Why is 1 MSC already price at 0.17 BTC, which is way above all other altcoins?
supply and demand, speculation.
You can't even trade mastercoins on any exchange yet. I realize that MSC has a lot of advanced features, so are investors expecting it will actually become worth more than a bitcoin?
i would say investors are
speculating that mastercoins will be worth more than a bitcoin.
Could someone comment on what would be a realistic upper limit for how much a mastercoin could eventually be worth relative to a bitcoin, and why?
mastercoin is attempting to corner the market on commodities, currencies, assets, gambling, trading, and smart property. assume 1% of the value of these markets (conservatively $90 trillion) is soaked up by bitcoin when there are 15 million bitcoins on the market. this gives one bitcoin a value of $6 million. also assume the value of these markets can be manipulated using
only the mastercoin protocol. If the 620,000 mastercoins (this being the number of mastercoins ever generated) represent the transfer of value of a bitcoin market cap of $90 trillion dollars, the question to ask is
at what price will the market demand to use these mastercoins in order to transfer their wealth? this demand will represent the upper limit, and only time will tell what that will be.
Why has there been so little discussion in the media about mastercoin?
same reason the media does not discuss feathercoin, namecoin, BBQcoin, etc (mastercoin is a latecomer to the crytpo party)
The price of a mastercoin is way higher than a litecoin, but litecoin has received much more attention in the media than mastercoin. Why?
supply/demand of a unique commodity.
Is mastercoin intended to eventually replace bitcoin, i.e. like a new and improved version of bitcoin, or just to be another competing altcoin?
mastercoin attempts to expand the features of bitcoin; without bitcoin, mastercoin as we know it is not usable. it would be like saying, "is the FOREX market trying to replace USD?" the answer is
no because the FOREX market depends on USD, that among other currencies. the mastercoin protocol is like FOREX because they are both platforms that facilitate the ease at which value can transferred.
i made a [now outdated] model of what it would be like for a user to list property for sale using the mastercoin protocol. to hopefully make the explanation more concrete, i subsituted the bitcoin protocol with a mail delivery service, bitcoins with bistamps, mastercoins with masterstamps, and digital addresses with real/non-deliverable addresses. don't worry if you don't follow along, i barely do.
http://imgur.com/2Q9AYWr.pngFrom what I've read about MSC, I get the impression that it's actually not a separate currency at all, but more like an upgrade to BTC. Thoughts?
the mastercoin protocol attempts to manipulate unregulated markets using properties unique to the bitcoin protocol. the mastercoins themselves represent how much value you can manipulate using the mastercoin protocol, and as such will charge a premium.
