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

[jl777]

Thought this article might be of interest to the community...

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-volatility-problem-may-soon-solved/

If there was an active market in BTC options, you could sell off the upside by selling a call option and buy downside protection with a put option. Assuming no issues of settlement, there would be much less volatility. In order to make it cost neutral for the options, you would probably need it a by asymmetric around the current price, but removing 90% of the volatility could be of interest to a lot of people.

Issue an asset in counterparty that encapsulates all of that and we can have such a solution as soon as we have liquid enough BTC options

James

[reader31]

If there was an active market in BTC options, you could sell off the upside by selling a call option and buy downside protection with a put option.

Both the call option  and put option for btc can be created right on counterparty using the betting/feed features correct? I mean once we have large enough trade volume on the platform ofcourse...

[halfcab123]

What is the technical reason for having to reindex? Why can't we just install counterpartyd and be good to go?

[halfcab123]

Personally in response to all the haters, I believe that XCP is the cutest crypto currency in the valley.

Perhaps even uber cutesies,  like bfffffffcoin

[jl777]

If there was an active market in BTC options, you could sell off the upside by selling a call option and buy downside protection with a put option.

Both the call option  and put option for btc can be created right on counterparty using the betting/feed features correct? I mean once we have large enough trade volume on the platform ofcourse...

My thinking exactly. We can create BTC options market within counterparty and then build less volatile BTC base vehicle. Of course, the actual price will be different based on the time of purchase, but the value is that it will have defined max range of price change that is fixed at the moment it is created.

[nakaone]

when xcp gets a webwallet it is definetely the most useful altcoin

[halfcab123]

when xcp gets a webwallet it is definetely the most useful altcoin

Yes I'm eagerly awaiting a Web wallet. Wish that day would hurry

[freedomfighter]

what is the status with Poloniex? still alive?

[busoni]

what is the status with Poloniex? still alive?

Actually very close to listing XCP.

Counterparty-savvy people, I have a question. When I attempt to send XCP from one address to another, it tells me there are insufficient Bitcoins at the source address. The thing is, the wallet that contains the source address has plenty of BTC, even if not enough were sent to that PARTICULAR address.

Please tell me I don't have to send a tiny bit of BTC to every address I want to send XCP from. This makes a big difference.

[porqupine]

what is the status with Poloniex? still alive?

Actually very close to listing XCP.

Counterparty-savvy people, I have a question. When I attempt to send XCP from one address to another, it tells me there are insufficient Bitcoins at the source address. The thing is, the wallet that contains the source address has plenty of BTC, even if not enough were sent to that PARTICULAR address.

Please tell me I don't have to send a tiny bit of BTC to every address I want to send XCP from. This makes a big difference.

That's how the protocol works, you have to have enough BTC in the source address for XCP transactions.

[busoni]

what is the status with Poloniex? still alive?

Actually very close to listing XCP.

Counterparty-savvy people, I have a question. When I attempt to send XCP from one address to another, it tells me there are insufficient Bitcoins at the source address. The thing is, the wallet that contains the source address has plenty of BTC, even if not enough were sent to that PARTICULAR address.

Please tell me I don't have to send a tiny bit of BTC to every address I want to send XCP from. This makes a big difference.

That's how the protocol works, you have to have enough BTC in the source address for XCP transactions.

If I can send BTC from my wallet, why can't I send a Counterparty transaction? I thought the BTC was just needed to carry the message--why does it matter which address in the wallet has the BTC? Is there some need for proof of ownership of BTC?

[kdrop22]

what is the status with Poloniex? still alive?

Actually very close to listing XCP.

Counterparty-savvy people, I have a question. When I attempt to send XCP from one address to another, it tells me there are insufficient Bitcoins at the source address. The thing is, the wallet that contains the source address has plenty of BTC, even if not enough were sent to that PARTICULAR address.

Please tell me I don't have to send a tiny bit of BTC to every address I want to send XCP from. This makes a big difference.

You need a small amount of BTC in that address, to pay the miner fees.
Unfortunately, it is a limitation at this point. The developers or more technical members of the forum can provide further details.

[porqupine]

As far as I understand, the wallet isn't a protocol but a client side construction - and the protocol only recognizes as XCP as being held by such and such address, it is not aware of what other addresses may or may not be in the wallet.

[busoni]

what is the status with Poloniex? still alive?

Actually very close to listing XCP.

Counterparty-savvy people, I have a question. When I attempt to send XCP from one address to another, it tells me there are insufficient Bitcoins at the source address. The thing is, the wallet that contains the source address has plenty of BTC, even if not enough were sent to that PARTICULAR address.

Please tell me I don't have to send a tiny bit of BTC to every address I want to send XCP from. This makes a big difference.

You need a small amount of BTC in that address, to pay the miner fees.
Unfortunately, it is a limitation at this point. The developers or more technical members of the forum can provide further details.

The wallet has BTC to pay whatever fees are needed...

The only thing I can think of is that Counterparty sends BTC from a specific address to another, and uses the origin and destination of the BTC to determine the origin and destination of the XCP. I don't really see the need for that, but if that's how it works, I guess there isn't a way around it.

Things just got more difficult for traders.

[busoni]

As far as I understand, the wallet isn't a protocol but a client side construction - and the protocol only recognizes as XCP as being held by such and such address, it is not aware of what other addresses may or may not be in the wallet.

But we're not talking about XCP. The address has XCP. I'm talking about the BTC needed to fund the XCP transaction. Address has 1 XCP, 0.0001 BTC. To send, for some reason you need 0.0003 BTC, even though that much is not consumed.

[jl777]

As far as I understand, the wallet isn't a protocol but a client side construction - and the protocol only recognizes as XCP as being held by such and such address, it is not aware of what other addresses may or may not be in the wallet.

But we're not talking about XCP. The address has XCP. I'm talking about the BTC needed to fund the XCP transaction. Address has 1 XCP, 0.0001 BTC. To send, for some reason you need 0.0003 BTC, even though that much is not consumed.

I am not sure, but I think currently .0003 or even a bit more is needed during the process, but after all the dust settles, it is net cost of .0001 BTC

I dont think anybody that is going to be trading XCP will be bothered by the requirement of having at least .0003 or even .001 BTC in their acct to be able to do a withdraw.

[busoni]

It's not the withdrawals, it's the deposits. The exchange's XCP (or a sufficient portion to cover everyone's withdrawals) has to be in one place.

At any rate, I just finished writing some crazy bit of code to move all the BTC and XCP around. I think I'll just charge a withdrawal fee in XCP, since people are used to withdrawal fees.

Pending tests on BTC's slow block chain, everything should be about ready.

[gacrux]

The only thing I can think of is that Counterparty sends BTC from a specific address to another, and uses the origin and destination of the BTC to determine the origin and destination of the XCP. I don't really see the need for that, but if that's how it works, I guess there isn't a way around it.

Space in the bitcoin blockchain is a scarce (and expensive) resource.

By reusing the BTC send address as the XCP send address, you get the following for free:
* the send address already being part of the transaction
* the proof that the sender "owns" the XCP send address (by bitcoin-validated scriptSig containing ECDSA signature)

That's sort of a big deal. If you want to use separate addresses for XCP, embedded as metadata in bitcoin transactions (which currently relies in the CHECKMULTISIG trick, the "expense" of which a bunch of people have been complaining about lately)... then you also need to embed a signature scheme for proving ownership of your XCP addresses and can't just rely on bitcoin's heavily battle tested one for free.

That's a LOT of extra data to be trying to stuff into bitcoin transactions. It'd contribute significantly to blockchain bloat, and would cost you a lot more in fees because of the unnecessarily large size (in kBs) of each transaction (and if it wouldn't, it certainly ought to.)

On top of that, the security of your XCP transactions would now be highly questionable.

I imagine that would be why the devs have designed counterparty the way it is :-)
(Incidentally, you'll notice most other coloured-coin schemes out there do something similar.)

[BitzMD]

Maybe someone could give some input on this

Is XCP cinsdered a distributed autonomous corporation and if so how is it compared to Bitshares?

[lonsharim]

The only thing I can think of is that Counterparty sends BTC from a specific address to another, and uses the origin and destination of the BTC to determine the origin and destination of the XCP. I don't really see the need for that, but if that's how it works, I guess there isn't a way around it.

Space in the bitcoin blockchain is a scarce (and expensive) resource.

By reusing the BTC send address as the XCP send address, you get the following for free:
* the send address already being part of the transaction
* the proof that the sender "owns" the XCP send address (by bitcoin-validated scriptSig containing ECDSA signature)

That's sort of a big deal. If you want to use separate addresses for XCP, embedded as metadata in bitcoin transactions (which currently relies in the CHECKMULTISIG trick, the "expense" of which a bunch of people have been complaining about lately)... then you also need to embed a signature scheme for proving ownership of your XCP addresses and can't just rely on bitcoin's heavily battle tested one for free.

That's a LOT of extra data to be trying to stuff into bitcoin transactions. It'd contribute significantly to blockchain bloat, and would cost you a lot more in fees because of the unnecessarily large size (in kBs) of each transaction (and if it wouldn't, it certainly ought to.)

On top of that, the security of your XCP transactions would now be highly questionable.

I imagine that would be why the devs have designed counterparty the way it is :-)
(Incidentally, you'll notice most other coloured-coin schemes out there do something similar.)

+1 Good explanation and improves me understanding a little bit more.

Only other point to add is that we are also eagerly waiting 0.9 Bitcoin wallet so that we can start using OP_RETURN. This is supposed to simply the process and cost. I don't completely understand how but I am sure you have a succinct explanation