PeerAssets: Whitepaper

[peerchemist]

You can find the paper at: http://peerassets.github.io/WhitePaper/

(or raw here: https://github.com/PeerAssets/WhitePaper)

[hr]

I would like to see a productive debate about it, I hope everyone in the community will take an hour to read it and think about it.
If the comments are positive I will propose a development roadmap for this project.
Beside, if you feel like you could help we are looking for Python/JavaScript developers as well as web designer and logo designer. For all extra questions you can always send me a private message or just leave a comment in this thread.

[AnnexOrbis]

Whoa! Enjoyed the simplicity of this Wp, a very nice job describing the proposal. Not a programmer but subscribed to this project. Thank you.

[Sentinelrv]

Please support these announcements on social media...

• https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/4i5n2l/peerassets_whitepaper_released_by_the_creator_of/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/peercoin/comments/4i5mj8/peerassets_whitepaper_released_by_the_creator_of/
• https://twitter.com/PeercoinPPC/status/728607305084878848
• https://www.facebook.com/Peercoin/posts/1035787949846982
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1463411.0

[Sentinelrv]

I think the power in PeerAssets is not only its simplicity, but the ability of businesses and organizations to freely move their assets between blockchains. The blockchain agnostic nature of PeerAssets is a major selling point. I have a feeling that assets have not become more used by businesses and organizations because people are unsure whether the network they choose will still be around in the future. Things change so fast in the world of crypto and a network that once seemed promising gets replaced by a better version. Organizations don't want to fear having their assets stuck or left behind on an abandoned network. That scenario would be devastating to any business it happened to.

The ability to move assets to another network if it becomes necessary could be one of the biggest things preventing businesses from committing to setup their own cryptoassets. If we remove that cause for worry, we could see a lot more organizations jumping in. Peercoin could possibly be the preferred blockchain for assets due to its focus on long-term security and sustainability. Asset holders want a stable and reliable blockchain to host their assets on and that's exactly what Peercoin offers.

[peerchemist]

Please note that PeerAssets can be used for some other cases which were not presented in the paper.
For example, we can issue our own tipping currency and use it to tip people on forum.
It can also be used to crowdfund a project, not necessarily for something that should generate a profit but as some community project. Example of that can be a crowd - fuding campaign to raise money for Peercoin marketing, and each participant would get a token of appreciation for his donation - in the form of asset issued via PeerAssets.

[irritant]

the ability to move to another chain if it becomes necessary is not the main selling point here imo. Ease of use is. The main obstacle for small business owners, or whoever who would potentially be interested in using this technology, is the difficulty to set everything up, and start their own chain (for example with peershares), when it all comes down to it, the bakery just wants to bake bread, fishermen want to fish, etc, etc, why some of these businesses fail, or not grow to their full potential, is because the owners are not interested in the complicated technology behind all of their business. With PeerAssets, it is a big step forward in simplifying this process, and possibly start an use case where service is provided to take care of this for the interested business owners.

[sandakersmann]

[member=30983]peerchemist[/member] You sure are a productive individual peerchemist! Very nice

[Sentinelrv]

the ability to move to another chain if it becomes necessary is not the main selling point here imo.

Just to be clear, I said it is a major selling point, not the main selling point. I agree with you as well, but still I would not want to tie my business stock to any individual network, especially this early in the life of crypto when the technology is still young. I would want ease of use, but also a way out in case something bad happened with the network I was on.

[hrobeers]

I agree that the blockchain independance is a major selling point, this combined with the simplicity to issue and trade your own assets.

We are working on a few cool applications of PeerAssets in parallel. It's nice that we all have our own projects and end goals but found great overlap in this PeerAssets concept.
Thanks for that peerchemist!

So stay tunes everyone, there will be some cool things happening!
But this time it will be on the peercoin chain!

[masterOfDisaster]

It's so good to see more activity at Peercoin - development wise!
Thank you all for that!

[Sentinelrv]

So anybody else gotten a chance to read it yet? Some more feedback would be great.

[thehuntergames]

compared to the initial draft, this version is great if not impeccable

[peerchemist]

PeerAssets first mentioned a year and a half ago in this thread: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3594.30
I did not see this thread until today, but it shows that there was demand for something like it. A port of Bitcoin technology though.

[thehuntergames]

Last message of that thread: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3594.msg36125#msg36125

I take it that the OP_RETURN is set to 40 b in peercoin v0.5?

[Sentinelrv]

Ah, I completely forgot about that thread. I'm glad we didn't just jump into something like that and instead waited for the idea to come together in a clearer way.

Also, read this article, which was recently posted in chat. There's lots of use cases besides equity, many which I didn't even think of, like coupons, loyalty points, game tokens, etc... They can even be used as promotional tools. Each use case would provide a reason for people to buy Peercoin, so it can be used to pay transaction fees, helping to increase demand and fight inflation through the destruction of coins.

https://medium.com/indiesquare-official-blog/rise-of-bitcoin-and-the-token-economy-in-japan-32471d9a8b0c#.cq5p95v1h

[hrobeers]

The possibilities are almost endless if done right.

I always though that my project would need Peershares to work as it needs a Proof of Stake system to function properly.
However, I figured out that a Proof of PeerAssets Stake system can be implemented without a seperate blockchain.
There are other advantages using the Peershares system over PeerAssets that I still need to find a good solution for, but these are less crucial.

The Peershares project is quite dead, and while I've invested some time in getting it back alive, I believe that PeerAssets has the potential to render it completely obsolete.

Unfortunately it is too early to disclose more details about my project, but the point is that we'll try to bring Proof of Stake to PeerAssets.
There is nothing on paper about this yet, but feel free to join the discussions.

I like where this is going, and I really appreciate [member=30983]peerchemist[/member] being open to discussions.

[peerchemist]

Ah, I completely forgot about that thread. I'm glad we didn't just jump into something like that and instead waited for the idea to come together in a clearer way.

Also, read this article, which was recently posted in chat. There's lots of use cases besides equity, many which I didn't even think of, like coupons, loyalty points, game tokens, etc... They can even be used as promotional tools. Each use case would provide a reason for people to buy Peercoin, so it can be used to pay transaction fees, helping to increase demand and fight inflation through the destruction of coins.

Rise of Bitcoin and the token economy in Japan

Yeah that article got my mind going too. It seems that there will be a market for stuff like it very soon.

Each use case would provide a reason for people to buy Peercoin, so it can be used to pay transaction fees, helping to increase demand and fight inflation through the destruction of coins.

However I do not see it only as a mean to get people to buy and burn Peercoin, but as a way to get wider masses experience public blockchain technology and get to know that technology. The thing about Peercoin is that it is peer-to-peer unlike big_miners-to-peer what is Bitcoin, and this what should be emphasized.
By being innovative and deploying products based on our flavor of blockchain tech we get to tell new people how it works under the hood, and then those people when they meet Bitcoin or something similar will ask "But why did not you solve those problems the way Peercoin did?".

[Sentinelrv]

The Peershares project is quite dead, and while I've invested some time in getting it back alive, I believe that PeerAssets has the potential to render it completely obsolete.

I wouldn't say that it will become obsolete. It still has its own use which simple PeerAssets can't reproduce. Peershares is geared more toward people with advanced knowledge of blockchains who are creating their own DAO or DAC.

PeerAssets is simple to use and geared more toward the majority, where Peershares is for the few who require a lot of advanced customization in order to properly run their networks, specific examples being Nu and B&C.

Since PeerAssets will benefit a much larger number of people, we should put most of our effort into developing that instead, not to mention the fact it will directly impact Peercoin, where Peershares only impacts Peercoin in a more indirect way through the purchasing and distribution of Peercoin dividends.

[Sentinelrv]

However I do not see it only as a mean to get people to buy and burn Peercoin, but as a way to get wider masses experience public blockchain technology and get to know the that technology.

I agree. Simply Peercoin by itself isn't that interesting to people outside of speculators. Assets though, with all their different types of use cases could possibly penetrate into the mainstream and get non-crypto people interested in using them for different things, gaming for example. As more people use assets for various things, they may inevitably become interested in the underlying technology and find out what Peercoin itself has to offer.

[hrobeers]

Since PeerAssets will benefit a much larger number of people, we should put most of our effort into developing that instead, not to mention the fact it will directly impact Peercoin, where Peershares only impacts Peercoin in a more indirect way through the purchasing and distribution of Peercoin dividends.

I agree, and Peershares doesn't even require you to pay your dividends in peercoin. It's very easy to swap the peercoin dividens to some other bitcoin based currency.

Let's face it, Peershares is hard to maintain. Once you forked the project, you're on your own to keep it up to date and secure. This means that you should be able to handle any issue on your chain yourself. So the level of competence required is equal to forking peercoin directly.

I honestly believe that it is possible to implement more advanced stuff using a stable third party blockchain. A blockchain is just a timestamped immutable database, and it's possible to use third party blockchains like peercoin's to timestamp your own distributed databases. Which should provide you almost the same possibilities as Peershares, without the hassle to maintain your own chain.

The current proposal of PeerAssets is indeed simple and lacks features compared to Peershares. But if we build PeerAssets cleanly, it can become a stable base which can handle more advanced usage.

However, feel free to disagree, this is just my 2 cents. Time will tell ...