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

[Spratan]

Thank you. The site helped a bit as well as the first & last 20pages of the thread. I think the whole concept is brilliant yet after 40pages + extra reading I still dont feel I have a handle on what exactly Counterparty is and its potential. I can see 90% of people that end up here would never hang around. Its all very very confusing even to people with some technical ability. So you have some level of my ability.. my first computer was a TRS-80, I can do some basic C+ programming and I can compile in Linux. 90% of ALT coin users are windows based non technical users. I am surprised if even 10% of people that initially visit would hang around.  


Before we even get to slick videos, https://www.counterparty.co/get-started/ needs a total revamp for newbies. The 1st post on the thread also needs a total revamp. XCP is highly confusing for the newbie and spoon feeding is required for elementary things.

The 1st post on thread and homepage on website should have EASY TO UNDERSTAND paragraphs on each below:

1) What is counterparty ? [ in tech and easy speak]

2) Why should I be interested in counterparty ? [with real and potential simple examples]

3) How do I buy XCP ? [ past[proof of burn,etc] & present way ]

4) How do I store XCP ? [ simple explanations of the 3 wallet types and again why one may need the entire bitcoin blockchain & qt ]

5) A quick outline of future plans for Counterparty including other ALT blockchain links, etc, etc



The above is a basic start that would have maybe 50-75% of the people hanging around to maybe even try to understand the more complex issues like asset creation, etc

Welcome new and lucid member ! Totally agree, XCP is highly confusing for newbies and investors. A lot of basic or tangible questions remain unanswered. Community, please listen to newbies and investors now !

[Spratan]

Just collecting basic answers and facts for OP or for a wiki.
Please modify, erase, complete, and help !

The 1st post on thread and homepage on website should have EASY TO UNDERSTAND paragraphs on each below:

1) What is counterparty ? [ in tech and easy speak]

For people who are dissatisfied with centralized financial solutions and institutions, Counterparty is a peer-to-peer financial market which provides a medium for secure transactions that do not require a trusted third party. Unlike Wall Street, we have assembled a free to use software platform that allows everyone access to financial instruments that were previously cost prohibitive or not available.

eg. A



eg. B



eg. C


2) Why should I be interested in counterparty ? [with real and potential simple examples]

Non economical / Fundamentals :
+ top devs (competent, publicly known AND totally honnests, remember how they handled losts, paid from their own pockets)
+ unique technology,
+ First Proof of Burn, means the most fair and optimized distribution, with no instamine or premine possible
+ gigantic market (Assets, CFD...)
+ unique community,
+ betting function, betting site perfectly working : xbet.io,
+ No direct competitors
+ Private
+ blockscan
+ Code inspected by XXX

Financial
+ Only 2M coins. It will never rise (On the contrary with burnings for assets)
+ XCP is already a success and already made 4X
+ First big IPO with Swarm - X,000 BTC
+ X assets, and growing. List of (real) assets here :
+ Trading with XCP on the distributed exchange is (and always will be) cheaper and 700 % faster than with BTC
+ You can use only XCP for making bets, CFDs and asset callbacks. Forthcoming complex features and financial instruments will also likely be restricted to denomination in XCP.
+ All future proof-of-stake voting, e.g. for protocol changes, voting functionality, DACs, etc. is determined by XCP holdings.

So Will XCP > 100$ ?
The main mantra is XCP is tied to BTC, the leader, which is going mainstream now. CP is the next logic natural step, not Litecoin, nor Peercoin, nor any substitute.

Why only 2$ now ?
- Never had marketing actions. Only starting marketing actions. link to the last news and events :
- Prefer to focus on Technology until now.
- Wallet online and not on windows for the moment. Perfectly working but a huge psychological hurdle for almost every investors ("Not really owning my money / it can disappear"). Nxt made 3X as soon as Windows was effective.

3) How do I buy XCP ? [ past[proof of burn,etc] & present way ]

4) How do I store XCP ? [ simple explanations of the 3 wallet types and again why one may need the entire bitcoin blockchain & qt ]

5) A quick outline of future plans for Counterparty including other ALT blockchain links, etc, etc

[fractastical]

What about just referring to Counterparty as a platform for building p2p financial products on top of?

Then you can talk about the various examples (i.e. show don't tell).

[Spekulatius]

Announcement: Over the past few weeks, we've been doing a lot of work on the fee algorithm that Counterparty uses, and now transactions are effectively much cheaper than before. In particular, 'send' transactions can store all of their Counterparty metadata in a 40-byte OP_RETURN output, and you can now specify the exact fees paid for each transaction, as well as the default fee-per-KB amount, dust sizes, and so on. Multi-sig outputs need not be used, so no difficult-to-spend funds need to be sent back to your self at all.

This transaction is an example of a modern send transaction that cost only US $0.01 in fees, with a $0.03 output to the destination. It was constructed and broadcast with the following command: counterpartyd.py send --source=SOURCE --destination=DEST --quantity=1 --asset=XCP --encoding='opreturn' --fee=.00002, and it was confirmed almost immediately. If you're moving lots of assets around, or sending one asset to many users, you can use this script to automate the process and keep costs as low as possible.

So we are less likely now to be kicked out of Bitcoin protocol by its devs?

[PhantomPhreak]

Announcement: Over the past few weeks, we've been doing a lot of work on the fee algorithm that Counterparty uses, and now transactions are effectively much cheaper than before. In particular, 'send' transactions can store all of their Counterparty metadata in a 40-byte OP_RETURN output, and you can now specify the exact fees paid for each transaction, as well as the default fee-per-KB amount, dust sizes, and so on. Multi-sig outputs need not be used, so no difficult-to-spend funds need to be sent back to your self at all.

This transaction is an example of a modern send transaction that cost only US $0.01 in fees, with a $0.03 output to the destination. It was constructed and broadcast with the following command: counterpartyd.py send --source=SOURCE --destination=DEST --quantity=1 --asset=XCP --encoding='opreturn' --fee=.00002, and it was confirmed almost immediately. If you're moving lots of assets around, or sending one asset to many users, you can use this script to automate the process and keep costs as low as possible.

So we are less likely now to be kicked out of Bitcoin protocol by its devs?

That was never a possibility.

[deliciousowl]

So we are less likely now to be kicked out of Bitcoin protocol by its devs?

Counterparty was, and is fully safe. It was misinformation, FUD and sensationalist reporting.

[IamNotSure]

Announcement: Over the past few weeks, we've been doing a lot of work on the fee algorithm that Counterparty uses, and now transactions are effectively much cheaper than before. In particular, 'send' transactions can store all of their Counterparty metadata in a 40-byte OP_RETURN output, and you can now specify the exact fees paid for each transaction, as well as the default fee-per-KB amount, dust sizes, and so on. Multi-sig outputs need not be used, so no difficult-to-spend funds need to be sent back to your self at all.

This transaction is an example of a modern send transaction that cost only US $0.01 in fees, with a $0.03 output to the destination. It was constructed and broadcast with the following command: counterpartyd.py send --source=SOURCE --destination=DEST --quantity=1 --asset=XCP --encoding='opreturn' --fee=.00002, and it was confirmed almost immediately. If you're moving lots of assets around, or sending one asset to many users, you can use this script to automate the process and keep costs as low as possible.

Excellent news!

Is this already implemented in counterwallet ?

[fractastical]

Just wanted to let you all know that we now have an official Swarm thread.

Although I'll continue to check here from time to time I'd strongly recommend putting your specifically Swarm-related questions over on the Swarm thread for the sake of reducing clutter.

That said, there are a lot of counterparty related projects that we still want to push forward and want to hear ideas re: what the community sees as the highest priority.

[Hannah faeos]

Nice project.  Well done.

[BitcoinTangibleTrust]

Announcement: Over the past few weeks, we've been doing a lot of work on the fee algorithm that Counterparty uses, and now transactions are effectively much cheaper than before. In particular, 'send' transactions can store all of their Counterparty metadata in a 40-byte OP_RETURN output, and you can now specify the exact fees paid for each transaction, as well as the default fee-per-KB amount, dust sizes, and so on. Multi-sig outputs need not be used, so no difficult-to-spend funds need to be sent back to your self at all.

This transaction is an example of a modern send transaction that cost only US $0.01 in fees, with a $0.03 output to the destination. It was constructed and broadcast with the following command: counterpartyd.py send --source=SOURCE --destination=DEST --quantity=1 --asset=XCP --encoding='opreturn' --fee=.00002, and it was confirmed almost immediately. If you're moving lots of assets around, or sending one asset to many users, you can use this script to automate the process and keep costs as low as possible.

So we are less likely now to be kicked out of Bitcoin protocol by its devs?

That was never a possibility.

Congratulations and just wowza. Impressed. Will be experimenting with this ASAP. Thank you Counterparty Team!

[PhantomPhreak]

Announcement: Over the past few weeks, we've been doing a lot of work on the fee algorithm that Counterparty uses, and now transactions are effectively much cheaper than before. In particular, 'send' transactions can store all of their Counterparty metadata in a 40-byte OP_RETURN output, and you can now specify the exact fees paid for each transaction, as well as the default fee-per-KB amount, dust sizes, and so on. Multi-sig outputs need not be used, so no difficult-to-spend funds need to be sent back to your self at all.

This transaction is an example of a modern send transaction that cost only US $0.01 in fees, with a $0.03 output to the destination. It was constructed and broadcast with the following command: counterpartyd.py send --source=SOURCE --destination=DEST --quantity=1 --asset=XCP --encoding='opreturn' --fee=.00002, and it was confirmed almost immediately. If you're moving lots of assets around, or sending one asset to many users, you can use this script to automate the process and keep costs as low as possible.

Excellent news!

Is this already implemented in counterwallet ?

We're going to wait until more of the Bitcoin network migrates over to 0.9 before enabling it there.

[blackhatzw]

What happened to this coin, the price keeps going down.

[deliciousowl]

What happened to this coin, the price keeps going down.

Even though that's not really accurate... People either don't know about it, don't understand it, and/or have alt-coin fatigue. Give it some time.

P.S: The people who do the most trading are not necessarily the most technically skilled. We can expect a lot more activity once counterparty becomes more understandable to end-users and people from the finance sector. This is something we have seen / are seeing with Bitcoin. However, because the fundamentals are already accessible, we can expect this paradigm shift to happen in a shorter time frame.

• The Internet was initially for 'hobbyists' who understood enough about Computers to make it run. Now the majority of people have some form of internet connected device, and can use it easily.
  
• Bitcoin started as a form of 'monopoly money' that people were using like gold in a MMORPG. You had to beg for someone to sell you a pizza for 5000 BTC. It worked, but it wasn't easy to understand and its value was not recognized.
  
• Counterparty started with incredible code voodoo that accomplishes exactly what it claims. There were no promises or persuasion tactics made. XCP has competitive advantages in its field, in that it is the first and only working peer-to-peer financial market. It is a unique new concept, built using Bitcoin like Bitcoin was built using the Internet. It is progressively getting easier to use, but at the moment people cannot yet intuitively grasp this concept.
  

tl;dr: If you were asking questions like this when Bitcoin started, you would have probably missed out on a great opportunity.

[Matt Y]

Adam's presentation from Bitcoin in the Beltway is available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17sfPIBmSDacbUpVAImgPdCWwyFm9yOgaTzcEuXJwIQE/edit?

[romerun]

Adam's presentation from Bitcoin in the Beltway is available here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17sfPIBmSDacbUpVAImgPdCWwyFm9yOgaTzcEuXJwIQE/edit?

What's Next

Counterwallet Chrome App
Multi-signature addresses
Unconfirmed transactions
Gaming!
Advanced derivatives
- futures
- swaps
- options
Asymmetric leverage

Can't wait to hear more on the upcoming features !

[hozer]

So we are less likely now to be kicked out of Bitcoin protocol by its devs?

Counterparty was, and is fully safe. It was misinformation, FUD and sensationalist reporting.

Bitcoin is irrelevant. What's relevant is the sha256 hash rate that secures the blockchain, and if bitcoin devs continue to act like central bankers the farmers will take their blockscan.com/assetInfo.aspx?q=SOYBEANS to other blockchains that have more distributed hashrate, like Myriadcoin or something derived from it, and the transaction fees and the miners will follow.

Just expect volatility and a lot of FUD in the process.

[Matt Y]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20787619/Clients/Betxcp/Round%2006/Chart-04.jpg

[sparta_cuss]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/20787619/Clients/Betxcp/Round%2006/Chart-04.jpg

Can you explain what "BTC Dividends" means, please? I haven't heard this term before in connection with Counterparty.

[Matt Y]

The ability to create an asset, distribute pieces of it to various parties, then pay distributions/dividends on profit or income to the pieces of said asset, as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyzA5Lj1ajM

[devphp]

Dividends are possible as a third-party service running on top of NXT right now, and will be in the core of NXT in the coming month. Dividends are naturally paid in NXTs (because NXT is the accounting unit), and NXT AE runs on NXT network, so those two red checkboxes are irrelevant for NXT, but sure look good for XCP marketing