Topic: The Holy Grail! I wish I could kiss the author of Bitmessage on his face. - page 14. (Read 92739 times)

You changed from "banks will know clearly this money is going into a bitcoin exchange" to "OT server must be authorised by banks to access their SEPA transaction data" ... which are obviously two different issues. Interfaces with legacy banking system are problematic but they can't stop individuals making transfers or their money would become more useless than it already is ... the more barriers they put up to personal transfers the less valuable their money becomes ...

Are you sure about it?
Something tells me that the simple fact that a colored coin issuer can't control where his coins go to already makes it impossible for them to implement such restrictions on most jurisdictions.
Wasn't that the very reason ecash was dropped by banks?

But suppose it's legal. If I'm getting this right (and that's a big if, I confess I need to study this much more), in this new scenario MtGox-like institutions would emit colored-coins which could then be exchanged against normal bitcoins in a p2p, hard-to-track way. But to get fiat in and out, you'd have to go to your fiat-holder and then everything would be tracked as it is today. You'd still need to trust your fiat-holder not to commit fraud or disappear with your money, but, for sure, that'd be a harder coup to play than disappearing with your bitcoins.

So, we would no longer need to worry with "trade engine lags" and alike, and we would no longer need to store our BTC in a shared wallet. Any other big advantage?

Question: Wouldn't a p2p marketplace for escrows which do not hold your fiat be even better than that? The escrows only need to intervene when there's a dispute. But traders are still responsible for transferring funds to one-another, as in OTC. BTC-funds would be locked in 2-of-3 addresses, waiting for the fiat transfer to complete. No "bank-account to hold them all". If you have an API to access your bank account (think merchants) you can even automate everything, as the look-up for escrows could be based on deterministic criteria.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5m1A7zoIcc

Hear that Mr. Andersen ....

That OT server must be authorised by banks to access their SEPA transaction data, without that authorization it can only prove a bitcoin transaction, not a fiat money transaction

The escrow is performed by the smart contracts function on the OT server  ... https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/tree/master/scripts/smartcontracts/escrow how would the bank have any idea it was not just regular user making a transfer?

 ..... This is the sound of Inevitability. 

Well actually due to Fractional Reserve banking all banks are "by their very definition" bankrupt.

Like others I am very much looking forward to seeing where this leads.

This is not possible, if you take all of your money out of banks and store them locally, banks will all go bankrupt  

Vladimir, you can be accused of many things, but a failure of the imagination is never one of them.

I just wish someone would give this OT/BM idea as much air time as Ripple is getting.

Correct, the next step is to make it a distributed P2P application. And there will be some dynamic changing local agencies provide trading with enough volume

The benefit for this approach is: Like in a private auktion, if Alice do a bank transfer to Bob and buy some bitcoin from him, banks don't know the reason behind that transaction, the privacy is kept very well. If you do the transaction through an escrow, then banks will know clearly this money is going into a bitcoin exchange, at least that escrow holds all the information about all the transactions related to exchange

Herds next to watering holes(BMOT) as opposed to wild jungles(free-for-all exchanges *GOX). WoT is powerful and unknown, just look what Bitcoin did to financial tools in a short time - now imagine contract law, commodities, documents, voting...
We will build the trading bots to protect our wealth that can act in unison or pick and choose which bots best appeal to our current risk/reward. OT is the Wilderbeast Consortium and BM is the trumpet call.

Interesting, hadn't thought of that dimension ... but it indeed may take on a 'mind' of its own depending on the bots that will come to inhabit the various asset pair channels ... like an AI springing forth from the emergent behaviour of the collective of bots you mean?


Edit: ... and in this vein I propose the name for the OSS bundle comprised of Bitcoin Bitmessage Open-Transactions be the BITBOT bundle  ... and same name "BitBOT" for any AI that might spring forth 

Thanks a lot man, much appreciated!

As a non-native English speaker, my interpretation of 'federated' is somewhat ambiguous, would that be something like 'based on a universally agreed upon protocol' or something else?

And how do you mean 'discovery' in this context: finding eachother i.e. bringing people (or the services they request and provide) together?

For those asking for hand-holding....


See the docs folder for instructions on installing the pre-requisites.

Once you have those installed, this is usually what I do to build:


(The reason I configure with java is so I can run the test-GUI.)

Then build the project:


You can also do "make -j2" or -j8 etc to make it build faster, depending on how many CPUs you have (and how much RAM.)

There is also now a tarball installable through apt-get though I don't know if it's the most recent version (better to build it yourself, because then you can always "git pull && make install" to update to the latest version.)

Once you have it installed, I suggest you start by copying over the test data:


Then start up the server:


Then you should be able to use the command line tool (in a separate window):


Etc. You can also make scripts by putting "!/usr/bin/env ot" at the top of the script. (See the scripts/samples folder.)

If you want to try to OT test GUI (Moneychanger):


(You will probably have to tell it the /usr/local/lib folder, and then select an image from your harddrive.)

People ask why they have to select an image. The reason is so that hackers cannot do phishing attacks by tricking you with a fake passphrase dialog. They will have no way of anticipating which image you have selected to appear on that dialog, so it will look different for every user.

I should add that the test GUI is not representative of an actual OT GUI. It's just a visual representation of the API, for testing/developing purposes. To see what an actual GUI would look like, check out the screenshots of the upcoming Monetas iPhone app.

You can get support on the OT IRC channel, #opentransactions at irc.freenode.net

Some people have contacted me asking about investing. I suggest you contact our CEO Johann Gevers: [email protected]

Thinking about marketing and names I suggest to call it Nipple somewhat similar to GNU

Nipple - Nipple is not a [Ri]pple

EDIT: or more simple version

Not a [R]ipple

Fellowtraveler, maybe we arrange something to test out your "voting pool" and BM-related ideas?

As for my comment you quoted, you know what is of greatest interest to Bitcoiners is how can it be used to create distributed exchanges.

Ripple is centralized, closed source and it is not based on "the same underlying crypto" as bitcoin.
Everything on their site & wiki is lies.

If you would like to try your hand at an Open-Transactions logo, that would be great.


I'm a fan of the Ripple idea (credit lines) and have always said that I would eventually build it into OT.

(Perhaps sooner rather than later, now that cross-server discovery is solved.)

As for the current Ripple incarnation, I hope their technology proves out and that they are successful.

There is no need to bash people who are trying to contribute to monetary freedom.


--- The transaction notification is used in server-to-server wiring of funds, to unlock the escrow on both sides.
--- The servers can negotiate this between each other directly (since Alice and Bob have notified each server of the other's existence.)
--- In essence, this piece is negotiated directly by the two smart contracts.
--- This doesn't have to go through Bitmessage; that's only used for discovery process.
--- The parties can also directly notice the servers, but this is not necessary for it to work.

> Txs therefore can be instantaneous, but might also incur a variable delay?

I'd say this is accurate, though I would expect it to basically seem instantaneous.


On the commercial side, we have just closed our seed round, and started our second round.
Screenshots of upcoming Monetas iPhone app

I can say the p2p exchange technology is definitely coming, probably first in some future incarnation of our systray app,  but the timing will depend.

On the open-source side, any donations will be re-donated to various OT contributors for their work.
1NtTPVVjDsUfDWybS4BwvHpG2pdS9RnYyQ


For specific step-by-step walkthrus of the Bitmessage-related protocols, see the paste bins I posted at the top of this thread.

Here are more details to help clarify...

CURRENCIES

--- Blockchain-based commodities. (BTC, LTC, etc)

Keep in mind: Blockchain-based currencies such as BTC will not have a proper "issuer" on OT; instead they will be uploaded directly by users into voting pools, where an OT server can issue units based on the BTC yet simultaneously are incapable of stealing those BTC. (They cannot steal them from the voting pool because they are protected by multi-sig, and they cannot steal them internally because the OT servers are incapable of forging receipts.)

--- Colored coins. (These are real-world assets such as gold, dollars, pork bellies, etc which are accounted-for using satoshis on the blockchain, and are redeemed by their issuer upon demand.)

Important things to remember about colored coins:

1. The issuer of colored coins can never be held liable to freeze specific satoshis, because they have no control over the ledger (it's on the blockchain.) Which is to say, the colored coins actually do circulate entirely beyond their control. Just as the Federal Reserve issues dollars which then circulate entirely outside of their control, and thus they cannot be held liable for what happens while they are in circulation.

2. This breaks the link on OT between the issuer and the transaction server, since the issuer no longer needs to directly issue their gold onto the OT server. Instead, the issuer uses colored coins, and then those get issued by wallets into voting pools, to make them available for trading on OT servers. This means that pressure against the issuer can never result in withdrawing their currency from an OT server, because they don't have to issue it directly onto an OT server, for people to still trade it there.

3. Most people will not ever need to redeem their colored coins directly with the issuer of those colored coins. As long as the issuer is good for them, they will be able to redeem their colored coins directly through other wallets. So the issuer only provides redemption "of last resort."

4. Anyone who does redeem colored coins at a colored coin issuer, will be subject to the laws in that jurisdiction, AML/KYC, etc. (So there is no need to violate those laws.)

5. Anyone who buys/sells colored coins will not incur capital gains tax risk, since colored coins, unlike BTC, do not go up in value. (Meaning, a $100 colored coin does not change in value between when it was bought and sold, and thus does not incur capital gains. Consult your attorney on that one BTW.)


LEGACY BANKS

--- Transfers to-and-from the legacy banking system are performed via ACH in the USA, and SEPA in Europe.

--- SEPA transfers are instant. ACH transfers can take 3-5 days. Either way, the OT side of such transactions will use OT's ability to perform escrow.

--- Although people will have the ability to go in-and-out of the banking system, I don't expect this to happen with every transaction. I do expect it to happen sometimes.

--- I expect that some of these transfers will happen P2P (SEPA is particularly suited for this) as well as through professional services (probably similar to Ripple gateways.) Any OT Nym could perform such functions.

--- We can automate such things in the wallets, making the actions user-centric, instead of provider-centric.


OPEN-TRANSACTIONS FEDERATED SERVERS

--- Any Nym will be able to upload BTC or Colored Coins into a voting pool (where the OT server cannot steal them) and the OT server then issues the appropriate units to that Nym via OT's unforgeable receipts.

--- The Nyms are already able to perform escrow with each other, on any OT server.

--- The Nyms are already able to trade one currency against another, on any OT server.

--- Already you can have the same currencies issued onto multiple OT servers.


BITMESSAGE

--- Bitmessage makes it possible for Nyms to discover each other and OT servers. Thus:

--- Bitmessage makes it possible for Nyms to perform currency wires from one OT server to another, through other Nyms.

--- Bitmessage makes it possible for Nyms to perform cross-server trades (by enabling discovery.)

--- Once discovery has taken place, Nyms can perform escrow, as well as market trading, since OT already supports those things.

For specific step-by-step walkthrus of the Bitmessage-related protocols, see the paste bins I posted at the top of this thread.



I suppose so, yes.


Yes, although at some point we are going to have it in the Monetas systray app. (For starters.)


The delay in/out of a legacy bank account will depend on the legacy banking API you are dealing with.

As far as I know, SEPA is near-instantaneous. ACH, not so much.


I can't really say, I haven't seen their code.


It's not the same as credit lines, no.

Not that credit lines are a bad idea -- I will eventually be adding them to OT as well.
(Especially now that cross-server discovery is solved…)


I believe that Bitmessage uses proof-of-work to prevent spamming.

Also consider that most messages can go directly through OT itself -- Bitmessage is only for discovery.

Also -- even if we swap out the discovery layer for something else, OT should continue to work just fine. (But so far I think Bitmessage is perfect.)


This is basically correct.

Bitmessage, however, would only be the network for discovery purposes. All other communications can go directly between OT servers, and P2P between OT wallets.


OT's cash instrument uses Chaumian blinding.

However, there are other instruments on OT which do not use Chaumian blinding: cheques, invoices, recurring payments, market trades, smart contracts, etc.

These other instruments, while not blinded, are still pseudonymous, and the receipts are destructible. (It can still prove everything without the receipt history, as long as you have the last signed receipt.)


It clicked for me.


Yes.


OT is a system for federated issuing and transacting of various currencies. It can work with and without blockchain-based currencies.

Bitmessage is a p2p system for messages as well as subscriptions/broadcasts.

In our proposed protocol, OT federated servers will utilize Bitmessage as a discovery layer to enable cross-server escrow, for the purposes of market trading and wiring of funds between OT servers (and in/out of the legacy banking system.)

You can read more details above.


Please see details above, especially the protocol details in the paste bins I posted.


OT is fully-functional and usable. At least, the server and command line, as well as the API and client-side scripts.

There is also a test-GUI, and Monetas will be coming out with real GUIs very soon.

But the real beauty is the things you can build with OT, by integrating it into your own projects.

We are working on the voting pools, and the p2p exchange stuff will take a bit longer since it was just designed last night.
(Although who knows, if the second round of funding goes well, we might have it out a lot sooner.)

I should mention, BTW, that OT is completely open-source, and any products released by Monetas will be open-source as well.


This isn't entirely correct. OT cash is untraceable. But if you want to prove you paid someone, then use an OT cheque instead. (And you'll have a cheque receipt…)


The exchange protocol wouldn't be over Bitmessage, it would be internal to OT.

Bitmessage would be used for the discovery process. See my paste bins.


I don't think banks will have to run OT servers.

Any colored-coin issuer can fully-obey KYC / AML.

The issuer would be entirely divorced from the OT transaction servers, which could operate on Tor.

------------------------------------------------------

I can also reveal that Adam Back believes he has solved the problem of homomorphic amounts (so the OT server can't see any of the amounts, on any of the transactions it processes.)

I will be integrating credlib into OT soon and also working with Adam on adding his homomorphic code to OT as well.

Slowing it down:
- I was looking for Bitcoin before it was created by Satoshi
- I discovered bitcoin in April 2010 while studying Ven/Ripple/Chaumian blinding - came back in December 2010 after surgery(sux) and was please to find it had reached beta/press/attention.
- I was researching complementary WoT systems for a theory of S-curve disruptive technologies - Bitcoin was the prize

TLDR;
I am not trying to talk above people, just to a right-brain populace. Theorists as opposed to engineers.

And then mini-banks have their assets seized by the feds for violating regulations.