September 20, 2017

New Hires

Counterparty is excited to announce two new hires in recent weeks

Firstly, Counterparty would like to welcome Rebekah Moss as community outreach manager for 6 months. Rebekah will work to drive engagement across, and offer support to, the Counterparty community.

Secondly, Counterparty has retained Devon Weller as a core developer for 6 months, with the majority of his compensation expected to come from community bounties.

The Counterparty Foundation has approved these hires to move things forward with considerably more momentum than the past year.

Ecosystem Updates

SaruTobi Island, created by developer, Mandel Duck; fronted by Counterparty supporter and team member Christian Moss, has launched into app stores on iOS and Android devices globally.

Extending his previous incarnation of the SaruTobi universe, Christian Moss states, “the main focus of SaruTobi Island is to promote the usage and usability of blockchain game items, specifically Counterparty tokens.”

Collaborating with Book of Orbs, who utilize Indiesquare‘s API, users who link their Book of Orbs wallet to the game will be able to use assets stored within their wallets; alongside any Counterparty token, to summon monsters within SaruTobi island. Moss expanded on Mandel Duck’s collaboration with IndieSquare, “now that SegWit has activated on the bitcoin network we are excited to work with IndieSquare on a new venture called ‘SaruTobi Laboratory‘.”

Utilizing the optimisation of payment channels through SegWit, SaruTobi Laboratory will offer players of SaruTobi Island, the opportunity to experiment with different cryptocurrencies and payment channels, throughout mini-games in forthcoming updates.

Further additions to SaruTobi island include an expansion of the original story mode, Tamagotchi mode, and multiplayer gameplay, with the potential of bitcoin rewards upon the completion of sufficient crowdfunding.

The Scarab Experiment has recently entered the final phase of their project, having similarly concluded the allocation of funds through crowdsourcing. Composed as “a decentralized artist persona powered by Counterparty and backed by Bitcoin…the Artist known as SCARAB uses Scarab Tokens which empower its member artists and representatives.” Community-based, the blockchain-underscored exhibition system, engages Counterparty values in seeking a 50% minimum vote on all artwork in its Scarab community, as per its multi-stage system.

The project eagerly invites members into their community, advising members to vote for or submit art directly from the website once having ordered and obtained a Scarab token from the DEX exchange.

Freewallet developer and community member J-Dog recently announced via twitter that he is working on a desktop version FreeWallet which will be supported on Windows, Mac, and Linux. The tweet which can be seen here included some screenshots and requested that community members purchase XCHAINPEPE tokens to support development. For more information you can visit the website at freewallet.io

Vanilla XCP Wallet has recently been announced by developer and foundation member JP Jansen. Aimed to be easily customised by developers, the project has been developed as a lightweight counterparty wallet, written in both HTML5 and JavaScript. Browser-based, the wallet will be supported across a variety of platforms and operating systems.

JP Jansen prompts recommended usage for card collector wallets, integrated website token platforms and, customised project wallets. If you’re interested in learning more, you can view the project here.

Rarepepe.party draws ever nearer to a release, as our updates from the Counterparty community continue. John Villar, Counterparty Foundation member and Rarepepe leader, has been continually working hard on the development of the game; as crowdfunding continues. Rarepepe.party centers its premise around, both trading card and role play strategies; built upon blockchain technology. To learn more click here.

Age of Rust is a multiplayer adventure game which depicts gaming within the dystopian realm of the decline of humanity and the uprising of warfare, and all that it entails. The game uses blockchain technology to back its offerings of role play, arcade, adventure and, card-based strategy game-play, to users. Age of Rust players will engage in puzzle-solving adventure, and combat, to be rewarded with blockchain rewards. Prizes include cryptocurrency i.e. the game’s named token, Rustbits; to name just one, and collectible cards, that seek to further a player’s progress in-game and become tradable assets outside of the game.

Similar to Mandel Duck, Age of Rust has since collaborated with Spells of Genesis and Book of Orbs to “support other blockchain cards into the gameplay”, allowing for more interoperability between blockchain-supporting games utilizing the Book of Orbs platform.

Age of Rust has recently launched a website for their upcoming game at www.ageofrust.games.

LOCX project has also launched as of late, with the goal to digitize the entirety of the U.S. library of congress, utilizing the Counterparty Protocol. To make history of history, LOCX aims to make the library of congress tradable, and valuable collectible assets. With a clear directive, LOCX aims to tokenize “more than 164,000,000 items” in a method that involves the transfer of ownership of assets on the blockchain. With a supply of 423,000,000 LOCX tokens, find out how to contribute to the project’s cause here.

Project Orb, launched as a collaborative venture between IndieSquare and EverdreamSoft in 2016, has recently been acquired by Everdreamsoft for sole directorship. The Counterparty wallet and its extending services aim to revolutionize the way in which blockchain technology is used, to enable digital ownership and interoperability among mobile gamers and games. As announced on September 13th, EverdreamSoft revealed that whilst Indiesquare will still provide technical support for Book of Orbs, Koji Higashi; Project leader of Project ORB and co-founder of IndieSquare will step down.

Following the removal of Book of Orbs from the iOS store, EverdreamSoft notes that their new and clarified leadership, will investigate the possibility of a web-based browser to improve BoO’s blockchain capabilities, independent of mobile operating systems and the demarcation between iOS vs Android.

With Spells of Genesis and Project ORB operating effectively under one name, EverdreamSoft notes that interoperability between Book of ORBS and BitCrystals; the game’s premium currency, will improve, as will interoperability and Project Orb’s mission statement, as a result.

Further to this statement, EDS notes that action will be taken to welcome content from new developers to contribute to Project ORB.

Scotcoin; a popular Counterparty token, garnered notable traction in Counterparty news recently when scottish news outlets reported that a house was purchased in Glasgow, Scotland for 10 Million Scotcoin recently.

The first transaction of real estate in Scotland to accept such payment methods, both parties had invested in Scotcoin when the currency launched in 2014.

It’s great to see a cryptocurrency being recognized in the UK, which does not have such a public acceptance of Bitcoin as other countries.

Counterparty Community Hangout; Counterparty recently had a community hangout on July 29th, and it can be viewed at https://youtu.be/LzZ7ZckigME . If you’d like to stay up to date with projects in the community, we are planning on having our next community hangout in the next few weeks via Discord. Make sure to follow us on twitter and join us at the next community hangout!

Developer Updates

Counterparty has been working diligently throughout the last few months to improve upon and implement the following Counterparty Improvement Proposals (CIPs) for the community.

Upcoming CIPs to be released within the next couple of weeks are as follows:

CIP 9 – Enhanced sends with memo field support

CIP 9 adds additional functionality to an asset send while at the same time making asset sends 40-45% cheaper and more efficient. Enhanced sends have a smaller transaction size, eliminate dust outputs, and add a memo that enables greater efficiency and lower transaction fees for exchange operators. CIP 11 – Shorten Transaction Type ID Namespace

CIP 11 reduces the size of ALL Counterparty transactions by 3 bytes, thereby further lowering the transaction costs (BTC fees). CIP 12 – Memo Requirement through Broadcasts CIP 12 will allow services such as exchanges, to require that a memo be included with a send. This requirement allows exchanges to have their customers deposit directly to the exchange hot-wallet, and reduces the operational cost of using Counterparty in an exchange environment.

CIPs planned for release in late November are as follows:

CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding

P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions, and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT). CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA)

Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further. CIP 15 – Segwit Support Enabling Segwit support within Counterparty will enable users to spend less on transaction fees and enables potential future enhancements. Updating Counterwallet will allow users to choose if they want to send assets to a segwit enabled address or a traditional address.

CIPs planned for release in early 2018:

CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT) MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their sends costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction. CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is a community funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others. Please visit our donations page to stay up to date on the current bounty and development status of any CIPS, and consider making a donation to support continued development.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!

Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.