Please stop turning into morons just because you see "Brock Pierce" somewhere

[Rassah]

http://www.damnlol.com/pics/977/10fe303574a3f579af539251e77f1509.gif

Didn't know you were into snuffing farts. But, hate to break it to you, no one cares about your kinks, so keep them to yourself.

Silly newbies  

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[Rassah]

Silly newbies  

Dumbass
 - Date Registered: September 30, 2012

Like I said, newbies.

[Melbustus]

It doesn't solve anything... People will still have to buy RealCoins with dollars on some fiat-crypto exchange.

That's the thing, they won't have to. If, as these guys are planning, their Realcoin gets picked up by banks, exchanging USD to/from Realcoin will be done right from your own bank account. Remember, if these guys get enough asset, audit, and bank backing for their coins, no one will have to bother actually redeeming Realcoins for USD. Banks, after getting some Realcoins from his company (or another bank) can just swap in an out of them for you, right within your own bank account, knowing that they can always redeem them back into real dollars if they ever need to.

And once people do the simple swap right from within their own private bank account, suddenly their fiat currency is unlinked from any specific bank, and can zip along the blockchain to be traded directly with other people for other things (unless the regulators get too pissy about not being able to monitor everything)

I'd much rather a bitcoin exchange get the aforementioned bank backing and regulatory approval within the US....which looks like it's going to happen soon. Again, RealCoin has the potential to be an irritating distraction for a while. Instead of zipping RealCoins around, people could be zipping bitcoins around.

And again, it's especially annoying that RealCoin is theoretically no different than PayPal et al. The exact same functionality of transferring dollar-denominated value between people can be accomplished with either. You don't NEED a blockchain to do it. In fact, that's just adding A LOT of unnecessary complexity if your goal is just to move dollar-value around.

Do you really think that a centralized dollar currency management entity is not going to be subject to the same rules that centralized dollar currency management entities like PayPal are subject to? It's the same thing, but because it uses "blockchain technology", people are going to get all excited about it for a while and think it's "decentralized".

FWIW, the fact that Brock Pierce is behind this only matters given his role at the *BITCOIN* Foundation. Someone doing the RealCoin concept has been inevitable for a while; just wish it wasn't someone who's supposed to be focusing on promoting bitcoin, as both technology *and* currency.

Brock is 100% behind bitcoin, which leads me to suspect that this is perhaps his attempt at making entry into bitcoin easier for the economy as a whole (which would be a bit difficult to shove through the tiny narrow centralized exchange "pipes" we have now). Also, remember how Doge used to be really hated by bitcoiners, until we realized that a lot of people who thought bitcoin was a joke ended up getting into Doge, thinking "at least it knows it's a joke," and then those people suddenly understood first-hand how cryptocurrencies worked, and "got" bitcoin?

Except that merchants who don't understand what decentralization is all about may opt to accept RealCoin in order to avoid exchange-rate risk (and to not have to use a service like BitPay's or Coinbase's insta-conversion). Merchant acceptance of RealCoin could be a *really* irritating distraction.

[justusranvier]

We need a decentralized exchange! First step? Get USD into a digital decentralized form!

My problem with Realcoin is that they've got a confused conceptual model (pegged currency vs promissory notes) and they unnecessarily build on Mastercoin for no benefit for letting Mastercoin holders do another P&D to cash out like they did with the Maidsafe IPO.

Don't particularly care that Brock Pierce is involved.

[Rassah]

And again, it's especially annoying that RealCoin is theoretically no different than PayPal et al. The exact same functionality of transferring dollar-denominated value between people can be accomplished with either. You don't NEED a blockchain to do it.

One important difference: you can't innovate on top of PayPal. Realcoin using the Mastercoin protocol means that, while Realcoins are floating around on the blockchain, you can write code that does all kinds of automated things with them. And, like bitcoin, they would exist in an account that is nothing but an address, as opposed to PayPal, which uses accounts on their servers tied to specific people.

Except that merchants who don't understand what decentralization is all about may opt to accept RealCoin in order to avoid exchange-rate risk

While that is bad, I can't see how it's any worse than merchants accepting "New USD-based Payment Method X" to avoid exchange-rate risk. And there's tons of them (remember Dwolla?)

[Gentso1]

use this
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12.0


then do this.....
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=3353.msg42177#msg42177

[franky1]

But, lo and behold, someone finally put in the massive amount of time and resources to make the fiat side of the equation digital and decentralized!

... introducing............ localbitcoins.com

[zolace]

Hey who wants to sponsor me, to be a speaker for everyone on here who dont like the foundation, I would like to go and post your messages on there.  it only cost 0.04 btc I can put in 0.002 btc of my own btc to join just so we can say what a crop of shit the fake foundation is/

[hmmkay]

Brock Pierce should leave the BTC foundation. Or better, the foundation leaves all together.

Conflict of interest. That sums it up.

[solomon]

If you artificially peg a crypto to USD (with reputation or expectation to back) and then create more coins aren't basically printing USD? Do people think they aren't going to get guys in suits knocking on their door if they try this? Isn't this liberty dollars all over again?

[Ron~Popeil]

If you artificially peg a crypto to USD (with reputation or expectation to back) and then create more coins aren't basically printing USD? Do people think they aren't going to get guys in suits knocking on their door if they try this? Isn't this liberty dollars all over again?

You are also exposing a crypto currency to the federal reserve lunacy by pegging it to the dollar. That kind of runs counter to the idea behind bit coin. 

[Beliathon]

serious question... who or what is Brock Pierce ?

Reptillian Illuminati High Lord of the Scales

[Melbustus]

And again, it's especially annoying that RealCoin is theoretically no different than PayPal et al. The exact same functionality of transferring dollar-denominated value between people can be accomplished with either. You don't NEED a blockchain to do it.

One important difference: you can't innovate on top of PayPal. Realcoin using the Mastercoin protocol means that, while Realcoins are floating around on the blockchain, you can write code that does all kinds of automated things with them. And, like bitcoin, they would exist in an account that is nothing but an address, as opposed to PayPal, which uses accounts on their servers tied to specific people.

Except that merchants who don't understand what decentralization is all about may opt to accept RealCoin in order to avoid exchange-rate risk

While that is bad, I can't see how it's any worse than merchants accepting "New USD-based Payment Method X" to avoid exchange-rate risk. And there's tons of them (remember Dwolla?)

Your last point is answered by your first. Because you can innovate on top of Realcoin, it's different from Dwolla, and potentially diverts (temporarily, most likely) mindshare that would otherwise go to bitcoin.

[DooMAD]

LOL peg an IOU to a fiat and called it backing eh?

A fiat IS an IOU. I thought you were smart and not a dumbfuck?

To be fair, saying that it's an IOU of an IOU isn't making realcoin sound any more appealing.  

All the articles I've seen say that they can add and remove coins at will, which means it's centralised and they have full control over every coin.  That's a one-way ticket to a monopoly at best and a scam at worst.  You can trust in that if you want, but anyone who sees it for what it is will avoid it like the plague.

Adding Brock Pierce to the recipe is just turd-flavoured frosting on a cake made from turds.  It was crap to begin with and doesn't get any better with his involvement.

[Peter R]

We need a decentralized exchange! First step? Get USD into a digital decentralized form!

Thanks Rassah.  I've been arguing why this may actually be a positive thing today too (see below).  

That being said, one thing I do find suspicious about the proposal is the use of the Mastercoin protocol.  Isn't open-assets (colored coins) the logical (and neutral) choice?

In any case, as much as I'd like to see blockchain-tradeable assets like this happen, I can't imagine the SEC allowing companies to issue digital "bearer"-IOUs any time soon.  

If this project comes to fruition in the form described in the WSJ post, it could be a very good thing for bitcoin.  It will be the first serious decentralized asset traded on the Blockchain.  The asset will of course be "IOUs for US dollars".  Read the post:

Realcoin is the latest in a wave of so-called Bitcoin 2.0 ventures, which use bitcoin’s computer infrastructure to exchange property and execute contracts without third-party intermediaries. These projects open up bitcoin’s decentralized, peer-to-peer network to a variety of commercial uses beyond just transactions denominated in bitcoins.

This is an application of the colored coin idea that most people here were excited about.  Realcoins are bitcoin tokens encoded in such a way that each token represents an IOU for a certain number of dollars.  The blockchain technology and digital signatures allows users to split up and re-assign these IOUs in a decentralized and trustless way (without the assistance of the issuer of the IOUs).  

...Realcoin will use a Bitcoin 2.0 software protocol known as Mastercoin…

Apparently they are using the Mastercoin protocol as opposed to Open-Assets (colored coins); but regardless, Realcoins are Blockchain assets.  Blockchain assets are only secure if the Blockchain is secure.  The Blockchain is only secure if Bitcoin is valuable.  

...we are digitizing the dollar and giving that digital dollar access to the bitcoin blockchain…

Since digitized claims for these dollars will exist on the blockchain, then it will be very efficient to trade bitcoins for these dollar IOUs¹.  Imagine that you just sold 10 BTC and have a USD balance sitting at Bitfinex.  Wouldn't it be nice to withdraw this balance over the blockchain?  If you trusted the issuer of Realcoins more than Bitfinex, wouldn't this also be preferable, as it would reduce your counterparty risk?

Here's a cool app that might be possible with a little creativity and carefully execution:

1.  Create a wallet that stores bitcoins AND real coins.

2.  Add a "slider bar" in the app that allows the user to select anywhere between 0% and 100% bitcoin exposure.  With the slider at 0%, your wealth is correlated with the $; with the slider at 100%, your wealth is correlated with BTC.  At points in between, your wealth is correlated to each in proportion to your exposure.  Your wallet automatically initiates the required realcoin/bitcoin swaps each time you adjust the slider.  Feeling a bit bearish?  Just slide the bar from 80% to 60%.  Feeling bullish?  Crank it to 100%.

Just imagine 1,000,000 people moving there sliders up by 10% all at the same time lol.  


Seriously though, the biggest obstacle here is regulation.  Since Realcoins would actually be IOUs traded on the blockchain, it seems they would fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC.  But the WSJ post doesn't really discuss this important aspect in any real detail…


Remember: there's only one Blockchain asset with zero counterparty risk.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor

¹If the Open-Assets protocol was used, then it would be possible to trade BTC for $-IOUs in a trustless manner using a single coinjoin TX.  I'm not sure if this is possible using the Mastercoin protocol, but perhaps someone else knows.

[leopard2]

But that's not how it'll be billed, or how people will see it. They'll think that they can get the benefits of "bitcoin", or crypto-currency more generally, by using this RealCoin thing; ie, transaction security, quick payments across borders, etc. Trouble is, we can do that stuff with PayPal, Square, Venmo, etc....and much more efficiently!

pffffff...what?!? Painpal? These bastards, who seize accounts, reverse payments, patronize and screw people all the time? Even the lousiest cryptocoin is better than them. Try buying BTC with Painpal or Venom, and have fun being ripped off, hehehe. Realcoin will certainly be good for that purpose.

You must stop smoking bad weed. 

[Ron~Popeil]

We need a decentralized exchange! First step? Get USD into a digital decentralized form!

Thanks Rassah.  I've been arguing why this may actually be a positive thing today too (see below).  

That being said, one thing I do find suspicious about the proposal is the use of the Mastercoin protocol.  Isn't open-assets (colored coins) the logical (and neutral) choice?

In any case, as much as I'd like to see blockchain-tradeable assets like this happen, I can't imagine the SEC allowing companies to issue digital "bearer"-IOUs any time soon.  

If this project comes to fruition in the form described in the WSJ post, it could be a very good thing for bitcoin.  It will be the first serious decentralized asset traded on the Blockchain.  The asset will of course be "IOUs for US dollars".  Read the post:

Realcoin is the latest in a wave of so-called Bitcoin 2.0 ventures, which use bitcoin’s computer infrastructure to exchange property and execute contracts without third-party intermediaries. These projects open up bitcoin’s decentralized, peer-to-peer network to a variety of commercial uses beyond just transactions denominated in bitcoins.

This is an application of the colored coin idea that most people here were excited about.  Realcoins are bitcoin tokens encoded in such a way that each token represents an IOU for a certain number of dollars.  The blockchain technology and digital signatures allows users to split up and re-assign these IOUs in a decentralized and trustless way (without the assistance of the issuer of the IOUs).  

...Realcoin will use a Bitcoin 2.0 software protocol known as Mastercoin…

Apparently they are using the Mastercoin protocol as opposed to Open-Assets (colored coins); but regardless, Realcoins are Blockchain assets.  Blockchain assets are only secure if the Blockchain is secure.  The Blockchain is only secure if Bitcoin is valuable.  

...we are digitizing the dollar and giving that digital dollar access to the bitcoin blockchain…

Since digitized claims for these dollars will exist on the blockchain, then it will be very efficient to trade bitcoins for these dollar IOUs¹.  Imagine that you just sold 10 BTC and have a USD balance sitting at Bitfinex.  Wouldn't it be nice to withdraw this balance over the blockchain?  If you trusted the issuer of Realcoins more than Bitfinex, wouldn't this also be preferable, as it would reduce your counterparty risk?

Here's a cool app that might be possible with a little creativity and carefully execution:

1.  Create a wallet that stores bitcoins AND real coins.

2.  Add a "slider bar" in the app that allows the user to select anywhere between 0% and 100% bitcoin exposure.  With the slider at 0%, your wealth is correlated with the $; with the slider at 100%, your wealth is correlated with BTC.  At points in between, your wealth is correlated to each in proportion to your exposure.  Your wallet automatically initiates the required realcoin/bitcoin swaps each time you adjust the slider.  Feeling a bit bearish?  Just slide the bar from 80% to 60%.  Feeling bullish?  Crank it to 100%.

Just imagine 1,000,000 people moving there sliders up by 10% all at the same time lol.  


Seriously though, the biggest obstacle here is regulation.  Since Realcoins would actually be IOUs traded on the blockchain, it seems they would fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC.  But the WSJ post doesn't really discuss this important aspect in any real detail…


Remember: there's only one Blockchain asset with zero counterparty risk.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor

¹If the Open-Assets protocol was used, then it would be possible to trade BTC for $-IOUs in a trustless manner using a single coinjoin TX.  I'm not sure if this is possible using the Mastercoin protocol, but perhaps someone else knows.

Great point. If you want to do something like this colored coins is the natural choice. Instead you get a supposed leader of the bit coin world undermining bit coin.

[dhenson]

I think we might have lost Rassah but it'd like to add an OP +1 for actually applying critical thinking skills and not just band-wagoning a negative response.

Having a digital USD "coin" opens up many doors.

[gentlemand]

Brock Pierce is a fundamentally silly name. Thus I flatly refuse to endorse anything he's involved with.

[bg002h]

wow you're dumb as fuck if you think realcoin is just fiat in digital form.


For a "hero member", i dont see any other way but you're pumping for your gain.... aside from being a typical scammer...

Wow. Do you even know who Dmitry is?  Don't forget, we are all real people here.  Before you go about being much ruder to someone online than you would be in real life, think about who you're talking to.  Otherwise, you are just going to end up looking uninformed...as in this thread. 

Anyhow, Rassah -- I didn't connect the dots between decentralized exchange and this Brock backed venture. You make a great observation.  Very good news for Bitcoin indeed.