killerstorm



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LegendaryActivity: 1022Merit: 1000 [BOUNTY] 200 BTC for lightweight colored coin client(s) February 07, 2013, 09:47:55 PM

Last edit: February 07, 2013, 11:22:30 PM by killerstorm #1



So we want to see a web-based Bitcoin client which would support colored coins. Support for colored coins means that



it should show balance for each installed color separately

it should allow sending coins of a certain color

it should implement p2ptrade protocol

Currently we 200 BTC for bounties for this project. We'll probably break the whole thing into smaller tasks and allocate bounty for each task.



As for architecture, we haven't settled on this now, but a perspective direction is to have server which can provide data about transactions in same way blockchain.info does, and client will identify colored transaction outputs using backward scan. Currently people are investigating whether it is feasible in terms of performance...



bitcoinjs seems to be a good basis both for client and for server.



If development of web client costs less than 200 BTC we will consider bounties for development of other color-aware thin clients like Electrum and MultiBit.



This is a preliminary announcement as there is no concrete plan yet, but people who are interested in doing this are welcome to apply. (Post here, send PM or post to bitcoinX mailing list:



Oh, by the way, of course it would be great if more people will chip in with bounty pledges. All results will be open source etc. It would be shame if we only do web but no Electrum. It would be cool if more people tried using colored coins: it would help us to gather feedback and develop protocol further. But right now the only client is ArmoryX, and trying it out is pretty involved: it requires fully synced Satoshi Bitcoin client, and besides that ArmoryX eats about 1 GB of RAM. Few people would do that just to play with it...So we want to see a web-based Bitcoin client which would support colored coins. Support for colored coins means thatCurrently we 200 BTC for bounties for this project. We'll probably break the whole thing into smaller tasks and allocate bounty for each task.As for architecture, we haven't settled on this now, but a perspective direction is to have server which can provide data about transactions in same way blockchain.info does, and client will identify colored transaction outputs using backward scan. Currently people are investigating whether it is feasible in terms of performance...bitcoinjs seems to be a good basis both for client and for server.If development of web client costs less than 200 BTC we will consider bounties for development of other color-aware thin clients like Electrum and MultiBit.This is a preliminary announcement as there is no concrete plan yet, but people who are interested in doing this are welcome to apply. (Post here, send PM or post to bitcoinX mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/bitcoinX/ Oh, by the way, of course it would be great if more people will chip in with bounty pledges. All results will be open source etc. It would be shame if we only do web but no Electrum. Chromia : a better dapp platform

ripper234



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Ron Gross







LegendaryActivity: 1344Merit: 1002Ron Gross Re: [BOUNTY] 200 BTC for lightweight colored coin client(s) February 07, 2013, 11:14:55 PM #5 Quote from: killerstorm on February 07, 2013, 11:03:52 PM Everything is going to be open source, however I'm not sure if we'll make considerable improvements to things which aren't directly related to colored coins. It won't be exactly like blockchain.info.



Of course. Building a full blockchain.info clone would cost more than 200 BTC.



MVP first.



BTW, I guess that whatever portion of blockchain.info is opened source might be forked and used in favor of this project. It might take some more effort than building from scratch (or might initially appear to be more effort), but the benefit of forking blockchain.info's code is that it's battle tested.



Of course I could be completely wrong and blockchain's code might be a horrible fit for this project, I don't know it so I can't make that call.

Of course. Building a full blockchain.info clone would cost more than 200 BTC.MVP first.BTW, I guess that whatever portion of blockchain.info is opened source might be forked and used in favor of this project. It might take some more effort than building from scratch (or might initially appear to be more effort), but the benefit of forking blockchain.info's code is that it's battle tested.Of course I could be completely wrong and blockchain's code might be a horrible fit for this project, I don't know it so I can't make that call.

Executive Director

Co-founder of the Israeli Bitcoin Association Please do not pm me, use ron@bitcoin.org.il instead Mastercoin Executive DirectorCo-founder of the Israeli Bitcoin Association

killerstorm



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LegendaryActivity: 1022Merit: 1000 Re: [BOUNTY] 200 BTC for lightweight colored coin client(s) February 07, 2013, 11:37:26 PM #8 Quote from: hazek on February 07, 2013, 11:16:44 PM Maybe the fact that you have to beg people to participate should give you some sort of a hint.

Huh?



Colored coins are definitely useless now because nobody have issued anything of value yet. And nobody have issued anything of value because the protocol isn't finalized and implementation is immature.



Effectively it's only a demo now.



And going through blockchain download and running ArmoryX just to play with it is a bit too involved.



I don't think bootstrapping would be that hard once we'll get all software done.



End users don't even need to know that they are using colored coins.



For example, they might interact with an exchange similar to



Or they might interact with a payment system which is able to transfer USD, but doesn't require any registration. Huh?Colored coins are definitely useless now because nobody have issued anything of value yet. And nobody have issued anything of value because the protocol isn't finalized and implementation is immature.Effectively it's only a demo now.And going through blockchain download and running ArmoryX just to play with it is a bit too involved.I don't think bootstrapping would be that hard once we'll get all software done.End users don't even need to know that they are using colored coins.For example, they might interact with an exchange similar to https://btct.co/ but with extra features like anonymous trading, offline storage, transfer between exchanges and so or.Or they might interact with a payment system which is able to transfer USD, but doesn't require any registration. Chromia : a better dapp platform

ikbrunel



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NewbieActivity: 19Merit: 0 Re: [BOUNTY] 200 BTC for lightweight colored coin client(s) February 08, 2013, 04:50:09 AM #15 Quote from: BIGMERVE on February 08, 2013, 03:48:34 AM Can someone explain what a colored coin is?



It's an itty-bitty fraction of a Bitcoin that represents ownership of an asset.



That asset could be a bond (in which case payments could be made to all bondholders without knowing who they are pretty trivially by inspecting the blockchain), ownership stakes in a company (in which case stockholders could vote by signing one side or another of a decision with a private key corresponding to the public key to which the colored coin was most recently transferred), or tokens for smart property (in which case your car would ask you to sign a random character string which it would validate against the public key to which its ownership colored coin was transferred most recently). It's an itty-bitty fraction of a Bitcoin that represents ownership of an asset.That asset could be a bond (in which case payments could be made to all bondholders without knowing who they are pretty trivially by inspecting the blockchain), ownership stakes in a company (in which case stockholders could vote by signing one side or another of a decision with a private key corresponding to the public key to which the colored coin was most recently transferred), or tokens for smart property (in which case your car would ask you to sign a random character string which it would validate against the public key to which its ownership colored coin was transferred most recently).

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LegendaryActivity: 1106Merit: 1045 Re: [BOUNTY] 200 BTC for lightweight colored coin client(s) February 08, 2013, 12:25:05 PM #17



Contracts also allow for off-chain trading by inserting a special contract stating that some trusted ledger holder, possibly kept trustworthy by a fidelity bond, will maintain balances for the coins beyond some point. Of course, obviously the problem of trusting some central ledger is exactly the problem that colored coins is trying to solve, but there is room for both solutions, especially as demand on the limited block space becomes high. Trusted ledgers can after all still transfer some of the balance they are keeping a ledger of back onto the block chain, allowing you to get your balance back onto the block chain. Similarly the trusted ledger might actually be a merge-mined alt-chain using



Of course, you're pretty far along with colored coins with your existing protocol, but I thought you might be interested in what I'm working on. Also, thanks for everyone who developed the idea of colored coins in the first place; the fidelity bonds and contracts proposal wouldn't have happened without your ideas. Have you seen my post on fidelitybonds and contracts ? Fidelity bonds are a close cousin to colored coins, with the exception that every txout is associated with a contract. For fidelity bonds this is the contract describing how the holder promises they will act, but for colored coins the "contract" could simply be the identifier of the color; the colored coin protocol for fidelity bonds uses the least significant bits of the txout value to separate contract and change outputs, and thus allows for arbitrary precision. Currently there is just contract and change, but the idea that can easily be extended to multiple different colors in a transaction by using more bits if required, allowing fidelity bonds to be traded for colored coins representing other assets in the future.Contracts also allow for off-chain trading by inserting a special contract stating that some trusted ledger holder, possibly kept trustworthy by a fidelity bond, will maintain balances for the coins beyond some point. Of course, obviously the problem of trusting some central ledger is exactly the problem that colored coins is trying to solve, but there is room for both solutions, especially as demand on the limited block space becomes high. Trusted ledgers can after all still transfer some of the balance they are keeping a ledger of back onto the block chain, allowing you to get your balance back onto the block chain. Similarly the trusted ledger might actually be a merge-mined alt-chain using cross-chain coin trading . (reminds me, I should ensure the contracts protocol is compatible with those transactions)Of course, you're pretty far along with colored coins with your existing protocol, but I thought you might be interested in what I'm working on. Also, thanks for everyone who developed the idea of colored coins in the first place; the fidelity bonds and contracts proposal wouldn't have happened without your ideas. BTC: 1FCYd7j4CThTMzts78rh6iQJLBRGPW9fWv PGP: 7FAB114267E4FA04