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

[delulo]

I see that Bitcoin is currently the best option to be based on for Counterparty. Bitcoin is well tested and secure at least with respect to the amount of hashing power the network has. Bitcoin is a widely known brand so it makes sense also from a marketing standpoint. I am not challenging Counterparty's current strategy. It's doing great in all aspects I can think of.

From a technological standpoint and as a long term perspective I doubt that Bitcoin will be a a solid basis for Counterparty. There are security reasons due to the centralization of mining and an operational dependence on the Bitcoin core devs. But below I would like to just point out the in my opinion most obvious shortcomings of POW based Bitcoin which are economic and for which I welcome any critique.

Bitcoin has 400 tx per block (https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-per-block) and a block reward of 25 btc -> 25/400 = 0.0625 btc = 28,125 $ which is what is paid to miners on average per tx.  Let's assume there would be no block reward and no new coins any more that are paid to miners. Given a constant tx volume, 28,125 $ per tx would have to be paid as tx fees to miners or the income for miners would have to decrease. One could say that the Bitcoin network is overly secured with too much costly hashing power. So let's assume tx fees would only be 1/10 (= 2.8 $ on average per tx and 2.5 BTC for the one that finds the next block). Then way less people would mine and the difficulty would drop. The result would be less hashing power to secure the network. In conclusion, the amount of money an attacker would have to spend on a 51% attack equals the aggregated price of 51 % of the mining equipment that is running at the moment. This makes it very inefficient/costly to secure the network.  
Why should it be bad to have the security of the network being paid by dilution of existing Bitcoin holders as it is at the moment? Once Bitcoin is not driven by speculation anymore (which in inevitable)
and the network has to serve its daily purpose (tx processing) speculators will ask whether it makes sense to hold an asset that currently has a 10 % yearly inflation rate (about 1.3 million new Bitcoins per year and about 12.5 bitcoins in existence) when there are more efficient alternatives. It is in the nature of speculators to anticipate developments, like this...  

Please take it apart!

[CryptoFinanceUK]

Hi all,

The first draft of my introduction to the Counterparty swarm ...

[Swarm] [FAQ] Introduction to the Counterparty swarm.

... is up on the main forums, and I'd love to get your thoughts.

This post sketches out the rough approach I'll be using (in my new role) to help make sure that ours is the most vibrant and effective community in the crypto 2.0 space, so that together, we can get the Counterparty financial toolset into the hands of one million individuals and businesses by the end of the decade.

When you read this post, do you feel it represents the kind of messaging that (when combined with great marketing exposure) could be used to build out a network of thousands of volunteers and advocates?

Imagine you're new to Counterparty, would this get you excited about contributing and spreading the word?

If what I've written doesn't capture them, what were the big ideas that got you excited about the Counterparty project?

When you describe Counterparty to your friends, what ways of describing the project have you found to be the most engaging?

All thoughts are most welcome, here.

[td services]

...ask whether it makes sense to hold an asset that currently has a 10 % yearly deflation rate (about 1.3 million new Bitcoins per year and about 12.5 bitcoins in existence) when there are more efficient alternatives.

Please take it apart!

I think you meant inflation rate. I would very much like to hold an asset with a 10% deflation rate. This would mean it is appreciating in value by 10% per year if the purchasing power reflects the decrease in quantity.

[Matt Y]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/263r1k/coinscrum_launchpad_5th_june_at_google_campus/

[delulo]

...ask whether it makes sense to hold an asset that currently has a 10 % yearly deflation rate (about 1.3 million new Bitcoins per year and about 12.5 bitcoins in existence) when there are more efficient alternatives.

Please take it apart!

I think you meant inflation rate. I would very much like to hold an asset with a 10% deflation rate. This would mean it is appreciating in value by 10% per year if the purchasing power reflects the decrease in quantity.

You are right td. I confused the words....not the issue...

[MoneypakTrader.com]

[...]

Is it just me, or has the launch of this coin - which seems to have so much innovation - been an unmitigated disaster, exchange-market-wise?

You're obviously correct looking at pricing and functionality of the XCP system over stated claims and goals due to a few CRITICAL problems:
[...]

7) Asset reissuances were broken and then never fixed when the 5xcp asset fee was retroactively put into place. Better know EXACTLY how many shares you want issued the first time, all future re-issuance attempts might appear to succeed, but the program won't register them. Fixing this is going to [...]

On a positive note, the dev might consider asking for stakeholder input before implementing radical protocol/program changes.
I encourage all you bitcoiners to dump some resources into this alt-coin in hopes that one day you'll have a voice in the direction it takes. Or you could just be vocal here and in the other forum to have the dev push more misguided changes such as [the asset issuance fee reduction and 10 block limit for BTC-Pay].
Obviously this is only a partial explanation, please link/quote other analysis for more diverse views that explain the phenomenon you asked about. Historically, the people posting here are unlikely to share such problems either from lack of experience with the software or other reasons.
[...] we will continue to vote with our holdings in the marketplace.
Fixes/quickfixes were advised, but other solutions are available if the problems above are acknowledged:
https://forums.counterparty.co/index.php/topic,71

We've launched MPUSD, using a 200% double bitcoin reserve, this USD denominated asset will allow USD trading on the Counterparty DEX.
Buy it and make some free XCP. . .

In order to promote our new Counterparty Assets which are 100% USD backed and redeemable (for full face value in BTC or MP) currency, we'll be paying a total of at least 2000 XCP in dividends to holders of MPUSD over the next month on about a weekly basis. We may or may not continue this promotion after that into future months depending on interest.
At the current distribution levels of 10,000 MPUSD that would be 0.2 XCP per MPUSD if held for the next month (BIG PROFIT!!).
If there is sufficient demand, we will issue and distribute more MPUSD so long as our publicly verifiable Bitcoin reserves are at least 200% of the MPUSD value distributed (to ensure adequate backing for the currency).
[...]

Despite sufficient asset backing/demand, we stopped issuing MPUSD due to the CRITICAL reissue problem outlined above preventing asset reissues.
Any word if the reissue problem was ever investigated and/or fixed by a dev? Just link to a stock that issued shares more than once if that isn't still broken.

Also, Forgot to mention another reason why investors aren't willing to keep holding this alt-coin (longer than the nerly 6 months we waited so far) and are willing to dump for a mere ~4 times return :
( the absence of any easy single file/program that can be easily downloaded and installed to trade/send counterparty, similar to these other coins:
https://bitcoin.org/en/download
http://www.nxtcommunity.org/nxt-cryptocurrency/get-started-nxt
https://litecoin.org/
http://namecoin.info/?p=download
http://www.mastercoinwallets.org/#windows-guide

Please correct me if there is a single file download to run counterparty, i.e. the wallet software.

We openly trade cryptocurrencies through Torchat, FacebookChat, and the Counterparty Distributed EXchange (DEX). More info in our feedback thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133439.msg5664449#msg5664449

[song1973]

Ask, xcp and cha, which is an advantage?

[frozen123]

Hi all,

The first draft of my introduction to the Counterparty swarm ...

[Swarm] [FAQ] Introduction to the Counterparty swarm.

... is up on the main forums, and I'd love to get your thoughts.

This post sketches out the rough approach I'll be using (in my new role) to help make sure that ours is the most vibrant and effective community in the crypto 2.0 space, so that together, we can get the Counterparty financial toolset into the hands of one million individuals and businesses by the end of the decade.

When you read this post, do you feel it represents the kind of messaging that (when combined with great marketing exposure) could be used to build out a network of thousands of volunteers and advocates?

Imagine you're new to Counterparty, would this get you excited about contributing and spreading the word?

If what I've written doesn't capture them, what were the big ideas that got you excited about the Counterparty project?

When you describe Counterparty to your friends, what ways of describing the project have you found to be the most engaging?

All thoughts are most welcome, here.

This is so exciting!A very important step forward for Counterparty. Thanks!

[Anotheranonlol]

Please correct me if there is a single file download to run counterparty, i.e. the wallet software.

There isn't. But as I understand developers could package node-webkit version of counterwallet quite trivially. Such a build could come from anyone really but coming from main counterparty team would be best.

I think it would be a positive thing in relation to the time it would take. People can have a strong interest to a native app on their desktop- especially electrum like lightweight clients. more than visiting website, it can feel more secure or local to them (even if the app is essentially browser window in a form)  Counterparty can then market a lightweight win/osx/linux wallet being available.

[JahPowerBit]

Please correct me if there is a single file download to run counterparty, i.e. the wallet software.

There isn't. But as I understand developers could package node-webkit version of counterwallet quite trivially. Such a build could come from anyone really but coming from main counterparty team would be best.

I think it would be a positive thing in relation to the time it would take. People can have a strong interest to a native app on their desktop- especially electrum like lightweight clients. more than visiting website, it can feel more secure or local to them (even if the app is essentially browser window in a form)  Counterparty can then market a lightweight win/osx/linux wallet being available.

Yes, this what is plan. First step is to make a Chrome App, this will be the lightweight client. Because in fact lightweight wallet and web wallet are same thing (the only difference is the UI hosted on server or locally). After that for heavy wallet we have a bunch of work on Counterblockd to make it installable on every computer (the ideal is to have no more dependencies than counterpartyd).
The urgency for now I think it's to have an heavy wallet. For that I really need to find time to work on BoottleXCP. I need one or two days to update it. I hope this week-end if I finish "My bets" pages before. After that I need also 3 or 4 days to make BoottleXCP light with pyrpcwallet. But is less urgent because for light wallet there is CW.

[porqupine]

Please correct me if there is a single file download to run counterparty, i.e. the wallet software.

There isn't. But as I understand developers could package node-webkit version of counterwallet quite trivially. Such a build could come from anyone really but coming from main counterparty team would be best.

I think it would be a positive thing in relation to the time it would take. People can have a strong interest to a native app on their desktop- especially electrum like lightweight clients. more than visiting website, it can feel more secure or local to them (even if the app is essentially browser window in a form)  Counterparty can then market a lightweight win/osx/linux wallet being available.

Yes, this what is plan. First step is to make a Chrome App, this will be the lightweight client. Because in fact lightweight wallet and web wallet are same thing (the only difference is the UI hosted on server or locally). After that for heavy wallet we have a bunch of work on Counterblockd to make it installable on every computer (the ideal is to have no more dependencies than counterpartyd).
The urgency for now I think it's to have an heavy wallet. For that I really need to find time to work on BoottleXCP. I need one or two days to update it. I hope this week-end if I finish "My bets" pages before. After that I need also 3 or 4 days to make BoottleXCP light with pyrpcwallet. But is less urgent because for light wallet there is CW.

I don't really see a heavy wallet being used all that much - it requires both bitcoin-d/qt and counterpartyd, most people that want use 25gb worth of harddrive space and run a full node are capable of installing a command line client. A lightweight local-only desktop wallet would see a lot more use I would think.

[JahPowerBit]

I don't really see a heavy wallet being used all that much - it requires both bitcoin-d/qt and counterpartyd, most people that want use 25gb worth of harddrive space and run a full node are capable of installing a command line client. A lightweight local-only desktop wallet would see a lot more use I would think.

sure. Almost all users will use the web/light wallet. But not all.

[Anotheranonlol]

Please correct me if there is a single file download to run counterparty, i.e. the wallet software.

There isn't. But as I understand developers could package node-webkit version of counterwallet quite trivially. Such a build could come from anyone really but coming from main counterparty team would be best.

I think it would be a positive thing in relation to the time it would take. People can have a strong interest to a native app on their desktop- especially electrum like lightweight clients. more than visiting website, it can feel more secure or local to them (even if the app is essentially browser window in a form)  Counterparty can then market a lightweight win/osx/linux wallet being available.

Yes, this what is plan. First step is to make a Chrome App, this will be the lightweight client. Because in fact lightweight wallet and web wallet are same thing (the only difference is the UI hosted on server or locally). After that for heavy wallet we have a bunch of work on Counterblockd to make it installable on every computer (the ideal is to have no more dependencies than counterpartyd).
The urgency for now I think it's to have an heavy wallet. For that I really need to find time to work on BoottleXCP. I need one or two days to update it. I hope this week-end if I finish "My bets" pages before. After that I need also 3 or 4 days to make BoottleXCP light with pyrpcwallet. But is less urgent because for light wallet there is CW.

Thanks for response. Good to hear development on pyrpcwallet hasn't halted 

I actually tried to package chrome extension before




It opens fine, generate mnemonic fine but problem is no server available. Something to do with rollbar token or similar. Well I left it because I'm not a programmer. I think better than chrome extension would be a native app like carbonwallet has done.

I know that putting it into an app is essentially just counterwallet embedded in renderer, with only difference is assets stored locally & is not really changing much, but it's quite an important placebo effect to some.. to be able to click icon on taskbar to open 'local' app you know, besides it's useful for marketing you can say 'windows/osx/linux lightweight wallet, web wallet etc. It's just when you have to navigate to website to access funds it can bring up nasty memories of gox, instawallet, inputs etc

I also agree with porqupine, i think nowadays more and more go straight towards spv clients and the like instead of downloading heavy blockchains.

 

[taoranso]

Ask, xcp and cha, which is an advantage?

Of course,xcp !

[romerun]

I don't really see a heavy wallet being used all that much - it requires both bitcoin-d/qt and counterpartyd, most people that want use 25gb worth of harddrive space and run a full node are capable of installing a command line client. A lightweight local-only desktop wallet would see a lot more use I would think.

Right, and those who need it pry are ones who can talk to counterpartyd with cmd line. I run counterpartyd myself, only because i hold xcp since the burn. And the way I use xcp is by sending them to counterwallet, once in a while. So i only need to know how to send xcp by cmdline.

[romerun]

Ask, xcp and cha, which is an advantage?

Of course,xcp !

If cha has proved to be worth it. We can just fork it back to xcp. There can be countless casinos, gamblers not going to care if its cha or cha forks. However, there can be only one xcp.

[porqupine]

Ask, xcp and cha, which is an advantage?

Of course,xcp !

If cha has proved to be worth it. We can just fork it back to xcp. There can be countless casinos, gamblers not going to care if its cha or cha forks. However, there can be only one xcp.

I was under the impression that chancecoin was only pseudo-random?

[CryptoFinanceUK]

I'll be giving a presentation on Counterparty at the CryptoCoin Conference Cruise on the Thames (held 10am - 4pm, Weds 18th June 2014) which is during London Technology week.

If any of you can make it, it would be great to meet you 

[roede94105]

Hello,

I know this is not the main concern over all the great discussions you guys have here,

but Mastercoin is tanking at the same time as Bitshare and XCP are rising.

Insider information?

I mean, I won't complain, just wondering.

[Mrrr]

Hello,

I know this is not the main concern over all the great discussions you guys have here,

but Mastercoin is tanking at the same time as Bitshare and XCP are rising.

Insider information?

I mean, I won't complain, just wondering.

Mastercoin has been tanking ever since the Maidsafe/MSC suicide pact (some called it an IPO).

Meanwhile I3 is making rapid development progress and so is XCP.