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

[Praxis]

Have nothing to add now except to thank poloskarted for his regular updates which are very useful and informative. Keep up the good work.

[1714152255]

1714152255

[1714152255]

1714152255

[poloskarted]

Have nothing to add now except to thank poloskarted for his regular updates which are very useful and informative. Keep up the good work.

No problem!

On the same note as my last message, a new startup I had not previous heard of also jumping on the blockchain settlement hype train, comprised of former Google and NASDAQ OMX employees.

https://blockstack.io/

I think that makes about 10 of these startups now.

 If you are interested in CounterParty's competition and excited by the potential of this technology in general it's interesting to keep an eye on these projects. Because there's a surge of conferences/accelerators/thinktanks etc popping up and some really interesting ideas being thrown around. http://blockchainlondon.com/ just finished recently, One upcoming in NYC July,  http://www.americanbanker.com/conferences/digitalcurrencies/ another August in LA http://www.keynote2015.com/


also few things picked up on earlier

1)https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/41076aad0cbdfa4c4cf376e345114a5c29086f81
seems OP_ CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY merging into mainline
Although serial Counterparty disparager Flavien "coinprism" charlon suggests
  counterparty cannot benefit from this, I think he may be mistaken. Can anyone chime in to suggest otherwise?

1) New open source, low cost hardware wallet. https://digitalbitbox.com/
    Seems this could become a favorable choice for users looking to secure with 2fa, if the price is right. Dev seems to be friendly and open to integration with various projects. Maybe  counterwallet could be an early platform compatible with this?

[bitcoinrocks]

1)https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/41076aad0cbdfa4c4cf376e345114a5c29086f81
seems OP_ CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY merging into mainline
Although serial Counterparty disparager Flavien "coinprism" charlon suggests
  counterparty cannot benefit from this, I think he may be mistaken. Can anyone chime in to suggest otherwise?

Sounds very interesting.  I'd like to know too.

[PhantomPhreak]

1)https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/41076aad0cbdfa4c4cf376e345114a5c29086f81
seems OP_ CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY merging into mainline
Although serial Counterparty disparager Flavien "coinprism" charlon suggests
  counterparty cannot benefit from this, I think he may be mistaken. Can anyone chime in to suggest otherwise?

Sounds very interesting.  I'd like to know too.

Counterparty doesn't benefit from the introduction of `OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY`, but you can easily code identical (or much greater) functionality into Counterparty smart contracts. Counterparty already has infinitely more features than Colored Coins could ever have, because Colored Coins is just Bitcoin + tokens. To add a feature to Colored Coins, you have to fork Bitcoin itself; to add a feature to Counterparty, you just have to write it up and send it out.

[bitcoinrocks]

Counterparty looks to have a lot of features that Colored Coins doesn't have.  But real-world implementations seem to only care about the features that Colored Coins (and Counterparty) have.  Colored Coins is a simpler protocol so it is being chosen over Counterparty consistently.  At what point do you expect implementations to choose Counterparty for the features it has that Colored Coins doesn't?

[Matt Y]

Counterparty looks to have a lot of features that Colored Coins doesn't have.  But real-world implementations seem to only care about the features that Colored Coins (and Counterparty) have.  Colored Coins is a simpler protocol so it is being chosen over Counterparty consistently.  At what point do you expect implementations to choose Counterparty for the features it has that Colored Coins doesn't?

Probably when those features (smart contracts) go live, or after. Hard to use features that don't exist on mainnet.

[poloskarted]

1)https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/41076aad0cbdfa4c4cf376e345114a5c29086f81
seems OP_ CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY merging into mainline
Although serial Counterparty disparager Flavien "coinprism" charlon suggests
  counterparty cannot benefit from this, I think he may be mistaken. Can anyone chime in to suggest otherwise?

Sounds very interesting.  I'd like to know too.

Counterparty doesn't benefit from the introduction of `OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY`, but you can easily code identical (or much greater) functionality into Counterparty smart contracts. Counterparty already has infinitely more features than Colored Coins could ever have, because Colored Coins is just Bitcoin + tokens. To add a feature to Colored Coins, you have to fork Bitcoin itself; to add a feature to Counterparty, you just have to write it up and send it out.

Thank you for your answer. I am a layman so my understanding is not the best, but I was under the impression Counterparty might be able to use atomic cross chain swaps.. a variation on something like:

http://upcoder.com/11/atomic-cross-chain-exchange/
http://www.coincer.org/2015/02/03/atomic-protocol-2/
http://www.coincer.org/2015/01/27/atomic-protocol-1/
http://www.coincer.org/2015/02/06/atomic-protocol-3-final/

along with bitcoin's integration of CLTV to handle BTCpays (escrow+refunds) securely.

this project below seems not too dissimilar to counterparty and takes an approach to exchanging btc to swapbill in a decentralized way in a way that awards collateral backers should an unbacked seller default on payment of the host currency (Btc) to avoid trolling https://github.com/crispweed/swapbill http://swapbill.readthedocs.org/en/latest/example/backedsell.html I know similar things has been discussed herehttps://counterpartytalk.org/t/dex-anti-trolling-proposal/91/44 

 Is it really not possible to bake something like this into the protocol?  Basically I'm wondering if it's possible for counterparty to ever support trading BTC again?

[Jpja]

Counterparty looks to have a lot of features that Colored Coins doesn't have.  But real-world implementations seem to only care about the features that Colored Coins (and Counterparty) have.  Colored Coins is a simpler protocol so it is being chosen over Counterparty consistently.  At what point do you expect implementations to choose Counterparty for the features it has that Colored Coins doesn't?

Those who want to experiment with building a new system from scratch (i.e. Nasdaq and Overstock) - yes, they have chosen Colored Coins because the protocol is more basic, I believe. Those who just issue a token are better off with Counterparty because it has a much larger network of users, wallets, explorers, tools, etc. The CP ecosystem is all ready quite huge: Counterwallet, XCP Companion Wallet for Chrome, IndieWallet for iPhone and Android, GetGems Messenger, Blockscan, Coindaddy, Counterpartychain, Tokenly, Vennd ++

Colored Coin is essentially a subset of Counterparty. Everything you can do with CC you can with CP, but there are many things you can do with CP that cannot be done with CC. The CP code is also getting mature. The code is barely being updated anymore because it is stable and bug free.

[delulo]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

[deliciousowl]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

I'm guessing they'll use this:

With the Ripple Gateway implementation, Counterparty users will now be able to transfer their funds in real-time with minimal transaction fees.

The gateway allows users to send Counterparty assets through the Ripple network, and to transfer those assets back into the Counterparty network. Further, both on the Ripple and Counterparty networks, assets may be stored in offline wallets, to ensure maximum security.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/symbiont-creates-ripple-gateway-for-counterparty-xcp-300058719.html

[delulo]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

I'm guessing they'll use this:

With the Ripple Gateway implementation, Counterparty users will now be able to transfer their funds in real-time with minimal transaction fees.

The gateway allows users to send Counterparty assets through the Ripple network, and to transfer those assets back into the Counterparty network. Further, both on the Ripple and Counterparty networks, assets may be stored in offline wallets, to ensure maximum security.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/symbiont-creates-ripple-gateway-for-counterparty-xcp-300058719.html

Thanks for the hint / link. Acc. to my understanding the gateway simple allows trading assets that were created on Counterparty on the Ripple network. But what about all the financial contrasts (through scripting) and the order matching - these (as far as I understand) can only happen on Counterparty and therefore on the Bitcoin blockchain and are therefore limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second.

But I have another question since the PR text above didn't really explain how the gateway works: Is it a normal gateway where an issuer (Symbiont) issues tokens on the ripple network that represents counterparty assets (and possibly does that also for counterparty users who send Symbiont the counterparty assets in return for a token on Ripple that represents that asset (possible this process is automated)). Or is there no need to trust Symbiont / the gateway operator when trying to get a counterparty asset on Ripple and how would that work then? 

[Matt Y]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

There won't be an issue with transaction volume for a while. It's not going to be...

1. Launch
2. Tons of business and issues of multiple transactions a second

It's still going to take time.

Additionally, the block size increase that is being put in place soon will help alleviate that pain point.

[delulo]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

There won't be an issue with transaction volume for a while. It's not going to be...

1. Launch
2. Tons of business and issues of multiple transactions a second

It's still going to take time.

Additionally, the block size increase that is being put in place soon will help alleviate that pain point.

But there has to be a long term plan.

The block size increase might help to make 140 out of the 7 tx (1 mb -> 20 mb) per second but that is still minuscule compared to the markets Counterparty is aiming at. TX/S have to be in the thousands at least... Trading takes much more volume than eccommerce /  remittance (bitcoin use cases).

[poloskarted]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

There won't be an issue with transaction volume for a while. It's not going to be...

1. Launch
2. Tons of business and issues of multiple transactions a second

It's still going to take time.

Additionally, the block size increase that is being put in place soon will help alleviate that pain point.

But there has to be a long term plan.

The block size increase might help to make 140 out of the 7 tx (1 mb -> 20 mb) per second but that is still minuscule compared to the markets Counterparty is aiming at. TX/S have to be in the thousands at least... Trading takes much more volume than eccommerce /  remittance (bitcoin use cases).

DTCC who clears about $1.8 quadrillion dollars yearly, or roughly equivalent of the U.S. GDP every three days undertook a study on the transisition to t+2 settlement and identified huge merits in the transition to 2 day settlement http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-22/dtcc-plans-study-on-faster-settlement-for-u-s-securities-1-

so bear in mind even t+0 (same day settlement) is still a huge improvement compared to previous 3 (or more) day settlement, granted this on a much smaller scale


with gavins proposal, blocksize would double every 2 years, so something like this:

Code:

2016 8MB 0.1Mb/s 26Tx/s
2018 16MB 0.2Mb/s 53Tx/s
2020 32MB 0.4Mb/s 106Tx/s
2022 64MB 0.9Mb/s 213Tx/s
2024 128MB 1.7Mb/s 426Tx/s

Right now there is a theoretical ceiling of 604,800 bitcoin transactions that could be undertaken every day. By 2016 that could be 2.2 million, by 2018 4.57 million, 2020 9 million , and 2024, 36 million.

There's a lot of  space to grow and a lot of time to pass in which numerous innovations could come to existance, sidechains, lightning networks are a few 'transaction offloading schemes we've seen recently. I am not worried about scalability just yet. Counterparty does not have to be used as a real time trading layer when that could be offloaded through gateways, it can be used as a final clearing, netting and settlement layer- or as an initial asset issuance/ equity ownership database for example.

[deliciousowl]

An improvement from 3 days to 1 hour isn't enough for you guys?  spoiled... . And besides, off-chain transactions and Ripple gateway usage gives you real-time transactions. Therefore, 10 minute block times are a feature, not an issue.

And besides, as far as I know, what Counterparty is especially useful for are high-volume transactions ($100,000 and up) rather than micropayments to angry birds or whatever.

[Matt Y]

How will Counterparty handle the tx volume in markets Symbiont is aiming at (settlement infrastructure?)? Isn't Counterparty limited to Bitcoin's 7 tx per second?

There won't be an issue with transaction volume for a while. It's not going to be...

1. Launch
2. Tons of business and issues of multiple transactions a second

It's still going to take time.

Additionally, the block size increase that is being put in place soon will help alleviate that pain point.

But there has to be a long term plan.

The block size increase might help to make 140 out of the 7 tx (1 mb -> 20 mb) per second but that is still minuscule compared to the markets Counterparty is aiming at. TX/S have to be in the thousands at least... Trading takes much more volume than eccommerce /  remittance (bitcoin use cases).

Not that long term.

[delulo]

Good, thanks you all

[Praxis]

I missed this on Symbiont's Twitter, from June 22:

The former head of the New York Stock Exchange is among veteran trading executives who are backing a start-up that aims to use the type of technology that underpins bitcoin for securities issuance and trading.

Duncan Niederauer, the previous chief executive of NYSE, is part of a group that has produced $1.25m of seed money for Symbiont. The other members are Matt Andresen, trading head at Citadel who founded the Island ECN, and Getco founders Dan Tierney and Stephen Schuler.

[PhantomPhreak]

For those that don't already know, Symbiont is currently hiring developers in the New York area. We're looking in particular for a front-end/full-stack web dev.; but we're also interested in other applicants with experience developing cryptocurrency and distributed systems software. Shoot me an e-mail or a PM if you think you'd be a good fit!

See Stack Overflow Careers for a detailed job description for the front-end spot.

[poloskarted]

http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/symbiont-targets-blockchain-tech-at-wall-st/375689