Hi all,
When a user creates a token with the Counterparty protocol, since the protocol uses the bitcoin blockchain as a transport layer, the token is dependent on bitcoin to be transferred from one wallet to another, requiring the sender to have a bitcoin balance. My concern is to have a user created standalone token. I know it's impossible in the current state of the protocol, but I am curious if any change can be made to allow such a novelty.
If the sender wallet is not required to have a bitcoin balance, then it must pay the transaction fee not in bitcoins but in the assets which is to be transferred. So the network will need miners of the asset, or maybe forgers. In this way the tokens would be as though they had their own blockchain.
I would happily take part or initiate a project to make it happen, if it's feasible.
Hi
I'm not sure if this could be done (where would the additional PoW be stored?) but perhaps it'd help if you could tell your use case.
There are approaches to do this in a round-about way, see http://www.foldingcoin.net/
So you could create a 3rd party "mining" (or other work) for members would would ID themselves by the public key of their address (where they hold the asset issued by you) so you could reward them for that work based on a combination (or either of) PoW done and amount of tokens they own.
Regards
Something
Thank you for the answer. In that case, the asset issuer is the one who gives the mining rewards, right? But I actually want the miners to get rewarded by tx fees.
The other concern is to send a token without the need for a bitcoin balance. This may be done by automatically converting a bit of the token into bitcoins at the market price, and then using the bitcoins to pay the tx fee. But in that case we need a stable market maker to reduce tx cost.
Actually, the miners may be the ones who give buy orders for the asset to sustain the liquidity. Well, I should think about it for a while.
Thus far, all Counterparty transactions must be recorded in the Bitcoin blockchain. If you start trying to add a layer that allows tokens to be sent off-chain then Counterparty would have to be able to pull information from that other layer. Whatever system manages that other layer would probably not be as secure and decentralized as the Bitcoin network so I can only see this weakening Counterparty's security.
It would be interesting to hear more about your use case however.
Thank you, Weex. I only have theoretical concerns, actually. I wanted to give more freedom to tokens, setting the user experience free from the transport layer they use. Owning smart assets would be much more understandable for an outsider in that way.
You could create your own coin and blockchain, and use that instead of Bitcoin. However, this would also result in a substantial reduction in security, liquidity, value, mainstream appeal, stability, development support, etc.
I think that essentially the entire point of Counterparty is to avoid having to do that.