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

[freedomfighter]

Dear bitcon DEVs and all,

First a general comment: as much as i support NXT ETH etc.- Bitcoin is the real estate and gold of the entire space and is where smart money is flowing, and for a good reason. The network is well tested and strong and represent less of a risk in this very risky business. XCP and MSC being a BTC layer is a great advantage to these projects and to BTC as a whole I believe. Thus the below:  

I am very surprised to say the least from this seemingly cold shoulder.

parasites? against their will? (what does this even mean in a decentralized open source context)? whose will is it that is more important? and why? is this a centralized project suddenly?

But leaving this aside:

the BTC ecosystem is not only the applications and services such as vaults, wallets, merchant software, merchant clearing, ATMS, mining machines etc etc. These are all great and there is no doubt that great things are ahead. In a way these are external to bitcoin though are necessary to drive adaptation and penetration levels.

BUT: additional decentralized applications and platforms that allow to extend the financial capabilities and develop trustless financial products for bitcoin itself are not only a must but rather a crucial tool in extending this economy.

This will strengthen the network bring in more users and demand and many more transactions that is an interest to miners and all involved. what is against what will here?

You should be embracing and supporting these innovation clearly and loudly especially those layers on top of the BTC network. how else will this get to trillions of $$$ in penetration and transactions?

I urge all: I highly suggest that XCP devs engage in a productive dialouge with BTC devs (doesnt have to be public) to alleviate these issues and get on the same page. this cold shoulder is a shot in the feet of not only XCP and MSC but also a shot against BTC itself.  

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[maxmint]

Too many people were getting the impression that OP_RETURN was a feature, meant to be used. It was never intended as such, only a way to "leave the windows unlocked so we don't need to replace the glass when someone breaks in". That is, to reduce the damage caused by people abusing Bitcoin.

That doesn't make sense to me.
On one hand you're introducing OP_RETURN to stop hackish and inefficient methods to store extra data in the blockchain (like using multisig outputs). On the other hand you reduce OP_RETURN to 40 bytes and say that it was never meant to be actually used – thus forcing people to continue using their hackish solutions.

[lonsharim]

40 bytes is more than sufficient for all legitimate needs for tying data to a transaction

To me the word "legitimate" is the main problem.
Who can claim the power to say: this data is legitimate and that another is not legitimate. This is called censorship!

The question can not be: What data is legitimate to be stored in the blockchain?
Because this is a subjective question, and that no one can claim to have the answer.

The only question is: Should we allow the storage of data in the blockchain?
And the answer is: there is no choice, because it is possible to do with multisig transaction.
So the question becomes: Should we let people store data in multisig transactions or provide a cleaner way to do it?

History has shown that it is much smarter to regulate than to ban something that is impossible to ban.

If OP_RETURN can go from 80 to 40, then it can very well go from 40 to 32 bytes if it catches their fancy. I understand why the word cabal was used in conjunction with the bitcoin core dev.

Since that particular decision is arbitrarily in the hands of people not associated with 2.0 projects I would argue that it should not be relied on even if it is possible. Our current solution works a 100% and will continue to work in future. Using OP_RETURN puts us at the mercy of people who seem to have a very rigid outlook of the future. The supposed free rides are the projects that will enrich bitcoin and make it competitive against the next generation of cryptocurrecies. Relying on the Bitcoin ecosystem to carry the day is incredibly shortsighted.

A reliable hackish solution trumps an unreliable elegant solution any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[cryptrol]

Translation : At the moment, Mastercoin and XCP are only parasites from bitcoin dev's points of view...
Sorry for being so direct but this is what I read as a non-technical investor.

Thats how I see it too. The arrogance of these guys is amazing. MSC and XCP is extending the functionality of Bitcoin and may be something good have and compete with NXT, Bitshares and Ethereum.

XCP can move onto other chain, or I suggest get its on PoS chain. This will also prevent the archaic 10 minute wait.

When you have an economy as large as bitcoin in your hands, you tend to be conservative when implementing changes and paranoid when considering risks. And in my opinion that's how it should be, I see no arrogance in any post TBH.

As I said before, that was a possibility from the beginning and this was (is, since nothing is broken ATM) an experiment.
If you make people choose between BTC or any other coin (including in chain), the choice is easy. Choose Bitcoin.
Having said that I will keep an eye on Bitshares and Ethereum for sure since they have the opportunity to implement things that bitcoin will take years to implement (but will do it ultimately).

PoS? PoS is not working as it should as far as I know. The PoS chains that are on the wild are usually centrally checkpointed because of security issues.

[Fernandez]

Translation : At the moment, Mastercoin and XCP are only parasites from bitcoin dev's points of view...
Sorry for being so direct but this is what I read as a non-technical investor.

Thats how I see it too. The arrogance of these guys is amazing. MSC and XCP is extending the functionality of Bitcoin and may be something good have and compete with NXT, Bitshares and Ethereum.

XCP can move onto other chain, or I suggest get its on PoS chain. This will also prevent the archaic 10 minute wait.

When you have an economy as large as bitcoin in your hands, you tend to be conservative when implementing changes and paranoid when considering risks. And in my opinion that's how it should be, I see no arrogance in any post TBH.

As I said before, that was a possibility from the beginning and this was (is, since nothing is broken ATM) an experiment.
If you make people choose between BTC or any other coin (including in chain), the choice is easy. Choose Bitcoin.
Having said that I will keep an eye on Bitshares and Ethereum for sure since they have the opportunity to implement things that bitcoin will take years to implement (but will do it ultimately).

PoS? PoS is not working as it should as far as I know. The PoS chains that are on the wild are usually centrally checkpointed because of security issues.

I admit I haven't looked into any PoS scheme and any issues associated with it. NXT says its implementing some transparent forging, Ripple has consensus and Bitshares is also doing some variant of PoS. Maybe one of them will work well.

[lonsharim]

https://www.counterparty.co/sergio-lerner-peter-todd/

I want to ask the Counterparty dev team about Sergio's audit. It was to concluded on 19th March, can someone from the team give an update on the status of the audit.

Thanks

[cityglut]

https://www.counterparty.co/sergio-lerner-peter-todd/

I want to ask the Counterparty dev team about Sergio's audit. It was to concluded on 19th March, can someone from the team give an update on the status of the audit.

Thanks

My apologies, I forgot to notify the community. Sergio had some other, urgent work and was delayed for a few days. The audit should be complete in the next week or two.

So far it has gone well. Phantom and Sergio have been discussing, among other things, ways of optimizing the protocol.

EDIT: When the audit is completed, there will be a blog post documenting the results.

[Luke-Jr]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I am reading your words as follows: Miners will always decide their interests in what type of transactions they wish to mine. Currently, Counterparty uses multisig which are standard transactions. Although we do not wish to add to blockchain bloat, it would appear that as long as we are allowing miners to achieve their economic interests in mining all standard multisig transactions, then the system is working as it should.

Am I understanding your thoughts correctly?

Not exactly. Miners certainly have the ability to decide which transactions they do and don't include, but they have a duty to use that ability to protect the system from abuses.

40 bytes is more than sufficient for all legitimate needs for tying data to a transaction

To me the word "legitimate" is the main problem.
Who can claim the power to say: this data is legitimate and that another is not legitimate. This is called censorship!

The miners have that duty.

The question can not be: What data is legitimate to be stored in the blockchain?
Because this is a subjective question, and that no one can claim to have the answer.

The only question is: Should we allow the storage of data in the blockchain?

These are the same question.

And the answer is: there is no choice, because it is possible to do with multisig transaction.

Bare multisig transactions are not currently used. It's quite possible to turn them off without breaking anything that actually needs multisig-type use.
Furthermore, it's quite possible to determine what multisig usage is actual multisig and which are data store abuses.
So yes, there is a choice...

Too many people were getting the impression that OP_RETURN was a feature, meant to be used. It was never intended as such, only a way to "leave the windows unlocked so we don't need to replace the glass when someone breaks in". That is, to reduce the damage caused by people abusing Bitcoin.

That doesn't make sense to me.
On one hand you're introducing OP_RETURN to stop hackish and inefficient methods to store extra data in the blockchain (like using multisig outputs). On the other hand you reduce OP_RETURN to 40 bytes and say that it was never meant to be actually used – thus forcing people to continue using their hackish solutions.

"Reduce"? No. OP_RETURN was increased from 0 to 40 bytes.
And no, "don't abuse us with OP_RETURN" does not mean we are forcing you to abuse us in other ways.
If we lock the windows, we aren't forcing the burglar to break them. Stop trying to blame the victim.

[LightedLamp]

The miners have that duty.

These are the same question.

Too many people were getting the impression that OP_RETURN was a feature, meant to be used. It was never intended as such, only a way to "leave the windows unlocked so we don't need to replace the glass when someone breaks in". That is, to reduce the damage caused by people abusing Bitcoin.

Hello Luke, thank you for stopping by.  I am not clear on a few things if you do not mind.

Why do you speak of it as decided that data storage in the Blockchain constitutes abuse? How is Bitcoin actually hurt by this?
For example compared to newer protocol's Bitcoin has some massive disadvantages: an energy-inefficient proof-of-work mining system, long block times, a deflationary money supply - Newer protocols will have advantages in all of these regards (and most likely the 2.0 functionality that Counterparty has as well at some point). I would be inclined to think Bitcoin needs the added functionality to stay relevant to other rapidly developing technologies.

Not exactly. Miners certainly have the ability to decide which transactions they do and don't include, but they have a duty to use that ability to protect the system from abuses. 

And no, "don't abuse us with OP_RETURN" does not mean we are forcing you to abuse us in other ways.
If we lock the windows, we aren't forcing the burglar to break them. Stop trying to blame the victim.

Miners collect fees, block rewards - and most importantly of all can decide which transactions they want to include in their blocks. Since there is #free-choice as to whether to include the transactions - I don't really understand on what grounds you put #Miners in the #Victims, #Abused category.

It's more like #Abuse of the #Users to quite arbitrarily decide for them what the protocol is and isn't to be used for.

[jgarzik]

Now, I am just a disinterested observer here (with investments in Bitcoin and all major 2.0 cryptos) so I don't speak for anybody but myself here; but it seems to me that Counterparty has Bitcoin over a barrel somewhat, especially with respect to the unspent outputs, which would be quite difficult to selectively block on the Bitcoin end.  It would quickly turn into a cat and mouse game.  Bitcoin could implement code to detect and block XCP transactions, but XCP changes a few parameters and re-launches a week later to get around it, which causes Bitcoin to respond, which causes a new change in XCP, etc. ad nauseum.  I don't think that anybody wants that.

No, it is trivial to block 100% of them.  A proposal to do just that appeared on the bitcoin-development mailing list yesterday from Peter Todd.  This proposed change would relay zero transactions with multisig outputs.

Most of the world is moving to P2SH for multisig, leaving the remaining "bare multisig" users mastercoin, counterparty, etc.

[freedomfighter]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I am reading your words as follows: Miners will always decide their interests in what type of transactions they wish to mine. Currently, Counterparty uses multisig which are standard transactions. Although we do not wish to add to blockchain bloat, it would appear that as long as we are allowing miners to achieve their economic interests in mining all standard multisig transactions, then the system is working as it should.

Am I understanding your thoughts correctly?

Not exactly. Miners certainly have the ability to decide which transactions they do and don't include, but they have a duty to use that ability to protect the system from abuses.

40 bytes is more than sufficient for all legitimate needs for tying data to a transaction

To me the word "legitimate" is the main problem.
Who can claim the power to say: this data is legitimate and that another is not legitimate. This is called censorship!

The miners have that duty.

The question can not be: What data is legitimate to be stored in the blockchain?
Because this is a subjective question, and that no one can claim to have the answer.

The only question is: Should we allow the storage of data in the blockchain?

These are the same question.

And the answer is: there is no choice, because it is possible to do with multisig transaction.

Bare multisig transactions are not currently used. It's quite possible to turn them off without breaking anything that actually needs multisig-type use.
Furthermore, it's quite possible to determine what multisig usage is actual multisig and which are data store abuses.
So yes, there is a choice...

Too many people were getting the impression that OP_RETURN was a feature, meant to be used. It was never intended as such, only a way to "leave the windows unlocked so we don't need to replace the glass when someone breaks in". That is, to reduce the damage caused by people abusing Bitcoin.

That doesn't make sense to me.
On one hand you're introducing OP_RETURN to stop hackish and inefficient methods to store extra data in the blockchain (like using multisig outputs). On the other hand you reduce OP_RETURN to 40 bytes and say that it was never meant to be actually used – thus forcing people to continue using their hackish solutions.

"Reduce"? No. OP_RETURN was increased from 0 to 40 bytes.
And no, "don't abuse us with OP_RETURN" does not mean we are forcing you to abuse us in other ways.
If we lock the windows, we aren't forcing the burglar to break them. Stop trying to blame the victim.

Even if you are right in some of your assertions I think that viewing the CP project as a problem for BTC miners and for the BTC network as a whole is shortsighted for all reasons mentioned above. It is true that you guys have a key role and a responsibility for this growing economy and I can understand being conservative to an extent. Yet being a conservative should not be a religious policy and things should be judged by their context and without pre-conceived hostility. ONLY because the success of the CP MSC and other such projects ARE success to human beings in general AND to the crypto space in particular. you probably know why better than me. Words like victim, parasites, and acting against the will of (I dont know who)- is not right nor positive.

work with BTC 2nd generation teams to help them see what bothers you and your team but support the initiative. it is for the best of all. the more such tools will come the better.

I have a small percentage of my overall BTC holdings here but my main investment is and will be BTC for the foreseeable future so I am not writing "from position" but rather from what I feel is the importance of such projects to the BTC penetration.

 

[jgarzik]

So the question becomes: Should we let people store data in multisig transactions or provide a cleaner way to do it?

A less abusive way was already provided.

With OP_RETURN, the data is still in the blockchain, but at least it is not in the UTXO database of unspent outputs like Generation-1 mastercoin/counterparty designs.

[LightedLamp]

Now, I am just a disinterested observer here (with investments in Bitcoin and all major 2.0 cryptos) so I don't speak for anybody but myself here; but it seems to me that Counterparty has Bitcoin over a barrel somewhat, especially with respect to the unspent outputs, which would be quite difficult to selectively block on the Bitcoin end.  It would quickly turn into a cat and mouse game.  Bitcoin could implement code to detect and block XCP transactions, but XCP changes a few parameters and re-launches a week later to get around it, which causes Bitcoin to respond, which causes a new change in XCP, etc. ad nauseum.  I don't think that anybody wants that.

No, it is trivial to block 100% of them.  A proposal to do just that appeared on the bitcoin-development mailing list yesterday from Peter Todd.  This proposed change would relay zero transactions with multisig outputs.

Most of the world is moving to P2SH for multisig, leaving the remaining "bare multisig" users mastercoin, counterparty, etc.

Hello Jeff - never got a response to my last post. Still wondering why the Bitcoin-QT client has bugs. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=518482

[BitzMD]

What does all this mean from the point of view of the CP team and community and what is the plan in the long run?

[LightedLamp]

https://i.imgur.com/OWLD8JH.png

[520Bit]

I don't care if I can use OP_RETURN on Bitcoin-QT 0.9.0. I only care if I upgrade my Bitcoin-QT to 0.9.0, can I still use the counterpartyd client?

[freedomfighter]

+1

I cant believe this attitude. I didnt know bitcoin had owners. I though I and about a million others were owners :-)

Phantom and CG- you saw the interactions. Please relate. I'd advise to still try to create a less public line of communications with the BTC team and if not.... continue even stronger.

[bitexch]

+1

I cant believe this attitude. I didnt know bitcoin had owners. I though I and about a million others were owners :-)

Phantom and CG- you saw the interactions. Please relate. I'd advise to still try to create a less public line of communications with the BTC team and if not.... continue even stronger.

The Bitcoin devs are throwing around scary terms like "abuse" "victim" and "free ride", when what it comes down to is that they are making a decision at the protocol level that miners can make for themselves.

[halfcab123]

So I guess Phantom is not satoshi. Panic?

[halfcab123]

+1

I cant believe this attitude. I didnt know bitcoin had owners. I though I and about a million others were owners :-)

Phantom and CG- you saw the interactions. Please relate. I'd advise to still try to create a less public line of communications with the BTC team and if not.... continue even stronger.

The Bitcoin devs are throwing around scary terms like "abuse" "victim" and "free ride", when what it comes down to is that they are making a decision at the protocol level that miners can make for themselves.

It gives a serious "co-opting the voting rights of miners" kind of vibe. At least in rhetoric. These are the people working on the democratization of money? Why the hostility and uncooperativeness? What can we expect next? I had higher expectations.

Yep. Disappointed.