Pretty bold claims from Middleton, but I have tried it and it works, at least in a beta phase, not vapor phase or proof of concept phase, but beta phase. You can trade all tickers that Cypherdoc mentions on here.
I still don't understand how the tickers are fed into veritaseum to settle the bets. Can you explain that?
Saying "it works" without understanding how it works is short-sighted.
Twice or thrice I tried to find technical documentation (wading through all the promotional crap) and was stifled, so I assumed it is centralized bullshit.
That's not a fair presumption. Most tech dudes (and most people in general) use the financial system and have absolutely no idea how it works. Does that mean that your money doesn't spend? Veritaseum, from a capital perspective, is fully decentralized. It is the only automated system that I know of that is fully autonomous in that you keep your private keys private and on your client under your control. All transactions are peer to peer through the blockchain, and our server doesn't touch, house, hold, custody or control a single satoshi of your coin. Read
http://veritaseum.com/index.php/homes/1-blog/128-will-new-vc-investment-trump-the-returns-of-the-early-movers-in-the-digital-currency-space-quite-possibly-let-me-show-you-how and
http://veritaseum.com/index.php/homes/1-blog/94-bitcoin-1-0-vs-2-0-or-a-comparison-of-legacy-exchanges-veritaseum-s-ultracoin for the difference between centralized and decentralized systems.
As an aside, the vast majority of bitcoin traders don't seem to have a problem with centralized systems as they freely send their decentralized assets to fully centralized entities to house, trade and exchange. Just a little food for thought.
If it is really just a protocol, then by definition there is nothing to stop someone from bypassing your client and writing directly to the protocol, cutting out the Middle
ton-man.
I am assuming there is some proprietary lockin somewhere in there, but without code and technical documentation, why should I (or other hackers/geeks/tech dudes) consume my (our) time trying to understand the system using inefficient means of trying to deobfuscate what you ostensibly (at least last time I looked) want to obfuscate. I will take a quick glance at the links above, but if they don't get direct to the technical points (as what I saw on your website before) then I will not expend more time.
P.S. some of us do understand both economics and programming. That is not to say I have any insider or real-world WallStreet experience (thank the almighty for that blessing).
Edit: I glanced at the links. Reggie we know already all about the virtues and design of decentralized exchanges. We understand the use of a mutually trusted "Facilitator" (Escrow agent). We understand the need for decentralized, consensus data feeds (which you apparently don't yet have in your system). We do not need to read all that shit over and over again. When we ask for technical documentation, we mean precisely that and none of this marketing overhead. Some of us are much more aware than you may think. We are also thinking about these sorts of designs and markets too (believe me you were not any where close to being the first).
I do not understand how to expect to gain traction. You can leverage
your reputation and connections in the financial sphere, but afaics you do not know how to interface with the tech dudes who are the core of the Bitcoin sphere. IMO, if you want us on board, this has to be a collaborative effort and open source system. And so then how do you make your ROI on this? Does this project have its own coin (I think not). The world is not going to adopt Reggie-wallet. Sorry. You will need an open protocol and another way to make your ROI.
Perhaps there is some way to leverage your strengths and the open source community, but afaics you haven't partnered with the right CTO to get it done. I see more of a closed-source, proprietary, marketing spin philosophy thus far.
Also you appear to be building a specific protocol for trading options. Ethereum (and CounterParty?) is in the space of creating a programmable block chain wherein there can be a free market competition amongst protocols. I suggested last year that Ethereum can never scale and the only solution is merge-minded chains for programmable chains.
Some of us are thinking much bigger and more open than you. You should not assume you are the next Google. I highly doubt it.
P.S. your calls on Apple and Google were obvious to me also (before I found out about you on Zerohedge). I had written similar predictions on http://esr.ibiblio.org perhaps before you did. My point is your very boastful marketing spins are out of proportion to the technical acumen display openly thus far. Perhaps your team are technical wizards, but I don't know.You are awfully confrontational. Why is that? What boasting are you speaking of. I believe I have over 80 vindicated contrarian calls covering many industries and sovereign nations, going back to 2006. Is that what you consider boasting? If so, it's not - it's marketing, designed to inform those who don't know who I am (likely many in this forum) of what I've accomplished in the past. Now, on to your points.
Anyone can, with enough effort, reproduce anything that's done on Wall Street, yet somehow Wall Street thrives. The reasons are a) its often difficult without both capital resources and specialized knowledge b) its really just not worth it much of the time c) many don't know how.
We are a financial software company, thus our core audience are financial types, not "technical dudes" as you describe them. Goldman, Bitfinex, itBit, JP Morgan and Citi don't have technical documents on their site describing what they do and how they do it. They offer you a service and/or solution and you decide if you want to use it. For some reason, you are not comparing us to our competitors, you are comparing us to a technical concern. I don't believe that is fair.
As for understanding economics, that has little to do with what we have built. Financial engineering, valuation and markets knowledge are much, much more useful in understanding what we're doing than economics will ever be.
As for proprietary lock-in, we let you keep your keys, and the code is on your client. We provide a service, just like a financial institutions does. It's simply that since our service and code is based on autonomy, you are in control. The institutions that you are used to dealing with are heteronomous, hence they must usurp control to reap margin - two very, very different business models. You can guess which one I think is superior. Time will tell if enough of the world agrees with me.
Your assertions about who was the first to do this and that are totally unnecessary. For one, you have no idea when I started doing anything that I did. In addition, its a useless debate anyway. Who really cares who was first, second or third? Really. What actually matters is who has a usable product now, and will that product be able to blossom and grow into the future. Isn't this correct? Now, enough of the unwarranted challenges. I'm here to work with you guys.
If you want to work with me to improve the code, then by all means let's do it. The code is not open sourced for legal, business and logistical reasons, but I as founder am willing to have the community work on it, we just need the resources to manage such. Keep in mind that this is going significantly above what ALL of our competition is willing to, or has done thus far. As for our CTO, he is quite qualified. Very, very few CTOs can right competent legal contracts. Very few IP lawyers can architect and design competent legal code. Our CTO is ivy league trained in both fields and has 15 years experience in payments with some of the biggest names in the industry. I'm proud to have him on board as part of the project. We are more open than any derivatives concern that I know of. If I'm mistaken, then please point that out.
We don't trade options. You are mistaken. We deal in smart contracted, OTC, P2P swaps. I believe our system is more advanced than anything available on Counterparty and Ethereum, and more importantly it is up and running and working right now.
You said, "Some of us are thinking much bigger and more open than you. You should not assume you are the next Google. I highly doubt it.". Well, I love you too! :-)
May I suggest a more friendly, less insulting approach? I don't recall assuming anything of the sort.