I have begun openly sharing my Google Analytics
Pardon the clickbait-y title, it’s the Internet after all, but I just wanted to quickly announce that I have begun sharing the Google Analytics of all my Counterparty projects and websites.
Given that most sites in the cryptocurrency space are a Blackbox-as-a-Service, I hope that this will be a breath of fresh air and a benefit to the community to “see” itself, at least from the perspective of my sites.
Some people may be surprised at the numbers, some may be disappointed, but neither is the point of sharing this data. The point is to get some organic traffic, duh. …
As a thought experiment, I madlibbed “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” by Jo Freeman, an essay on informal power structures in the women’s liberation movement, to see if its insights are useful to the blockchain space.
During the years in which the blockchain movement has been taking shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leaderless, decentralized groups as the main — if not sole — organizational form of the movement. …
Learn how to trade using Counterparty technology.
This tutorial is a free crash-course in how to use the Counterparty Decentralized Exchange. Please check out my free DEX explorers: XCPDEX.com and DIGIRARE.com, for examples of what’s traded. I also moderate two Telegram chatrooms, for traders and collectors.
Full Disclosure: I own and trade XCP, as well as other crypto tokens
This tutorial assumes the use of a laptop. Sorry, mobile phone users!
Table of Contents
Introduction
Getting Started
Create a Wallet
Open Wallet
Fund Wallet
Buy/Sell on the DEX
Introduction
Sometimes known as a meta-layer, Counterparty is essentially a distributed ledger technology anchored into the Bitcoin blockchain.
Counterparty’s P2P network is Bitcoin’s P2P network, Counterparty addresses are Bitcoin addresses, Counterparty transactions are Bitcoin transactions. …
Learn how to use the Counterparty (XCP) protocol and currency to issue cryptoassets and tokens.
This tutorial is a free crash-course on how to use the Counterparty protocol to issue, send, and trade cryptoassets using Bitcoin.
You don’t need to be a Level 10 Wizard to use Counterparty. I think you’ll find, through hands-on experience with the software, that it’s straight-forward.
On average, this tutorial takes 30–90 minutes from start to finish, depending on blocktimes. And each step is designed to be performed with a PC or laptop.
What You’ll Learn
By following this tutorial step-by-step, you can walkthrough and learn many of the most important features in Counterparty.
- How to Issue a Counterparty Asset
- How to Manage Asset…
Counterparty is NOT a blockchain.
What is Counterparty?
Counterparty is a protocol and network of nodes that reads and writes data to the Bitcoin blockchain using bitcoin txs and a standardized message format. Off-chain, Counterparty nodes validate this embedded data and compute the current state of the network, with each new block.
Embedded Consensus
Counterparty nodes maintain identical ledgers without using a P2P network specific to Counterparty because they are running the same Counterparty software to enforce protocol rules and piggy-backing on Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work for tx ordering and propogation. This is known as embedded consensus.
Federated Nodes
A Federated Counterparty Node is a Bitcoin Full Node that uses AddrIndex and runs counterparty-lib software. Counterparty is coded primarily in Python using a SQLite database. Counterparty tracks balances using bitcoin addresses as “accounts” and credits and debits account balances when executing valid protocol messages. …
Counterparty (XCP) is a protocol and software implementation that allows for the issuance and exchange of cryptoassets on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Embedded Consensus
Counterparty makes cryptoassets on top of the Bitcoin blockchain possible by writing metadata into bitcoin transactions. That data is then read, validated, and executed by Counterparty nodes. (E.g. “Buy 100 TOKEN / SELL 10 XCP.”)
Each block, Bitcoin full nodes that are running the Counterparty software scan for this metadata. If found, nodes validate that data and update their ledgers, accordingly. This is a method known as “embedded consensus”.
As long as the federated nodes in the Counterparty network are running the same version of software, they can all independently compute — and come to consensus on — the state of the network. (E.g. …
