I am VERY excited to announce that I now have a complete specification for building a protocol layer on top of bitcoin (like how HTTP runs on top of TCP/IP).The coins of the new layer haveThis is a significant improvement over anything we've had before, including colored coins. This protocol has been my life's work for over two years now, and you can finally get a piece of it today!The name of the new protocol layer is MasterCoin (a name I invented and published long before the alt-coin of the same name), and it is 100% message-based, meaning that it encodes all its protocol data as hidden messages in the block chain which have special meanings, such as placing a bet, or transferring MasterCoins to another address.Once you own MasterCoins, you have the building blocks for creating GoldCoin, USDCoin, EuroCoin, and any other real-world asset you can imagine! These child currencies will then be meta stable (holding their values as long as they remain sufficiently backed by MasterCoins held in escrow). Their target values are maintained by protocol actions which control the available supply.Want more details?About me:MasterCoins are intended to be an investment opportunity on par with buying bitcoins when they first came out. However, as with bitcoins, there are a lot of risks too. Before you buy MasterCoins, please take a few minutes to read my summary of some of the ways this could go wrong and you could lose your money: https://sites.google.com/site/2ndbtcwpaper/MasterCoinRisks.pdf Perhaps you have heard of the Genesis Block, from which the first bitcoins were created. MasterCoins have a similar starting point in the bitcoin block chain, called the Exodus Address ( http://blockchain.info/address/1EXoDusjGwvnjZUyKkxZ4UHEf77z6A5S4P ). MasterCoins were created by sending bitcoins to the Exodus Address during the month of August 2013. That fundraiser is now over, and anyone wishing to buy MasterCoins will have to purchase them from an early adopter.Bitcoins raised in the fundraiser are being used to fund the development of software implementing the MasterCoin protocol. The fundraiser was structured like a kickstarter, but it is also an investment. If we're successful, the purchased MasterCoins could be worth a tremendous amount of money someday. Thanks to everyone who participated, helping us raise over half a million dollars worth of bitcoins. We're tracking every every expenditure of that money in a public ledger: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtCyUJvk_IyNdGpVcnpBN2tOczFmbVRnck5TWjZuRFE&usp=sharing Again,, and bitcoins sent to the Exodus Address do not create MasterCoins anymore. Until we get the bitcoin/MasterCoin distributed exchange set up, you can purchase MasterCoins (using a very manual process) here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=287145.0 Do not attempt to purchase or use MasterCoins with a web wallet such as MtGox or Coinbase (YOU COULD LOSE YOUR MONEY). You must use a wallet where you can control a sending address by sending all your funds to that address first, then creating a "message" by sending funds from that address in a special format. Web wallets such as BlockChain.info will work fine, since they give you complete control over the addresses in your wallet.Many MasterCoin functions are now available online (Note site disclaimers! There may still be bugs!):We now have:We are currently running atowards implementing MasterCoin's distributed exchange feature. ALL serious entries win a prize. Details here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=292628.0 Feel free to ask any questions here, although please keep a civil tongue and be aware that I will delete posts on this thread which are off-topic or impolite.Thanks!

Interesting conversation with my wife this morning: She's not willing to trade my vacation/weekend/evening time for ANY amount of money. The poor woman hasn't learned to be materialistic, and is satisfied with what we have. She just wants my time and attention for herself and the kids. However, she IS willing to trade very small amounts of that time as an investment in my project and in our future. For instance, she might take the kids to her parents' house for a weekend at some point to give me time to work on this. Consequently, our burn rate using up project funds is going to be very slow, which is good, and progress will be painfully slow, which is bad. Once I have the basic code in place, I should be able to set up some bounties, which should speed things up a bit, but it looks like I won't be paying myself directly to work on this unless I start doing this full-time.