Topic: Smart property (Read 5978 times)

Oh, this reminds me, Mike, that you told me in Amsterdam that you hadn't seen the freimarkets proposal for "a hard-fork implementation of colored coins", because, yes, there's many posts in this subforum.
Here it is:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/user-assets-peer-to-peer-exchange-off-chain-accounting-transitive-txn-in-btc-280292

This could allow very light clients to operate with smart property, specially if the chain also hashes an UTXO index like in: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/fundraising-finish-ultimate-blockchain-compression-204283 (another hard-fork, although there's the merged mined chain possibility too, but it would be less secure). There's also unique "tokens" that are ideal for some cases like the smart car.

We would love to have review and input from more bitcoin developers.
Specially those like you, that have also thought about smart property or off-chain transactions.

Concept still works its way around my brain every now and again. ASICs probably would've been a great product to really prove concept on. Might still be, though the markup on them is rapidly depreciating to where they probably wouldn't offer as much benefit (OTOH, it could be a valuable feature once the mining market evens out and you want to distinguish your product from competitors'). ASIC manufacturers are pretty much the only large "Bitcoin manufacturers" -- has anyone suggested an implementation of the concept to them? What better collateral can exist than a money printer? This isn't the only use. Today, was talking to someone about having escrow released at time of confirmed shipment instead of after arrival and testing, and it hit me - that it was possible to do that with smart property. Sites could report hash stats on the signatures of the specific ASICs being sold (which'd be signed as "proof of hashes" [proof of funds]), which would remove a significant amount of trust required to release escrow at time of shipment, rather than after testing (they're often hosted far away from where they end up shipped, and international shipping occasionally results in customs delays).

-Not that I'd recommend releasing before actual arrival of the order and inspection, but it would remove *some* of the trust and make that kind of transaction more reasonable.

Many companies listed on litecoinglobal.com sold shares/bonds to buy equipment. E.g. ESECURITY SA and OPCU are hosting companies which need servers. ART is going to be a ceramic art studio which requires expensive equipment. And so on...

Maybe it's not representative sample, but it's still an interesting case.

The vouchers/colored coins can be used for smart property and/or wages.  In the case of wages an employee gets vouchers that he can use to purchase goods at stores.  The stores can then swap the vouchers for bitcoins.   However if the bond issuer breaks his contract the vouchers he pays out will no longer be exchangeable for bitcoins.  Its a slightly different scenario from purchasing smart property but the underlying goal of keeping the bond issuer honest is the same.  With the voucher system described the barrier to entry for the web of trust would be lowered, you would have to trust people, but there would be that safeguard of the vouchers and smart property.  

Ah, yes, if the companies needs can be met only with smart property, then sure. That sounds unlikely though. Most companies biggest cost is wages, not assets.

A bond market with completely anonymous participants has to rely solely on reputations (as it doesn't really make sense to buy a passport/fidelity bond/etc to borrow money). I'm not sure that's tractable in the real world for the same sorts of reasons that the web of trust never really took off: barrier to entry is too high.

People value their physical identity as an asset because everyone is given one for free at birth by their parents and the state, and because it can be used to easily put your own personal freedom and all assets on the line as collateral in a deal.

The whole point is that company will get smart property instead of money. This smart property will enforce certain smart contract which would discourage misuse.

I think it should be stated what the whole point of this "auditable funding" song and dance is.   We want to have a stock/bond market where all parties can keep their anonymity.  Anything less will lead to a shutdown by government forces and if you think otherwise I believe you are being naive.  In a crypto anarchist system where there is no government to enforce contracts alternatives must be sought.  Smart property in the use case I described is one such way.

If you want to give people money "with strings attached" then I think the better direction to go is CP-ABE, see my posts on distributed investment funds. Smart property isn't really relevant to that use case.

Mike, what do you think about atpcas's "auditable funding" use case and my proposal to implement it using killerstorms's "smart vouchers"?

Smart property isn't really relevant to DRM. Content producers would not be interested in this.

I guess the simplest way yo do it is by using those funds to buy "colored vouchers" from your providers: that trade could be audited by anyone.

Distributed, cryptographically signed proof of ownership, digital commodity systems FTW. The whole paradigm has plenty of potentially useful applications, whether used partly or in full. I suspect the proof of work for creation could end up used also in another co-opting of the Bitcoin "design pattern".

Edit: of course, SatoshiDice has already subverted the intended use of the Bitcoin blockchain, so proof of work has already been re-used, but not totally re-implemented (yet, that I know of!)

I had a thought about smart property in a business setting.  Suppose I issue bonds for my business to buy new equipment.  To ensure my investors that I don't run away with the cash there would need to be a way to mark the the bitcons I receive so that I can only purchase equipment with them from certain manufactures that will sell me products that have been tied to the bonds somehow.  Furthermore, there would need to be an added incentive for me to ship back the bricked equipment if I break my contract (say I get back triple the shipping cost).

"Intellectual poverty" has no moral legitimacy. Information is not scarce.
I don't like that use case for smart property and you can't stop p2p sharing anyway.

Well, that's the happy version.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much the opposite of what we've seen of copy protection/DRM over the past 30 years - the "smart property" will likely be used to make sure that if I buy a new computer or a new car stereo, I have to re-license all of my music again, or pay an extra fee so I can enjoy my content on a new device . . . or that if I sell my device, all of my content will disappear, and the new owner will need to re-license it. And if the device gets confused about the facts and circumstances, it may deny me what I've paid for, and since I'm "arguing" about my "rights" with a computer who thinks it knows all of the important facts already . . .

I am not saying that DRM is inherently evil - but that it has traditionally been designed not to protect the rights of people we'd think of as owners/consumers, but of the rights of publishers/lenders/sellers. That probably sounds good if you identify with those classes of people - but I spend most of my time using software written by other people, and machines designed by other people, and I spend more time than I'd like trying to work around practical problems with copy protection/DRM that prevent me from doing the things that I've (approximately) already paid for.

(e.g., I have paid for probably 8 licenses for Adobe Acrobat, and I have five people in my office who need to use it from time to time - but I am reluctant to re-image some computers, because I am not confident that I will be able to reinstall Acrobat, even though I've paid for it.)

Mike, I'm sure you mean this thread by you: Distributed bond markets and pay-to-policy outputs, right?


Oh, "colored coins", I saw that thread title before but dismissed it immediately as something to do with coin taint.

Thanks for the hints guys, this is all so exciting!

Arghh someone beat me to the punch re
darn it, beaten to the punch - digital content was the first thing I thought off.

The way I saw it, someone would download an album from iTunes which is signed over to the customer who then OWNS that item and it has value (I dont think people consider there mp3 collection as valuable at the moment, napster/p2p has changed that - not that digital music ever had value - but now we have the blockchain....

I think smart property could be made to do wonderful wonderful things for society (or not in the wrong hands), in a lot of areas!

Subbed to this one - cant wait to see the proof of concept and where this thing can go

Colored coins are very similar to smart property (or maybe it's the same thing, depending on how you look at it), and currently there are people who work specifically on "trade shares of assets and pay dividends". See here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/chromawallet-colored-coins-issue-and-trade-private-currenciesstocksbonds-106373


I think we'll get a working proof-of-concept in a couple of weeks.

Also Jeff Garzik is working on pybond: https://github.com/jgarzik/pybond

Yes, it's possible. A share is somewhat like a bond that doesn't pay any interest, instead yielding occasional dividends (or none), and allowing you to cast votes.

The key used in the control output would receive the dividend, and you could sign votes with it then submit them to the issuer of the share.

It's only a minor variation on the scheme for bonds described elsewhere in this forum.

Could "smart property" be used to trade shares of assets and pay dividends? What'd be necessary to make that happen?