Okay, how do you implement 'activate'.... that is 'at the time of the snapshot it was in control of certain IXCs'?
In your CounterParty client, you have have an equivalent of the
IXC-qt's "state" of the IXC at certain block (="snaphot"),
i.e. essentially what you would internally have in IXC-qt if you would loose the network connection at that block. Then
creating the meta coins is just equivalent of creating the normal IXC transaction of sending all your coins to an address, i.e.,
you sign all your unspent transactions. Of course, in CounterParty protocol you would not sign the actual transactions (as it would allow someone
to spend your IXCs if their we still unspent) but something else (e.g., just the addresses). This would appear to the IXC network, e.g., as a simple IXC transaction with all the info embedded into OP_RETURN.
Interesting idea, but not worth the cost of implementation.
Cost? It just minor tweak of CounterParty with replacement of "burn" with "activate".
If anyone can 'sign' into existence a meta-coin then the system needs to track the thousands of addresses that are 'allowed to sign' and their continuing balance.
No need to do that. That's why you have the "activate". System is tracking the balance of metacoins as it is anyway doing. No need to track addresses which possibly had IXCs at the time of the snapshot but which are not "activated" (i.e. people are not interested to use the metacons or they lost the control of the corresponding IXC address).
Edit: I realized that IXC-qt is keeping track of only its own wallets, so I striked out the wrong statement. See my next message how to actually implement the snapshot.