Hi Matt- long time.
On the XCP usage and role question:
I own most of the original XCPs and in the past I have been trying to get a clear answer for this same exact question. Way before the ethereum system adaptation, the answers were quite different... is this the only remaining real usage for XCP? wasnt it supposed to be used in every CP related transaction in the same manner you just described with ETH type contracts? what about a future financial transaction in a CP powered (symbiont for example) system? is the vision now that it wont require XCP? what was the answer for this before the ETH adapation?
Hey
Caveat - this is not coming from Counterparty, this is my opinion from following the project.
1. This is not the only real remaining usage, although it is the most significant one in my opinion. XCP will also be used to escrow value in some smart contracts I assume. And XCP is used to create nonnumerical asset names and over 1/2 of 1% of all XCP have already been burnt doing this very activity.
2. I'm not sure I understand your second question. There was never a charge of XCP for performing a Counterparty transaction if that's what you mean. Counterparty transactions are simply Bitcoin transactions and the only charge for transacting is paid in bitcoins to Bitcoin miners.
3. Symbiont or any other businesses that are built on Counterparty will use XCP if they plan to use the smart contract functionality. You cannot smart contract unless you XCP -- this seems to be something people have a hard time believing. The only way to get around this, as far as I know, is to fork the project.
4. Before Ethereum was ported over to Counterparty, smart contract type functionality was hard coded into Counterparty (CFDs and the like). Now, with a Turing complete scripting language, those features (CFDs) have been depreciated as smart contracts remove the need for hard coded stuff as people can just write their own stuff with much more flexibility.
