when you say user-created assets, does that mean we will be to trade -any- coin that others are willing to buy? so we don't have to wait for cryptsy coinedup etc.. to post new coins up, we can do it ourselves here?

seems very innovative, thanks for bringing something new and interesting to the table.

I was unable to find code which handles blockchain reorganizations.

Also, it looks like you parse the whole blockchain at start... or am I missing something?

Can you provide an example of how one currency would be traded for another via the distributed exchange mechanism?

Is it like entering a limit order that matches against other orders?  Or more like a 2 party + escrow system, possibly via multisig?

I'm a command-line guy, so I'd be curious to see examples of actual commands used. 

And how can I cancel the order?

No problem. It's a lot like a limit order.

Let's say that you want to sell 10 XCP for GOLD shares (particular IOUs for gold) at a price of at least 2 GOLD/XCP. You'd run this command:

./counterpartyd.py [--testnet] [--rpc-password=PASSWORD] order --from=ADDRESS --give-quantity=10 --give-asset=XCP --get-quantity=20 --get-asset=GOLD --expiration=WHATEVER

If there are any orders already on the books selling GOLD for XCP at a price above 2 GOLD/XCP, then your order will immediately be matched to the order at the best price (for you), but at *that* price (which would still meet your criteria). As soon as an order is matched, it is settled, and the GOLD is in your wallet. The 'give' funds in any open order are held in escrow by the network, as it were, as long as the order is open.

You cancel an order simply by [attempting to] accept it yourself. There's a chance that you won't get there in time, but that chance exists either way, that is if there were a 'cancel order' command, and it is the same in both cases. There isn't any cancelling of orders. It would be very easy to implement, though. EDIT: Cancelling orders and bets is now possible.

If you're buying or selling BTC, there's an extra step of finalizing a matched order, because Counterparty can't forcibly put your BTC in escrow. Every such order match for which you owe someone BTC is displayed on the 'market' screen (./counterparty market, along with its 'order match ID', which is the only argument to the 'btcpay' command. That command will figure out out many BTC you owe for the order in question and it will send it along its way automatically.

Running setup.py on ubuntu, get this error:


so setup.py fails on pip3 appdirs, counterpartyd complains about missing dateutil, and I'm not sure how to install dateutil.

So I'm better off burning right now than at any other point in time right?

What happens after the burn period?

How will XCP be minted then?

If the burn goes by without great success are you then left off with a very low liquidity currency?

EDIT: Let's face it, one of the main big contributing factors to the success of Mastercoin's similar process, was that JR put his 1k BTC in from the go. That gave people the confidence to change their btc.

After the burn period no more XCP will be minted. If not enough are minted, then the liquidity won't be a problem, just the divisibility, and while one XCP is currently divisible to eight decimal places, that number can be extended very easily.