Tachikoma, you think you can implement this?
It's on the todo-list. The main problem is that this is actually very hard to figure out because there are different cases to account for.
If you want to check the balance of your account and you did not buy from the Exodus address I first need to backtrace the transactions to your address. I need to make sure that address _did_ buy from the Exodus address and that at the time he did the transaction to your address he actually held enough Mastercoins for the transaction. This is not an easy feat when you consider the tons of data that are in the bitcoin blockchain and the fact that ever Mastercoin transaction is pretty much virtual and might not or might have happened based on how a client implements these cases.
I think the foundation needs to set up some test vectors to make sure every implementation of the protocol works exactly the same or else you might have 100 Mastercoins using one client and zero using an other.
Parsing the block chain for MasterCoin transactions and tracing their ownership though various protocol events is easily the hardest piece of work. Hopefully it helps that all MasterCoin addresses "mention" the exodus address with a tiny output - that should make them significantly easier to find
Also, I'm holding my MasterCoins as a long-term investment. I might have to diversify someday, but you need not worry about me dumping MasterCoins onto the market any time soon. I've gotten several PMs asking me to sell them some of my personal stash (because people trust me to get the details of the send right), but I've been sending those folks to the buyer/seller thread.
If I take an action which impacts the market, it will probably be an upward impact. The MasterCoin Foundation needs some MasterCoins (to use for bounties when people would rather have MasterCoins than bitcoins), so we may use some project funds to purchase MasterCoins on the open market at some point
I do not doubt of your good will and honesty, that's why I invested in your project. I understand what you say regarding an "upward impact" - the fact Satoshi is holding tight to each and every coin of his +1M stash is for sure one of the reasons Bitcoin has historically only gone up. In fact, I can tell you that discovering "the founder" didn't move a single coin from his stash, even during rallies and bubbles, was some of the things that fascinated me when I first learnt about Bitcoin.
On the contrary, I always believed that the day in which those "first mined" coins start to move, there will be a lot of panic and dumping going on, unless the transfers and movements are minimal. If large amounts of Satoshi's coins suddenly move, it will probably not be a good sign at all. I always thought that if he had sold his coins during the 2011 bubble, probably the "this is a ponzi" crowd (Nagle et all) would have had much more credit among the community and the world in general.
What I mean with the above is that by holding such an insane share of Mastercoins, you have a very big responsibility. I guess Satoshi understood that and decided to just hold. The project might be open source, other devs might make it huge, but still the fact remains that one single person (you) holds 30% of the total coins in circulation (which BTW in proportion is much more than Satoshi's holdings in relation to the total BTC supply). That's "total power" and "total control" for one single person, and an honest concern for every new investor.
I trust you, but to be honest when I've been asked about Mastercoins, among the few drawbacks I included "one single person holds 30% of them". I will keep saying that to whoever asks me an opinion about the project - not because I do not trust you, just because it is a hard cold fact.
