Any wallet or block explorer can easily implement unofficial ways of using Counterparty. E.g.:
ALIAS
Type an asset name and the owner’s address pops up. Would be very useful for any Bitcoin wallet.
DESCRIPTION
Any address can broadcast “d:[descripton]” to update its description. Again, useful if it pops up in wallets when sending Bitcoin. For example, I’ll send funds to John, pastes his 1df32… address and description “John’s BTC Address” pops up.
MESSAGE
Make a public broadcast that will be displayed in the recipient’s wallet. Can be on format “m:[recepient]:[message]” where recepient is address or alias. A typical message may be like “m:SUPER;I bid 20 XCP for SUPER”.
MESSAGE ALL
Make a public broadcast that will be displayed for all holders of specified asset. E.g. “a:XXXX:Remember to vote!”
ASSET PARENT
Say owner of XXXX makes a vote token XVOTE. He then broadcasts p:XXXX:XVOTE so that vallets can display XVOTE as a subtoken of XXXX. Formally the broadcast format is p:[parent asset]:[child asset] and for it to be valid the broadcaster must be the owner of both.
There may be more creative ways to use Counterparty not yet thought of. This is a great thread to start as the existing ideas are already great. Maybe drop the “Social” at the beginning of the thread and make it “Layers on Top of Counterparty”
Or better … make ALIAS@ASSET.XCP represent a bitcoin address.
This would literally make sending bitcoin as easy as sending email. To register an ALIAS you need to own at least 1.0 units of the asset. The aliases are unique and accredited on a first claim basis. To register an alias, make a broadcast, e.g. “reg:TOM@JOHSON.XCP”. If this address holds >=1.0 JOHSON tokens and no one has claimed TOM yet, then TOM@JOHSON.XCP is assigned to this address.
Some more conditions are needed, but the rules can be formulated in a few lines of code. I hope one of the Counterparty wallets will implement this to begin with. Hopefully main bitcoin wallets will follow suit.