In yesterday’s episode, Let’s Talk Bitcoin announced they are planning to create their own coin (called LTB) that sounds very much like an XCP asset and are considering building it on top of Mastercoin as one of the options. How can we pitch Counterparty to them?
Start listening at 45:20 for details: http://letstalkbitcoin.com/e81-bitcoin-for-the-people/
Good idea. A "letter writing" campaign to Adam Levine may make sense here.
No need to write me letters, just convince me this is the best platform to lend my use-case to. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel if necessary, but if it makes more sense to launch an alt that’s OK with me to.
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources, but whether or not you raised funds doesn’t really matter to your utility for my needs.
Happy to have this conversation in public, or you can email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com
Also, do I need XCP do issue these assets, and who can I buy some from at this point?
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg230#msg230 date=1391655532]
No need to write me letters, just convince me this is the best platform to lend my use-case to. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel if necessary, but if it makes more sense to launch an alt that’s OK with me to.
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources, but whether or not you raised funds doesn’t really matter to your utility for my needs.
Happy to have this conversation in public, or you can email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com
Also, do I need XCP do issue these assets, and who can I buy some from at this point?
[/quote]
Hey, Adam. It’s good to see you here! To your question, there’s a 5 XCP fee to issue a new asset.
If you need any help getting set up with Counterparty, let us know.
I totally need help lol
Just sent you a PM with more information. For the benefit of other folks on the forum, I’ll repost it here:
[quote]
Cityglut (one of the core team members) will be reaching out to you shortly. Counterparty is basically a distributed financial system built on top of bitcoin. In many ways, it’s similar to the Mastercoin topic that you’ve covered on your show. However a) the core Counterparty features are available for use today and b) the protocol is much more straightforward, which makes implementation quicker and less error prone. Our focus is very much around enabling the creation and use of financial instruments (such as company stock and other asset issuance, betting, derivatives/hedging, distributed asset exchange, and more) to occur on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Our (obviously biased) opinion is that Counterparty is a ideal platform for your to create your own “coin” (or user defined asset, in Counterparty terms).
Here’s an example of a real company (Moneypaktrader.com) that has issued its stock shares on counterparty (from which it can issue dividends, paid by the system to shareholders in XCP):
http://blockscan.com/assetInfo.aspx?q=MPTSTOCKF
All of this is working today, and as Phantom noted in the other thread, you only need 5 XCP to create your asset (the 5 XCP are destroyed when the asset is created, as a spam control measure). We’d be happy to work with you to get started.
Some more information:
https://counterparty.co/about/
The current spec: https://github.com/PhantomPhreak/Counterparty
The reference client is counterpartyd (command line). A GUI web wallet is in the works and will be released in a few weeks.
[/quote]
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg230#msg230 date=1391655532]
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources
[/quote]
It’s not a waste of resources at all, and if you think it is then there is a hole in your understanding of economics.
To quote Satoshi himself: "Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone."
Some people think that just because energy was “wasted” to mine the coins, burning them must also be a waste. Reasons that’s wrong:
1) Mining is not wasteful, assuming that’s the only fair way to initially issue coins and secure the network. Proof of stake might change that, but for now there is no way to conclude such a thing. It’s the most efficient way known to accomplish what Bitcoin needed to accomplish.
2) Even if you think mining is wasteful, it is a sunk cost. Burning a bitcoin doesn’t take away value from anyone other than the burner, who implicitly is gaining something he or she considers more valuable. It is, as Satoshi notes, a gift to everyone else in the network.
The main thing to get is that the total quantity of money doesn’t matter; what matters is the percentage of the total available money supply you control. By burning a bitcoin, you reduce the total money supply and make everyone’s percentage stakes that much higher.
If everyone were to burn 90% of their bitcoins in unison, it would make absolutely no difference to the network. The BTC price would rise tenfold almost immediately and we’d be right back where we started. This is critical-to-understand basic economics.
This reddit post explains it best: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1wyk0k/new_to_bitcoin_and_are_receiving_negative/cf6y8pw
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg230#msg230 date=1391655532]
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources, but whether or not you raised funds doesn’t really matter to your utility for my needs.
[/quote]
Hey, Adam! I grant that burning BTC doesn’t leave bitcoins to pay devs, but that does not mean devs and others who contribute can’t be paid in XCP, if necessary, by the community of investors who believe in Counterparty. On the other hand, proof-of-burn lends great credibility to Counterparty because of its fair distribution of wealth and was the first of many things that set XCP apart from the frenzy of pump-and-dump, premined altcoins we’re seeing.
Bitcoin burning is no different from bitcoin mining when you take a closer look. In fact, a massive BTC burn could be a fair way for the Bitcoin developers to transition to Bitcoin 2.0 on a brand new blockchain and with Bitcoin 2.0 wealth distributed in proportion to Bitcoin holding, should that ever become necessary.
Here’s how burning and mining are the same thing:
Bitcoin miners use up electricity (which is ultimately burning fuel if you discount the relatively low proportion of renewable energy used for mining) and they also use up the resources used to create mining rigs. In return, they receive newly minted bitcoins.
Those who burned BTC to get Counterparty XCP coins did the exact same thing as bitcoin miners, except the resource they destroyed was not more fossil fuels, but bitcoins. In a very real sense, they re-purposed the original energy spent to create those BTC and used it to create XCP.
Edit: a word
[quote author=rotalumis link=topic=53.msg253#msg253 date=1391690536]
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg230#msg230 date=1391655532]
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources, but whether or not you raised funds doesn’t really matter to your utility for my needs.
[/quote]
Hey, Adam! I grant that burning BTC doesn’t leave bitcoins to pay devs, but that does not mean devs and others who contribute can’t be paid in XCP, if necessary, by the community of investors who believe in Counterparty. On the other hand, proof-of-burn lends great credibility to Counterparty because of its fair distribution of wealth and was the first of many things that set XCP apart from the frenzy of pump-and-dump, premined altcoins we’re seeing.
Bitcoin burning is no different from bitcoin mining when you take a closer look. In fact, a massive BTC burn could be a fair way for the Bitcoin developers to transition to Bitcoin 2.0 on a brand new blockchain and with Bitcoin 2.0 wealth distributed in proportion to Bitcoin holding, should that ever become necessary.
Here’s how burning and mining are the same thing:
Bitcoin miners use up electricity (which is ultimately burning fuel if you discount the relatively low proportion of renewable energy used for mining) and they also use up the resources used to create mining rigs. In return, they receive newly minted bitcoins.
Those who burned BTC to get Counterparty XCP coins did the exact same thing as bitcoin miners, except the resource they destroyed was not more fossil fuels, but bitcoins. In a very real sense, they re-purposed the original energy spent to create those BTC and used it to create XCP.
Edit: a word
[/quote]
Until fairly recently I was looking at exodus-style distribution events as serving mainly fundraising purposes, but now it’s bitten me twice. Proof of burn works so long as development funds are not helpful and the cause being burned for is actually valuable.
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg266#msg266 date=1391698305]
[quote author=rotalumis link=topic=53.msg253#msg253 date=1391690536]
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg230#msg230 date=1391655532]
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources, but whether or not you raised funds doesn’t really matter to your utility for my needs.
[/quote]
Hey, Adam! I grant that burning BTC doesn’t leave bitcoins to pay devs, but that does not mean devs and others who contribute can’t be paid in XCP, if necessary, by the community of investors who believe in Counterparty. On the other hand, proof-of-burn lends great credibility to Counterparty because of its fair distribution of wealth and was the first of many things that set XCP apart from the frenzy of pump-and-dump, premined altcoins we’re seeing.
Bitcoin burning is no different from bitcoin mining when you take a closer look. In fact, a massive BTC burn could be a fair way for the Bitcoin developers to transition to Bitcoin 2.0 on a brand new blockchain and with Bitcoin 2.0 wealth distributed in proportion to Bitcoin holding, should that ever become necessary.
Here’s how burning and mining are the same thing:
Bitcoin miners use up electricity (which is ultimately burning fuel if you discount the relatively low proportion of renewable energy used for mining) and they also use up the resources used to create mining rigs. In return, they receive newly minted bitcoins.
Those who burned BTC to get Counterparty XCP coins did the exact same thing as bitcoin miners, except the resource they destroyed was not more fossil fuels, but bitcoins. In a very real sense, they re-purposed the original energy spent to create those BTC and used it to create XCP.
Edit: a word
[/quote]
Until fairly recently I was looking at exodus-style distribution events as serving mainly fundraising purposes, but now it’s bitten me twice. Proof of burn works so long as development funds are not helpful and the cause being burned for is actually valuable.
[/quote]
The problem with development funds, Adam, is that they must be managed and in non-profit situations, usually end up being mismanaged due to “best intentions”. You’ve been bitten by human nature two times now. Proof of Burn takes human nature out of the equation and raises the ante for all players who have invested. It’s a perfect answer to the Byzantine General’s problem: We throw away our guns instead of giving it to someone else and we all get shovels (XCP) to dig and build up the Counterparty protocol.
I think Proof of Burn is most fair. Any other exodus fund-raising attempts will result in more wasted resources. Get ready for Ethererum’s funding!
Hi Adam,
Many thanks for making yourself available for conversation.
The motivating factor that brought me to Counterparty instead of other ‘2nd generation networks’ is that in my opinion, Counterparty is being developed in the same spirit as Bitcoin.
People have reservations about the proof of burn launch of Counterparty but in my opinoon this trustless approach distributes the ownership of XCP to the community and not a centralised organisation. Although the XCP developers certainly will have a stake in XCP, the success of Counterparty will ultimately lie in the support of the community and the services that form around Counterparty.
Certainly what you want to achieve can be done with Mastercoin, Ethererum, NXT or a purpose built POS alt coin. What I would like to encourage is to look at each of the alternatives and investigate:
1) How the project has been run and continues to be run.
2) How the project was funded.
3) How the project furthers the cause of Bitcoin.
One of the benefits of Mastercoin and in turn Counterparty, being built off the Bitcoin blockchain is that your listeners and sponsors need not have an additional wallet to receive LTB coin. More than others, networks built over the top of Bitcoin are not in competition or a corruption of Bitcoin but enhance the purpose of Bitcoin.
If you would like some technical assistance getting Counterparty up and running for evaluation, I’d be happy to help.
Regards,
Jeremy.
edit: a word
Frankly I’m a supporter of all the 2nd gens, I just have a real need to fill here and Counterparty is looking pretty good as the thing.
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg230#msg230 date=1391655532]
I didn’t pay much attention to Counterparty because Proof of burn seemed like a waste of resources, but whether or not you raised funds doesn’t really matter to your utility for my needs.
[/quote]
That’s funny; you’re the opposite of me. I haven’t paid much attention to every other random altcoin and “bitcoin 2.0” protocol out there because they all feel like their primary goal is to enrich the developers 
It’s so disappointing, time and again, to read about some really exciting new idea (eg. Ethereum) and then eventually you get to the bottom line: “oh, and er, there’s a pre-mine, the developers start off with a massive advantage, but don’t worry, we’ll sell you some.” 
At which point I promptly drop it and run a mile.
Mastercoin is a classic. Developers accepted a pile of money from people back in August, and have delivered bugger all. They’ve been promising a distributed exchange (DEX) for a long time, but we’re yet to see it. One could be forgiven for feeling a little skeptical of the whole situation.
The massive thing that CounterParty has is legitimacy. Bags and bags of it. Well, that and a functional DEX
Why legitimacy? Because they didn’t take a cent from anyone. By distributing XCP through proof of burn, as others have pointed out, nothing is actually wasted (it’s just a small donation to every other BTC holder out there.) But any XCP the developers now hold, they had to sacrifice BTC for, the same as anyone else could have done, if we’d had the guts. In Janurary over $2 million worth of real, honest-to-god cold hard BTC was sacrificed by people who believe in the future of CounterParty (none by me unfortuantely.)
That sends a very clear signal that people value this thing. The only signal I could get from mastercoin was that the developers think people should value it :P (And if you want to compare, far less people did - their “Exodus address” received roughly double the BTC that were burnt for XCP, but back in August they were worth an order of magnitude less.)
These guys are clearly focussed on delivering working software, not getting rich They’ve got a working DEX! That’s massive. First time this has existing in the world. Brand new. Sure, it has a few bugs, but I still can’t believe it’s actually working. On top of that, they’ve already implemented tons of useful features like shares, dividends, broadcasts of outside information in the blockchain, bets and contracts-for-difference based on those information broadcasts…
CounterParty is very exciting. As soon as they get the bugs ironed out, and a decent GUI that makes it easy for non technical people to use, its going to be massive.
(Disclosure: I’m a long time bitcoin user who only heard about Counterparty two days ago; I hold a modest (double digit) sum of XCP, which I traded for at market rate on the DEX.) I got bitten by a nasty bug that caused me to lose my money in a couple of trades; PhantomPhreak was kind enough to reimburse me out of his own pocket. Thanks to the proof-of-burn, that gesture actually carries real significance.
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg266#msg266 date=1391698305]
Until fairly recently I was looking at exodus-style distribution events as serving mainly fundraising purposes, but now it’s bitten me twice. Proof of burn works so long as development funds are not helpful and the cause being burned for is actually valuable.
[/quote]
Development funds are always helpful. From a cynical point of view, cocaine-and-hooker funds are too 
Everybody likes money, right?
But the legitimacy you gain from not giving yourself buckets of the money you’re hoping to convince other people to use is invaluable. You simply can’t go anywhere without that.
Development must be funded another way. “We’ll just give ourselves the funds” is never going to fly for long. If Bitcoin had tried that it wouldn’t have gained any traction. Indeed, it wouldn’t have been much different to e-gold. The opportunity for anyone to participate as an equal peer is the very essence of why Bitcoin is special, and why it has been so successful. (Indeed, the same could be said of the internet itself. )
The irony of course is that “giving myself the funds” is exactly what i’m doing in creating LTBcoin 
Premine is the mark of a scam, pump-and-dump coin. The reason is simple: you trade long-term viability for short-term profit. It shows a lack of confidence in your project, that you expect it to be just a flash in the pan. The “it’s for development expenses” excuse falls apart under scrutiny. In a fair, no-premine launch, devs and others close to the project are among the few who can have the confidence necessary to invest big initially. If their project really is destined for greatness, they will be rewarded more handsomely in the longer run (months!) than their goodwill-undermining premine would allow for.
It’s a good idea, even financially, to do a fair launch if and only if you actually believe in the project.
Most of all: Counterparty drives a stake through the heart of the “premines enable development” excuse. It’s almost embarrassing.
[quote author=Zangelbert Bingledack link=topic=53.msg521#msg521 date=1392457846]
Premine is the mark of a scam, pump-and-dump coin. The reason is simple: you trade long-term viability for short-term profit. It shows a lack of confidence in your project, that you expect it to be just a flash in the pan. The “it’s for development expenses” excuse falls apart under scrutiny. In a fair, no-premine launch, devs and others close to the project are among the few who can have the confidence necessary to invest big initially. If their project really is destined for greatness, they will be rewarded more handsomely in the longer run (months!) than their goodwill-undermining premine would allow for.
It’s a good idea, even financially, to do a fair launch if and only if you actually believe in the project.
Most of all: Counterparty drives a stake through the heart of the “premines enable development” excuse. It’s almost embarrassing.
[/quote]
Are you talking about XCP or LTBCoin? LTBCoin could be defined as a premine but I believe paired with a ruleset and a trusted reputation (Like LTB) it is a fundamentally different animal. What do you think?
[quote author=Zangelbert Bingledack link=topic=53.msg521#msg521 date=1392457846]
Premine is the mark of a scam, pump-and-dump coin. The reason is simple: you trade long-term viability for short-term profit. It shows a lack of confidence in your project, that you expect it to be just a flash in the pan. The “it’s for development expenses” excuse falls apart under scrutiny. In a fair, no-premine launch, devs and others close to the project are among the few who can have the confidence necessary to invest big initially. If their project really is destined for greatness, they will be rewarded more handsomely in the longer run (months!) than their goodwill-undermining premine would allow for.
It’s a good idea, even financially, to do a fair launch if and only if you actually believe in the project.
Most of all: Counterparty drives a stake through the heart of the “premines enable development” excuse. It’s almost embarrassing.
[/quote]
Bitcoin was premined
[quote author=AdamBLevine link=topic=53.msg526#msg526 date=1392477239]
[quote author=Zangelbert Bingledack link=topic=53.msg521#msg521 date=1392457846]
Premine is the mark of a scam, pump-and-dump coin. The reason is simple: you trade long-term viability for short-term profit. It shows a lack of confidence in your project, that you expect it to be just a flash in the pan. The “it’s for development expenses” excuse falls apart under scrutiny. In a fair, no-premine launch, devs and others close to the project are among the few who can have the confidence necessary to invest big initially. If their project really is destined for greatness, they will be rewarded more handsomely in the longer run (months!) than their goodwill-undermining premine would allow for.
It’s a good idea, even financially, to do a fair launch if and only if you actually believe in the project.
Most of all: Counterparty drives a stake through the heart of the “premines enable development” excuse. It’s almost embarrassing.
[/quote]
Are you talking about XCP or LTBCoin? LTBCoin could be defined as a premine but I believe paired with a ruleset and a trusted reputation (Like LTB) it is a fundamentally different animal. What do you think?
[/quote]
For this matter, any corporation (from your mom and pop LLC/Inc to Walmart and Apple) all started with the founders of the company owning 100% of their stock. (That’s literally the definition of stock). It’s up to them to distribute that to other people, who share in the vision and goals of that company and by buying that stock, implicity support that company in exchange for a share of future profits. That’s literally exactly what an “asset” in XCP is.
As such, the implications of asset creation alone in XCP is vast. Think GLBSE, but infinitely better, decentralized, with no middlemen, and never subpoenable or closeable. If counterparty can get a high profile case like ASICMINER to issue stock and make it work — well, the moon is no longer a sufficient target.
Bitcoin definitely wasn’t premined (people knew about it but ignored it; Satoshi invested his computing power while others sat on the sidelines), and XCP definitely wasn’t premined (proof of burn is even fairer than mining). Both are as fair as fair gets in the time they were released.
LTB could be launched as an asset on Counterparty, rather than a coin. That’s the way to do it, rather than a premined altcoin, if you want to control an asset. Premining is just a way of doing an asset launch but being shifty about it. Now with Counterparty there’s no excuse for that. Heck, Ethereum should launch their fundraiser as a Counterparty asset!