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

[nakaone]

If the Counterparty protocol has great value (as I'm sure that it does), then so does XCP.

I like your mantra to do everything which can be done in bitcoin with bitcoin - but until now your conclusion given above does not work. I think there is a consensus that the counterparty protocol is helpful and has a lot of value, but you'll not find within the altcoin space a project where the disparity between the protocols "value" differs so much from the coins value.

I know that you guys are doing a wonderful job and I have absolutely no doubt that it will work in the end, but to give the project value you need to find a good solution for the currency.

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[Spratan]

Some reasons why XCP has value:

1) Trading with XCP on the distributed exchange is (and always will be) cheaper and faster than with BTC.

2) You can use only XCP for making bets, CFDs and asset callbacks. Forthcoming complex features and financial instruments will also likely be restricted to denomination in XCP.

3) All future proof-of-stake voting, e.g. for protocol changes, voting functionality, DACs, etc. will be determined by XCP holdings.

XCP is the native currency of Counterparty and its sole first-class citizen. If the Counterparty protocol has great value (as I'm sure that it does), then so does XCP.

Thanks dev  !!!!

1/ How much faster and cheaper precisely ?

2/ So everything in the future will be with XCP ?!
BTC is only for exchanging assests ?

3/ Wow,
So if I have XCP, I will automatically have voting rights (It is news or I was living under a stone ?).
There will be proof of stakes with XCP ?!
About DAC, will XCP holders automatically have a part of the assets ?

I understand better "If CP has great value, then so does XCP", but If you had a gun on your head and you HAD to answer the 2 questions :
- "how much a XCP will be worth in 6 months" ?
- "why it will explode or what is the key event or functionnality that will make the price explode" ?
What would you answer ?

Theses 3 points are great and valuable. Thank you for your time, I don't want to distract you in answering posts, be as quick as you want.

It is important to talk about XCP and have marketing, only if we can easily explain and convince people landing here to invest :-)
 

[cityglut]

If the Counterparty protocol has great value (as I'm sure that it does), then so does XCP.

I like your mantra to do everything which can be done in bitcoin with bitcoin - but until now your conclusion given above does not work. I think there is a consensus that the counterparty protocol is helpful and has a lot of value, but you'll not find within the altcoin space a project where the disparity between the protocols "value" differs so much from the coins value.

I know that you guys are doing a wonderful job and I have absolutely no doubt that it will work in the end, but to give the project value you need to find a good solution for the currency.

At the risk of misinterpreting Adam, I think his point is that Counterparty is not just an amalgamation of features, but a financial ecosystem, in itself. The features are supposed to tie in with and complement each other, though admittedly it is also possible for features to succeed alone (such as crowdfunding and speculation). The point is that when the entire Counterparty ecosystem is more developed and adopted, the value and use-cases for XCP are more obvious and its utility.

It is short-sighted to give undue priority to XCP over Bitcoin: many people (including serious investors) are just getting used to Bitcoin, and, indeed, the investors that I know point to Bitcoin's illiquidity as a point of failure, and a deterrent from investing. If, now, you tell them that your new protocol requires an entirely new, (currently) extremely illiquid asset in order to use its features, you are much more likely to alienate them,

Moreover, the argument that forcing people to use the native currency unnecessarily will solve the liquidity problem of that currency is probably not true: you will rather just encourage people to move to a platform whose native currency is not unnecessarily required.

[PhantomPhreak]

Some reasons why XCP has value:

1) Trading with XCP on the distributed exchange is (and always will be) cheaper and faster than with BTC.

2) You can use only XCP for making bets, CFDs and asset callbacks. Forthcoming complex features and financial instruments will also likely be restricted to denomination in XCP.

3) All future proof-of-stake voting, e.g. for protocol changes, voting functionality, DACs, etc. will be determined by XCP holdings.

XCP is the native currency of Counterparty and its sole first-class citizen. If the Counterparty protocol has great value (as I'm sure that it does), then so does XCP.

Thanks dev  !!!!

1/ How much faster and cheaper precisely ?

2/ So everything in the future will be with XCP ?!
BTC is only for exchanging assests ?

3/ Wow,
So if I have XCP, I will automatically have voting rights (It is news or I was living under a stone ?).
There will be proof of stakes with XCP ?!
About DAC, will XCP holders automatically have a part of the assets ?

I understand better "If CP has great value, then so does XCP", but If you had a gun on your head and you HAD to answer the 2 questions :
- "how much a XCP will be worth in 6 months" ?
- "why it will explode or what is the key event or functionnality that will make the price explode" ?
What would you answer ?

Theses 3 points are great and valuable. Thank you for your time, I don't want to distract you in answering posts, be as quick as you want.

It is important to talk about XCP and have marketing, only if we can easily explain and convince people landing here to invest :-)
 

1) Trading with BTC takes about seven blocks to complete; trading with XCP takes only about one block and is around 0.5% cheaper (determined by the market), given that trades with BTC require anti-trolling fees to be paid to Bitcoin miners.

2) I'm not sure about 'everything', but XCP is a much more powerful currency than BTC, and all of the more interesting functionality of Counterparty requires its extra capabilities.

3) Yes. We're working on several proposals for proof-of-stake voting, but whatever we end up voting on, the ballets will surely be counted in XCP.

I won't answer the first of those questions (because I *don't* have a gun to my head), but I will say that only currencies that 'explode' in value are pump-and-dump currencies. Digital currencies are like rockets: they shouldn't explode... they should soar.

[xibeijan]

I just need to be able to send XCP.

I confirm

* Enough BTC: Yes
* At least a few confirmations: overs 1 months
* Bitcoind is running and configured properly: no errors in my debug.log
* Waited 10-20 min, 2 week, 2 months: always get this error

Here's my bug report:

counterpartyd --unsigned send --source <from> --destination <to> --quantity 200 --asset XCP
Transaction (unsigned): 0100000002c1eef0f50d2951e0ce71f70dff630291e6de6b1795a0ccc4f20ab944e4cebaa900000 0001976a914cbeefd1b44465e6f30fb50add2d27ec4d64a771888acffffffff084360e4a725dd0c 4c696f2a002ec7522e8235c32bae2d3e01cfa9240dcd80d9020000001976a914cbeefd1b44465e6 f30fb50add2d27ec4d64a771888acffffffff036c2a0000000000001976a914b22854289bda0c16 0cb353a00e2a2fda86b640ef88ac6c2a000000000000475121032bff26e6179750c88ffb4aa1eb6 a8cfc00878d72222ea0bcd768f28de29a6b29211c434e5452505254590000000000000000000000 0100000004a817c8000000000052ae36150000000000001976a914cbeefd1b44465e6f30fb50add 2d27ec4d64a771888ac00000000

Try it with the option --encoding='op_return'. That should work, because it's just a send transaction. If doesn't, try bumping up the two DUST_SIZE values in the file config.py, restarting the server process, and trying again.

When Bitcoind rejects a transaction, it should say why in debug.log. The relevant message is usually rather hard to find, however.

Thanks for the help, but it seems --encoding='op_return' is an unrecognised argument.

Found this in log

ERROR: CTxMemPool::accept() : nonstandard transaction (dust)

[PhantomPhreak]

I just need to be able to send XCP.

I confirm

* Enough BTC: Yes
* At least a few confirmations: overs 1 months
* Bitcoind is running and configured properly: no errors in my debug.log
* Waited 10-20 min, 2 week, 2 months: always get this error

Here's my bug report:

counterpartyd --unsigned send --source <from> --destination <to> --quantity 200 --asset XCP
Transaction (unsigned): 0100000002c1eef0f50d2951e0ce71f70dff630291e6de6b1795a0ccc4f20ab944e4cebaa900000 0001976a914cbeefd1b44465e6f30fb50add2d27ec4d64a771888acffffffff084360e4a725dd0c 4c696f2a002ec7522e8235c32bae2d3e01cfa9240dcd80d9020000001976a914cbeefd1b44465e6 f30fb50add2d27ec4d64a771888acffffffff036c2a0000000000001976a914b22854289bda0c16 0cb353a00e2a2fda86b640ef88ac6c2a000000000000475121032bff26e6179750c88ffb4aa1eb6 a8cfc00878d72222ea0bcd768f28de29a6b29211c434e5452505254590000000000000000000000 0100000004a817c8000000000052ae36150000000000001976a914cbeefd1b44465e6f30fb50add 2d27ec4d64a771888ac00000000

Try it with the option --encoding='op_return'. That should work, because it's just a send transaction. If doesn't, try bumping up the two DUST_SIZE values in the file config.py, restarting the server process, and trying again.

When Bitcoind rejects a transaction, it should say why in debug.log. The relevant message is usually rather hard to find, however.

Thanks for the help, but it seems --encoding='op_return' is an unrecognised argument.

Found this in log

ERROR: CTxMemPool::accept() : nonstandard transaction (dust)

Right. That option was recently added to the develop branch. Increasing the dust size values in config.py should do the trick. If that doesn't work, download the develop branch and use OP_RETURN.

[sparta_cuss]

Sometime in the last 24 hours I received 55.909 GOLDTICKET assets from the asset issuer, 1CT9ui8DxxuHAigRqu7Y45Ujwzfhrzmu4E.

Any idea what this is? No results when I search for this asset or the issuing address on BTT or the forum.

[Matt Y]

Sometime in the last 24 hours I received 55.909 GOLDTICKET assets from the asset issuer, 1CT9ui8DxxuHAigRqu7Y45Ujwzfhrzmu4E.

Any idea what this is? No results when I search for this asset or the issuing address on BTT or the forum.

It's something to do with Swarm.

[sparta_cuss]

Sometime in the last 24 hours I received 55.909 GOLDTICKET assets from the asset issuer, 1CT9ui8DxxuHAigRqu7Y45Ujwzfhrzmu4E.

Any idea what this is? No results when I search for this asset or the issuing address on BTT or the forum.

It's something to do with Swarm.

Ok, thanks, Matt Y.
Is there someplace for me to read more, or should I just be patient and all will become clear?

[Matt Y]

Sometime in the last 24 hours I received 55.909 GOLDTICKET assets from the asset issuer, 1CT9ui8DxxuHAigRqu7Y45Ujwzfhrzmu4E.

Any idea what this is? No results when I search for this asset or the issuing address on BTT or the forum.

It's something to do with Swarm.

Ok, thanks, Matt Y.
Is there someplace for me to read more, or should I just be patient and all will become clear?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=653568.0;all
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=653741.0;all

[led_lcd]

I haven't seen this in the main thread yet.

Buy/trade November 2014 Soybean futures on Counterparty!

Bitcointalk announcement
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=656259

Blockscan
http://blockscan.com/assetInfo.aspx?q=SOYBEANS

Web site
http://www.7el.us/index.html

[TheMightyX]

Sometime in the last 24 hours I received 55.909 GOLDTICKET assets from the asset issuer, 1CT9ui8DxxuHAigRqu7Y45Ujwzfhrzmu4E.

Any idea what this is? No results when I search for this asset or the issuing address on BTT or the forum.

It's something to do with Swarm.

Ok, thanks, Matt Y.
Is there someplace for me to read more, or should I just be patient and all will become clear?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=653568.msg7401160#msg7401160

Swarm is a scam or a greedy mismanaged pile of crap.
They are also throwing around the counterparty name implying we all support and endorse it.
Apparently, according to them, they received 500 BTC from this thread and our community directly in the form of a pre-sale. I have trouble believing we would all be so stupid.

[TheMightyX]

I have just read the last pages, and I am in a very bad mood...

Guys, we must recognize that Counterparty is very useful but XCP is useless.
Even Swarm won't use XCP, and community even thinks it is better for XCP because of risks ?!...Are we kidding ?

What happens with community's minimal ambition, competition and risk tolerance ?

Did you notice that even Maidsafe is ahead us !!! What a "chaotic IPO" !!!!
Nxt is 10 times more valuated, and its assets exchange, which was after CP, is not better but far more used now. Battle lost.

Everyone has left the thread. The first month was really exciting, but almost nothing happens since. 1 or 2 pages per week...
It is the first coin nobody talks about value, like a taboo ! Very lately, they were news like talks with overstock, xbet.io, a kind of privacy with mixing , swarm on press, even coindesk and NOBODY CARES !

...
I can't see XCP successful if we can't answer precisely why, and even when or how much. Chance is not an option.

Sorry for be provocative, but we can't have a XCP as low as 0.0035 BTC anymore, it is insane. It should be in the top 5 easily NOW.

I agree. I think this requires a lot of marketing.  Many many people have heard of NXT and Mastercoin, but very few have heard of Counterparty. We need to change this.

#xcp #tothemoon

These posts, although unpleasant, are also necessary to learn and grow. If we don't understand what we are doing wrong we will continue to do so.

One of the main differences between Nxt and XCP is that NXT has a central lead, someone who is directly responsible and invested in the success of the currency. With XCP no one person is any more invested than the next. We all stand to gain and lose just as much as we invested.

NXT has someone to say "hey, this is a problem, so we are going to do this". Where as XCP doesn't have that central lead or authority. This was the decision of the developers to create a grass-roots free-growing enterprise and only the future will tell how it all turns out. I don't support this model and in the past I have voiced my opinions on the subject so I wont rehash them. It's also important to understand that NXT isn't limited by outside factors (BTC). NXT lives and dies by its own decisions. It is not arbitrarily limited or denied (OP return anyone?) by external forces (BTC developers). The initial XCP developers chose to attach this project to BTC for certain reasons and it was their right to choose so.

I would like to point out a very interesting comment though:

2) I'm not sure about 'everything', but XCP is a much more powerful currency than BTC, and all of the more interesting functionality of Counterparty requires its extra capabilities.

If XCP is so much more powerful and amazing than BTC, why are we arbitrarily limiting ourselves to the shackles of bitcoins blockchain? 10 minute blocks? In the future we will be saying "30 second blocks are you serious? I'm not waiting 30s to pay for my coffee!". If it can't be used to pay for everything and anything, then its not a true currency. If its not a true currency, then why are we using it. Bitcoins first-mover advantage is not going to last forever. And when it does start showing the signs of its age (which in my position it already is), we are going to be in an uncomfortable position.

The promise of bitcoin will live on, regardless of whether we are using Bitcoin, or blackcoin, or darkcoin, etc, so to arbitrarily pick one of these and say "this is the one" and attach ourselves to it seems foolish.
Regardless of whether bitcoin fails and another takes its place, NXT will continue on. I hate NXT mainly because of its distribution. But we are a large unwieldy and uncoordinated beast competing against a well-oiled machine. They have the budget, the focus and the drive to pick goals and accomplish them. Not only that but we are self-limiting ourselves. With this in mind its obvious why the price hasn't moved.

Technological Anarchy (thats what this is, people coming together and working together by choice, not by law) sounds nice on paper. "Hey we'll all contribute together and it will be egalitarian and no one will control anything and it will be great!". But in reality doesn't help get things done in a efficient and timely manner.

Theres a reason why we've always had central authority in the form of a monarchy or president. It gets shit done.
That reminds me of a picture.



Hard to argue with that.

[bitwhizz]

In my opinion there is one reason and one reason only

Marketing


Advertising

I have seen NXT advertisements on youtube and on website banners,
they are using google adwords and are paying a good marketing team
they have a futuristic video, with some robotic voice telling people that it is the future of currency, relating it to a digital dna strand,

COunterparty marketing video is a joke (the bat man themed one)
i am surprised that there isn;t a huge XCP stake holder who isn;t trying to organise this

IF everyone contributes funds to counterparty, so we have a total of around $10,000 + in marketing and advertising budget,


we might stand a chance

otherwise XCP will never make it to the top 5

----------------------------------------------------------------

PLAN

Raise funds -

Contact video marketing agency -

 http://www.visionreel.com
or
http://www.smarteyeproductions.com
or
http://www.aspectfilmandvideo.co.uk/about.html
or
http://www.digitalsnowball.com
or
Any video marketing agency which could work

Then, Upload Video on counterparty website

Advertise on Youtube,
Use google adwords

TIme frame - 1 - 2 months

Result - Success (hopefully)

[baddw]

Just to make a few points....

1) The key features of Counterparty are still being used only by very early adopters.  The betting platform will be huge, but it will take people a while to get comfortable using it.

2) The devs have been promoting new features soon.  We don't know what those features will be yet, but I have faith in their ability to deliver.

3) If Bitcoin somehow loses its first-mover advantage (not bloody likely) then you can bet that Counterparty will adapt to run on on whatever takes its place.

4) The focus on the XCP token as a "currency" is misguided and somewhat short-sighted IMO.  Even BTC's use as a "currency" is just one aspect of a multi-faceted schema.  In many ways, BTC, XCP and other cryptos are more like shares of stock in a company than dollar bills.  XCP even more so than others.  This is the whole "DAC" concept (Distributed Autonomous Corporation) and by owning XCP, you are kind of a shareholder of Counterparty, and anything done on Counterparty which adds value to the Counterparty ecosystem also adds value to your holdings, because it increases the demand for XCP.

5) As "shareholders" of Counterparty, we all have the responsibility to promote it and encourage its growth, or contribute to the project directly by committing code or other assets.  By the same token, there is no formal leadership structure, nor is there a Board of Directors or other democratic mechanism for making decisions.  Given that, if you don't like the direction the leaders are taking the project, or the choices that they are making in doing so, it is easy enough to liquidate your XCP if you don't think that it will be a long-term winner.

[cityglut]

These posts, although unpleasant, are also necessary to learn and grow. If we don't understand what we are doing wrong we will continue to do so.

One of the main differences between Nxt and XCP is that NXT has a central lead, someone who is directly responsible and invested in the success of the currency. With XCP no one person is any more invested than the next. We all stand to gain and lose just as much as we invested.

NXT has someone to say "hey, this is a problem, so we are going to do this". Where as XCP doesn't have that central lead or authority. This was the decision of the developers to create a grass-roots free-growing enterprise and only the future will tell how it all turns out. I don't support this model and in the past I have voiced my opinions on the subject so I wont rehash them. It's also important to understand that NXT isn't limited by outside factors (BTC). NXT lives and dies by its own decisions. It is not arbitrarily limited or denied (OP return anyone?) by external forces (BTC developers). The initial XCP developers chose to attach this project to BTC for certain reasons and it was their right to choose so.

I would like to point out a very interesting comment though:

2) I'm not sure about 'everything', but XCP is a much more powerful currency than BTC, and all of the more interesting functionality of Counterparty requires its extra capabilities.

If XCP is so much more powerful and amazing than BTC, why are we arbitrarily limiting ourselves to the shackles of bitcoins blockchain? 10 minute blocks? In the future we will be saying "30 second blocks are you serious? I'm not waiting 30s to pay for my coffee!". If it can't be used to pay for everything and anything, then its not a true currency. If its not a true currency, then why are we using it. Bitcoins first-mover advantage is not going to last forever. And when it does start showing the signs of its age (which in my position it already is), we are going to be in an uncomfortable position.

The promise of bitcoin will live on, regardless of whether we are using Bitcoin, or blackcoin, or darkcoin, etc, so to arbitrarily pick one of these and say "this is the one" and attach ourselves to it seems foolish.
Regardless of whether bitcoin fails and another takes its place, NXT will continue on. I hate NXT mainly because of its distribution. But we are a large unwieldy and uncoordinated beast competing against a well-oiled machine. They have the budget, the focus and the drive to pick goals and accomplish them. Not only that but we are self-limiting ourselves. With this in mind its obvious why the price hasn't moved.

Technological Anarchy (thats what this is, people coming together and working together by choice, not by law) sounds nice on paper. "Hey we'll all contribute together and it will be egalitarian and no one will control anything and it will be great!". But in reality doesn't help get things done in a efficient and timely manner.

Theres a reason why we've always had central authority in the form of a monarchy or president. It gets shit done.
That reminds me of a picture.

Hard to argue with that.

The creator of Nxt is still anonymous and, indeed, has not posted on Bitcointalk since early November. We three, on the other hand, have revealed our identities, in spite of having had no intentions of doing so in the beginning, for the specific purpose of going to conferences and doing business development, ourselves. If we don't mention everything happens internally, that is because we don't want to count our chickens before they are hatched, and are aware that making growing business relationships overly-public does more harm than good.

The fact that fewer than 80 addresses initially controlled all the Nxt is not some minor "detail" that will be forgotten in the future, nor is the fact that they cut off the Kickstarter period before planned and without warning. That aside, we are writing a document listing Counterparty's "competitive advantages" over some of the other "2.0" projects, in which we address Nxt in particular pretty extensively. This document will be available in the next week, hopefully.

For now, we should point out that proof-of-stake mining has inherent problems, which, to my knowledge, neither BCNext nor anyone else in the Nxt community has addressed. In particular, the well-known "nothing at stake" attack, by which miners can mine on multiple blockchains at no cost to themselves; this is in contrast to proof-of-work, where the resources one uses to mine are depleted in the process of mining. "Transparent forging" doesn't solve this problem, and, in any case, transparent forging has not even been implemented yet.

With regards to proof-of-work, shorter block times aren't magic: shorter blocks means less security.

EDIT: wording.

[Eadeqa]

The creator of Nxt is still anonymous and, indeed, has not posted on Bitcointalk since early November.

Just as BTC creator is anonymous

The fact that fewer than 80 addresses initially controlled all the Nxt is not some minor "detail" that will be forgotten in the future,

Just as one person owns 10% of BTC? Or 50% of peercoin are owned by top 60 addresses? Or just top 2 Litecoin addresses own 20% of all litecoin?   what's the big difference between 80 and 8000 when the population of the word is 7 billion?  Unless you can show a crypto that is distributed equally to all 7 billion, nothing about any distribution is "fair". All early adapters have large percentages.

[crimi]

Mark my words every currency that is merged mined like (Namecoin) or build on top of Bitcoin (Counterparty) will never have any large marketcap. They will be naturally suppressed by Bitcoin. You should have made Counterparty not attached to Bitcoin. Just my personal opinion!

[cityglut]

The creator of Nxt is still anonymous and, indeed, has not posted on Bitcointalk since early November.

Just as BTC creator is anonymous

Pointing out that someone is anonymous isn't a criticism, it was to show that we have taken initiative (by revealing our identities) in response to someone saying that Nxt has a central lead, whereas Counterparty does not.

The fact that fewer than 80 addresses initially controlled all the Nxt is not some minor "detail" that will be forgotten in the future,

Just as one person owns 10% of BTC? Or 50% of peercoin are owned by top 60 addresses? Or just top 2 Litecoin addresses own 20% of all litecoin?   what's the big difference between 80 and 8000 when the population of the word is 7 billion?  Unless you can show a crypto that is distributed equally to all 7 billion, nothing about any distribution is "fair". All early adapters have large percentages.
[/quote]

The comparison you're making is unreasonable: Nxt fundraising was cut off early, with no warning.

[cityglut]

Mark my words every currency that is merged mined like (Namecoin) or build on top of Bitcoin (Counterparty) will never have any large marketcap. They will be naturally suppressed by Bitcoin. You should have made Counterparty not attached to Bitcoin. Just my personal opinion!

Counterparty isn't merge-mined. I agree that merge-mined coins are problematic (incidentally for analogous reasons to PoS).