Bitcoins, or the ultimate proof of ownership

[Frozenlock]

Update (2011-08-26):
I wrote an article in order to clarify my thoughts, with some proposed rules for any future implementation.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=39433.0
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As discussed before in How Bitcoin will change the voting systems, the power of the blockchain enable us to do much more than simply exchanging bitcoins.

I think dacoinminster has somewhat grasped this power (see [PROPOSAL] The ticker and the hole (path to bitcoins worth $1M each)) but try to use it in sub-optimal application. (Or I didn't quite understand it, which is more than probable.)


Proof of ownership, such as the stock market, is probably the most fertile ground for the blockchain power.

With my broker, it costs me 30$ per stock related transaction. That's per transaction, so 60$ to buy and sell. Even by doing so, I don't ever see any proof of ownership of any company. I have to trust that my broker didn't simply write a bogus number in my account. [tangent = on] Bitcoins make you realize how much you trust everyone around you. [tangent = off]

Can I sell directly to a friend? No sir, I must contact my broker who will then sell - and I don't even think I can decide to whom he is going to sell, not in the usual web interface for sure.

What Bitcoin offers is a way to avoid all that, and in addition make it even more secure - by a wide margin.

My company, Acme inc, wants to go public to finance a big project. We organize a big press conference and publicly announce a master BTC. (see How Bitcoin will change the voting systems)
When someone buy a part of the company, we send him a part of the master BTC. (100% ownership = the whole master BTC).

What's the point?

• The ownership is publicly announced and protected by the blockchain;
• The "stock" is transferable. It's as simple as sending a BTC;
• Dividends can be send to the current owners of a part of the master BTC (send to public key);
• Owners can be anonymous;
• Every stock holder can now easily vote in company decision
• Where you live is irrelevant (I can buy chinese stock if I want to, it's MY money!);

All this is possible without a single modification to the Bitcoin protocol. Some client-side modifications perhaps (don't spend my "proof of ownership" to buy a sandwhich!) and only for the bitcoin-stocks users.

The next stock market will be worldwide, anonymous, inexpensive and available to all.  

[1715424597]

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[1715424597]

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[fornit]

i had the same idea about voting systems including the exact same details quite a while ago. but the idea to use it in this more general way is really cool 

btw besides spending them for sandwiches you also have to protect the master coin parts of being used for transaction fees.

[BTC_Junkie]

So every company would have their own block chain?

[Frozenlock]

No.

The same blockchain is used. All they do is to publicly declare, for example, this Bitcoin from this transaction to be the master BTC.

[Karmicads]

No.

The same blockchain is used. All they do is to publicly declare, for example, this Bitcoin from this transaction to be the master BTC.

I fully agree with the posabilities of taking the bitcoin concept to the level of stock trading. In fact, I have already proposed a complete stock exchange model, based on a modification of the bitcoin protocol and netrwork. The difference would be that a complete new network and protocol would be writen, so that all stocks, comodities or bonds, would have their own blockchain, as an independent means to float freely. Bitcoin would remain an entirely independant network, so that BTC traded for one would simply change hands and no bitcoins would ever be gained or lost by trading across this independent 'bitstock' network.

[indio007]

Problem: 2 people or more people with the same private key. How do you prove true ownership of the key?

[Frozenlock]

@ Karmicads

From what I understand of your proposal, you want to create an alternate network. Perhaps even more?

That is the opposite of what I'm saying: That's the current blockchain that will be used, because nothing is more secure.
If I'm a company and want to sell some stock, I will never start a new blockchain only for it, because I know a big miner could single handedly take over the network.  

@ indio007

The first to spend the Bitcoins associated with a private key is the owner, like for normal Bitcoins.
Don't share your private keys.  

[Insti]

The same blockchain is used. All they do is to publicly declare, for example, this Bitcoin from this transaction to be the master BTC.

How do you prevent it being mixed with other coins?

[indio007]

@ indio007

The first to spend the Bitcoins associated with a private key is the owner, like for normal Bitcoins.
Don't share your private keys.  

i was considering theft.

[Frozenlock]

The same blockchain is used. All they do is to publicly declare, for example, this Bitcoin from this transaction to be the master BTC.

How do you prevent it being mixed with other coins?

Yes I thought of the same thing yesterday.

It makes the whole a little less elegant.
I suppose you should check if more than the master BTC part is the product of the transaction, than it's "destroyed".

For example:
0.1 + 0.0001 (fee) = 0.1 Valid
0.1 + 1.0 + 0.0001 (fee) = Invalid

[Frozenlock]

@ indio007

The first to spend the Bitcoins associated with a private key is the owner, like for normal Bitcoins.
Don't share your private keys.  

i was considering theft.

I was too. The private key is everything in Bitcoins.

[piuk]

Even by doing so, I don't ever see any proof of ownership of any company.

- With this method you don't either. What is stopping the company changing to a different "master btc", leaving you with one normal bitcoin.

- Bitcoin is divisible by 8 decimal places, so a "master btc" can be divided to 10 million shares - that isn't enough for most large companies.

- A company can never raise capital by issuing new shares, which is common practice.

- If you have to pay transaction fees to trade shares your slowly giving away part of your company to miners

[fornit]

Even by doing so, I don't ever see any proof of ownership of any company.

- With this method you don't either. What is stopping the company changing to a different "master btc", leaving you with one normal bitcoin.

the same thing stopping them from turning your stocks into worthless pieces of paper.

- Bitcoin is divisible by 8 decimal places, so a "master btc" can be divided to 10 million shares - that isn't enough for most large companies.

who says it needs to be exactly one btc?

- A company can never raise capital by issuing new shares, which is common practice.

what stops the shareholders from declaring another (or half, quarter whatever) coin to be a new master coin?

- If you have to pay transaction fees to trade shares your slowly giving away part of your company to miners

worst case is you pay a pool to include all your voting transactions. but i think it should be possible to mark coins so that the will never be spend for transaction fees.

[piuk]

the same thing stopping them from turning your stocks into worthless pieces of paper.

But then it doesn't really have any advantages on the "trust" side, I'd probably rather trust and 3rd party broker than the company itself who has more motive to cheat.

The only advantage is the ownership is public. But if all you have is a bunch of anonymous address the information is useless. If shareholders are anonymous how do you prevent insider trading? How do I know if one single holder has control of more than 51% of the company? Large shareholders legally have to be declared so you know who is running the show and what conflicts of interest there maybe.

who says it needs to be exactly one btc?

I guess not, I just assumed the phrase "master btc" meant one btc.

[Frozenlock]

- A company can never raise capital by issuing new shares, which is common practice.

Perhaps it's a mistake. If I own 10% of a company, I would be furious if they dilute this into 1%.
You make one master BTC and stick with it. (You don't have to sell everything)

Like fornit said, another master BTC could be declared, but I don't like the idea.

But then it doesn't really have any advantages on the "trust" side, I'd probably rather trust and 3rd party broker than the company itself who has more motive to cheat.

The advantage here is that the blockchain is the proof.

I have a number in a database that can be changed anytime (without the company even knowing you wanted to buy a share)
VS
I have a part of a master bitcoin coming form an unchangeable history.

If shareholders are anonymous how do you prevent insider trading?

You don't. People sell and buy with the information they have (like they do today anyway).

How do I know if one single holder has control of more than 51% of the company? Large shareholders legally have to be declared so you know who is running the show and what conflicts of interest there maybe.

You don't, except if he publicly moves 51% of the master BTC.

By the way, what conflict of interest could you have against your own property? (It's a genuine question, I can't find any example.)
 

[piuk]

Perhaps it's a mistake. If I own 10% of a company, I would be furious if they dilute this into 1%.

It's better to own 1% of a company that is operational than 10% of a company gone bankrupt.

I have a number in a database that can be changed anytime (without the company even knowing you wanted to buy a share)
VS
I have a part of a master bitcoin coming form an unchangeable history.

I have a number in a database that can be changed anytime (without the company even knowing you wanted to buy a share)
VS
I have a part of a master bitcoin which can be invalidated at anytime by a company deciding to move to a different "master coin".

The point is law enforcement and trust is still required.

You don't. People sell and buy with the information they have (like they do today anyway).

No, it's illegal to trade with information which isn't available to the public (all traders are meant to be on the same playing field). Directors have to declare all deals they make. If your an employee of a company who sells your shares right before a company releases bad end of year results the SEC will come for them.

By the way, what conflict of interest could you have against your own property? (It's a genuine question, I can't find any example.)

Imagine an oil company attempting to take over a company which has just invented a new form of reusable electricity. Once the oil company has taken control they could drive it into bankruptcy. If shareholders know someone is building a significant stake they can refuse to sell, in the proposed system they would have no idea until it was too late. Another example is monopolies: if you don't know who owns companies then you don't know if there is genuine competition or just one group colluding. On the london stock exchange all holders with over 7% stake have to declare themselves.

[Bunghole]

The ruling elites will not allow a major source of their funding (Wall Street) to be usurped without a huge fight.

[Karmicads]

@ Karmicads

From what I understand of your proposal, you want to create an alternate network. Perhaps even more?

That is the opposite of what I'm saying: That's the current blockchain that will be used, because nothing is more secure.

Yes, the bitstock network would operate completely independently as I invisage it. It (and it's protocol) would also be significantly different in some respects. The blockchain as I understand it, provides us with a principal by which we can (and do) derive security. The same principal can be applied to a similar network (ie one with a blockchain) and security can be derived by adopting the same principal. Of course there is nothing more secure than the existing bitcoin blockchain, but that only because there is no other similar network (apart from the bitcoin test network - that I know of) If there were, it could employ the very same principal to also become secure and that would be likely to happen if bitstock became popular, in the same manner as it happened for bitcoin, ie: by leveraging security in numbers.

If I'm a company and want to sell some stock, I will never start a new blockchain only for it, because I know a big miner could single handedly take over the network.  

I have to do some more reading up on the technical aspects, of exactly how the process of hashing produces security in the existing network. I'm a little sketchy on that aspect of bitcoin. As I understand it though (correct me if I am wrong), mining (ie: producing bitcoin) is not essential to the process that generates security, so no coins have to be produced to provide security for trasnsactions. I make that assumption, based on the inevitable event in the future that there will be no bitcoin to mine. I assume the security won't colapse if there is no mining, because there will still be many connected nodes (we hope), that are each contributing to some hashing for security. The bitstock network as I invisage it, would work the same way with regard to the transfer of bitstock P2P, but there would be no 'mining' in the sense of producing bitstock out of nowhere or from the work of doing hashes. Instead the protocol would allow the company or trading entity, to float their bitstock, which could then be bought and paid for by a normal bitcoin transaction.

I think it's quite implicit in this approach, that the bitstock client would still have the complete functionality of the bitcoin client built into it as well, as it would have to address two seperate networks (or at least two seperate namespaces), one being bitcoin and the other being bitstock. I'm not sure how both could be secured, apart from the bitstock client perhaps being made, so that dedicating some machine cycles to it is compulsory. In the existing bitcoin client the 'mining' (somehow) produces security and also bitcoin. In the existing client you can turn mining off though. If the bitstock client requires 'mining' (actualy just hashing for security), it might even provide a security strengthener for both networks, long after the 21M bitcoins have been produced. Cant a client feasably be made, so that it shares a nominal amount of hashing for security, across more than one blockchain?

Nevertheless, there may yet be other approaches to security, but I'm only considering how adapting the P2P trading aspect might work; where each commodity or company stock, is represented as a seperate blockchain. That to me, is the sensible method to associate company stock with a bitcoin like protocal/network, since the blockchain is the entity that allows the value of the commodity to float freely.  In this model, a transaction consists of transfering ownership of some bitstock from one node to the other while the payment in bitcoin travels in the opposite direction. To create bitstock you have to have something of value to sell and the company or trading entity would float that as their own and then let market forces take over. It would be as if the company stock represents a micro-currency; one that can only be traded back and forth with bitcoin. Floating a stock or commodity is realy just a declaration of value. What you're saying essentialy is: 'My company has someting of value over here'. It could be company stock, commodities or whatever. If nobody agrees it's worth anything then it simply isnt. By the same token, it wouldn't be worth stealing it then either. If it has percieved value, then that value would be represented by paying for and buying it with bitcoin.

Just as there's no information in the bitcoin blockchain to represent the intrinsic value of a bitcoin, there would be nothing of value in any bitstock blockchain to represent it's intrinsic value either. That BTW is good design on Satochi's part IMHO, as nothing realy has any intrinsic value, only value that is percieved. The basic design criteria is that the bitstock protocol, must be made so that bitcoin and ONLY bitcoin, can be used to transct bitstock. It realy needs to made from the bottom up, so that you just CANT obtain it any other way. If I am right, then there would be no way to steal it from the bitstock network itself. You could steal it only in the same way you can steal bitcoin today. If you cant create it (by mining) and cant steal it (if I understand this all properly), then the security is provided by the original bitcoin blockchain and the security of the bitcoin transactions, that flow in the opposite direction to the bitstock.

The other design criteria is that the existing bitcoin blockchain, maintains a registry of public keys assigned to transactions. So bitcoin esentialy carries with it, some information about who owns it. The bitstock will need another element to identify what company stock or commodity, it is associated with. The Information stored in the bitcoin blockchain, for each transaction, of the nodes public key and amount, isn't enough. If I buy 100 bitstock in 'Mr Widgets Software', The transaction will have to be addressed to an associated blockchain and the original 'bitcoin like' ownership information, about the individual node that it is being transfered to, will still have to exist. So bitstock would have data fields denoting a node value and a trading entity value, that must be carried with every transaction. That way, the network knows not only who owns the resulting bitstock but what blockchain it is to be traded on.

Did that help you think, or am I still confused about something? 

[Karmicads]

The same blockchain is used. All they do is to publicly declare, for example, this Bitcoin from this transaction to be the master BTC.

How do you prevent it being mixed with other coins?

Yes I thought of the same thing yesterday.

It makes the whole a little less elegant.

Which is why I decided that stocks and shares need their own network and protocol designed for that purpouse from the ground up. Bitcoins were designed to represent a single freemarket comodity, in which each node may have shares of the whole. As I understand it, there needs to be another discrete unit of identity information caried by the bitcoin transactions. You  would need bitcoin to store the node it belongs to, as well as the comodity/company it represents. Stocks and bonds are essentialy a companys own micro-currency. They are derived from the 'tally-stick', by which shares in a collective asset, could be represented on a completely unique piece of timber, that carried notches to quantify the amount and was split (with the grain providing a unique fingerprint) so that the notches remained on both peices. The company (or government) retained the stock, while the investor kept the bond (or was it the other way around?). Anyhow, you had a unique identifier of the trading entity in the grain of both halves (like public and private keys) and the amount was in the notches. The 'information' of who either half belonged to, was only a product of who held posesion of it. Bitcoin provides a means to identify each node as independent shareholders of in one single commodity 'bitcoin'. To trade in shares of unique commodities, requires an extra factor of information to be stored, to identify the seperate pools of equity and they in turn, need to float in value independantly. That essentialy means having seperate blockchains as far as I can see.

[Karmicads]

- A company can never raise capital by issuing new shares, which is common practice.

Perhaps it's a mistake. If I own 10% of a company, I would be furious if they dilute this into 1%.

If it's a mistake, then it's one that a hell of a lot of companies, investors and brokers seem quite indifferent about. Why is nobody generaly upset by a company floating a new lot of shares? It's basic economics realy. The newly created shares, don't just dilute your percentage of equity, but also increase the value of the company by the amount paid for them. For example, a company may have $1,000,000 worth of shares listed and you may own some of them. Now, if they then float the same number of shares, your percentage of the company will obviously halve, but the company will be looking for market value and that injects capital into the company to the tune of whatever price the market is willing to pay for half the company. That influx of capital gives them the power to grow and make more money. They don't just dilute the value of their shares for the fun of it. They gain in working capital (and potential growth) what they release in equity. You effectively then, have a smaller peice of a bigger pie.

The market will only pay for one of your shares, the same price as they think it's worth. The same goes for a share released by the company. Although the share released by the company will also reduce the value of all shares proportinaly, but the diffrence with the share sold by the company, is that it increases the value of the company by the amount paid for it. If the company went to a bank and obtained a loan, it might be said to also decrease the value of your shares, as it would now have a bank account in the red by the amount borrowed, except that by accepting a liability, it would have more working capital. As a shareholder, you share in the profits by also accepting the risks. The company that floats extra shares, also reduces your percentage of risks and liabilities. If you were not concerened about the risk in the first place and had confidence in the ability of the management, to turn a good profit on your investment (as you were when you first bought your shares), then you might even buy more of those extra shares yourself when they are floated and expect the management to use the new capital generated, to grow and perhaps produce even better yeilds. It isn't the percentage of shares that you have that determines the performance of the company, but how well they use the their net equity (including your share of it) to turn a profit.

You make one master BTC and stick with it. (You don't have to sell everything)
Like fornit said, another master BTC could be declared, but I don't like the idea.

I'm not quite clear on how your indignant disaproval is going to be binding on the company.

If shareholders are anonymous how do you prevent insider trading?

You don't. People sell and buy with the information they have (like they do today anyway).

Huh?  I could have sworn there were legal protocols in the existing stock exchange system and laws, to prevent insider trading. Perhaps you mean to imply that they're imperfect (and what isn't), but if you want a level playing field that can lookafter it's own checks and ballances, then it's best to design things from the bottom up, so they avoid such detrimental outcomes as insider trading. It's better to have a system built with forsight from the outset, that destroys the motive, or makes such things technicaly unfeasable, rather than rely on 'top down' regulatory controls. It would at least be desirable, to have built-in transparency.

[Ten98]

It's certainly a nice idea in principle. We do need more transparancy around share ownership, investment brokers, ponzi schemes etc.

[Frozenlock]

I still don't like the idea of diluting one's shares. It isn't a question of value, but rather of vote power. Even if my share are worth the same on the market, if my vote is only a tenth of what it was before, I've lost something. Imagine you are 50% owner of a building with a friend. If he sells 40% of the entire property (not only his part, but yours too) to buy new furniture, new paint, renovate the bathroom, I would consider you have been screwed -even if your share is worth the same thing on the market.

Unfortunately (for me), a new Master Bitcoin could be declared. It's up to the owners and the public to decide if they accept it. It was a personal taste declaration.

There is in many country (not everywhere- this is the internet) laws against insider tradings.
Nevertheless, I don't see anything wrong with the fact of acting on information others might not have. I do it everyday. My whole career is based on the fact that I have knowledge others don't (engineering).

So even if some of you don't like the idea of insider trading, I won't use my precious time to try to find a solution to what I consider is a non-problem. 
Of course, you are welcome to think about solutions if you want to.

I will add that trying to prove someone acted because of a precise knowledge is way- waaaaaay harder than simply proving someone acted. It's in part why I think insider tradings laws are shenanigans.

Now, back to basics:
Yes, mining is necessary to the security of the network. He who controls mining controls history! Mining doesn't have to generate coins, but you'll have to find an incentive for the miners.
This is where I don't follow you. Sure, a protocol made only for a specific usage could have more interesting functions, but I don't see how it could take off.
Alternatively, the Bitcoin's blockchain is already here, already secure, and ours to use! 

[Karmicads]

As discussed before in How Bitcoin will change the voting systems, the power of the blockchain enable us to do much more than simply exchanging bitcoins.

I think dacoinminster has somewhat grasped this power (see [PROPOSAL] The ticker and the hole (path to bitcoins worth $1M each)) but try to use it in sub-optimal application. (Or I didn't quite understand it, which is more than probable.)


Proof of ownership, such as the stock market, is probably the most fertile ground for the blockchain power.

With my broker, it costs me 30$ per stock related transaction. That's per transaction, so 60$ to buy and sell. Even by doing so, I don't ever see any proof of ownership of any company. I have to trust that my broker didn't simply write a bogus number in my account. [tangent = on] Bitcoins make you realize how much you trust everyone around you. [tangent = off]

Can I sell directly to a friend? No sir, I must contact my broker who will then sell - and I don't even think I can decide to whom he is going to sell, not in the usual web interface for sure.

What Bitcoin offers is a way to avoid all that, and in addition make it even more secure - by a wide margin.

What bitcoin actually offers, is the opportunity to transact in a digital currency over the internet without the need for third party intermediaries like banks. I don't think it offers (in it's present form at least), the posibility to represent anything other than the distributed value of a single commodity, that being the bitcoin currency itself. YES!! It provides the principal enabling a ubiquitous, digital proof of ownership, but that ownership only pertains to bitcoin itself and the amount that specific commodity that each node posesses at any given moment.

My company, Acme inc, wants to go public to finance a big project. We organize a big press conference and publicly announce a master BTC. (see How Bitcoin will change the voting systems)
When someone buy a part of the company, we send him a part of the master BTC. (100% ownership = the whole master BTC).

How then is the value of your company allowed to float in the market as a free market entity? Unless I have something horribly screwed up, it seems that your shares are not independent units of value representing a share in the net equity of your company, but rather they are linked to the fluctuating market value of bitcoin. If I buy 1000 shares in IBM today, I will have to surrender a particular amount of money that represents the value of IBM shares by comparison to the units of currency I am using to exchange for them. 1000 shares of IBM may cost me X USD today but in one week it may be X + 3%. That's because the value of the company floats independantly of the value of any currency. It's effectively traded as a seperate comodity. Now if your company releases a fixed number of shares, represented as a bitcoin value, but to trade in those shares the shareholders need to retain ownership of the equivilent percentage (say 5%) of the master BTC value, then it seems to me, that what they have hold of is either worth whatever that sum of bitcoin is worth, or whatever 5% of your company is worth. If your company looses realworld value compared to BTC, then it needs for those bitcoins (held by the shareholders) to drop in value accordingly.

How can your company demand that somebody elses bitcoin not be used just as bitcoin instead of company shares? How can you demand that the value of those bitcoin rise and fall acording to the value of the company? How would anybody even evaluate the value of your company, if you have fixed the number of fixed value shares and use bitcoin to represent them? Doesn't that mean you have pegged the value of your company, to the value of bitcoin? If the value of bitcoin goes up inordinately, while your company is making bad manegment decisions, then surely you can't expect it to ride the coat tails of the currency. That's not a level playing field. That's like floating a company, by saying that you'll release 10,000 $10 bills, recording all of their serial numbers, so they can be 'earmarked' as belonging to your company. All you have to do is pay for them with unmarked/unfixed (independantly valued) $10 bills. The $10 bills will still be worth what they are worth at face value. There's nothing legitimate you can do to them, that requires anybody to regard them as belonging to your company. Nor is there anything legitemate you can do to your company that bestows upon it the right to decalre one of it's shares as being worth $10. That's something for the market to decide.

How then can something that used to be a $10 note, now become an Acme inc. share, unless you are taking $10 notes out of circulation and using them as recipts for what was initialy floated as $10 worth of equity in Acme inc.? If you expect the face value to remain fixed, ie: $10 worth of Acme inc shares, then obviously the number or amount (and therefore the percentage of them represented by the recipt) must be alowed to float. That would be an unusual way to trade shares. The value could be fixed but the quantity or percentage would need to be a floating quantity, determined by the market. I'll have to think about that one. That's what you seem to be saying with this scheem. Not only 'This ($10) is what my shares will be worth' but that is what they will remain. Otherwise you're hijacking the face value of the currency OR you must implement a system by which the face value of the unit of currency and the value of a share is pegged, while the market is allowed to determine how many total shares of Acme inc. exist at any time.

This distribution of currency for shares BTW, is not a good finance strategy, because your company must already have $100,000 worth of $10 notes to 'earmark' for shares. If you sell $100,000 worth of notes for $100,000, how does this generate finance. If I have a business worth an estimated $100,000 and, say I'm a plumber who wants to turn my lucrative enterprise into a franchise, then I may only have $5,000 in working capital between the business bank account and my petty cash jar. I might decide to float some shares in my buisness and offer the future proffits to potential shareholders. They will want to see evidence for what I am claiming as being worth $100,000, including the legitimate legal documentation, that demonstrates the profitability of my business model. It's going to be a bit futile, if I have to find $100,000 to buy $10 bills so that I can sell them as shares. I already HAVE an investment worth $100,000 I am looking for capital that dosnt already belong to me to exchange for shares in future profit. If I sell half my buisiness in shares I should be able to raise $50,000, but I dont need to find $50,000 extra dollars in order to sell shares in existing equity. Besides, as I said, I only HAVE $5,000 of working capital. The $50,000 is tied up mostly in company assets and goodwill etc.

The purpouse of selling shares, is to raise some finance for expansion. If I already had $50,000 for the planed growth, then I wouldn't need to sell $50,000 worth of equity. Besides which, my company would then actually be worth $150,000. The idea is to exchange money for shares, not money for money. Sorry,   but I just dont see how this using money to piggyback existing share equity could work. In any financial transaction, the money is supposed to go one way and the equity in what is being traded for it, is supposed to go in the opposite direction.

What we have with the existing bitcoin network/protocol, is a store of value in a singular commodity of exchange and a means by which financial transactions can be represented electronically and ubiquitously varified for their uniqueness. It's a free floating store of value and a transparent public record of transactions within it. What we dont yet have, is a digital counterpart network/protocol, to provide a similar public record of the various comodities/stocks/shares etc. all free floating with their own independant values, that can move in the opposite direction and be traded for bitcoin. The bitcoin network/protocol/blockchain, is a single ledger accounting for a single comodity. The next generation should rightly implement a double entry system of accountancy, for multiple comodities/budgetary categories, wherein evey transaction taken  from one comodity, is matched by an oppsite defficit in another. The current bitcoin blockchainm, represents a floating realworld value in a shared comodity called bitcoins.

Today, the whole bitcoin network, is worth a finite amount, in terms of any other currency or comodity. That can be used to represent only ONE thing. THE TOTAL VALUE OF ALL BITCOINS. If you want to have multiple comodities/assets, with floating values. that can move in the opposite direction, reflecting both sides of a complete transaction of bitcoin for any other comodity/asset, then you need seperate blockchains each allowed to increase or decline in value seperately. It would almost go without saying, that there nededs to be one universal currency against which all of them are traded, so there will always be a universal common denominator. There needs to be a singular currency or store of universal value, that always moves in the oppisite direction when equity in any other comodity/asset is being exchanged. Needless to say I vote for bitcoin to represent that universal standard of exchange. It's not just the first, but it's the coolest and already most accepted digital P2P curency.

I expect a multi-blockchain client/network/protocol, will eventually be implemented to provide for the digital exchange of a plethora of comodities/shares/assets and bitcoin, will be the unit of universal value that goes in the oppisite direction of every other comodity/asset, to independantly represent payment for an arbitrary myriad of other units of value being exchanged. That will be tantamount to replicting a double entry system of accountancy, but one that is implemented over a P2P network.

[Karmicads]

I still don't like the idea of diluting one's shares. It isn't a question of value, but rather of vote power. Even if my share are worth the same on the market, if my vote is only a tenth of what it was before, I've lost something.

You haven't lost the power to influence any descisions in proportion to equity of your holdings. It's a percentage-wise game. The other share holders who bought in to the company at the same time as you are also reduced in their voting power against (or with) you. Meanwhile, the shareholders who are coming on-board in the more recent offering, are entitled to their share of the vote, as they have paid good money towards the equity of the whole company (including your share), and increased the net value with their own hard earned dollars. Do you think it would be a fair system, if companies could sell shares (of an equal value to the ones you have), without giving the new shareholders a proportional vote? They put their money in and that is spent on growing the earning capacity of the company, but you want to retain a disproportionate share in voting rights? Sorry but the value of your company and it's shares, suddenly looks quite unattractive to me. I would preffer to buy into a company which gives me voting rights in proportion to my share in the net equity I hold. Sorry, but it's just a little thing I have with the idea that my share of the influence needing to be proportionate to my investment. Dont you realise you are shooting yourself in the foot by expecting anything else? The other investors in your company are not your competitors, they are people who have come on board to invest in the profitability and general prosperity of the same company you are invested in. They are litteraly in the same boat as you. They are likely to try hard and vote in the best mutual intrest that you each share. The greater the share the greater the vested intrest to help the company prosper.

Imagine you are 50% owner of a building with a friend. If he sells 40% of the entire property (not only his part, but yours too) to buy new furniture, new paint, renovate the bathroom, I would consider you have been screwed -even if your share is worth the same thing on the market.

Well that would not be possible by any legitimate legal ownership arrangement that I know of in the real world... would it?  

for starters as a 50/50 partner he would have to run these plans to renovate past me and seek my approval, otherwise I'd have to disagree that it was a good idea. Secondly, "40% of the entire property" is still only 40% of the property (there's nothing entire about 40% of something) and by selling that 40% he then forgoes 40% of the decision making power. He now only retains 10% of the ownership and likewise only has 10% of the rights to say how the combined equity is managed. He cant just take the money he gained by selling 40% of his equity and use it to renovate the building. WHY NOT? A better question would be why would he want to? He would then be spending his own money on renovations that are not aproved by either YOU or the new 40% shareholders. You, they and he, would still share a vested intrest in ensuring the whole enterprise was as profitable as possible and nobody would have any vested itrest in doing something so completly stupid (especialy with their own money) as to undermine the whole venture. This is a ridiculously contrived scenario. Can you give me an example from the real world, where such a thing was ever played out? If this happened I would then sue him for overstepping the bounds of his authority and usurping the collective rights of the combined investors. Better still, I'd like to think I'm smart enough that I wouldn't be in business in the first place, with sombody so 'generously stupid' as to sell a fith of his equity and spend it on a total fuck up. When you sell your share of equity, you also give up your share of the decision making power. What's so hard about this concept that you dont comprehend that equity and influence are maintained in equal proportion.

Unfortunately (for me), a new Master Bitcoin could be declared. It's up to the owners and the public to decide if they accept it. It was a personal taste declaration.

I have no idea what this so called "Master Bitcoin" is supposed to represent. For starters, the blockchain doesn't represent or record any particular discrete values of bitcoin ownership. If you decide to send some bitcoin, the amount is arbitrary, but it's divisible down to the base unit (the satoshi) that is 8 orders of magnitude smaller than the whole bitcoin. What the blockchain records is not specific 'values' of bitcoin, but transactions of ANY value IN bitcoin. So it records who has done the trasaction and what the value of that trasaction is. How then are you going to 'anchor' the value of this "Master Bitcoin" to a particular share value, or to the total equity value of the company you want to have floating (presumeably with it's own value) in the free market?

There is in many country (not everywhere- this is the internet) laws against insider tradings.
Nevertheless, I don't see anything wrong with the fact of acting on information others might not have. I do it everyday. My whole career is based on the fact that I have knowledge others don't (engineering).

Presumably what you call 'knowledge' is a free market asset (although I fail to see how). Nevertheless it doesn't give you the power to literly 'cheat' in any system where that asset of any salable value.  In an idealised free market, your 'knowledge' for want of a better expresion should give you no better advantage than anybody vested with the same opportunities to gain that knowledge or use their own alternative knowledge. Such a market would be agnostic (as far as possible) to the special intrests of those who have particular knowledge of any economic entity. There are huge efforts and sums of money expended towards regulating markets, so as to attempt to maintain some semblence (read pretense) of free market nutrality. Now obviously this is idealistic, but nevertheless it's an ideal worth striving towards. The best measures IMHO are those that are built-in, that make inequity unfeasable fron the start and nip the problem in the bud. That becomes a matter for systems with inbuilt transparancy and standards of equanimity. What can your knowledge of engeneering do to give you an 'unfair' advantage in trading on an idealisticly level playing field?

So even if some of you don't like the idea of insider trading, I won't use my precious time to try to find a solution to what I consider is a non-problem.  
Of course, you are welcome to think about solutions if you want to.

And I'm sure many will. They (like Satoshi, Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman), are likely to be far smarter and much more honest that those who atempt to use knowledge purely for personal gain. Again that's just IMHO.

I will add that trying to prove someone acted because of a precise knowledge is way- waaaaaay harder than simply proving someone acted. It's in part why I think insider tradings laws are shenanigans.

I tend to agree with this, but only because conventional models of regulation act on cleaning up the mess rather than fixing the cause. The tendency to legislate and regulate, needs to be usurped by inteligent models, that take motives and methods into account and provide solutions to undermine the first cause of the problem.

Now, back to basics:
Yes, mining is necessary to the security of the network. He who controls mining controls history! Mining doesn't have to generate coins, but you'll have to find an incentive for the miners.

OK firstly a semantic quibble if I may: Let's dispense with the term mining then. That will be misleding, if the purpouse is not to 'mine' for and produce coins. Let's just call it hashing. You dont think it's possible to build a network/protocol wherin every node is required to contrinute some hashing power for the benifit of the network? That's disapointing then. Would that be a technical problem, or a sociological one? Why is it not possible to make a network wherin the conected nodes are assumed to be willing to contribute some hashing power to the collective benifit of the network? I note that several networks began (notably the 'SETI at home' project) on purely on a benevolent/charitable basis, just to offer up unused machine cycles for combined processing power to a deserving cause. Surely the owners of (hundreds of) thousands of machines wishing to be connected to a ubiquitous stock exchange, could be persuaded by the utility of the whole enterprise, to allow some fraction of their proccesing power to run a bakground process for hashing to ensure the security of the network that supports their cappacity for trading on the free market. Moreover, the incentive could be no more more less than the ability to participate, if you make it a condition of the connection and build that requirement into the network and it's protocol. You seem to be transfixed on the existing network and protocol, as if it were not an arbitary construct and as if that's the only mechanism that exists or that could be used.

This is where I don't follow you. Sure, a protocol made only for a specific usage could have more interesting functions, but I don't see how it could take off.

It could take off by 'being useful and fulfilling a real need' just like bitcoin has by 'being useful and fulfilling a need'.

Alternatively, the Bitcoin's blockchain is already here, already secure, and ours to use!  

And thats great. But it already HAS a use. That is to support transactions of a particular virtual currency over the internet. NOT for the transacting of many seperate shares (of many companies) that are in themseves arbitrary values of a seperte comodity, all with independant freemarket value. You need seperate repoitories of value to represent seperate comodities of trade. Bitcoin is just ONE such repository. It's our flagship and proves the principal works. It's will probbly always be the alpha of all digital P2P currencies, but every comoditiy needs freedom to float and if they are to be represented as seperate repositories of value, then you cant use the existing blockchain at least not as far as I understand. Needless to say correct me if I am laboring under some misaprehention. I will gladly stand corrected if I've got something ass backwards.

[Shortline]

Pardon me if this has been addressed because I just skimmed through this thread.

Wouldn't this just be an ideal avenue for state actors to mess with each other?

What I mean is, the blockchain is probably not worth messing with if it's just a few hundreds of millions or a few billion dollars. It is worth messing with if you're going to use it as a lever in international relations. For example, If CNOOC wasn't being traded through the blockchain and Petrobras was, when China and Brazil go to war (don't ask my why that would happen, it's late and I'm tired) then the Chinese cyber-warfare strategy is to overtly or covertly overwhelm and try to fork the blockchain, thus sowing confusion and fear in the Brazilian marketplace. Economic chaos, strategic victory.

Unless everyone agrees to play and you have a mutually assured destruction scenario if the blockchain is attacked.

[Frozenlock]

Shortline: how would not using the blockchain be more secure in case of a cyber-war?

Karmicads: Can't you explain yourself... in less words?

Yes, the share is at the same time valued as the Bitcoin on which it stands.
Today, if a company loose too much money, the paper on which the share is printed can also be worth more.

It is, of course, in the advantage of the issuer to use a small number of Bitcoins, just as it is to not print on thin gold leaf. 

I still don't like the idea of diluting one's shares. It isn't a question of value, but rather of vote power. Even if my share are worth the same on the market, if my vote is only a tenth of what it was before, I've lost something.

You haven't lost the power to influence any descisions in proportion to equity of your holdings. It's a percentage-wise game.

I never said I lost proportion wise, I lost in absolute!
I have a dish with a kg of fish.
Later someone comes along and says he replaced it with a proportion equal fish/dish size ratio, then gives me 1g of a fish. I don't care if the proportion is maintained, I'm hungry!

The other share holders who bought in to the company at the same time as you are also reduced in their voting power against (or with) you. Meanwhile, the shareholders who are coming on-board in the more recent offering, are entitled to their share of the vote, as they have paid good money towards the equity of the whole company (including your share), and increased the net value with their own hard earned dollars.

Sure, the total value has increased, but not the value of my share. I immediately loose vote power for a maybe more successful company later.

Well that would not be possible by any legitimate legal ownership arrangement that I know of in the real world... would it?

That's exactly my point. Thanks for bringing it to the front scene.

Imagine you are 50% owner of a building with a friend. If he sells 40% of the entire property (not only his part, but yours too) to buy new furniture, new paint, renovate the bathroom, I would consider you have been screwed -even if your share is worth the same thing on the market.

(...)Secondly, "40% of the entire property" is still only 40% of the property (there's nothing entire about 40% of something)

Er... I don't even know where to begin.
I said: 40% of the entire property. You replied: there's nothing entire about 40% of something.
Well no... that's why I wrote "of"!

(...)and by selling that 40% he then forgoes 40% of the decision making power. He now only retains 10% of the ownership

No no no, that's exactly why I specified 40% of the entire property. He sells "new share" in your ownership and reduce your absolute proportion.

I have no idea what this so called "Master Bitcoin" is supposed to represent. For starters, the blockchain doesn't represent or record any particular discrete values of bitcoin ownership. If you decide to send some bitcoin, the amount is arbitrary, but it's divisible down to the base unit (the satoshi) that is 8 orders of magnitude smaller than the whole bitcoin. What the blockchain records is not specific 'values' of bitcoin, but transactions of ANY value IN bitcoin. So it records who has done the trasaction and what the value of that trasaction is. How then are you going to 'anchor' the value of this "Master Bitcoin" to a particular share value, or to the total equity value of the company you want to have floating (presumeably with it's own value) in the free market?

Every transaction is recorded in the blockchain. To check if someone has a part of a particular bitcoin (previous transaction), simply look at the blockchain.

There is in many country (not everywhere- this is the internet) laws against insider tradings.
Nevertheless, I don't see anything wrong with the fact of acting on information others might not have. I do it everyday. My whole career is based on the fact that I have knowledge others don't (engineering).

Presumably what you call 'knowledge' is a free market asset (although I fail to see how). Nevertheless it doesn't give you the power to literly 'cheat' in any system where that asset of any salable value.

It's not an asset, what I know is part of who I am.
I don't "cheat" if I act on what I know. It's called life.

In an idealised free market, your 'knowledge' for want of a better expresion should give you no better advantage than anybody vested with the same opportunities to gain that knowledge or use their own alternative knowledge.

Well if they have the same "opportunity", why bother? If it's exactly the same knowledge, we both gain equally. If they don't grab the opportunity, what's the problem?

(..)What can your knowledge of engeneering do to give you an 'unfair' advantage in trading on an idealisticly level playing field?

Why do you say unfair? What is the "playing field"?
I can do what I do while others don't, because they don't have the same knowledge as I do.

If someone works in a company and learn something, why would it be unjust for him to act on this information?

[Frozenlock]

How then is the value of your company allowed to float in the market as a free market entity? Unless I have something horribly screwed up, it seems that your shares are not independent units of value representing a share in the net equity of your company, but rather they are linked to the fluctuating market value of bitcoin. (...) (...) (.................)

You can buy a Bitcoin with other Bitcoins, with USD, or with gold if you want.

You could want to buy 0.001 Master Bitcoin of Acme for 1000 BTC, because this 0.001 gives you the opportunity to vote, but also a claim on the company's assets.

[Frozenlock]

Shameless bump

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Shameless bump

I just read this entire thread from start to bump. I truly enjoyed the read. It's a shame the conversation ended last week. Thanks for the bump, Frozenlock. For a reward, I won't eat frog legs tonight.





Bitcon: An Idea Worth Spending

[Evheniya_Shmelkova]

The blockchain is a continuous sequential chain of blocks containing information, built according to certain rules. The technology implies a decentralized database, which is controlled and maintained by the crowd. Each "block" is a series of transactional records. These records are created by a distributed network of computers. During their creation, each record is connected to the previous record in the chain, thereby creating a chain of blocks. Complex calculations are used to verify them. This, in turn, requires the presence of powerful computers that are expensive for ownership, operation, and cooling.
The term first appeared as the name of a fully replicated distributed database implemented in the Bitcoin system. Consequently, the block is often referred to various crypto-currencies. However, the technology of blockchains can be extended to any interconnected information blocks. Bitcoin became the first application of blockchain technology, combining the classic idea of a mutual distributed register with a fully digital currency that was not controlled by any person or organization. Blockchain technology allows distributing of digital information, rather than its copying. Nowadays, the world community is finding other potential uses for this technology.
Blockchain technology is similar to the Internet, because it has built-in reliability. By storing blocks of information that are identical in their network, the block chain can not be controlled by any individual object. The transparency of the blockchain system is determined by the state of consensus, which automatically checks itself every ten minutes. Consequently, the network negotiates each transaction in ten-minute intervals. Each group of these transactions is called a "block". The network of so-called computational "nodes" constitutes a block-chain. Each node is the "administrator" of the chain of blocks.
In addition to Bitcoin, another popular cryptocurrency is the Etherium. Ethereum is an open source blockchain project. This is the platform for creating decentralized online services based on the blockchain, working on the basis of smart contracts. It is on the platform of the Etherium that various types of crypto-currencies are being created at the present time. For example, a DANS project based on Ethereum's blockchain and smart contracts allow creating a decentralized advertising platform (https://dan-service.com/). The DANS platform will use the advanced technology of blockchain and smart contracts to get rid of the excessive complexity and confusion inherent in the current advertising networks. The advertising network will be managed exclusively by users.
The DAN Service network will use the DANS token for the sale or purchase of advertising space/time. The owners of advertising space will be able to set the price in DANs tokens for a certain time of advertising. When the owner of the advertising space accepts the application, the tokens will be frozen until the owner proves that the task is completed, or the time for displaying the advertisement does not end. At the same time, the advertiser has the right to refuse the payment for advertising, if it does not correspond to the declared quality until the tokens are frozen. In this way, the blockchain system opens up revolutionary possibilities for different industries.

[tanjilrifat]

During their creation, each record is connected to the previous record in the chain, thereby creating a chain of blocks. Complex calculations are used to verify them. This, in turn, requires the presence of powerful computers that are expensive for ownership, operation, and cooling.