit there forever with almost no progress - which is precisely what colored coins is doing.  Colored coins is MUCH older than Mastercoin, yet Mastercoin is MILES ahead in just ONE month.  Your Colored coins is DOA.

'Open source' - of which Mastercoin is - doesn't necessitate poor funding models.  "It's easier to raise funds for centralized services" - this is more crap from you.  You are a crap nozzle.  Being 'distributed' doesn't mean you can't raise funds.  Mastercoin is distributed - it lives on top of the bitcoin blockchain.  Your notion that you can't raise money because your colored coins is more 'distributed' than Mastercoin is rubbish.  Bitcoin itself has a very clever excellent funding scheme - and of course it too is distributed.  Bitcoin motivated thousands to set up mining nodes - by giving out coin.  

Quit blaming your lack of funding on the 'open source', 'distributed' nature of colored coin - that is crap.  Also, quit saying Mastercoin is 'ponzi'-ish 'get rich quick' scheme.  This is just you being jealous that you didn't get involved early.  

Colored coins is dead.  Done.  Finished.  Finito.  JR - did what colored coins should have been doing and he did it better and with imagination.  

All in all, it saddens me that members of the Bitcoin community, who should appreciate decentralization over proprietary services, are so supportive of Mastercoin.
...a real community philanthropist!  Hahahaha.  'Doing it for the good of mankind'!  Three cheers for you Meni.  Now I am 100% sure colored coins is fully doomed - you are doing it for the good society.  Have fun with that.
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October 17, 2013, 04:24:40 PM
Last edit: October 17, 2013, 07:08:11 PM by Meni Rosenfeld
 #14

Unbelievable!
Finally something we can agree on. Unbelievable!

'vision and hard work of their proponents to move forward'  This is why your project is going nowhere.  There is another word for 'free' - it's 'worthless'.
No, it is well known that in the information age, there is a wide gap between something having value and being able to monetize it.

If your people don't get paid - it's a hobby.  There is no motivation to get it moving.
Fortunately, for some people the personal motivation structure is a bit more complicated than being just about getting monetary rewards.

There's this well-known informational illustrated video made about a study showing that for tasks requiring higher cognitive functions, increasing the monetary reward degrades performance, but I forgot where to find it... Help anyone?

EDIT: Here it is - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

'Open source' - of which Mastercoin is - doesn't necessitate poor funding models.  "It's easier to raise funds for centralized services" - this is more crap from you.  You are a crap nozzle.  Being 'distributed' doesn't mean you can't raise funds.  Mastercoin is distributed - it lives on top of the bitcoin blockchain.  Your notion that you can't raise money because your colored coins is more 'distributed' than Mastercoin is rubbish.  Bitcoin itself has a very clever excellent funding scheme - and of course it too is distributed.  Bitcoin motivated thousands to set up mining nodes - by giving out coin.
Yes, Bitcoin gave out coin to incentivize its development... Over an effective time of 12 years. Do you think we'd all be here if Bitcoin issued all coins over 1 month, like Mastercoin did? No, issuing over 1 month means it's centralized, and we're not interested in a centralized currency.

...a real community philanthropist!  Hahahaha.  'Doing it for the good of mankind'!  Three cheers for you Meni.  Now I am 100% sure colored coins is fully doomed - you are doing it for the good society.  Have fun with that.
I didn't claim to do anything for the good of mankind. And yes, if it was just me doing colored coins, it would be doomed. Fortunately, it's not.

Also, quit saying Mastercoin is 'ponzi'-ish 'get rich quick' scheme.  This is just you being jealous that you didn't get involved early.
Ok, now I know you're not reading my comments. Happy trolling.

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October 17, 2013, 04:54:24 PM
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I don't know of an easy way to bound it, but as an SPV client you don't need to be aware of all transactions of your desired color. Only those that your output traces back to.
This is not entirely correct. All you need is to link the colored coin all the way back to the genesis of the color, and the link could be obtained by SPV. E.g. someone sends you a color coin. You look for its parent, grandparent, ......, until you find the genesis.

So.... the time to check this way grows unboundedly with the number of transactions since the colored coin was created? I agree it still might not be too bad in practice. At some point keeping an index of all available colored coins may be cheaper.

It does leverage the existing transaction validation in a clever way, so it's definitely much closer to SPV security than I originally thought. Thanks for all the clarification!

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October 17, 2013, 05:03:02 PM
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Ok, now I know you're not reading my comments. Happy trolling.
Your comments are garbage - aint nobody got time to read that garbage; we've got code to write.  Of course, if your project isn't going anywhere you can write all day about being #2 investor at Mastercoin. 

Just think, if you are correct and Mastercoin fails, you will likely be the most profitable investor having sold his position for about 2.5X.  Pretty good for a project you don't like and don't believe in.
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October 17, 2013, 05:26:28 PM
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So.... the time to check this way grows unboundedly with the number of transactions since the colored coin was created?

If this becomes a real problem, it may be solved with "re-genesis": sending an old colored coin back to the issuer for a new one.

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October 17, 2013, 05:29:06 PM
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So.... the time to check this way grows unboundedly with the number of transactions since the colored coin was created?
If this becomes a real problem, it may be solved with "re-genesis": sending an old colored coin back to the issuer for a new one.
I think that by the time this is a problem, Bitcoin or an alt would be modified to natively support tag-based coloring, and then verifying a CC transaction will be as easy as verifying a Bitcoin transaction.

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October 17, 2013, 05:33:54 PM
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So.... the time to check this way grows unboundedly with the number of transactions since the colored coin was created?
If this becomes a real problem, it may be solved with "re-genesis": sending an old colored coin back to the issuer for a new one.
I think that by the time this is a problem, Bitcoin or an alt would be modified to natively support tag-based coloring, and then verifying a CC transaction will be as easy as verifying a Bitcoin transaction.

Well, I have a fully workable solution: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=253385.0 , but "there is no way in hell you are going to get a colored-coin-specific opcode included in Bitcoin"

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October 17, 2013, 05:41:17 PM
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So.... the time to check this way grows unboundedly with the number of transactions since the colored coin was created?
If this becomes a real problem, it may be solved with "re-genesis": sending an old colored coin back to the issuer for a new one.
I think that by the time this is a problem, Bitcoin or an alt would be modified to natively support tag-based coloring, and then verifying a CC transaction will be as easy as verifying a Bitcoin transaction.
Well, I have a fully workable solution: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=253385.0 , but "there is no way in hell you are going to get a colored-coin-specific opcode included in Bitcoin"
Peter is known as a vehement proponent of blockchain frugality, I wouldn't count his comment as authoritative.

Currency is a special case of arbitrary assets. If there's no support to turn Bitcoin into a platform for decentralized digital arbitrary assets, we'll just have to create a new one based on the same principles.

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