To answer my own question, I say
yes it is:
It's not a clone coin, not a gimmick coin, not a cash grab IPO coin designed to enrich the founders before they had delivered. It is a brand new design from scratch.
Real Value is derived from the CounterParty protocol, a protocol which adds value to the bitcoin network itself by expanding capability of the blockchain beyond simply 'dumb' payments . Whilst the main use of XCP is not intended to act as a currency, the underlying XCP token allows acts as an anti-spam fee (much like ripples XRP) to create your own assets on the blockchain, to engage in p2p bets, run smart contracts and other advanced financial operations on the blockchain. It also to you to own 'shares' in the protocol (just like owning bitcoin allows you to have a stake in the success of bitcoin as a protocol)
Below I will give a brief run-through of the relevant points.
SecurityThe project has been independently audited by respected Bitcoin Experts, Peter Todd and Sergio Demian Lerner. To my knowledge, it is the only major Bitcoin 2.0 project to have had multiple formal, comprehensive, expert security audits of its codebase.
https://www.counterparty.co/sergio-lerner-peter-todd/https://www.counterparty.co/sergio-lerner-completes-security-audit/ https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/counterpartyd/labels/Peter%20Todd%20AuditSergio Demian Lerner's words:
Keeping the counterparty source code small and independent of the network client is a great design decision, from the point of view of security. Because of this Counterparty client is the smallest, readable and yet completely usable “alt-coin” I’ve ever seen.
Since counterparty is essentially an abstraction layer on-top of bitcoin enabling advanced crypto-financial utilities to be built, it benefits from bitcoins already established ecosystem (Far and away the largest in the entire cryptocash landscape), Therefore it enjoys nearly 300 Petahash worth of miners diligently securing the blockchain it resides upon.
Launch information Innovative, transparent and fair distribution modelCoins were not released by a proof-of-work model, favoring those with the biggest rigs, nor an IPO which enriched a small group of people before they had actually delivered any work, everybody had an equal chance to profit on equal levels. No entity pocketed a satoshi of the burned funds. BTC was destroyed permanently by being 'burned' (sent to unspendable address) in order to acquire XCP. This had the effect of enriching Bitcoin holders by diminishing total available supply. In addition burn period start/end was clearly defined by a hard-coded block number.
Source:
https://www.counterparty.co/why-proof-of-burn/Limited supply, non inflationary (2,648,755 XCP MAX)Source:
http://blockscan.com/(coins are deflationary due to being burned in situations like asset issuance- In short the total monetary supply will never be increased, as there is no need for PoW or PoS). This makes it an excellent choice for a long term store-of-value.
On an average basis, each day 12 XCP are permanently removed from circulation by users registering assets and miscellaneous transaction fees. This number is gradually increasing.
Development teamExtensive bug bounty programSource:
https://www.counterparty.co/resources/bug-bounty-program/Full time, self sufficient core development team.Community relations manager
5 x Experienced & public Full time coders (Adam Krellenstein, Robby Dermody, Evan Wagner, Ouziel Sama, Karol Pogonowski)
Marketing lead - Chris Derose
Platform FeaturesBlockchain based votingThe Bitcoin Foundation recently used CounterParty to hold an on-blockchain vote for election run-off 2015. -
http://blog.bitcoinfoundation.org/voting-on-the-blockchain-version-1-0/Anyone can create their own voting system via CounterParty.
http://blockscan.com/votes Register property titlesVia Szabo's Seminal paper: "
Secure Property Titles with Owner Authority" http://nakamotoinstitute.org/secure-property-titles/
The ideal title database would have the following properties:
*Current owner Alice should be able transfer her title to only a single relying counterparty (similar to the "double spending" problem in digital cash)
* Servers should not be able to forge transfers
* Servers should not be able to block transfers to or from politically incorrect parties.
CounterParty ticks all these boxes.
.
Ability to issue any smart property and pay Dividends directly with BTC as well as any other counterparty asset. (NXT, Bitshares etc, cannot do this natively)
Backup any XCP smart property onto Cold storage Paper wallets You could purchase a token using BTC that represents an OZ of gold, store it into a paper wallet offline, then import it at any time onto the network, you could then choose to receive ownership of that physical gold, or sell it in it's digital form on the decentralised exchange. Since XCP is natively compatible with BTC, you can do this with any counterparty asset.
Additionally Cold storage via Armory offline Wallets is natively supported. Counterparty is the first 2.0 project to support such features.
Innovative projects built on top of the counterparty protocol- KOINIFY The Decentralized Application Platform - World Class Crypto crowfdunding
- GEMZ Gems - Messaging That Pays. Social Meets Cryptocurrency.
- FLDCFoldingCoin | Mine Medicine – Not Hashes
- SWARM Kickstarter on steroids. Decentralized crowdfunding with due-diligence, voting & benefits for all SWARMCOIN holders.
- BETXCP Decentralised sports betting (without ever giving anyone control of your coins)
- XBET World's first P2P, trustless & decentralized betting platform.
- STORJ P2P dropbox and MAID competitor - Decentralized cloud-storage.
- VENND Exchange gateway & Vending machine for XCP, BTC, assets. (Cross-blockchain support possible.)
- Spells Of Genesis The first onchain economy game ever made)
- Digital Tangible Trust Escape BTC volatility! - Trade Gold and silver via the Blockchain. Backed by physical holdings
Latest News21 September 2014 Counterwallet 1.5.0 released Read more:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.89081486 September 2014 Armory offline support now implemented in counterwallet main net Read more:
http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/counterparty-first-bitcoin-2-0-platform-offer-armory-offline-wallet-support/26 August 2014 -
Multi-sig addresses are now supported on testnet. (Useful for two-factor authorization, escrow, and decentralized organizations.) Read more:
http://www.coindesk.com/crypto-2-0-roundup-counterparty-debuts-multisig-ethereums-crowdsale-comedians-go-crypto/2 August, 2014 The man who would undo Wall Street by offering Overstock.com 'crytposecurities'
http://upstart.bizjournals.com/entrepreneurs/hot-shots/2014/08/01/the-man-who-would-undo-wall-street-by-offering.html?page=all06 October 2014 -- Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market based on Counterparty
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/overstock-com-assembles-coders-build-bitcoin-like-stock-market/http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2iho5p/counterparty_founder_robby_dermody_hired_by/11 November 2014 --
- Counterparty announced that its developers have successfully ported the Ethereum Project’s programming language over to the Counterparty platform, enabling users to save and execute Turing Complete Ethereum code on the Bitcoin blockchain
http://counterparty.io/news/counterparty-recreates-ethereums-smart-contract-platform-on-bitcoin/http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/11/12/bitbeat-bitcoin-2-0-firm-counterparty-adopts-ethereums-software/12 November 2014 --
- In addition to purchase of blockchain-tradeable precious metals verified owners of physical gold bars and gold coins can now trade their gold for bitcoin (tradeable p2p via CounterParty) using the DigitalTangible’s Web Wallet and network of gold dealers for same day settlement. Partnered with premier precious metals dealer Agora Commodities, DigitalTangible now offers a completely FinCEN compliant precious metals route into bitcoins.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141112005418/en/DigitalTangible-Launches-Bitcoin4Gold-Service#.VGPOFmSsU4R- Major milestone reached – the 100,000th transaction on the Counterparty network!
http://counterparty.io/news/counterparty-recreates-ethereums-smart-contract-platform-on-bitcoin/- CounterWallet Chinese translation complete
https://counterwallet.io/?lang=zh_cn- Rick Falkvinge, the author of Swarmwise (inspiration for Ethereum) and founder of the Pirate Party, plans on shaking up the world with his new project called SwarmOps, shares of which are available on CounterParty
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/17956/swarm-1-rick-falkvinges-swarmops-project 
