Colored Coins and Coinprism takes Bitcoin to a whole new level

[Coinprism]

I have a  doubt

Scenario:

I create 1000 colored bonds and sell it.

Q: How the bond holders can verify the total emission and that I don't emit more and more bonds?

You can check this by looking at the Blockchain, as every issuance and transfer are simple Bitcoin transactions.

We will build a color-aware block explorer that will allow you to do just that.

[trout]

the obligatory 0.0001 transaction fee is a bit of a pita for playing around with these colored coins,
which are only 0.000006 each

It's not compulsory by Coinprism. You can send with none, but I don't know how fast it will be sent if at all. We can try sending it with 0.00001 BTC (1/10th of the suggested fee).

anyway  I can't do anything with my 1000 owl unless I deposit more money at coinprism.
oh well. I wouldn't call it a majour problem, it just prevents me from fooling around with the coins.

[Coinprism]

Coinprism, are you affiliated with https://www.coinprism.com ? 

Is there a formal publicly-visible mechanism to remove the color from a coin, or is it up to the issuer to keep track of redemptions?

Does the open-assets protocol support coinjoin transactions?  If the answer is "yes," this means that two entities that don't trust each other could trade colored coins for bitcoins without an escrow service.  This would be very useful. 

Yes, this is our official account.

And, yes open assets is compatible with coinjoin.

Here is the public information page that is automatically generated when you color coins to issue a digital asset (I filled in the data and provided the symbol for my worthless tokens (WTK)):

But what I think is missing is the number of WTK outstanding.  I believe it should be public knowledge how many WTK are outstanding, correct?  I'd like to see this here on the information page.   

If someone uncolors their WTK, could the amount outstanding automatically decrement (assuming the uncoloring process is defined by the open-assets protocol)?

You are right, this information can be extracted from the blockchain (increasing when the coin is issued, decreasing when it is uncolored). At the moment there is no easy way to see that information, but we will be building a block explorer that gives various stats about colored coins (like units outstanding).

[Peter R]

Coinprism, are you affiliated with https://www.coinprism.com ?  

Yes, this is our official account.

Congrats on getting the site up and running.  Colored coins are very exciting.  

I couldn't find a donation address for your project.  Do donations sent to http://coloredcoins.org/donate/ help fund work on Coinprism?

[Coinprism]

Congrats on getting the site up and running.  Colored coins are very exciting.  

I couldn't find a donation address for your project.  Do donations sent to http://coloredcoins.org/donate/ help fund work on Coinprism?

Thanks Peter!

That page would not go to Coinprism. If you want to help specifically Coinprism, please donate to the following Bitcoin address 13S5HJP3k4eESAnzv8gJffd2Yr4ath1tm9
Thanks for your support!

[Peter R]

Congrats on getting the site up and running.  Colored coins are very exciting.  

I couldn't find a donation address for your project.  Do donations sent to http://coloredcoins.org/donate/ help fund work on Coinprism?

Thanks Peter!

That page would not go to Coinprism.

Thanks for your support!

I figured that the coloredcoins.org donations might help fund color-coin related projects.  I think it would be a lot better to remove the address you just posted above as it does not seem very "official," and add it to the Coinprism website instead.   

[Adrian-x]

Apple farming aside, you might be on to something.  A promotional site like Groupon could create colored coins on behalf of their small businesses clients and sell/give away the colored coins as vouchers.  It would be trivial for the merchant to verify and redeem the vouchers and it would make the entire process more transparent and probably a better deal for the small businesses.  Consumers wouldn't even know they are using bitcoins.  

This actually seems like a really good idea!

I love this idea, apart from the fact it's the killer app that makes Bitcoin succeed without adding value to my Bitcoin.

[Peter R]

Apple farming aside, you might be on to something.  A promotional site like Groupon could create colored coins on behalf of their small businesses clients and sell/give away the colored coins as vouchers.  It would be trivial for the merchant to verify and redeem the vouchers and it would make the entire process more transparent and probably a better deal for the small businesses.  Consumers wouldn't even know they are using bitcoins.  

This actually seems like a really good idea!

I love this idea, apart from the fact it's the killer app that makes Bitcoin succeed without adding value to my Bitcoin.

foot in the door Adrian...foot in the door...

[bpd]

I'm trying to wrap my head around the Open Assets specification that CoinPrism is using. If I understand it correctly, unlike OBC or POBC ways of doing colored coins, it seems the Bitcoin transaction rules do not actually help do any validation of the transactions. If I have 100 WTK, I can create a transaction which sends 200 WTK and the Bitcoin network will process that just fine, and it would be up to the colored coin software to determine that was invalid, right?

So in the case above, what are the rules about that transaction? Is it just ruled completely invalid? Can I then re-send a transaction for 50 WTK since the previous send will be deemed invalid?

[Peter R]

I'm trying to wrap my head around the Open Assets specification that CoinPrism is using. If I understand it correctly, unlike OBC or POBC ways of doing colored coins, it seems the Bitcoin transaction rules do not actually help do any validation of the transactions. If I have 100 WTK, I can create a transaction which sends 200 WTK and the Bitcoin network will process that just fine, and it would be up to the colored coin software to determine that was invalid, right?

So in the case above, what are the rules about that transaction? Is it just ruled completely invalid? Can I then re-send a transaction for 50 WTK since the previous send will be deemed invalid?

Yes, I had the same questions and I'd like to get this answered too.  Are transactions that turn 100 WTK into 200 WTK still mined but deemed invalid according to the open-asset rules (in which case the original 100 WTK still exist somewhere)?  Or do they somehow become invalid bitcoin transactions and as such are not even relayed between nodes?  I think the answer is the former, but I'm not sure.

[Coinprism]

I'm trying to wrap my head around the Open Assets specification that CoinPrism is using. If I understand it correctly, unlike OBC or POBC ways of doing colored coins, it seems the Bitcoin transaction rules do not actually help do any validation of the transactions. If I have 100 WTK, I can create a transaction which sends 200 WTK and the Bitcoin network will process that just fine, and it would be up to the colored coin software to determine that was invalid, right?

So in the case above, what are the rules about that transaction? Is it just ruled completely invalid? Can I then re-send a transaction for 50 WTK since the previous send will be deemed invalid?

OBC and POBC don't rely on the Bitcoin transaction rules either to verify transactions: the Bitcoin protocol has no knowledge of colors, so it's not possible to rely on that.

If you make an invalid transaction, depending on how inputs and outputs are setup, you may uncolor some or all of the coins you are transferring. If that is the case, they cannot be spent again (they have been uncolored, and no longer exist).

If there was such a thing as a color-aware client and miners were running it, it could reject such transactions.

You can check the example at the bottom of the document, it walks though the coloring process.

[bpd]

OBC and POBC don't rely on the Bitcoin transaction rules either to verify transactions: the Bitcoin protocol has no knowledge of colors, so it's not possible to rely on that.

If you make an invalid transaction, depending on how inputs and outputs are setup, you may uncolor some or all of the coins you are transferring. If that is the case, they cannot be spent again (they have been uncolored, and no longer exist).

If there was such a thing as a color-aware client and miners were running it, it could reject such transactions.

You can check the example at the bottom of the document, it walks though the coloring process.

Okay, that makes sense. The spec is a bit light on discussing what constitutes a valid vs. invalid transaction. Can there exist a valid transaction with invalid outputs, or does any invalid output make the transaction invalid?

If address A has 100 units of color C, and I make a transaction that transfers 200 units of C from address A to address B, what is the result? Does A still contain 100 coins of color C?

Edit: Ah, it appears from the example in the spec that this is a valid transaction, but the coloring would be destroyed by this transaction (similar to Output 9 in the spec).

[bluemeanie1]

Color Coins is going to overload the block chain and cause major problems with the core bitcoin features.

-bm

[Peter R]

Color Coins is going to overload the block chain and cause major problems with the core bitcoin features.

If it were possible to "cause major problems with the core bitcoin features" just by making valid bitcoin transactions, then it would be very easy to attack the bitcoin network.  Think about it.  

The colored coins protocol allows one to issue custom digital assets on the most secure blockchain and trade them for other colored coins or for bitcoin, even supporting trustless coinjoin transactions.  This is big.  

The other foo-coins like NXT that implement features similar to colored coins are at a strong disadvantage:

   1.  Their blockchains are not as robust as bitcoin's.

   2.  It is not possible to trade those assets against bitcoin in a trustless manner (limiting your trading options to people you know or using 3rd party exchanges).  

[bluemeanie1]

we had discussed these issues on the BitcoinX list but the Color Coin boosters didn't seem to care.

the number of transactions are going to multiply exponentially according to number of colors and the basic structure of Bitcoin cannot compensate.  Fact is Mastercoin ALREADY had this issue and seems everyone forgot.  Add to this issue that we have several exchanges all running on one block chain(Color Coins, Counterparty, Disastercoin, etc.).  Remember Bitcoin is a p2p network and open source software, there is not necessarily anyone doing disaster planning here.  If we do have a catastrophe, BTC price will suffer a serious long term setback.

1.  Their blockchains are not as robust as bitcoin's.

wrong.  weve already discussed this.  NXT has the same exact risk parameters as Bitcoin(minus the need to buy expensive hardware).

2.  It is not possible to trade those assets against bitcoin in a trustless manner (limiting your trading options to people you know or using 3rd party exchanges). 

wrong again.  Someone is building a system by which vouchers circulate through NXT that are tied to dormant transactions in the block chain.  You are guaranteed the BTC and you can exchange the for any other asset in the system.  Also jl777 is working on an exchange technology(you can buy stock in his company, Asset name 'InstantDEX'.

-bm

[Peter R]

@bish5555 and @iraszl

I sent each of you one worthless token (1 WTC).  I only have 8 left because I only issued 10.  So these things are rare lol  




I didn't notice that there is a drop-down menu in the "Amount" field on the "Send Coins" tab.  This is where you can switch from BTC to the various colored coins.

If anyone else wants a worthless token, get a Coinprism wallet, post your address, and I'll send you one. 

[Peter R]

...

Foo coins are becoming irrelevant. 

[thezerg]

Peter send me a WTK! 13sC6RxsHGkvaUWeyG6X295GHoVXPux8Ug

bluemeanie1:  Hopefully Bitcoin CAN scale, because THIS is the true promise of the blockchain.  Entire industries whose primary purpose is to hold your stocks and bonds will no longer be necessary, which will significantly increase the efficiency of the financial system.

Some other questions:

When I create a colored coin (it gave me an error BTW), how is my description (read contract) and other info about the coin stored on the blockchain?

I know its probably not in the client yet, but WRT the protocol, can I send a small amount of BTC to every address that holds my coin (think interest payment)?

[bluemeanie1]

...

Foo coins are becoming irrelevant. 

-bm

[iraszl]

Color Coins is going to overload the block chain and cause major problems with the core bitcoin features.

-bm

Interesting question.

If Colored Coins could choke Bitcoin it means the anybody can do such an attack regardless of Colored Coins. I think that's why we have the 540 Satoshi dust limit.

My understanding is that currently there is a 7 transaction per second limit on Bitcoin, that means if you send 5,000+ transactions in 10 minutes it would go beyond the limit. You can do 5,000 transactions for just 0.027 BTC.