Counterparty over Peercoin?

JordanLee 2014-11-19 07:57:21 UTC #1

As some of you are aware, I spoke highly of the Counterparty project many months ago on this forum. Some might be inclined to think that a Counterparty like solution has no place in the Peercoin community because we have Peershares. I thought I should state that I see it differently.

Long ago I had pointed out that Peershares would not be suitable for managing small amounts of value. This is a result of the considerable cost of updating and maintaining the blockchain protocol and perhaps client (assuming the Peershare didn't use a client also used by other blockchains). The Nu network does things that are not at all possible with Counterparty and is in a position to bear the cost of its development. However, there are many use cases where something like Counterparty is a better fit.

There are significant problems with Counterparty, however, which those in the Peercoin community can easily appreciate. We have doubts about the sustainability of the Bitcoin network and the long term affordability of transactions on the Bitcoin network. Judging by the increased adoption of proof of stake, we can see that this notion is gaining in popularity. Counterparty runs on the Bitcoin network, so we who understand proof of stake will have the same doubts about the sustainability of Counterparty.

This suggests a superior system for equities could be offered by creating a Counterparty like implementation on top of Peercoin. This would not be particularly difficult, as Counterparty is open source. An alternative implementation called Dogeparty has already been created. Dogeparty suffers from the same long term problems as Counterparty, bein dependent on a proof of work network. There will be a demand for a Counterparty implementation that runs on proof of stake and is free of the problems of proof of work. Peercoin is the ideal blockchain to build such an implementation on.

I cannot be substantially involved with such an effort due to prior commitments, but I wanted to make the community aware of the opportunity, particularly by explaining there is relatively little overlap in the market for Peershares and Counterparty solutions. Peershares is great for substantial solutions that require custom functionality such as Nu, but Counterparty is better suited to use cases that don't need any special features.

What does everyone think of implementing something similar to Counterparty over the Peercoin network? It doesn't require any changes to Peercoin.

Cybnate 2014-11-19 08:16:00 UTC #2

I think it is an interesting idea and it is a bit of a revelation to me that no protocol changes are required to implement this.
Besides the investment required I do not see huge disadvantages but would be keen to hear them from others

From a marketing perspective I think this is a good positioning of Peercoin, alternative to PoW and supplementing NU functionality.
Here is a link if you like to read more about Counterparty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterparty_%28technology%29 and the project's homepage: http://counterparty.io/

Edit: Even Shawn (super3) is recommending the platform from a user perspective on the homepage of Counterparty. Would be keen to hear what he thinks about a Peercoin implementation.

seki 2014-11-19 09:23:18 UTC #3

I totally agree with something like this. I am surpised nobody has done a "counterparty" thing on top of a POS coin but then there is NXT but
i think it is working differently than counterparty.

mhps 2014-11-19 13:54:31 UTC #4

Seeing how few applications counterparty has generated, I think counterparty is somewhat ahead of its time. This is not to say it's too early to consider counterparty with Peercoin.

teek 2014-11-19 15:54:08 UTC #5

I like the idea.

pillow 2014-11-19 17:26:11 UTC #6

It would be great if the counter-party currency (burned bitcoins) was not done on peerparty. I would like it if regular peercoins could be used instead. Dont know if its possible.

Anyway, something thats called Peerparty cant be bad.

Edit: i would donate peercoins for this. For sure!!!

pillow 2014-11-19 17:48:02 UTC #7

Oh... And apparently counter party offers etherium like behaviour (actually run etheriumm scripts)... So... Peercoin could get all of that, without tweaking the protocol?! Wow. Were crazy not to do this. Right?

Sentinelrv 2014-11-19 18:02:18 UTC #8

I let him know about this.

Is this really a name we'd want to use though? It sounds a little funny to me and doesn't really describe the product. I don't think it would be taken seriously by people. Dogeparty is ok because it's based around a fun meme, but I don't think it really works for Peer.

seki 2014-11-19 18:25:29 UTC #9

It sounds like a Peer4Commit project

Sentinelrv 2014-11-19 18:47:46 UTC #10

Quick question, can this increase the size of Peercoin's blockchain or is it totally separate?

pillow 2014-11-19 19:46:56 UTC #11

Very good point.
I agree, probably not. People hearing about Peerparty the first time also wont have a clue what its all about.
Counterparty is also not such a good name, if Etherium scripts can be executed on top of it.
Maybe something like PeercoinX or something like that? Nah.. sounds bad and cheesy too.

Alias 2014-11-19 19:53:13 UTC #12

If there is one idea that people take away from this thread it should be this:-

Instead of burning any old Peercoins to generate "Peercoin XCP" initially, users should only be able to burn freshly minted PPC (no previous transactions) to get PXCP. And this burn period should be open ended, starting at a particular block and never ending.

[1] This would incentivize securing the Peercoin network to get the reward of not just PPC but potentially PXCP.
[2] This would raise the value of Peercoin as a commodity.
[3] This would create a duality or symbiotic relationship between "Peercoin Counterparty" and it's host "Peercoin".

Alias 2014-11-19 19:55:01 UTC #13

Yes, this will definitely contribute to the size of the Peercoin Blockchain. Counterparty transactions are actually embedded in the Bitcoin Blockchain, for example.

river 2014-11-19 20:12:47 UTC #14

According to this coindesk article it is only a small amount of data, and it is "prunable".

Sentinelrv 2014-11-19 20:48:55 UTC #15

Another question. Is this something that could be done through Peercoin sidechains? If so, we'd need more information from Sunny on whether we should wait for him to complete that project or whether we should just go ahead and do it now.

seki 2014-11-19 20:49:07 UTC #16

Perhaps with the ppc sidechains that Sunny is investigating, this "PPCparty" will not be necessary at all?

Ben 2014-11-19 21:39:37 UTC #17

With the "speed" that Sunny King has been revealing information about the sidechains project, I'd say we're more than safe looking at ways to port Counterparty to Peercoin if we'd like to see it as a tool that can be used within the next year or two. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I'm not holding out much hope that we'll see an update to Peercoin Core with sidechains enabled within the next 12 to 18 months.

JordanLee 2014-11-19 23:12:30 UTC #18

If Sunny sees a reason this shouldn't be done, I'm sure he will say so. I agree with Ben that we shouldn't wait for Sunny's sidechain implementation. Whatever form it takes, it can coexist with a Peercoin Counterparty implementation. Time is of the essence.

I want to remind those thinking of creating this that you don't need permission from anyone or consensus from the community. It is yours for the taking. A lot of money could be made if it is done well.

I will repeat that I won't be substantially involved in any implementation due to prior commitments.

ppcman 2014-11-20 07:18:45 UTC #19

Thanks for the reminder Jordan.

I'd also like to remind people that having community consensus is generally a good idea.

Does any one with significant CounterParty experience able to give some sample real world scenarios (not too technical) where you could explain why a Peercoin implementation might be more beneficial and practical?

Can we assume that current Bitcoin CounterParty users would see the advantage clearly enough that they would abandon their use of it on Bitcoin's network, and run to Peercoin's version?

(Keep in mind, this is assuming we are not going to modify Peercoin's current blockchain or protocol for this Peercoin CounterParty to work)

Or would this be more of a marketing thing, where we can say "We offer the same user experience, but with a better POS network"? Sounds like it would take a lot of shouting, touting, and education to convince current Bitcoin CounterParty users to make the transition.

If we can't sell current Bitcoin Counterparty users on moving, it might be difficult to gain any type of useful adoption in the long term since most people like to flock to the most popular and widely accepted version.

On a side note. I'm assuming the idea here is to create more interest in Peercoin. I see a CounterParty clone that uses Peercoin possible to try. I'm wondering if it may be worth our while to brainstorm a bunch of project ideas, and see which ones seem to be the most popular.

Of course, I don't need community consensus or permission to propose this either. It's just my own personal suggestion.

I value every one's input, and as Sunny says, Have fun!

Cybnate 2014-11-20 08:41:43 UTC #20

I think one of the key reasons people invest in Peercoin is that there is a certain expectation that Bitcoin users will one day come to the conclusion that Bitcoin no longer works in the way they hoped.

In line with that idea it would make sense for Peercoin to provide those Bitcoin services which are popular on a Peercoin platform. However, we are a relatively small community and we might not be able to look after side chains, open transactions and counterparty at the same time. Maybe choices need to be made, not sure. From a timing perspective my best estimates would be as follows:

1) Counterparty (available now for devs to start working on)
2) OT (released in December, needs further work alternative codebase wallet, minting). Might compete with work on Counterparty.
3) Side chains (6-12 months, SK working on this but not clear where this is at). Not likely to interfere with work on either OT or Counterparty

Besides the time, there is also the question of the investment. This is not something which can be done over a single weekend. This is work for months for a single developer (building and testing).
We will need some investors setting up a bounty or some enterpreneur developer finding a way to make money of this for themselves. Possibly some combination, but not sure if that works. Happy to set up peer4commit page and a charter in order to find a suitable and willing developer. Most likely you will find the right person in Counterparty community. Open on suggestions.

On the other hand as I've said before, doing nothing for a long time is not likely to bring a good ROI as users might turn their back to Peercoin and invest in NXT or Blackcoin as POS alternatives.

Food for thought.