Thanks so much for all the thoughtful replies!
I've posted my response on bitcoinmedia.com:
http://bitcoinmedia.com/the-second-bitcoin-whitepaper/It's a fun and exciting time to be a bitcoin enthusiast. Anyone with more feedback, please post it in this thread. If anyone wants to chat about collaboration, please get in touch!
Thanks for writing the post ... I'm really interested in learning more, and all else aside, I think it's an interesting paper. Comments below:
NecessityI don't think you have sufficiently demonstrated that this protocol is necessary:
1. Instability - if/when Bitcoin becomes a major force in the global economy, its value will be stable because of the larger market cap. Its current instability is simply because of the tiny market. Why do you doubt this scenario will happen on its own without extra layers?
2. Insecurity - Isn't multi-sig a very good step towards security? In what ways exactly is your protocol secure, where Bitcoin is not? Can't Bitcoin be augmented to be "secure enough" without changing its fundamental properties or building abstractions over it?
3. Disunity - I think Alt Chains are a superb idea. They are a place to experiments, and good ideas from them can be imported into the main chain. I don't think they really "confuse our message" - let the coins evolve, and the best one wins. The alts don't seem to be hurting Bitcoin so far.
It took me a while to understand this, but I now do - your protocol does not guarantee a minimal value of a Mastercoin. Let's assume you set a maximal value of 1 MC = 5 BTC. Then if I invest BTC when MC is launched (1 MC = 1 BTC), I can gain a max of 400% on my initial investment, but I can lose all of it. For anyone to make such an investment, they would need to believe there's a decent chance (I'd say around 40%) it will succeed. 20% chance is just the break even point.
A lot of people on these forums believe that just by holding BTC for the next ten years, they'll already become rich. You have to have really convincing arguments why MC is necessary.
Mastercoin - Bitcoin ratioWhat do you mean by
"every single person buying MasterCoins with bitcoins ignored the cheaper MasterCoins and chose the more expensive ones instead" ?
I agree with your point that destroying bitcoins has to increase the worth of the other bitcoins, and this price ration can be maintained - just the sentance above is not very clear.
Second price manipulation - shares and currencyI might be thick, but I still don't understand how it actually works.
Satoshi's objection to embeddingCan you provide a citation?Also, check out my previous
post on Stack Exchange about your paper.