There has been some disagreement between stakeholders and developers on the future of the counterparty protocol and distributed exchange system. This is currently helping investors who still want to get into XCP by buying at fairly low rates from stakeholders who are unsatisfied with the current direction (see my review thread for details on buying XCP for 0.005 BTC each, link in sig).
It has just now become more clear as to the cause of the disagreement.
The main DISAGREEMENT is on the NATURE OF THE CURRENT PROBLEM with the DEX system.
While we believe the current fees required to use the XCP network are excessive and inefficient - totalling ~$1 or 0.001 BTC for a single matched trade to complete with much of the expense being sent to unspendable locations (multi-sig is currently unspendable despite that rumor of spendability which was debunked in this thread). Our perspective is that MORE fees going to miners or being "burned" are NOT acceptable changes, while allowing asset orders to request and receive fees for the privilege of locking that order for a time they agree to is more fair and acceptable.
How it currently works:
1 A) People with XCP can place an offer to sell a specific amount of XCP at a specific XCP/BTC rate to last until a specific expiration. They may only cancel unmatched orders prior to the expiration. This costs about 30 cents (USD) currently whereas a direct XCP send costs about 20 cents.
1 B)People with bitcoins can place requests to buy XCP at a specific rate until a specific expiration. They may cancel or refuse to pay. This costs about 30 cents.
2 A) If there is overlap of the two above listings, those orders are matched regardless of order size (0.000001 XCP order may be matched with a 1 BTC order) and regardless of expiration time (XCP order expiring in 2 blocks may match with a BTC order expiring in 100 blocks). This creates an order match, (in this case perhaps for 0.00001 BTC for 0.0000005 XCP or 1 BTC for 200 XCP expiring in 2 blocks) matching happens regardless of whether the xcp/btc seller want to match a minimum quantity, maximum time to pay, etc.
For example, if a btc offer is placed around 6PM lasting for the next 25 hours (150 blocks) and wants to sell 5 btc for 1000 XCP and will come back the next day around 4PM to review orders and pay for those that match. They might be matched numerous times with short expiration XCP orders of (maybe 10 blocks or even 20 blocks, since they are not intending to view the matches until closer to their expiration time) over the next day but NONE of them show or might have very short expiration time when they are reviewing the matches. Further, they CAN'T specify minimum matches, so several dust matches are present which they must parse the database to view since the CLI doesn't show which match is for what trade. Frustrated at these failures of the protocol, they might abandon using the DEX around 7PM on that day and go to the thread in this forum to trade for XCP the same way every other alt-coin is traded if they don't abandon the idea of XCP altogether (due to the failure of XCP protocol to do it's intended purpose).
2 B) Assuming there are some XCP orders that matched with sufficient time for the BTC order to review them and pay, the BTC order involved in the match (requesting XCP or other asset) then has an option to send BTC (BTCpay command) to complete the match/s and receive XCP. NOTE: They will lose their btc for no benefit if the transaction occurs after the expiration of the match.
Based on how the protocol currently works, these MOST SIGNIFICANT CURRENT PROBLEMS are as follows:
1) EXCESSIVE FEES REQUIRED FOR USING THE DEX (whereas the devs are contemplating MORE fees).
2) LACK OF CUSTOMIZATION FOR ORDERS IN REGARDS TO TIME TO BTCPAY AND MINIMUM MATCH AMOUNTS.
Specifically: PEOPLE PLACING ORDERS INVOLVING BTC CANNOT SPECIFY:
A) The duration of time allowed for BTCpay.
B) Minimum match amounts.
3) Asset for BTC orders receive no compensation for order matches that do not BTCpay within the timeframe. Also, they receive no compensation difference for an order requiring payment in 5 blocks and no compensation for an option to buy their XCP in 1000 blocks expiration time.
A solutions to these problems is being worked out in this thread:
-
https://forums.counterparty.co/index.php/topic,71.0.htmlBut since the dev's don't agree to the above problems, of course they won't implement solutions to them. . .
Solutions in short to the above defined problems are:
1) Don't force people to pay fees as default, let the market decide.
2) Allow customizing orders in regards to matching, particularly for matches after the first match to a btc order (see thread discussion) -
3) Allow XCP orders to get compensated for the expiration/payment timeframe they offer: This would be paid by the BTC seller for the privilege of multiple matches/options to buy. NOTE: due to already excessive fees and the potential for a highly clogged book from numerous fee amounts as we see now, the FIRST match should be included for the price of getting your BTC Sale request included in the blockchain. This will allow clearing of orders around the trading range for the cost of the transaction fees (already too high). The DEX system already is usable for small amounts, it's just numerous matches per BTC order that needs some option to prevent continuing the matching.
As long as the developers are misguided in identifying/solving the problems, we will be divesting of XCP.
Buy XCP at 0.005BTC each! link in sig
What the dev's have to say about the problems/fees being burned to miners:
^^^^^ EXCELLENT REVIEW OF CURRENT PROBLEM AN IMMEDIATE FIX WITH A LINK TO WELL THOUGHT OUT LONG TERM FIXES THAT ENSURE VIABILITY OF THE ORDER BOOK / DEX SYSTEM.
Please take a look at my suggestion [...]
I'm advocating much higher fees [...] in proportion to the size of the order matched.
I agree, you advocate burning more per transaction. . .
The BTCpay mechanism isn't intended to be an "option" for people to have the luxuary of locking in a price and deciding later whether to exercise it. It has worked that way so far only by an unfortunate accident in the protocol design - one that can be corrected.
I'm calling BS on that, it's absolutely necessary for the BTC offer to know exactly when they are willing and able to pay, thus they MUST be able to set a time that they are able to pay for their order request and forcing all trades to be done in an arbitrary timeframe (10 blocks) would SUCK, what if I want to btcpay in 150 blocks (expiration of my btc offer) and there's an xcp offer on the books that is looking for the same?
Give us more options, don't take them away. . .
Great, now you want BTC orders to pay 1% in miner fees, wow, we're definitely not on the same page. . .
We are selling XCP at 0.005 BTC each until 30 BTC worth has been exchanged or 7 days, whichever comes sooner.
I hope dev's become enlightened on these problems and solutions we have described:
https://forums.counterparty.co/index.php/topic,71.0.html
