Just when we thought things were going smooth we heard about another piece of news that will send shock waves through the Bitcoin community. BitFunder, rather than just closing its doors to US residents, is shutting down permanently. And, let us not forget, yet another wallet service and its users became the latest victim of virtual bank robbers.

The Mastercoin protocol, which uses the Bitcoin network, for specialized transactions such as stock transfers, will fill the void.  This is great news for Bitcoin owners, because each time a Mastercoin transaction occurs Bitcoin Miners get paid.  The Bitcoin network is providing value added services were previously financial benefits went to site owners rather than Bitcoin network operators.

For a quick recap on this subject check out this video:

So, what does all that mean for Mastercoin and all of the work we are doing on distributed BTC-MSC exchange and smart properties?

It means the stakes just got a lot higher. The good news is that the evolutionary cycles created by market forces are pulling  for more decentralization.

In this week’s update we will focus primarily on the progress in the Distributed Exchange Code Contest, and developments in the Mastercoin Protocol and related proposals.  The post may be a bit more technically oriented than others, but the goal is to ensure that anyone working on developing is aware of all of the changes that have taken place.

If you are looking for a review of the technical structure of Mastercoin and how it relates to and utilizes Bitcoin then Vitalik Buterin of Bitcoin Magazine  kindly wrote this great article published earlier this week: Mastercoin: A Second-Generation Protocol on the Bitcoin Blockchain.  If you have not got your hands on any MSC yet, please help test the MSC faucet; report any issues to the bitcointalk forum. All you need is a Bitcoin address (from bitcoin-QT or blockchain.info).

And lastly, if you are in the Tel-Aviv area (or perhaps want to escape from cold northern latitudes), Ron Gross, one of Mastercoin Foundation’s board members, is organizing the second Mastercoin meet up in Israel.

New Mastercoin Job Postings

Smart Property Lead

Produce a Video for the homepage

 Website for Mastercoin Foundation Budget

Mastercoin Protocol & Proposals

The protocol master is on GitHub. Below are the current changes that have been made with a brief description.

• Fix incorrect sequence number description

• Include description of how to determine change addresses 

• Integrate Zathras’ Class A/B/C documentation describing multi-sig

• Clarify distributed exchange rules when BTC is not involved

• Add support for “pay dividend” command 

• Add support for “spending limits” on a savings address

• Add support for “kickstarter” type fundraisers

• Add support for “Contract For Difference” betting

• Add support for “Distributed e-commerce” transactions 

Proposal: Proof of Stake Voting

Proof of Stake is meant to provide a voting mechanism for stakeholders in Mastercoin and in particular currencies and smart properties developed utilizing the protocol.  Please provide input.

Below is the proposed spec change enabling voting for v 1.2:

• Mastercoin websites will have a “voting” section for each currency and smart property.
  • Owning a currency or property allows you to vote on issues related to how that currency or property should be run.
• The voting section will list issues which are available to vote on, as well as feature requests, in descending order of popularity, and the current vote tally for each
• Mastercoin messages needed for voting are:
  • Create new issue (title and what the options are, such as YES/NO or A/B/C/D)
  • Vote on issue (address X votes NO on currency Y issue Z)
    • Weight of vote is proportional to the amount of currency or property owned by that address (proof of stake)
  • Create a new feature request (title and description)
  • Vote on feature (address X supports feature Z on currency Y) – also weighted by ownership
    • A single address may only support one feature, and may only vote in one direction, however . . .
    • A user may split their vote by using multiple addresses
• When some or all property is transferred out of an address which has voted, the votes of the transferred property are invalidated (this allows the owner of the new address to vote again)
• Votes are advisory votes only, and are enforced by social contract, rather than by the protocol itself

Social Media and Press

Meetups

Mastercoin meet up in Israel

Please let us know if you would like to sponsor a meet up anywhere else.

Press & Blogs

Mastercoin: A Second-Generation Protocol on the Bitcoin Blockchain

Bitfunder Closing + Mastercoin / Colored Coins + Blockchain.info Theft

Ron Gross Joins Mastercoin: So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

Websites

MyMastercoins A new explorer site from Bitoy

Market Update

MSC Price Chart as of 09-NOV-2013 :

(X-axis: time; Y-axis: Price of 1 MSC in BTC)

Note that trading is manual at this time, a list of contacts is in the Order Book spreadsheet.