Who Is Mastercoin?

[bluemeanie1]

 So Im in the process of researching the Mastercoin project.

 Seems there is only one person mentioned on the entire Mastercoin.org website and that is J.R. Willet(the presumed author of the Mastercoin paper).

 Mastercoin.org is registered to Ron Gross at an Israeli address.

  Registrant Name:Ron Gross
  Registrant Street1:16 Shoshanim
  Registrant Street2:
  Registrant Street3:
  Registrant City:Kiryat BIalik
  Registrant State/Province:Israel
  Registrant Postal Code:27071
  Registrant Country:IL
  Registrant Phone:+972.526558841
  Registrant Phone Ext.:
  Registrant FAX:+1.5555555555

 Thus we have to assume they have no known corporate status.  I'd like to verify some of the claims regarding the investment money they are reported to have received?  Does anyone know how to do this- I imagine it can be confirmed from the Block Chain and some kind of Mastercoin specific data?

[djohnston]

Bluemeanie1,

I saw your question on Bitcointalk / Twitter and thought I'd offer some info on the topic.

If you want to check out the main development thread here is the link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=292628.0

All the developers on the thread are involved in the Mastercoin project, many participating in the Coding Competitions and Bounties. The current work is focused on improving the protocol and implementing features as open sourced clients everyone can use. The big push right now is implementing the fully decentralized exchange for BTC / MSC and other digital tokens.

Here is the link to the community website: http://www.mastercoin.org/ as you noted, the domain was originally registered by Ron Gross (Ripper234). Though the site was built by myself and Mich (the designer who made many of the Mastercoin logos you have seen).

Separate from the open source protocol and user software clients is the Mastercoin Foundation Inc. (a non-profit incorporated in Delaware), which was founded by early members of the Mastercoin community to serve similar functions for the Mastercoin community that the Bitcoin Foundation serves for the Bitcoin Community. Including the distribution of the development funds collected from the Exodus Address, until such time as the Proof of Stake system is implemented for developing consensus on feature development, client versioning, and so forth. Pretty much everything is open record from the spending of the Exodus funds and so forth.

You can check out the Mastercoin blog for tons of more details. http://blog.mastercoin.org/

As for a list of Foundation members, I think Ron published a list of BitcoinTalk names for the seven members. I'm one of them, Ron is one, J.R. is one, Sam Yilmaz is one, Brock is one, Jonathan is one, and Anthony is one. All early adopters of Mastercoin and volunteering help develop the community based on their particular skills. Micheal Terpin joined recently as the PR guy for the Foundation, Ron recently volunteered as the Executive Director, we are will for the Smart Property Lead right now (list of candidates growing), a legal Director, IT Director, and Communication Director.

As its an open source project I don't think there is a definitive list of all the participants, but things seems to be growing fairly quickly.     

Thanks for checking out Mastercoin. I hope you dig in and want to help us develop these new distributed features of the bitcoin eco-system, including the Distributed Exchange and so forth.

David A. Johnston

 

[bluemeanie1]

Why would I want to purchase Mastercoins?

[bluemeanie1]

I took a look at some of the repos, there isn't much there.  One of them is some VB files that could be generated automatically.  Seems like a lot of HTML and padding to make it look like coding is going on.

No where do I see any evidence or specification for why this thing is supposed to be so cutting edge.  Instead I see constant reference to 'Asset Indexes', but no where is it clear how that's done.  Seems to be conforming to the general color coins protocol?  We have discussed at length as to why embedding these sorts of microtransactions are problematic and I see NO reference to those issues anywhere.  Did you solve them?  Where?

Im not really sure why this is so exciting?  Seems that whatever this project is it wants to talk about 'decentralized exchanges' and 'asset indexes' which have been discussed for some time on these lists.  There are a number of projects with this angle, mine is one of them.

Any time I try and make some sense of the various writings strewn around the web about Mastercoin, I'm directed to purchase Mastercoins.  Sounds a lot like Ripple to me.  Why exactly do I need to purchase these Mastercoins?

There seems to be a lot of interest in things like 'smart property' and distributed exchanges.  I have yet to see the proposal for your distributed exchange, however I have shown exactly how to do it with Confidence Chains.  Also there was supposedly a $50,000 bounty for a 'distributed exchange'?  someone developed a working idea, submitted it, approved, all in a matter of a week or so?  Why does Mastercoin advertise a Decentralized Exchange, yet it posted a bounty for a solution to this problem?  Everything about this project sounds dubious.

[markm]

They don't want just any decentralised exchange, they want one that has to purchase and use Mastercoins in order to function.

So yours, for example, would almost certainly not be a candidate for the bounty.

-MarkM-

[bluemeanie1]

They don't want just any decentralised exchange, they want one that has to purchase and use Mastercoins in order to function.

So yours. for example, would almost certainly not be a candidate for the bounty.

-MarkM-

good point Mark, but fact is I didn't apply for the bounty.

Mastercoin is almost EXACTLY like Ripple.  Same exact business model.  It didn't appear to work last time, why is it going to work this time?

Confidence Chains requires NO transaction fees and you don't have to buy a ticket to take a ride.  You only have to find enough nodes to build confidence.  The idea is relatively simple.  I don't expect the code to be very complex.  I've already described exactly how that eg. a Decentralized Exchange can be done.  But apparently, there is no clear way to invest in this idea, thus it doesn't get headlines.    ASMOF my friends keep nagging me- how are you going to make money off this?  and the fact is I don't have a clear answer, I just know it's going to be super useful.  Also: you can run a fee based Confidence Chain, but it'll be so easy to do most won't even bother.  I think mostly people will concentrate on innovating new kinds of financial instruments and try to profit off of the production of those instruments.

What I find disconcerting about Mastercoin is that it appears to be Color Coins with a new box, why aren't the original Color Coin people involved?  At least one of them appears to be a bit sore about the whole thing.  Not exactly a champion move.

[markm]

So are confidence chains ready to run yet? Got a github or something where folk can download source code?

-MarkM-

[bluemeanie1]

So are confidence chains ready to run yet? Got a github or something where folk can download source code?

-MarkM-

not yet, sorry.  I will send out an announcement when it's mature.

send me an email, i'll keep you in the loop.

thanks!