XCP is more like MSC than Nxt. Nxt is an altcoin having its own blockchain, but XCP is based on bitcoin blockchain just as MSC.
The benefit to have its own blockchain is the low level protocol can be designed from the scratch to make all high-level protocols easier to be implemented and parsing more efficient. On the other hand, the benefit of basing on bitcoin blockchain is there's already secure hashing rate and a lot of users are already using bitcoin. Moreover, implementation is easier since there's no need to worry about all those mining things.
BTW, one large advantage of Nxt is it's transparent forging (mining). According to what the dev said, it can help to make 51% attack almost impossible. I'm sure everyone agree that 51% attack is almost the pain of bitcoin and all its copycats.
Thanks. What about comparison to MSC?
If Mastercoin is the most apt comparison, you may want to review the questions stslimited has been raising about Mastercoin over the last few days in this (Mastercoin) thread:
https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/265488.2780. It seems to me, at least at first glance, that his concerns may have some relevance to Counterparty as well.
Questions like: what is the functional difference between 10 XCP or 1 XCP or .1 XCP? How many XCP would someone actually need to use any aspects of this additional protocol layer? What would require someone to spend XCP or go get more XCP from the open market?
Perhaps I'm not understanding stslimited, but isn't that analogous to asking what is the
functional difference between 1 BTC, 1 mBTC, 1 uBTC, and 1 satoshi? All of those monetary units can be used as a basic transfer of wealth (of which 99.99% of it is used for that purpose right now), to send messages, to denote proof of ownership (colored coins), etc. (the latter two are not the primary uses of BTC right now, but could be). Similarly with MSC and XCP, I expect similar analogies to apply -- a store of value, until a network can be built that utilizes the other functions of these coins. How many bitcoin do you need "to do anything"? What someone is willing to take for them in exchange for goods and services.
Where I could understand is if stslimited considers MSC and XCP transactional currencies, rather than stores of value. And that is right to an extent; the non store-of-value features of these currencies has been a selling point, so to speak. However, in light of this view, I'd like to point to several posts highlighting the
transactional currency status of BTC itself, which the community has (by now) embraced the store-of-value concept. Thus, I don't think at all that the transactional and store-of-value concepts should be segregated at all, at least when talking about these.
