Tag Archives: Bitcoin

Counterparty Newsletter 05/02/2019

March 5, 2019

This month’s update is full of exciting updates, as projects within the Counterparty ecosystem continue to take progressive steps forwards within the community.

Ecosystem Updates:

IndieSquare has announced plans to launch their new lightning network supported wallet. Known as Pebble Wallet, IndieSquare aims to help integrate Bitcoin micropayments within projects.

Pebble Wallet is currently in beta and will feature a LAPP browser, allowing users to access lightning web apps such as YALLs directly from within the wallet.


The beta version can be found via the Pebble homepage.

Mafia Wars completed their 9th distribution of MAFIACASH this month; celebrating the final sale of all remaining family tokens from the token sale (exceeding 2,500XCP).  The Colombo family gained the majority of new players this month, although the total number of players added to the game grew by over 330; totalling 900 so far. Adding to their success, Mafia Wars took the number 1 ranking on DigiRare in celebration. Furthermore, the team also released a new card. You can check out ‘the Undertaker’ and more news regarding the monthly distributions and card design contests here.

BitCrystals has some unfortunate news this past month. With some tough decisions having been made within the Everdreamsoft parent community – progression on the development of Spells of Genesis has ceased for the time being. Monthly campaigns will also be removed as of March 8th. Taking a refocused initiative on Blockchain tools and end-user tools, Casa Tookan and Book of Orbs will remain, as the BitCrystals community continues to develop more blockchain tools.

The team is also working to get BitCrystals listed on several exchanges to allow for the selling, buying and trading of the token.

FoldingCoin has small news this month, with less than 20 days of their raffle initiative with CureCoin remaining. To learn more, click here.

Augmentors released a community update reviewing their tutorials and user engagement plans. With plans to weave more of the game’s intricately told narrative into the game’s tutorials, the update moves on to discuss development plans for the game.

With plans to improve the AR technology for both iOS and Android, the Augmentors team have roadmapped improvements for UI and UX (user interface and experience) in the near future. Check out the rest of the update here.

Age of Rust announced that they were heading to the GDC (Game Developers Conference this month in San Francisco. You can learn more about the conference, that takes place March 18-22 here. Check out a demo the team put together for the event below:

To partner with the demo, the Age of Rust team also published a piece covering their intentions for GDC 2019; acting as a message for their community and newcomers alike.

The team also continues to preview development updates via their twitter handle, check them out:

Freewallet, an open-source Bitcoin and Counterparty wallet, recently released version 0.0.9 of their desktop and mobile wallet; designed to increase overall stability across all platforms.

Counterparty in the News:

The first piece of Counterparty news this month comes from an article discussing the tokenization of art of on two Blockchains. In a continuation of the discussion of rare art, the piece compares art on the counterparty protocol vs Ethereum’s ERC-721. Counterparty is mentioned with an appreciative backstory regarding the protocol; giving a nod to the streamlined efficiency of the protocol in regards to making assets and distributing them. In terms of the author’s counterparty use, he mainstreams his asset use in tokenizing Digital art for collectable game items and art pieces in Bitcorn Crops and Mafia Wars. Ultimately, they cite both Ethereum and Counterparty as great protocols for Art scarcity. Multiple projects within the Counterparty community, such as Rare Pepe, Spells of Genesis and Book of Orbs, are listed as references for the piece. Check it out here.


The second piece of Counterparty news comes from Artnome entitled  “How to Launch Your Own Blockchain Art Marketplace”; and discusses how the Blockchain is being developed to allow artists to tokenize their art without coding. For Counterparty traders, this tool is known as Freeport.io and is currently in its pre-alpha. Within the post, Joe Looney’s; who has created Freeport, Rare Pepe Wallet, draws a notable mention. Also mentioned is Dan Anderson’s DigiRare and Bitcorn Crops. Check out the piece here.

Counterparty is also highlighted via the newly formed #LNTorch campaign; created by Joe Looney and started in order to bring more awareness to the Counterparty community. More specifically involving cryptogoods, the Rare Pepe Wallet founder started the ‘#passtheDUTCHIE’ campaign – wherein users on social media post their Counterparty address to receive the torch – to get news of the community circulating.

In other exciting news this past month, a Bitcoin satellite transmitted the first meme in space. With Rare Pepe doing the honors, Blockstream’s satellite sent an encrypted Pepe meme via the Lightning Network.

In another piece by Breaker Mag, Jessica Klein writes that on February 27th 2019, the image ‘Pimentoloaf’ was transmitted. She goes on to explain that Rare Pepes are rare because each card has a unique smart contract that dictates the supply of each card. Check out more here.


Other news this month surrounds the recent TAB conference. You can check out a recent Hodlcast with JScrilla; with nods to Bitcorn Crops below:

J Scrilla also wrote about his experience at the conference over on Hacker Noon; that mentions Bitcorn Crops and some references to Rare Pepe in regards to how mainstreaming Bitcoin fits in with Counterparty. Check it out at the jump.

Development News:

In development news, Counterparty released a very important Hotfix this past month. Counterparty-lib 9.56.1 resolves an issue that would stop a Counterparty server from operating normally.  Please upgrade as soon as possible.


Counterparty’s current and future CIPs are as follows:



CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding:
P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA):
Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.


CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT):
MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their send costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.



Counterparty Newsletter 02/04/2019

February 4, 2019

It’s the crypto winter, the polar vortex has forced some of our favourite projects indoors as they bide their time, whilst others tease some updates for us this month:

Ecosystem Updates:

Indiesquare is working on a new project to help games send Counterparty tokens with low fees. The project remains highly protective in what it can reveal right now but promises to reveal more information soon.

Mandel Duck will similarly be developing games that utilize this tech, so stay tuned for more information as it comes!

Mafia Wars started the month with their 8th distribution of MAFIACASH. The team celebrated a huge month with over 200 players joining the game this month! Among the families, the Colombo family emerged the strongest with 77 new members. Check out more info in the jump above, alongside more info on the distributions here.

In the past month, the Mafia Wars team have hosted card giveaways via their twitter handle. With lots of new designs and monthly design contests, this is hopefully a tradition that will follow through to the coming months.

You can now trade your Mafia Wars collection within Book of Orbs here.

BitCrystals has revealed that you can now buy the BitCrystals token with both BTC and ETH.

With another addition to the CrystalsCraft collection, Joey Chips’ ‘CRYPTOARTATM’ is available via Book of Orbs now.

FoldingCoin has has a quieter month after a taking a series of progressive steps for the project which you can check out here. Still, the team has announced via their Twitter handle that the 3rd venue to accept their FLDC token is an art venue. As art holds a beloved place within the crypto community, you can check out Lynx Art, a Floridian based company here. Make sure to check out the Folding Coin twitter handle for further updates as and when they are released.

Augmentors posted their review of Q1 and Q1 as they entered the new year. With an official roadmap that was most recently released here, the team hosted a screenshot contest that kept players busy. You can check out the results here. In the update, the team announced that with the upcoming open beta, they’ll be updating the game every couple of weeks,

Age of Rust has been a longterm feature in the Counterparty newsletters, but in case you need an introduction, the team shared an awesome introductory piece via their twitter handle. The medium article titled; “Age of Rust — Who?, What?, Where?, When?”, follows Age of Rust through its beggings to now, creating a great timeline for fans and newcomers alike, highlighting the Counterparty protocols role throughout. Check it out.

In other news, the team introduced new gameplay footage to users last month, check it out below:

Counterparty in the News:

With a quiet news cycle this month,  JScrilla posted his 2018 recap of CryptoArt and music featuring some Counterparty projects. The post features the ‘Art on the Blockchain’ podcast that in itself features so big Counterparty community influencers.

Also featured, is the Rare Art Festival and Bitcorn Crops.

Development News:

All exchanges and main ecosystem actors have updated successfully to Counterparty 9.56.0 and that Developers are currently working towards the next set of features for 9.57.0.


Here is a reminder of current and future CIPs:



CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding:
P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA):
Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.


CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT):
MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their send costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.



Counterparty Newsletter 08/01/18

August 1, 2018

Ecosystem Updates:

Although it has been another quiet month for the community, a few projects are making strides towards some exciting changes in the months ahead as new projects get their start and others are set to begin as we end the summer.

Spells of Genesis recently celebrated 2134 blockchainizations of their in-game cards on July 3rd.

For those who aren’t aware, the term ‘blockchainization’ refers to the method that allows Spells of Genesis players to take an in-game item and make a blockchain asset. Whilst there were already blockchain items that players could use in-game, this method requires users to ensure that their cards are quad-fused and fully leveled up. Players can also only blockchainize 3 cards per month with Parent company, EverdreamSoft, taking on all fees. These in-game items would then appear in any Counterparty supporting wallet.
To stay up to date with Spells of Genesis follow their public roadmap.

In further news from parent company, EverdreamSoft; Founder, Shaban Shaame, is giving the Spells of Genesis and BitCrystals community 4 days to submit ideas as to how to better serve and use their gaming community. As a reward, Shaame will distribute a reward of $200USD in Bitcoin. To read more click here.

BitCrystals launched a blockchain asset creator this past month. With the online tool, the team behind the project has produced an easy guide alongside the tool, to allow users to publish their designs as blockchain tokens. The tool falls in line with the design-heavy nature of BitCrystals’ CrystalsCraft environment on Book of Orbs, and the upcoming Soap Arena project. To learn more, click here.

Soap Arena, as mentioned, is EverdreamSoft’s and BitCrystals’ latest venture into Blockchain publishing. Currently described as a “2D strategic brawler”, Soap Arena will utilize BitCrystals within pixel art graphics, with hero characters for users to lead throughout gameplay. For more news as it happens, follow Soap Arena on Twitter!

Book of Orbs news follows with a couple of articles via the project’s medium platform.
The first comes in the form of a how-to guide for users wishing to use Book of Orbs’ relatively new Web application and its RBF function. RBF – aka replace by fee – is a handy function for users utilizing the custom fee setting, when making a transaction. The guide is a useful tool for less advanced users, who don’t wish to use in-app fee presets. Check it out here.

The second article welcomes Casa Tookan to the BitCrystals ecosystem. As mentioned in the last newsletter, Casa Tookan is a multi-chain wallet and third-party hosting application, launching this September. This article contextualizes Casa Tookan for Book of Orbs users; especially given the prevention of new installs of the app, for the iOS app store. Check it out here.

In other news, the Bitcrystals team published a guide on how to obtain BitCrystals from both Bittrex and Poloniex recently. However, news sadly follows that BCY (BitCrystals) is being delisted from Poloniex alongside some other cryptocurrencies.

IndieSquare continues to progress with their recently launched ‘WebXCP’ standard. The protocol that allows developers to make XCP web apps has since reflected these changes within its own wallet. Having started to list decentralized apps – aka DApps – the IndieSquare Wallet is set to feature many Counterparty-based applications. Separated into two groups, you will ultimately find both in-wallet apps such as Pepe Arcade, and native iOS apps (and Android alike) such as Spells of Genesis and Takara. IndieSquare Wallet also supports Ethereum-based apps with this new standards, with lightning network apps and wallet functionality soon to be added also.

SaruTobi Island launched chapter 3 recently. In this third edition of the RPG (role play game), SaruTobi is tasked with stealing a crystal from the confines of a castle. The next chapter of SaruTobi Island will also feature a collaboration with Age of Chains. In a recent tweet from developer Mandel Duck, he also provided a few developments on the Sarutobi Universe as a whole. The original 8-bit game featuring the Monster Rancher Monkey is now in beta for its lightning network, web mini-game edition. You can try it here. As the thread from the tweet continued, he revealed that a planned development for a mobile edition and tipping system is coming in the near future.

FoldingCoin has some unfortunate news this month. FLDC – the project’s currency – is sadly being delisted from Poloniex alongside BCY. The FoldingCoin team is advising its community to withdraw their funds, urging those who fold directly to a Poloniex address, to change their FLDC address in their Folding username as soon as possible, or their funds will be continued to be sent to Poloniex addresses – despite this news.

In other news, the FoldingCoin team has been working with Tokenly to update Merged Folding to integrate with their new API and has begun a discussion to create a stats page with Tokenly.

For more about FoldingCoin, please attend their public meeting this Saturday at 10am EST here.

Age of Rust is hosting a new logo design contest. With 47 designs to choose from, click here to help the team decide which logo will front the game upon its release.

Continuing to celebrate the progress of the game so far, the Space Pirate team behind Age of Rust tweeted some before and during graphics of the game’s progression. The tweet really celebrates the strides of indie game production within the Counterparty community.

In a development update on medium, the team elaborates more on what gameplay will be like; making a point to stand apart from other projects on the blockchain. Self-described as a “first person adventure game where you solve puzzles, explore vast areas, and if your [sic] lucky, find a treasure in cryptocurrency”. Age of Rust compares itself to Myst. The post goes on to expand upon its premise and gameplay, as well as explain its in-game currency and rewards.

Finally, the team teased a week ago about some big news coming soon! Be sure to follow the Age of Rust project on Twitter to find out the news as it’s revealed!

Augmentors’ alpha battles campaign starts today, ending August 7th. Featuring a revamped UI (user interface), some players will have experienced a similar campaign back in March. For more details click here.

Mafia Wars has been gaining traction in the Counterparty community recently. Earlier this week, a whale – a term for someone with money to spend – bought up 20% of the game. Additionally, more than 100 cards have been created for the game of idleness in the last month alone. As usual, these cards are featured via the project’s Twitter page. Notably, a lot of Rare Pepe designs have popped up, with the Frog being highly popular within the Counterparty community.

Rare Pepe Wallet developer; Joe Looney, previewed a new application via his Twitter account recently. The application teases the combination of the long popular Rare Pepes with the new and upcoming Bitcorns. Check it out below:

Counterparty in the News:

In Counterparty news this month, Age of Chains was interviewed by Cryptobit games. The article discusses the project’s origin and premise before discussing Age of Chains’ roadmap for the future. Check it out here.

Spells of Genesis was covered in an article on Gadget Helpline. The article covers the game’s premise with some suggested tips from the writer as to how to get started. Also mentioned, is Book of Orbs and the BitCrystals economy, following reference to the game’s blockchainization element. Check out the article   here.

Spells of Genesis was also mentioned among other projects in an article by Bit Starz, discussing how blockchain will change the video game industry. The article goes on to discuss how the mainstream gaming industry such as Microsoft and XBOX, is starting to embrace the blockchain and tokenization, and what this could mean. Check it out here.

In more news from the EverdreamSoft family, BitCrystals was featured in an article on blockchain gamer.biz, mentioning their recently launched ‘blockchain gaming market sector’ map.

The rare digital art discussion has also made the rounds again this month as further discussion from the ATL Blockchain has been released. The video features discussion surrounding Bitcorn Crops and Rare Pepe Party; check it out below:

In other news, Jason Bailey recently published an article on Art Nome covering a recent visit to Christie’s; a 250-year-old auction house, summit on Art and Technology.

There, Bailey covered a panel called, “Exploring Blockchain — Is the Art World Ready For Consensus?”. Bailey’s article compliments Christie’s concise understanding of Blockchain’s ethics and methodology but disagrees that art mediums such as Christie’s auction house are ready for the Blockchain.

To read exactly why Bailey thinks this (with a swift nod to Rare Pepe Wallet and its founder Joe Looney), check out the article via the jump.

Counterparty Development News:

Counterparty continues to work towards improving its protocol and progress with CIP development; with the development efforts coming from John Villar, FoldingCoin, and IndieSquare. Thank you again for your patience during this slow time. Please stay up to date with our social networks regarding any other CIP-related matters. Notes for meetings Dan Anderson recently held for interested developers to attend can be found here.

Going forward, development status on future CIPs are as follows:

1) Work has started on integrating the indexd branch to master as this will allow XCP to use the latest features from the Bitcoin daemon and lower the maintenance burden. (Special thanks is extended to btcdrak for all their support during these years with their txindex fork).
2) The FoldingCoin team has started to devote some of their workforce to maintenance duties on the code, namely PR review on the latest CIPs.

3) Chris Moss (aka Mandelduck) is going to get full commit access to the repos thanks to his long-standing record of positive collaboration with the ecosystem.
4) The RarePepe.party team is working on getting MPMA (CIP10) ready for the release of the indexd support, so the booster pack sales start functioning right away.
5) A new project is using Counterparty technology in private blockchains to create an advanced and secure trading platform called Virtual EXchange Engine (VEX for short). The main advantage of this is that their changes could bring “controlled” markets and special trading pairs with fees that feedback to the token owner.

You can stay up to date with current and future CIPs, as well as links to relevant GitHub pages via the Counterparty donate page.

CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding

P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA)

Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.

CIP 15- Segwit Support

Enabling Segwit support within Counterparty will enable users to spend less on transaction fees and enables potential future enhancements. Updating Counterwallet will allow users to choose if they want to send assets to a segwit enabled address or a traditional address.

CIPs planned for release this year:

CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT)

MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their sends costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

Again, please visit our donations page to stay up to date on the current bounty and development status of any CIPS, and consider making a donation to support their continued development. Alternatively, please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!

Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.



Counterparty Community Hangout 12/2/17

December 9, 2017

Last Saturday, Counterparty hosted a community hangout on Discord. Long overdue, the hangout was the first of many regularly scheduled voice-meetings to come wherein projects are welcome to discuss their own project updates, as well as join the community in an open discussion about developments to the Counterparty protocol and ecosystem.

 

The hangout proved a mighty success, heavily extending our typical 1-hour runtime to nearly two, as the community came together to discuss and share project updates. It was heart-warming to see developers sharing with one another in the true ethos of the Counterparty community and what was definitely highlighted, was this interconnectivity between so many projects in the ecosystem. We can only hope to see it build from here on out.

 

Below you’ll find that you can access the audio from our hangout, but we’ve also provided a surmised transcript for those who prefer it. Please note, that the transcriptions are not word for word but rather, summaries of the talking points put across in the audio.

Important to note from Counterparty (as a result of the hangout), is that the external addrindex implementation indexd, is expected to go live in January, alongside news that the remaining CIPs 6 and 10 are wrapping up for release in January for the development of CIP 13.

 

 

Transcript

This time around, we were happily joined by Christian Moss from Mandel Duck who also represented Indiesquare and thereby Book of Orbs (from a developmental perspective), Killian from Age of Chains, Chris from Age of Rust developer Space Pirate Games, Folding Coin – as well as our on Devon Weller who contributed to the discussion on behalf of Tokenly and Counterparty and both Rebekah (CP community outreach) and Dante (Counterparty Foundation) lead the hangout (beginning at [00:00:46]).

 

Following the agenda – which following this hangout, we’ve decided to post in advance in future – for those who would like to ask questions either in the voice and/or text channels on discord – we opened with brief introductions.

 

[00:01:15] Mandel Duck: I’ve been using Counterparty in a few of my projects – mainly games, happy to be here.

[00:02:05] Killian from Age of Chains: (Describes the project as) a blockchain trading card video game based on counterparty.

[00:02:42] Devon Weller: working on Counterparty as a Core developer with Ruben – who is not on the call.

[00:03:04] Chris from Space Pirate games and developer for Age of Rust.

[00:03:30] [Dante unknowingly introduces Folding Coin  ‘House’ who was having audio difficulties, but we introduce later on.]

[00:03:46] Following introductions, we lead with Counterparty development news, briefly addressing the Counterparty Lib update. As mentioned, and reiterated by Devon in the hangout, the update addresses a bug that would cause the Counterparty server to stop working normally. Users are reminded to upgrade to version 9.55.4 as soon as possible. Details of the previous lib 9.55.3  were addressed in terms of the CIPS (9, 11, 12) that were implemented.

 

CIPS

We then move onto the progress of the current CIPs, as listed on the Counterparty Donations page (and mentioned in the latest Counterparty newsletter.)

 

CIP 6.

[00:05:06] Devon: CIP 6 is technically pending but is in development – (In Process).

 

[00:05:19] Mandel Duck: wants to clarify exactly what CIP 6 is.

 

[00:05:35] Devon: It’s a way to encode a large batch of data in a single transaction in a more efficient way.

So it’ll be used by CIP 10.

 

CIP 10

[00:05:48] Mandel Duck: Some of Ruben’s Code from 2015 seems to mention MPMA.

[00:06:05] Dante: brings it up as a prerequisite to CIP 10 – to make MPMA possible.

[00:06:32] Devon: it’s technically not required (CIP 10) but much more efficient.

[00:06:53] Mandel Duck: I imagine there is still an upper limit for the number of bytes…

[00:06:58] Devon: There is …for every 500 bytes you have to add another transaction output. 500k if you’re willing to pay the fees for it.

[00:07:37] Rebekah: CIP 10 is essentially a multi-send function allowing for batch transactions – aka quicker and a lot simpler (known as MPMA).

[00:08:10] Mandel Duck: Spells of Genesis would utilize it alongside Folding coin (as mentioned in the newsletter).

 

CIP 15

[00:09:01] Rebekah: CIP 15 whilst listed as collecting its bounty will most likely be released regardless of fulfillment.

[00:09:13] Dante: amends that bounties just facilitate and expedite CIPS with the community donations – clarifying Rebekah’s use of term bounties.

 

CIP 15 otherwise known as Segwit support segues into a discussion on atomic swaps; a technology that could theoretically be aided by CIP 15 down the line (as mentioned in the audio).

 

[00:10:03] Mandel Duck: Counterparty fork chains are utilizing atomic swaps. Indiesquare’s API is looking at it, it’s not entirely reliant on Segwit but it does make it nicer.

[00:10:42] Dante: argues that Segwit will result in cheaper transaction fees by 40%.

[00:10:53] Mandel Duck: counters 30%. Because the signatures are taken out.

Dante then counters that this thus reduces the size of the transaction you’re needing to pay for.

CIP 13

[00:12:38] Rebekah: upcoming CIP 13 [MCAT] – Multiparty Counterparty aggregate transactions – which would allow you to group your transactions with other counterparty users – making for significantly cheaper transactions.

[00:13:10] Devon: refers to CIP 13 as a gleam in the developer’s eye but nonetheless, theoretically sound.

 

CIP 13 as discussed in the hangout, is described as, allowing pre-signed transactions to be held and bulked up on an aggregate server for scaling improvements. Devon theorizes that will be the cheapest transaction option on blockchain aside from lightning.

 

[00:14:07] Dante: poses a question. Instead of multiple people, would CIP 13 be possible with one person with multiple addresses with multiple assets – who would also want to make description changes to assets?

 

[00:15:39] Devon: said it would be an extension

to CIP 13 as asset description changes aren’t part of the current spec. Another posed extension would be an atomic swap within the same chain.

[00:16:14] Mandel Duck: says the issue with on chain atomic swaps isn’t efficiency (though expensive), it’s that

It’s more applicable to cross-chain transactions.

-Expanding the conversation –

[00:17:19] Mandel Duck: For instance, A Spells of Genesis MCAT node could be beneficial to allow trading with their users cheaply.

[00:18:02] The MCAT server can choose to receive any token. Spells of Genesis, for instance,

would pay the Bitcoin fee, not the user.

[00:19:08] Devon: it would allow users to do sends without any Bitcoin just tokens.

[00:20:01] Mandel Duck: Devon do you have any thoughts on exactly what the on-transaction will get? the user will never pay with BTC. How much cheaper will the MCAT node be?

[00:20:39] ….Back when BTC was $1100 (with multisends) 1 penny per transactions, multiply by 10 now, 10 cents per transaction [approx].

[00:21:34] Devon: This was a rate of 32 satoshis per byte.

[00:25:52] Devon: CIP 6 and 10 lay the groundwork for CIP 13. John has pretty much wrapped up CIP 10, I’m close to finishing CIP 6.

The Plan then, is to do a release with CIP 6 and CIP 10 –

Announcing this month, and go live in January. After that the way is clear.

There are 2 big pieces to CIP 13. One is the Counterparty protocol change, allowing these transactions, and then somebody has to build a server that actually will aggregate these transactions and push them to the blockchain. That may be counterparty, that may be a third party that wants to do it, I don’t know what that’s going to look like yet.

 

External addrindex implementation indexd:

 

[00:27:01] Rebekah: The last bit of Counterparty news from the newsletter is that we’ll be switching to using an external addrindex implementation indexd. Essentially, Counterparty would no longer have to run off a patched version of bitcoin software. This would allow us to be up to date with the latest bitcoin technology and updates and be a lot more consistent overall.

 

[00:27:33] Devon: highlights that a bitcoin 0.15.1 upgrade required for that. The goal is for this to go live in January (formally announcing in December).

[00:28:14] Mandel Duck: speculates whether this would help Bitcoin cash or Litecoin – would it make Counterparty more compatible with other chains?

Projects

 

Beginning at [00:30:05] we start to discuss project updates, expanding on what was mentioned in this month’s Counterparty newsletter.

 

Sarutobi Island

 

[00:30:42] Mandel Duck: [Discussing Sarutobi Island] – Chapter 2 is going out soon. There will be a new chapter of the story, 3 more characters – which are counterparty tokens. The charity characters as mentioned in the newsletter can raise money by selling the tokens which are game items. The charities contacted Mandel Duck, interested in seeing if gaming and blockchain technology would be a useful model for fundraising.

[00:33:25] Mandel Duck: Chapter 2 is in testing; pending translations into Japanese this month.

 

Mandel Duck is also experimenting with picopayment channels for mini-games. Users can deposit tokens and send micro-transactions for free.

 

Picopayments, as described by Mandel Duck are payment channels for Counterparty – the idea being that you can send a token to another player if you are in the ‘channel’ and you can also send small amounts that are expensive to send ‘on-chain’.  

 

Book of ORBs

[00:35:43] Both Rebekah and Mandel Duck move onto Book of Orbs as they’re jointly involved with the projects. They introduce the RBF (Replace by Fee) function as mentioned in the newsletter. Chris; who works with Indiesquare – who helped develop BOO, helped implement the RBF function, and Rebekah who dealt with customer service, explained she experienced a lot of stuck transaction inquiries.

 

[00:36:14] Mandel Duck: says this goes into the DEX and the Counterparty decentralized experience, that the Book of Orbs utilizes as the main feature. People don’t want to pay a lot and want to speculate on the price so they set very low fees for transactions and the fees get stuck. So RBF lets them do it. If it gets stuck, they bump the fee up and try again. Users will use the DEX more and speculate more, without the risk of transactions getting stuck.

 

[00:37:18] Mandel Duck: Notes it’s helpful to the users who use BOO as an entryway to cryptocurrency and end up stuck after using the custom fee.

 

[00:39:11] Mandel Duck: Providing an update on the BOO

Web App – it is in testing and an open beta is imminent for mobile and desktop. This will come with a faster API

and a leaderboard for the best collection – and the RBF. Book of ORB will also be the first app with RBF function and this will eventually be incorporated into the Android version. Users of the Android version are encouraged to use the web app until the Android version reflects it.

 

Augmentors

[00:41:23] Devon: Augmentors contracted tokenly to do the blockchain development of their game. An early alpha in development (for testing in December as mentioned in the newsletter) and a functional thing with blockchain integration is due in March.

.

 

[00:42:37] Mandel Duck: wants to know the extent they’re using the blockchain.

[00:43:09] Devon: Databits can be used in-game, Creatures will be tokenizable, but may not be Counterparty tokens due to the fees.

 

 

Folding Coin

[00:52:20] FoldingCoin: Is an open-source developer that created a web browser that helps get people set up for doing folding at home, and they can earn
FoldingCoin and CureCoin for doing ‘foldingathome’ through Stanford university software. So we offer this reward in FoldingCoin, which is a Counterparty asset. Typically, new users will have an issue [wherein the get] FoldingCoin in their wallet and then they won’t have any bitcoin, to be able to send any FoldingCoin to an exchange, to anyone else or, to a different wallet. So, going back to the improvements Counterparty is making – if users can send without having to have bitcoin in their wallet or go out and buy bitcoin to make a transaction, that would significantly help new users get into the space, and use the transactions easier – without a steep learning curve of how to go and buy BTC and that kind of thing.

 

Some of the other things are that we send out are a monthly distribution and it typically goes out to about a 1000 people. Lately, with the mempool being so saturated we’ve had to send out anywhere up to 50 satoshis per byte transactions. When you have pay 0.2 bitcoin it’s starting to be expensive to make that distribution happen. So any of the multi-send type improvements that Counterparty’s making – those will all help try and get those costs down.

 

[00:55:38] Dante: asks if folding is a form of mining.

[00:56:13] Folding Coin: The folding at home project is run through Stanford University, it’s typically doing protein folding research, a lot of the time, they’ll be doing cancer research and research for other diseases, they can simulate the proteins folding and be able to create medicines and other drug therapies based on seeing those simulations, and the white papers that come out of that are open source. There is a fair amount of mining that does happen.

[00:57:34] Dante: what is running? CPU? GPU?

[00:57:46] Folding Coin: It can use CPU, GPU with the advanced client. Typically the CPU folding can do protein simulations that are more complicated that you can’t do with the GPU, but the GPU folding simulations are where the bulk of the work gets done. You can do a lot more with the GPU that you can’t with the CPU and they do offer a chrome plug-in that is also doing CPU folding (for laptops and lower end computers).

 

[00:59:08] Dante: You receive FDLC tokens…they are tradable?

Folding Coin: Yes, on the Counterparty DEX, Bittrex, Poloniex.

Dante: So this has a liquid market?

 

 

Age of Chains:

 

[01:02:35] Age of Chains: Explains that their project development is a slow process but worthwhile process wherein they finance themselves through card sales. The card creation process is quite slow – AOC explains that it’s an interaction between the project leads and the illustrators. Estimating that it takes roughly a month for each card to be released and with a goal of 300 cards for the main release, AOC says they have no firm date for a release.

 

Age of Chains also recently held a meet up in Frankfurt wherein they were able to introduce XCP to people who may not have previously known much about it.

 

Killian also notes that Age of Chains cards can already be used in Sarutobi Island and be traded in Book of Orbs.

 

Spells of Genesis

[01:21:39] Brief Spells of Genesis news highlights the new Blockchainization feature where 3 cards per month can be blockchainized. This follows a discussion about Spells of Genesis’ previously divisible cards (available in the audio).

 

Age of Rust

Age of Rust: We go over the newsletter highlights regarding the new hire and the ability to trade cards for Rustbits in Book of Orbs.

Age of Rust is ready to head into a beta release by the end of December.

 

[01:22:59] Age of Rust: is kind of like “Mist meets Ready Player One, with bitcoin’ so it’s kind of a game where you go around solving puzzles and earn rewards in cryptocurrency. This upcoming version for us has a blockchain tokens enabled so you’ll be able to use not only our cards, but we’ll be including some Spells of Genesis cards in play as well, so you’ll be able to use some of those cards to progress in the game and earns tokens cards and things like that on the counterparty blockchain.

Right now we have 10 cards that show up in Book of Orbs.

[01:25:04] Dante: When you say Spells of Genesis cards are you also going to include the use of Bitcrystals in any way?

[01:25:11] Age of Rust: Bitcrystals is in the game as a reward. If you solve a puzzle inside the game, you’ll be able to claim Bitcrystals. We’re using Bitcrystals as a reward, not necessarily as a currency inside the game.

[01:25:36] Dante: This game uses certain cards, and those cards whether they’re SOG cards or AOR cards, you’re linking those cards to your game instance, [are these cards] giving the users some kind of advantage?

[01:26:11] Age of Rust: If you register your wallet with the game, let’s say you have SOG cards and AOR cards in your wallets – yeah you can, there are elements of the gameplay we’ve coded in that way if you. The gameplay, your game experience, might differ depending on the card that you have in your counterparty wallet.

[01:26:52] Dante: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that being implemented by anyone where the actual game experience is changed by your ownership of different cards.

[01:27:06] Age of Rust: in one area the game, the players who don’t have specific cards…the game area will actually look different depending on what you hold in your counterparty wallet.

[01:27:41] Dante: would that be something that would be apparent (to the user)?

 

[01:28:13] Age of Rust: We tip off the player through some clues and some hints that they need more game items.

[01:28:49] Age of Rust: We may end up giving them a not so subtle clue or a very difficult clue.

[01:29:53] Age of Rust: It is a network-style game

[01:30:01] Age of Rust: It is multiplayer in the way that players can work together to solve puzzles.

[01:41:03] Dante: later returned to Age of Rust with a question – will there be multi-address support as prior to our previous suggestion (in the audio).

 

Age of Rust responded that it is a matter of UI development but had been something they were thinking about in terms of multi-wallet support.

 

 

IndieSquare

 

 

[01:33:43] Mandel Duck: Talking about IndieSquare Software Developer Kits – Indiesquare is a counterparty enabled wallet but they also offer API services and SDK (Software developer kits) to make it easier to add counterparty to your apps. Coming out soon to all major platforms and iPhone, with a node, javascript library and unity library. The Unity library makes it easier to link wallets and do the address verifications for games built with unity.

[01:38:09]  Mandel Duck: Indiesquare is just Counterparty but just a mobile app version really (in reference to it being open-source).

 

We briefly go over the rest of the newsletter and the projects not present in the hangout. You can read about the latest updates on Freewallet. Rarepepewallet. Rarepepe.party. Blocksafe and Coval here.

 

Wrapping up a successful hangout, we plan to hold community hangouts each month following the publication of our monthly newsletter! Please let us know what you’d like to see from future hangouts! Follow our social accounts and join our Discord server for more details later on!

 

Follow Counterparty on Facebook or Twitter!

Stay up to date with real-time conversation on Telegram! @Counterparty_XCP

 

If you have a project that utilizes the Counterparty protocol that you’d like to let us know about, please email projects@counterparty.io.

 



Counterparty Update 06/06/16

June 6, 2016

Ecosystem News

On June 1st, Storj attended Decentralized and Encrypted in Berlin, Germany. The Blueyard Capital event was self-described as “The mission to upgrade the internet & an open conversation with Edward Snowden”. Storj’s Shawn Wilkinson gave a presentation titled “A decentralized vision of object storage”. A video of the presentation will be made available by the event in about a week.

Over the next two days Storj held their Open Beta Launch Party in Berlin followed by a Global Open Beta Launch for those who were unable to make it to Germany. The Global Open Beta Launch was held via Slack and Google Hangouts to answer questions in real-time. Watch a recording of the hangout here.

Storj put an update out on June 2nd titled “How Storj is increasing security exponentially”. It is an important piece from the Storj team and I recommend reading it in full.

Map of Storj Nodes

Congratulations to the GetGems project on reaching their final funding milestone. GetGems upgraded to Android version 3.0 to comply with Telegram 3.8.1. This update added a “Hide Message Read” function and the ability to change the color theme among other chat and GetGems settings improvements.

GetGems is closing their BitcoinTalk forum in favor of a Telegram channel for general discussion.

GetGems defined a roadmap going forward and added bounties for GetGems translations.

“The overall direction for GetGems is to leverage the Telegram ecosystem.”

Read the full GetGems update here.

The Counterparty DEx (Decentralized Exchange) removes the need for Counterparty assets to be listed on centralized exchanges. Being on a centralized exchange can be a benefit to some projects for the sake of visibility, if you support GetGems open a ticket on Poloniex to demonstrate your support for the project.

“Yes, if we receive enough requests from the GEMZ community there is a chance we won’t delist it, ” – Poloniex support

CoinDaddy.io is a service that will be increasingly important as Counterparty gains popularity. CoinDaddy, a company run by Counterparty director Jeremy Johnson (widely known as J-Dog), is similar to GoDaddy with a stated goal as follows: “CoinDaddy is a crypto 2.0 services company that makes blockchain technologies easier to understand and use. Our goal is to help users understand the power of blockchain technologies and provide tools to help them use it today to benefit their lives.”

Coindaddy Cropped

CoinDaddy is a project that will be covered in detail in a future update.

Several weeks ago Let’s Talk Bitcoin and Tokenly made a podcast titled “Putting the Pieces Together with Tokenly”.

Tokenly is service that offers modular, open-source, server-based tools with the goal of making features facilitated by Counterparty tokens more accessible to non-technical users. The project is led by long-time Counterparty community member Adam B. Levine and former community director Devon Weller.   

Counterparty Content

Long-time Counterparty community members Dan Anderson and Dante made a highly entertaining podcast on domains and ventured into domain discussion related to Counterparty for the majority of the podcast. The podcast is titled “Raiders of the Lost Episode” on account of the episode being recorded in April and released weeks later.

Counterparty coverage starts at 16:15 but I recommend listening to the entire episode if you are interested in domains.

The full release of Spells of Genesis is coming in Fall of 2016. Bitcoinist.com went into detail on the full release here.

Christian Moss wrote an article on Medium about Counterparty tokens leading the digital asset revolution by making in-game assets fungible in the real world and transferrable between distinct games.

Counterparty News

Counterparty held a community meeting on June 1st. There are several points of interest from community directors.

Koji Higashi had some thoughts to share about expanding Counterparty’s growing presence in Japan.

“As a quick update from me, my main focus as a community director is to expand the community to more countries and areas in the world, most notably Japan and China. I’m in close communication with some Japanese exchanges for example for CP assets listed and beyond and I’m hoping to report some good news in the near future.”

Matt Young talked about his ecosystem outreach and stated his goals as the following:

1) To get any feedback and feature requests available to us from folks that are using the platform/protocol so that we may improve it.

2) To enlist help from companies in the development of the features they’d most like to see.

3) Keep an open avenue of communication for the projects/businesses built on Counterparty.

Matt can be contacted at matt.young@counterparty.io with any relevant ecosystem or project information.

Trevor Altpeter shared some general information of interest to the Counterparty community.

“I’ll kick it off by addressing Poloniex withdrawal problems. It is something we are aware of but ultimately a problem on their end. Bittrex is an alternative option that is having very few reported problems.”

Trevor continued on to explain Counterparty outreach efforts.

“We have made an outreach group to improve distribution of Counterparty content to our community and primarily to assist in the creation of new Counterparty content. Whether that means writing it ourselves or helping other journalists learn about Counterparty we are going to do what it takes.”

“We are also pursuing language translations for Counterparty content as that is likely the best way to expand the use of Counterparty globally”

The Counterparty Slack added a new public channel called “assets-and-domains” in response to requests from several domain specialists in our community.

Counterparty recently passed 50k created assets and we are nearing 500k transactions! An update on this significant milestone will be forthcoming.

Core Development Updates

Additional information regarding the EVM will be available this week.

Progress continues on P2SH. Ruben De Vries’ P2SH branch has recently been merged into the counterparty-lib develop branch, where it is undergoing some additional testing.

Since the code in develop changes the Counterparty protocol in several spaces, Counterparty will be setting a block number for the changes to go active in the next few weeks. Under ideal circumstances P2SH should be live on mainnet within the month.

Another exciting development update that is close to being finished is a revamped build system that is based on Docker and Docker Compose. The changes do away with the old linux setup script, and make it much easier to get started running the Counterparty software. Full documentation is almost complete and will be released shortly. For a sneak peek, see here.

Ruben has created a demo project to compose P2SH transactions, for testing purposes. Impressively, it also contains the basic components to demonstrate an atomic swap between BTC and XCP! This is an incredibly exciting development that will have more news forthcoming soon. Check out the project here.

In addition, Storj’s @f483 has created a library to implement unidirectional micropayment channels. His work can be found here.

Join the Counterparty XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation.



Counterparty Update 05/23/16

May 23, 2016

Ecosystem News

Spells of Genesis is a popular Android and iOS game that makes use of Counterparty to create in-game assets. Spells of Genesis posted a project roadmap that outlines the steps needed to complete the game by the estimated full release in September 2016. Project lead, Shaban Shaame, posted a project update on Youtube as well.

Storj is having a launch party on June 2nd in Berlin, Germany. The purpose of the launch party is to announce the open beta of the Storj network.

Storj is one of nine partners in Microsoft Azure’s BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) program. Robert Tiger gave a short description of Storj’s offering in a recent Bitcoin.com article:

“Storj nodes sell resources to store and transfer data. In the process, nodes earn Storjcoin X or other select cryptocurrencies in exchange for services. In short, an individual could earn an income by leasing or renting hard drive space or extra bandwidth. Storj has created a data storage system that can not be censored, and is cheaper, faster, and more secure than traditional cloud storage platforms.”

The rest of the article about the BaaS ecosystem can be read here and an earlier CoinTelegraph article on the subject can be read here.

MandelDuck recently released an Android version of their popular iOS game known as “SaruTobi”. According to Jon Southurst of Bitcoin.com:

“MandelDuck also produces the iOS ‘geocaching’ app Takara, in which users ‘drop’ small amounts of bitcoin in specific locations for others to pick up if they visit that location. It has seen users travel physically to coffee shops, houses, bridges and even islands to collect the dropped ‘treasure’.

SaruTobi (which means ‘monkey fly’ in Japanese) uses Counterparty tokens as in-game items, and connects to the IndieSquare Counterparty Wallet. This allows users to receive bitcoin tips and even share items from different games.”

Read more of Jon’s article here.

SaruTobi features a collaboration with the IndieSquare wallet to facilitate the use of Counterparty tokens within the game. Indiesquare shared some thoughts on the partnership in a Medium post:

“The more intriguing addition, however, is the ability to connect to IndieSquare Wallet not only to receive bitcoin tips, but also to use some of the Spells of Genesis blockchain cards as powerups in SaruTobi. Players who hold SoG cards in their IndieSquare Wallet accounts can connect the wallet with SaruTobi easily and enjoy using the game items across the two games seamlessly.”

An interesting aspect of this partnership is the ability to use in-game items across different games. In-game items created as Counterparty tokens exist autonomously allowing for their use on different platforms. Spells of Genesis and SaruTobi are leading the way for this rapidly developing trend in gaming. Counterparty, and by extension Bitcoin, is the technology best positioned to accommodate this niche.

“This kind of cross-game collaboration is possible through the use of Counterparty tokens as game items due to blockchain’s open nature. The SaruTobi and SoG are spearheading this new and exciting field of tokenized game items on the blockchain.”

The full IndieSquare post can be read here.

The SaruTobi game features a Counterparty token called NINJASUIT. The token can be viewed on the Blockchain here.

Adam B Levine’s Let’s Talk Bitcoin continues to create some of the best Bitcoin content available. Jonathan Mohan interviewed York Rhodes of Microsoft to discuss blockchains, technology and the growth in enterprise adoption. Microsoft Azure has nine partners in its BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) Ecosystem, one of which is Counterparty’s Storj project. Listen to Episode 294 here.

Counterparty Content

Counterparty Director Koji Higashi wrote a blog post on the state of Bitcoin and Counterparty in Japan.

A follow-up article to Koji’s blog post was published on Bitcoin.com several days later.

“Not only are we seeing a massive growth of Bitcoin adoption and media coverage here but also Japan has turned into a very interesting place for Bitcoin 2.0 experiments and the token economy.” – Koji Higashi, Counterparty Foundation

CryptoHustle published a speculative blog post on their belief that XCP is primed for a ”Bull Run”.

The Counterparty Foundation published a piece titled “Proposal for Ethereum Smart Contracts on Counterparty Mainnet”.

Counterparty News

A Counterparty Group has recently started on Telegram. It is a public group and all Counterparty users are encouraged to join. The group will remain public for at least the first 200 users. Check it out here.

The Counterparty Foundation released an update several days ago.

The first Counterparty Community Meeting is coming up on June 1st. Community meetings are held once per month on the first Wednesday of the month. Meetings are conducted via Google Hangouts with real-time input from Slack. An agenda for the June 1st meeting will be posted to Slack a few days before.

Core Development Updates

P2SH will be live on Counterparty within 6 weeks!

“We are looking forward to merging P2SH which will facilitate the use of Bitcoin multisig addresses (which start with a ‘3’ instead of a ‘1’) following the industry standard while laying the groundwork for more complex scripts and payment channels.” – Counterparty Core Developer Ruben de Vries