It doesn't appear to be a big deal.
My guess is that it is linked with your Internet connection (low probability, over using bittorrent?) or your hardware (stronger probability).
May be something else, I'm no expert.
I don't get this message, but I get the same effect once in a while.
I guess pretty much at each block, I get 5~30sec unavailable.
Result is that sometimes counterpartyd tell me bitcoind is behind (while it run 24h/24), 2 min max after it's okay.
I have only 2GB ram and cheap hardware.

As far as I can tell, bitcoind sometimes seems to have performance issues that cause it to putz out like this when there are a lot of RPC API calls being made against it (especially on a slower over overloaded machine). I committed a patch to counterpartyd that attempts to keep the HTTP connection open between RPC calls. This may help.

Sorry if this question was already answered but I was wondering. Is there a command of some sort to check your total balance of XCP in linux or window command prompt?

If you are running counterpartyd installed, just use this:

This will show all XCP as well as all other assets in your wallet.

Are there any restrictions (besides having more than 3 letters) when creating assets?

Also, I think there should be a significant fee for asset issuances, otherwise we'll get spammed with "parked" assets from people who just want to reserve nice names.

Who exactly owns asset DOGE? I seem to duking it out with someone who issued later, but in a proper amount. Ownership has changed hands 3-4 times already with different counterpartyd versions.

And is it just me or can no asset start with the letter "A"?

... you're going to need a bigger list. Lol.

I'm working an changing the asset name to asset id encoding scheme right now, to make it more intuitive (but in a not backwards-compatible way).

EDIT: In the current scheme, 'A' is zero, and decimal numbers, too, cannot start with a zero. (Asset names are Base 26-encoded integers, for compression.)

I really don't think any "fee" structure (BTC or XCP) is in the spirit of XCP. So...

Could a "proof-of-stake" method work?

Pseudo-code proposal:
1. Each "address" that wants to issue an asset can call an issuance command to create a "local" asset (just like right now, except that others can't view this asset). All existing assets are converted to local assets (not sure how to handle this for assets that have already been distributed, such as TEST)
2. Add in "global" as a property for an asset. A "global" asset is one that is visible to the network at large (orders, send, etc work). A local asset is one that exists only in a local instance of counterpartyd (the user's computer).
3. To "globalize" an asset, for each block a proof-of-stake calculation is run for addresses controlled by a running instance of counterpartyd (against some random function derived from BTC block hash, for instance). A "globalize" command can be called by the user to denote the asset to "submit" to the PoS function. (I'm no good at the maths, so looking to existing PoS implementations to figure out how to do this). If no asset is selected to globalize, the client automatically chooses the "first" one (in lexicographical order, for instance).
4. If successful, the asset and details are published to the network at large, and other commands (orders, sending, viewing asset on other counterpartyd clients) works.
5. In case that two local assets from two different users are submitted to "globalize", the "winning" one is the one that "mines" the PoS block first.

Things to figure out:
1. Should counterpartyd clients that aren't actively "globalizing" an asset or don't have a valid asset to globalize try to mine PoS blocks? If so, what should they do?
2. What happens to existing assets? (see 1)
3. What is the PoS function?
4. What is the target asset "creation rate"? What is the retargeting?
5. Can users elect to globalize assets other than their own? This can lead to some very interesting possibilities, such as an "XCP pool" that votes on worthy projects to "IPO", so to speak.

Summary: Proof-of-stake does not have to translate into inflation of the base currency. It can be used for "other" purposes as well (in the spirit of DACs).

The whole idea is good, though this might imho cause that an asset lower in priority, will be never globalized. We need to think of some way to compensate for that.

This is the best advice you can give someone to secure thier investment. If you're the type of person who can sink 10+ BTC into this project you should be willing to give a few BTC to allow development to speed up, otherwise you might not get the x100 gains you're hoping for.


If we use a fee then you have to do some really trivial up front fee and then have a renewal fee after the expiration date which is a bit larger than the up front fee. If there are no fees at all you will have spam and hoarding. If there is no expiration date at all you end up with the same problems. We will have to find a creative solution.

If the asset is valuable at all then they should have the means to pay the fee. Honestly though this is a difficult problem and I see no way around it. There must be a fee to assign value to any object. So if a name is of value then it must have a cost associated to reflect it's value. Anything in the system must have a way of assigning value to it so how exactly else would you do it if not by a fee?