[ANN][XCP] Counterparty - Pioneering Peer-to-Peer Finance - Official Thread

[PhantomPhreak]

how far are smart contracts away from being implemented into mainnet?

There's still a lot of development and testing to be done, but we're making very good progress. (See, e.g., this upstream PR made this morning: https://github.com/ethereum/pyethereum/pull/238#issuecomment-87641778). It's very important to get the launch right the first time (for security reasons, if nothing else).

[GeminiSimba]

We just Married Ripple!

http://www.prlog.org/12441252-symbiont-creates-ripple-gateway-for-counterparty-xcp.html

[yampi]

Sounds more like Ripple bought a slave.

[Matt Y]

We just Married Ripple!

http://www.prlog.org/12441252-symbiont-creates-ripple-gateway-for-counterparty-xcp.html

Thanks for the link.

[bitwhizz]

We just Married Ripple!

http://www.prlog.org/12441252-symbiont-creates-ripple-gateway-for-counterparty-xcp.html

Thanks for the link.

very cool

[overthetop2011]

Why XCP is valuable?

Is XCP to XCP protocol like XRP to Ripple protocol?

Thanks

[deliciousowl]

Sounds more like Ripple bought a slave.

Huh?

Why XCP is valuable?
Is XCP to XCP protocol like XRP to Ripple protocol?
Thanks

Ripple is distributed, Counterparty is also decentralized.

They way I understand it is that XCP is not meant to be an alternative currency, i.e. you wouldn't buy a pizza with it. It's the internal token of the Counterparty platform, it represents stake in the protocol (e.g. for foundation voting, etc), and is used for various spam fees inside the protocol.

Most importantly, XCP is the fuel for smart contracts. No more XCP can ever be created, and XCP are being used up for the running of each execution step of a decentralized application (a.k.a. smart contract). It will not be possible to compensate the running of Dapps without XCP.

NOTE: It's important to keep in mind that many things are being called smart contracts nowadays (even multi-sig), but the difference here is that XCP smart contracts are fully programmable (turing-complete) and entirely peer-to-peer (while some other services are centralized).

So basically:

it's the main currency of the smart contracts system (very underrated)
* it is available on exchanges
* it is necessary for spam fees
* it's deflationary, and supply is decreasing asymptotically
* there was NO pre-mine or pre-sale of any kind
* it is used for foundation voting regarding the future of Counterparty

The coolest thing that the Ripple gateway makes possible are instant-transactions with tokens. Combine that with the smart contracts system, and XCP is a beast.

[profitofthegods]

Sounds more like Ripple bought a slave.

More like Symbiont just bought Ripple's banking connections.

http://cryptonewsday.com/symbiont-puts-counterparty-assets-on-ripple-network-with-new-gateway/

[pankogulo]

counterparty-lib v9.51.0 (upgrade by block 352000) & counterparty-cli v1.1.0 are out. Release notes at https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/counterpartyd/releases & https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/counterparty-cli/releases

[overthetop2011]

Sounds more like Ripple bought a slave.

Huh?

Why XCP is valuable?
Is XCP to XCP protocol like XRP to Ripple protocol?
Thanks

Ripple is distributed, Counterparty is also decentralized.

They way I understand it is that XCP is not meant to be an alternative currency, i.e. you wouldn't buy a pizza with it. It's the internal token of the Counterparty platform, it represents stake in the protocol (e.g. for foundation voting, etc), and is used for various spam fees inside the protocol.

Most importantly, XCP is the fuel for smart contracts. No more XCP can ever be created, and XCP are being used up for the running of each execution step of a decentralized application (a.k.a. smart contract). It will not be possible to compensate the running of Dapps without XCP.

NOTE: It's important to keep in mind that many things are being called smart contracts nowadays (even multi-sig), but the difference here is that XCP smart contracts are fully programmable (turing-complete) and entirely peer-to-peer (while some other services are centralized).

So basically:

it's the main currency of the smart contracts system (very underrated)
* it is available on exchanges
* it is necessary for spam fees
* it's deflationary, and supply is decreasing asymptotically
* there was NO pre-mine or pre-sale of any kind
* it is used for foundation voting regarding the future of Counterparty

The coolest thing that the Ripple gateway makes possible are instant-transactions with tokens. Combine that with the smart contracts system, and XCP is a beast.

Thanks for sharing 

[Matt Y]

Thought it was a nice post as well and shared it with a few friends. ^^

[nakaone]

https://www.oraclize.it/home/features

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/316whq/oraclizeit_a_new_platform_for_smartcontracts_and/

can someone put that into a perspective regarding counterparty?

it looks quite nice

[gumcruise]

https://www.oraclize.it/home/features

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/316whq/oraclizeit_a_new_platform_for_smartcontracts_and/

can someone put that into a perspective regarding counterparty?

it looks quite nice

Very different.

It's a centralized multi-sig service that works with 'oracles': "Oraclize takes care of providing the 2nd signature to your partially signed transaction."

There are many project like this, and I actually think the term "smart contracts" does not necessarily apply here. The contracts still have a mediator (Oraclize), and are not programmable/customizable. I would call it a "multi-signature oracle service" or something like that... The potential uses for this are numerous, but greatly exaggerated in variety.

The point of Counterparty 'smart contracts' is to be able to create entirely custom decentralized applications from scratch, on a fully peer-to-peer system. I'm actually thinking we could refer to this as dApps, programmable money, or something similar until people learn the difference. I can't even count the amount of times people were underwhelmed by the idea of Counterparty smart contracts, because they've seen dozens of projects with basic multi-sig acting as middlemen and have become convinced that that is a 'smart contract'. It's not... at least not really.

Counterparty/Ethereum mercilessly blow these out of the water since you are able to code new features.

Once you see the difference here, it's really hard to unsee:

• 'Buzzword' smart contracts are multi-signature/Bitcoin services which are mediated by some 3rd party/website. They are not fully decentralized, and cannot be programmed.
• 'Real' smart contracts support turing-complete scripting for making your own, fully or partially decentralized financial instruments and tools.

In fact, the first can be done using the latter. But absolutely not vice versa.

Note that I'm not saying that Oraclize and others are not providing a great service. They very well might be, and in many cases this is extremely useful. However, I think we need some sort of way to distinguish between distributed, programmable contracts and static, semi-centralized ones.

I hope this makes sense...

[Matt Y]

It does. Thanks for the explanation.

[pankogulo]

Counterparty community update is live at http://counterparty.io/news/counterparty-update-apr-3/

[GeminiSimba]

I just had to re-post this (originally saw this tweeted through counterparty) but my gosh I'm reading this now and it's got to be the BEST and most COHERENT article giving an argument for Bitcoin (both the blockchain and the currency) against those who think that the blockchain and currency can or should be separated. Specifically the argument clarifies why Bitcoin's best feature is the fact that it's an alternative currency and whoever thinks it's best features are the alternative use cases of blockchain as just some kind of glorified ledger or database needs to get their facts right lmao!
Whoever wrote this is genius!

https://medium.com/@beautyon_/grundsaudaag-jour-de-la-marmotte-ground-hog-day-8570677dd90b

[pankogulo]

I just had to re-post this (originally saw this tweeted through counterparty) but my gosh I'm reading this now and it's got to be the BEST and most COHERENT article giving an argument for Bitcoin (both the blockchain and the currency) against those who think that the blockchain and currency can or should be separated. Specifically the argument clarifies why Bitcoin's best feature is the fact that it's an alternative currency and whoever thinks it's best features are the alternative use cases of blockchain as just some kind of glorified ledger or database needs to get their facts right lmao!
Whoever wrote this is genius!

https://medium.com/@beautyon_/grundsaudaag-jour-de-la-marmotte-ground-hog-day-8570677dd90b

yep, great article!

[pankogulo]

The Counterparty Foundation is announcing the start of the two-week long voting period for the election of three community directors. Since voting is starting three days later than announced, we will extend the voting period till block 352718 (in about 2 weeks).

There has been a change in the voting procedure. Few months back we’ve disabled sending dividend payments based on XCP balances to avoid spam. However, since Counterparty is a decentralized system, this means we have disabled this feature for ourselves as well. Therefore, we won’t be able to implement the announced voting procedure based on dividend payment. Instead, voting will be based on broadcasting votes.

For more info please read the official thread: https://forums.counterparty.io/t/announcing-the-start-of-the-counterparty-foundation-voting-period/1006

[pankogulo]

The Counterparty Foundation is announcing the start of the two-week long voting period for the election of three community directors. Since voting is starting three days later than announced, we will extend the voting period till block 352718 (in about 2 weeks).

There has been a change in the voting procedure. Few months back we’ve disabled sending dividend payments based on XCP balances to avoid spam. However, since Counterparty is a decentralized system, this means we have disabled this feature for ourselves as well. Therefore, we won’t be able to implement the announced voting procedure based on dividend payment. Instead, voting will be based on broadcasting votes.

For more info please read the official thread: https://forums.counterparty.io/t/announcing-the-start-of-the-counterparty-foundation-voting-period/1006

For Q&A and support please use this thread: https://forums.counterparty.io/t/q-a-counterparty-foundation-voting-q-a/1008

[pankogulo]

The Counterparty Foundation is announcing the start of the two-week long voting period for the election of three community directors. Since voting is starting three days later than announced, we will extend the voting period till block 352718 (in about 2 weeks).

There has been a change in the voting procedure. Few months back we’ve disabled sending dividend payments based on XCP balances to avoid spam. However, since Counterparty is a decentralized system, this means we have disabled this feature for ourselves as well. Therefore, we won’t be able to implement the announced voting procedure based on dividend payment. Instead, voting will be based on broadcasting votes.

For more info please read the official thread: https://forums.counterparty.io/t/announcing-the-start-of-the-counterparty-foundation-voting-period/1006

For Q&A and support please use this thread: https://forums.counterparty.io/t/q-a-counterparty-foundation-voting-q-a/1008

The public voting scoreboard is now live on Blockscan https://blockscan.com/vote/XCPELECTION. You can monitor the rankings of our four candidates there.