Tag Archives: btc

Counterparty Newsletter – December 2022

December 12, 2022

A little later than usual – here’s December’s Counterparty Newsletter. Check out some recent news below:

Community Updates

Bassmint News – Genesis Collection Drops!
The Bassmint project has dropped their Genesis collection showcasing the earliest musicians supporting the platform. Bassmint is funded through donations from the Bassmint token – there are no fees from the artists.

With a venue in the Metaverse in Voxel (https://www.voxels.com/play?coords=N@3315E,1677S), Bassmint are planning some live music events and The 5 Unique Vinyls of the collection are currently in production. Bassmint is here to stay and keep growing.

Included in the drop is KEKEBRATE – a videoart piece from Rito Rhymes, featuring over 100 Pepe artworks for Rare, Fake and Dank directories has “Pepe-remixed” Daft Punk’s track “One More Time”.

More info here: https://bassmint.wtf/series/genesis/

 

12 Days of Kekmas
Long-time bitcoin art supporter Rebel Money is dropping 12 unique pieces of content from several notable Rare Pepe and Counterparty artists. You can catch them all starting 13th December and through the holiday season at https://www.rebelmoney.art/kekmas and also twitter https://twitter.com/rebelmoneyart – make sure to give him a follow to make sure you don’t miss out!

 

Counterparty Name Service (.xcp)
Many Counterparty community members advertise their love and affiliation with a .xcp suffix on various social media – what is it and how do you get one?

Community member @Carsontated has written an excellent article describing how you can create your very own .xcp address and how you can make use of it. The article is available on Medium.com: https://medium.com/@Carsonated/counterparty-name-service-xcp-93065e3f6807

 

BLACKBOX tokens to support J-Dog into 2023
J-Dog’s call out to continue funding his full time focus on Counterparty through 2023 is still available. The proposed pipeline includes:

  • New block explorer
  • Browser based mobile wallet
  • Fresh and modern Counterparty.io website
  • Implement trusted dispensers
  • Integration of a Virtual Machine into Counterparty
  • Bugfixes and improvements to Counterparty

If you are interested in making any of these potential developments happen you can donate by sending funds to this dispenser. Donations of at least 0.001 BTC will receive a token from the dispenser to commemorate the donation and will also receive some airdrops rewards.

 

Counterparty.io updates
The Counterparty.io/projects list has been updated again. Feel free to browse and visit projects using Counterparty. You may find something new that interests you!

New addition this month:

  • PepeFlags.Art is a project that was started in 2017 as a hobby where we remake every US state flag using Pepe The Frog and only recently began minting them as Counterparty assets in early 2022. With these Pepe Flags we hope to inspire more frog frens to come be a part of the growing Counterparty community and have plans to eventually expand our project to include International Pepe Flags to attract greater global audiences to the Counterparty platform.

If your project isn’t there, and you’d like it to be added – please contact projects@counterparty.io with a logo, a link to a website and a short description.

 

FAQs to help
Watch out for a new resource coming soon to help newbies improve knowledge and provide answers to commonly asked questions. If you have any suggestions for questions, please drop us a line at support@counterparty.io.

Development Updates

Counterparty 9.60.1 release coming soon
A new release of Counterparty is almost ready for release. Version 9.60.1 will fixe a number of issues for parsing and re-parsing the full XCP transaction history that have been introduced over many years of development. Startup options will also be included to bypass default behaviour when deploying a node meaning the use of an initial Bootstrap database is optional. (Note that a full parsing of the entire Counterparty transaction history takes approximately 2 weeks.)

Counterparty makes use of Bitcoin Core – this will be updated to 24.0 which includes security improvements.

Keep an eye on the Counterparty twitter feed for announcements.

 

Xchain.io updates
There have been a bumper number of quality of life and user community suggested improvements made to Xchain.io recently – updates include:

  • Highlighting of dispensers to make it easier to differentiate open / closed dispensers using red / green colouring.
  • Colour coding of dispenses on address page to make it easy to see if a dispense is going OUT of an address (red) or a dispense coming in (green)
  • Updates to display the USD price of 1 whole token, when the amount being sold is less than 1
  • Prices showing for many more tokens / assets based on historical data – many more assets now show a value.
  • Display USD format in ‘Market Information’ shown at 8 decimal places to facilitate easier tracking of price movements below $0.01
  • Added ‘dispenses’ tab to address and asset pages to make viewing dispenses easier
  • You can specify the active tab with the param “active” or “tab” as part of a URL i.e. https://xchain.io/asset/RAREPEPE?active=dispensers 
  • Make pages more mobile friendly. Collapse tabs that don’t fit on-screen in a single line into a “More” submenu

Reminder: As at the end of November 2022 xchain.io no longer displays embedded HTML content without user consent – this is to reduce chances of a nefarious action being taken by the embedded HTML/javascript code. In order to view the content, users will need to click the prompt.

 

Are you a counterparty developer?
Ready to publicise your skills? Want to collaborate with others in the Counterparty community? 

A community resource is being created for those wanting to get in contact with Counterparty Developers. A register will be publicly available and shared regularly in the Counterparty Telegram groups to allow potential collaborators to match with developers. 

If you want to share your details – enter your details here: https://forms.gle/An5npxWAzJZ5dvy59

CIPs exist to give the development and user community a voice in the future of Counterparty features. More info can be found at  https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips. If you have a great idea for improving the Counterparty experience, please get in touch.

 

Community Hangouts

The November Counterparty Community Hangout was hosted on November 16. There were some great discussions within the community including contributions from HIPHOP.GAME discussing their generative music project, Theo Goodman updating the community on his Ugly Lines project, Rare Scrilla  talking about Fake Basel Miami (which took place December 2 – 4), and Shawn Leary giving a brief update on the HNFT event in Barcelona.

Well worth a listen if you were unable to make it. Recording is available here: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1djGXlmgaNvGZ

The next Community Hangout has not yet been scheduled. Make sure you don’t miss the next one – details will be posted on the Counterparty Twitter https://twitter.com/CounterpartyXCP. Join the Official Counterparty Chat on Telegram https://t.me/Counterparty_XCP for announcements. Drop us a message if you have an exciting topic you want to discuss with developers or the community.

 

For any media inquiries contact press@counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!


Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter – November 2022

November 1, 2022

Check out some recent news below:

Community Updates

Counterparty.io updates
The Counterparty.io/projects list has recently been updated. Feel free to browse and visit projects using Counterparty. You may find something new that interests you!

New additions this month include:

  • Barnyard Club is the lightly curated directory for humble farmers on Counterparty looking to continue farming after the successful completion of Bitcorns as well as novice farmers looking to share art and experiences around the barn. Farming is important to everyone, so a low barrier to entry and excellent support for new or first time creators is an important part of our ethos. The Farmers Consortium may be calling the shots but the farmers that participate from around the world are the ones bringing the wholesome art as food and non-GMO produce direct to your table. Join us in the Barnyard and become a member of the Club.
  • Pepe.wtf is an all-in-one platform for Rare Pepes, Fare Rares, Fake Commons and Dank Rares. It aims to be the center social hub of the Pepe community, providing easy-to-use tools for and frictionless Pepe exploring, buying or selling.
  • NFT Relics Explorer provides information about sales and open offers of assets on XChain and OpenSea. It also features a timeline detailing creation of various NFT projects on multiple platforms including Counterparty

If your project isn’t there, and you’d like it to be added – please contact projects@counterparty.io with a logo and a short description.

 

BLACKBOX tokens to support J-Dog into 2023
J-Dog has recently set up a new dispenser to support his continued full time focus on Counterparty through 2023:

  • New block explorer
  • Browser based mobile wallet
  • Fresh and modern Counterparty.io website
  • Implement trusted dispensers
  • Integration of a Virtual Machine into Counterparty
  • Bugfixes and improvements to Counterparty

Donations of at least 0.001 (~$20) will receive a token from the dispenser to commemorate the donation and will also receive some airdrops rewards.

 

Upcoming Events

PepeX – London – 2nd November
A Pepe exhibition and party incorporating all types of Pepes called PepeX will be hosted in London at the Old Brompton Gallery on 2nd November. Gallery opens 12noon, closes 6pm. An auction will be run by none other than Theo Goodman himself, followed by an afterparty until 9pm.

Tickets and more details available here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pepex-london-tickets-442357502197

 

FAQs to help
Watch out for a new resource coming soon to help newbies improve knowledge and provide answers to commonly asked questions. If you have any suggestions for questions, please drop us a line at support@counterparty.io.

Development Updates

Xchain.io updated – CIP25 Improvements Implementation
The Enhanced Asset Information Specification (CIP25) has been implemented within xchain.io. This allows asset owners to specify contact information, multiple media types, DNS records and social media account details.

At the end of November 2022 xchain.io will no longer display content of the HTML field without user consent – this is to reduce chances of a nefarious action being taken by the embedded HTML/javascript code.

 

Eclipse Wallet Beta!
A new chrome extension Eclipse Wallet has entered beta. fabrique.xcp has developed an extension to work with Counterparty assets. Features currently include, import a wallet using a passphrase, import addresses using private keys, issue assets, review transactions and asset details directly from your browser.

At time of writing, the Chrome Extension store is still processing the submission, but if you’d like to see it in action there is a download and instructions available from Fabrique’s Github page: https://github.com/Hakkonen/Eclipse.

 

CIPs exist to give the development and user community a voice in the future of Counterparty features. More info can be found at  https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips. If you have a great idea for improving the Counterparty experience, please get in touch.

 

Community Hangouts

The October Counterparty Community Hangout was hosted on October 12. There were some useful discussions about getting started with development, and a number of developers are now dipping their toe into the world of Counterparty development. Information can be found at 

J-Dog talks about a new block explorer in the works – tokenscan.io which will be “coming soon”.

There was an interesting discussion with Darky from Dark Inc Studios about how he came to Counterparty and how he embraced the community spirit and extensive use of subassets. Darky also talks about his charity work and how he started out with NFTs.

You can listen to the recording here: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OdJrzloomeJX?s=20 

This month’s space will be hosted on November 9th @ 1pm PST / 4pm EST /  9pm UTC – follow the Counterparty Twitter at https://twitter.com/CounterpartyXCP or join the Official Counterparty Chat on Telegram https://t.me/Counterparty_XCP for announcements. Drop us a message if you have an exciting topic you want to discuss with developers or the community.

 

For any media inquiries contact press@counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!


Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter – October 2022

October 3, 2022

Check out some recent news below:

Community Updates

A Brief Essay of Historical Asset Hacking
Arwyn (PEP8lien) has documented a recent project he undertook with Oliver Morris. The article discussed how a sub-asset was rediscovered and released as a collaboration between Arwyn and Oliver. It’s an interesting journey of discovery, mistakes and ultimately awesomeness.

Make sure you have a read: https://arwynkhughes.substack.com/p/nakamotonakamoto-wtf.

Historic NFT Timeline Research
Session 2 of the Historic NFT Research twitter space recording is now available. Listen to discussions about how NFTs and digital assets were used 2015 – 2016. https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1YpKkgRyjwyKj?s=20  

This project is bringing together famous contributors from the NFT space to document the Historic NFT Timeline from 2011-2019 – the ultimate goal of this research is to showcase a retrospective exhibit of historical NFTs. Follow and explore the project on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hnftfest

 

Upcoming Events

Bitcoin Amsterdam Art Gallery – Westergas, Amsterdam – October 12-13
As part of the Bitcoin Amsterdam event an art gallery will be featuring the work of several prominent Pepe artists and an auction by Scarce City. The Bitcoin Amsterdam event itself runs from October 12-14.

Historical NFTs – Barcelona – October 28/29/30
The Historic NFT Event takes place in Barcelona  October 28th to 30th and has a very impressive list of people attending. There have been several Twitter Spaces leading up to the event. Check out their Twitter Profile for more information: https://twitter.com/hnftfest

PepeX – London – 2nd November
A Pepe exhibition and party incorporating all types of Pepes called PepeX will be hosted in London at the Old Brompton Gallery on 2nd November. Confirmed artists include EasyB, MrHansel, Indelible and displays of Pepenardo physical works available for viewing. More details will be available soon – keep an eye on Twitter.

 

Counterparty.io updates
The Counterparty.io/projects list has recently been updated. Feel free to browse and visit projects using Counterparty. You may find something new that interests you!

New additions this month include:

  • Bitcoin Coaster Cardsa project featuring the well known Bitcoin Roller Coaster Guy and his many adventures. It is an ongoing card collection with numbered series and cards. Join the telegram group here: https://t.me/bitcoincoaster
  • Dank Directory – Dank Directory has successfully expanded the lens that “art” can be accessed and projected, but also conceived in terms of meaning and propagating value outside of the traditional rhetoric.
  • HODLPET – the first living creature hosted on the Bitcoin blockchain via Counterparty!
  • The Drooling Apes Bus Club – a community generated NFT project focused on accessibility, fun, and artistic celebration of all things apes, drool, and buses.

If your project isn’t there, and you’d like it to be added – please contact projects@counterparty.io with a logo and a short description.

 

FAQs to help
Watch out for a new resource coming soon to help newbies improve knowledge and provide answers to commonly asked questions. If you have any suggestions for questions, please drop us a line at support@counterparty.io.

Development Updates

Freewallet 0.9.22 released!

The latest release of Freewallet introduces functionality to take advantage of Oracled Dispensers and the ability to Reset Token Divisibility, in addition to a few bug fixes.

Download the latest version for you platform (Windows, MacOS, Linux) here: https://freewallet.io/

 

Counterparty Improvement Proposals (CIPs)

The latest CIP to be announced is the Enhanced Asset Information Specification (CIP25) which defines a standard set of attributes for storing media information about Tokens, and lays the way for a simple DNS redirection service.

Using a standard schema for defining asset information will make it easier to parse out these values programmatically and paves the way for easier integration into your website or project.

CIPs exist to give the development and user community a voice in the future of Counterparty features. More info can be found at  https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips. If you have a great idea for improving the Counterparty experience, please get in touch.

 

Community Hangouts

Your Counterparty Community Outreach Manager hosted their first ever Twitter Space with developers J-Dog and Javier – they discussed recent Counterparty improvements for Resetting Asset Divisibility and Oracle Dispensers.

Unfortunately a technical issue stopped some would-be contributors from joining the conversation. You can listen to the recording here: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1YqGoAeomnAxv?s=20 

This month’s space will be hosted on October 12th @ 1pm PST / 8pm UTC – follow the Counterparty Twitter at https://twitter.com/CounterpartyXCP or join the Official Counterparty Chat on Telegram https://t.me/Counterparty_XCP for announcements. Drop us a message if you have an exciting topic you want to discuss with developers or the community. If you were unable to join last time – hopefully the Twitter Gods will bless our next twitter space.

 


For any media inquiries contact press@counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!


Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter – September 2022

September 1, 2022

Check out some recent news below:

Community Updates

https://token.art/ – A NFT Showcase App
Want to show off your Tokens and NFTs you hold across multiple platforms (Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, WAX, Counterparty, and Dogeparty) all in one place. This is an app for iOS and Android from “Awesome Labs” which allows you to add multiple addresses and browse by collection.

Using your public address, this app avoids the need to enter your secret phrase or import any private keys, thus allowing you to avoid entering your secret phrase anywhere other than your main trusted devices.

Check out the information and direct download links here: https://token.art/

 

#weareallhodlonaut Fundraiser
The Counterparty community has stepped up and taken part in the Scarce City fundraiser to support community member @hodlonaut with legal fees to defend his allegation that Craig Wright is not the identity of pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto.

According to Scarce City’s “Hodlonaut Donation Collection page” over 2 BTC had been raised in total, with over 0.5 BTC (estimated) of that total generated by Counterparty backed lots.

Hodlonaut is due to take the stand and defend his allegations starting September 12. More details can be found on the website: https://www.defendingbtc.com/

New community member resources
A Counterparty resource list has been pulled together by Dogeparty and Counterparty community member @n0vaxNFT. This is an excellent resource if you are just starting out with Counterparty or Dogeparty – or if you are new to either space a great place to start.

Temporarily hosted on Google drive – it will be relocated to its new home shortly. You can find it here on Google Docs.

 

Counterparty.io updates
The Counterparty.io/projects list has recently been updated. Feel free to browse and visit projects using Counterparty. You may find something new that interests you!

If your project isn’t there, and you’d like it to be added – please contact projects@counterparty.io with a logo and a short description.

 

FAQs to help
Don’t know your segwit from your metadata? Then watch out for a new resource coming soon to help newbies improve knowledge and provide answers to commonly asked questions. If you have any suggestions for questions, please drop us a line at support@counterparty.io.

Development Updates

Counterparty 9.60.0 released!
A new release of Counterparty had arrived. Version 9.60.0 introduces new features for Oracled Dispensers (CIP24) and Reset Token Divisibility for Unused Assets (CIP03), as well as the usual bunch of bug fixes and updates.

Oracle dispensers allow you to price a dispenser in a stable fiat currency (currently USD, JPY and EUR), and regardless of the fluctuation in Bitcoin, a dispense will occur when the matching value is received.

Reset Token Divisibility is now possible if you are the owner of the asset, you own 100% of the supply and the asset is not locked. 

For more detailed information on how to update your Counterparty Federated Node, see the news article.

 

Counterparty Improvement Proposals (CIPs)
CIPs exist to give the development and user community a voice in the future of Counterparty features. More info can be found at  https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips. If you have a great idea for improving the Counterparty experience, please get in touch.

 

Community Hangouts

Last month J-Dog – Counterparty’s dedicated developer – spoke to BitcoinJake09 about all things Counterparty – A recording of the Twitter Space is available.

Fancy getting together with the community and fellow developers? Have an interesting story to tell? Have any ideas for a topic? Drop a message here https://t.me/Counterparty_XCP 

Look out for up and coming announcements for our first Community Hangout on Twitter Spaces in September 2022.


For any media inquiries contact press@counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!


Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter – August 2022

August 10, 2022

It’s been a while since the last newsletter. Check out some recent news below:

Community Updates

Coffeeparty – a global 24/7 party for coffee connoisseurs the world over
Good news for those that like coffee.The first Counterparty-based COFFEEPARTY has been created by Rare Pepe News (@rarepepetrader). Having relocated his family from Sydney to Banyuwangi, East Java, he now has access to coffee beans direct from growers and specific varieties from around Indonesia.

All beans are selected by the Founder of COFFEEPARTY, Bradley C Hughes, in consultation with Master Roasters. The beans will initially be sourced from Java, Indonesia and roasted by Master Roaster Mr Emir Yusuf in Banyuwangi, East Java.

The price of admission to be one of the 100 Founding Members of the COFFEEPARTY is 0.01 BTC. This membership provides 60 x 200g packets of delicious coffee beans, providing a different roasted coffee bean every month over a maximum five year redemption period. You can choose to have between 1 and 5 packets per month, reducing your redemption period as you increase your coffee intake.

Each monthly packet frequency has its own shipping costs, which will be paid by purchasing the corresponding quantity of shipping tokens, with shipping token redemptions required monthly in advance. Shipping tokens will be issued per frequency, and per region, with shipping costs varying according to region/country.

Initial countries and regions supported are:
Australia, EU – European Union, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States of America

For more information visit the telegram group here: https://t.me/coffeepartylobby



PHUNCHKIN drop 26th August
The PHUNCHKIN community is by the people for the people. The opportunity to use your artistic talents in whatever way you choose is encouraged. Each month a theme is agreed upon for the new series. The PHUNCHKINS then go off and create based on the theme, 1 submission per artist is accepted unless it is part of a collaboration. Each submission is then voted on by the community and the ones with the most votes will be accepted into the series.

Get involved at https://phunchkins.com/ or join the telegram group: https://t.me/phunchkins



Counterparty.io updates
The website is in the process of being updated with a list of updated and new projects. If your project isn’t there, and you’d like it to be added – please contact projects@counterparty.io with a logo and a short description.



FAQs to help
Don’t know your segwit from your metadata? Then watch out for a new resource coming soon to help newbies improve knowledge and provide answers to commonly asked questions.If you have any suggestions for questions, please drop us a line at support@counterparty.io.

Counterparty in the news

Cryptoholics has a write up on Counterparty, how it works, and what you can use it for. https://cryptoholics.com/cryptocurrency/counterparty-xcp


GQ Magazine – June 2022 – Article describing how to get into the NFT space – several notable artists’ work included in montage.

Development Updates

Fixes / Updates for the CounterpartyXCP/counterparty-lib implementation:

  • [FIX] Subasset ownership transfers will no longer fail
  • [FIX] Asset/subasset ownership transfers no longer fail from segwit addresses
  • [FIX] “*” no longer prepended to asset descriptions.
  • [FIX] Locking child asset without parent
  • [UPDATE] Forbidden SQL keywords now allowed in asset names
  • [UPDATE] Reduced bitcoin dust limit from 5640 to 546 sats for p2sh transactions
  • [UPDATE] Reduced data encoding fees on MPMA sends by a factor of 10x

A special thanks goes out to Windsok for spearheading the work to improve unit testing.

Counterparty Improvement Proposals (CIPs)

CIPs exist to give the development and user community a voice in the future of Counterparty features. More info can be found at  https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips.  A couple of notable updates:

Reset Token & Divisibility Statuses (CIP-0003) is an improvement that allows owners of tokens to reset the issuance and divisibility if the asset owner holds all of the supply. It has now achieved 100% of its funding goal and will be included in the next release

Oracled Dispensers (CIP-0024) are imminent in the next release. These are dispensers/vending machines where you will be able to sell tokens for BTC, but price items in fiat (i.e. sell a card for $10 regardless of price of BTC)

Community Hangouts

Fancy getting together with the community and fellow developers? Have an interesting story to tell? Recently Counterparty community member Oliver Morris was featured on the weekly #DPmonday Twitter Space hosted by the Dogeparty  community. A recording of the August 8 #DPmonday is available.

Have any ideas for a topic? Drop a message here https://t.me/Counterparty_XCP 


For any media inquiries contact press@counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!


Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.






Counterparty Newsletter – July 2021

July 8, 2021

Ecosystem Updates

New Projects

  • Passing of Core Developer John Villar
    It is our unfortunate duty to inform the community of the passing of one of our developers on March 8th of this year. John Villar was a friendly, insightful and kind hearted integral member of the Counterparty development team and the wider crypto community. In his wake the community came together to raise funds for his family for their unforeseen expenses. A commemorative token was created and set up in a dispenser (xchain.io/tx/1551579) with all sales being forwarded periodically to the family. John was known for not only most of the recent Counterparty protocol improvements (CIPs) but also for developing the RarePepeParty game with his company in Venezuela. A burn address has been created as a shrine to John and if users would like to send him tokens of appreciation, they can do so at : 1JohnViLLARchiguireitorxxxxwhsz7P
  • Goodman.auctions
    The first, and longest running nft/token auction in the crypto space resumes activity. With 40 to 50 rapid fire lots participants remain engaged throughout the auction which takes place on telegram or occasionally in person, such as the 2021 Miami Bitcoin conference. Although they have expanded to selling assets on other blockchain projects they have witnessed a definite spillover of new participants coming to collecting Counterparty cryptoart because of the established historical significance and provenance. An interesting trend that they recognized is that throughout the latest crypto correction, most early Counterparty works have retained or even gained value in usd terms. Buyers, Sellers and spectators are invited to learn more at https://goodman.auction
  • Uocp.org – University of Counterparty
    With the intention of building a repository for all information related to Counterparty, this education website was launched by a very active community member known as Xcer. With a Frequently Asked Questions section and some basic curriculum, users are invited to submit questions, answers or apply to be a volunteer. Learn more at https://ucop.org 
  • Xcer.co
    This new trading card company includes a Counterparty NFT with each and every card. Simply scratch the back of the card to get the private key to access the card’s Bitcoin wallet that holds the card’s displayed NFT. XCER is currently working on adding seamless trading to its platform that will let users offer and make trades with each other directly. XCER’s goal is to make acquiring Counterparty Bitcoin NFTs easy and fun for anyone and to attract a broader audience to Counterparty based projects. Learn more about this project at https://xcer.co

Existing Projects

  • XCP Foundation
    Efforts continue into 2021 as they face previous unresolved hurtles as well as new challenges. They are meeting this month in person in order to push things forward. Currently the organization is an LLC but has not successfully been approved for non-profit or not-for-profit status. Among other things, they have been informed by legal counsel that there needs to be a more organized and evident educational curation. They have also had another resignation and will be soon seeking new members who are serious about being active and attentive. A lengthier presentation and discussion will be facilitated later this month. Currently scheduled for July 31st noon EST. A formal statement is expected before then. 
  • MafiaWars.io
    Continuing on their 37th month, MafiaWars.io has distributed MAFIACASH to all family members. To encourage new submission, not only has the entry fee been waived but there is also a monthly design contest. Top three submissions chosen will be awarded MAFIACASH and enhanced in-game stats. More info http://mafiawars.io/news/montly-design-contest
  • WTHAuctionHouse
    Another established auction house restarted operations on Easter weekend at Follow the White Rabbit episode of Future Art. This return was live streamed as it took place in person at the conference. Also expanding to other blockchain projects, and rebranding as Roaring, efforts continue to facilitate buying and selling in a live setting. Auctions continue on a regular basis. More info https://roaringauctions.com
  • RarePepe.Party
    This much anticipated game has also suffered recent setbacks with the loss of John Villar and also his father, another company manager. Contimita, the company developing the game, is faced with project reprioritization and recovery. While this game may have been put on the back burner, it is not going to fade away. Mr. Javier Varona Zavatti is still working to recover the website domain and other integral accounts. He assures everyone interested that he will not give up on this project. It is his personal goal to honor his brother’s legacy by seeing the project to completion.  
  • Kaleidoscope XCP
    Kaleidoscope XCP is still online and accepting submissions. It is a place to gather CounterParty assets that might not get represented anywhere else. It currently has a pretty eclectic mix of off-kilter art and ideas. Kaleidoscope accepts most formats including standalone code blocks. Feel free to visit their website at kaleidoscopexcp.com, or get in the telegram chat if you have a specific idea you wish to discuss. https://t.me/joinchat/WPZMtLWA9QToGdJC
  • Artolin.org
    Artolin has been recently acknowledged as one of the first NFT platforms ever created. Both Dada and Martin Ostachowsky have made public their support. This platform continues to be open for submissions at https://artolin.org

CounterParty in the Wild

  • The Rare Pepe Story – Tuesday July 13th 9PM EST
    Tune into TwitterSpaces or head over to MetaverseDAO HQ in Cryptovoxels to catch the first in a series about early NFTs. Shannon Code from COVAL, Joe Looney of RarePepeWallet fame, Artnome and more share with Claire Silver as moderator. Topics include the birth of RarePepe, meme culture, current state and future of NFTs. https://twitter.com/metaverseDAO/status/1412970030237724675
  • Scarce.city
    Built on Lightning Network and specializing in auctions for fine bitcoin goods, Scarce.city hosted several RarePepe lots since launch. The debut lot, in mid April, was from Mike and Joe Looney. It featured Physical RAREPEPE and GOXPEPE and fetched 46,000,000 satoshis valued at $15,698.47. Since then, others have also utilized this service. https://scarce.city/collections/rare-pepe-1
  • Bitcoin Miami 2021
    Some community members had the opportunity to attended this conference and a few even had a chance to display RarePepe artwork. This was a great opportunity to get exposure to the greater Bitcoin community. Several new users joined the telegram room and mentioned that they had made personal contact with one of our community members. 

Development News

Completed CIPs 

In the last year several upgrades have been integrated into the CounterParty protocol. 

  • CIP #21 – Dispensers (Vending Machines)
    Dispensers are a major functional upgrade which allow any user to set up a vending machine to sell any counterparty token at a set BTC price. Once the minimum amount of BTC is sent to the dispenser, then the sending address is credited back with the token(s) from the dispenser all in a single transaction. This feature makes using Bitcoin (BTC) on the Counterparty platform much easier and makes the entire process a single transaction. This feature was primarily written to simplify buying things on Counterparty using BTC. In addition this feature allows for setting up of multiple dispensers on the same address to enable selling “packs” of cards or tokens with a single BTC payment.
    https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips/blob/master/cip-0021.md
  • CIP #22 – Update Fednode Stack to Use Addrindexrs
    This CIP was created and implemented to make running a federated node easier and faster, as switching from index to addrindexrs for tracking BTC address balances resolves a number of issues including unacceptable address balance query times and the occasional hang on queries which took a long time to respond.
    https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips/blob/master/cip-0022.md
  • CIP #23 – Bug Fixes on Non-divisible Dividends and 0 Quantity Credits
    This CIP resolved an issue where users were unable to do dividend payments when the dividend asset was non-divisible. In addition this CIP resolved an issue where 0-quantity records were being created incorrectly in the Counterparty database, adding to the database bloat.
    https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips/blob/master/cip-0023.md

Upcoming CIPs

  • CIP#24 – Oracled Dispensers
    Oracled Dispensers are a proposal which will allow users to price and sell their vending machine tokens using a fiat currency (USD, CAD, EUR, etc). By using trusted oracles which broadcast the price of fiat currencies on a regular basis, users will be able to sell their tokens for BTC, but priced in fiat. Currently a user is only able to sell tokens from vending machines for a fixed BTC price, which given the BTC price fluctuations is a bit undesirable as the user is never sure exactly how much the BTC they are getting is worth at the time of payment. Using oracled dispensers, users will be able to sell their tokens for a set fiat price (say $5 USD) and the dispenser will only vend out a token when it determines that it has received a BTC payment which is at least $5 USD or more. This feature greatly expands the functionality of dispensers and is currently accepting funding at https://xchain.io/tx/1547115
    https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips/blob/cip24/cip-0024.md

Upcoming Events

  • Developer Meeting – July 18th at 17:00 EST
    This open meeting will be hosted on telegram and recorded for those who cannot make it to the live event. If you are interested in presenting, please email press@counterparty.io with a proposal and contact information. We will be allocating 10-15 minutes for each presenter as well as an open discussion afterwards. 
  • XCP Foundation Town Hall Meeting – July 31st Noon EST
    Remaining members will give an update on the efforts over the last year as well as facilitate an open discussion in order for the community to determine the most suitable ways to take on the ever changing challenges that come with collective decision making.



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter 06-12-2019

June 12, 2019

June sees some big steps forward in terms of community strengthening, strategically positioning counterparty for a positive future alignment and beginning groundwork to structure the project for longevity.

Ecosystem Updates:

The twelth MAFIACASH rewards distribution has been completed – all players of the mafia themed, blockchain based idle accumulation game have been rewarded with MAFIACASH token distributions. A full breakdown of the distribution stats including changes in family membership and current profits can be found here: https://mafiawars.io/news/mafiacash-distribution-12#

Wallet updates

The easy to use Counterparty Cryptogoods Chrome Extension Wallet, Freeport by has received several further updates, including a bugfix affecting asset divisibility and improved logic for fee estimation

Check it out on the Chrome Extension store or Github at https://freeport.io https://github.com/loon3/Freeport-extension

CounterParty community

A popular thread on CounterParty talk forum was started by community member CryptoAlan where a number of participants discussed a future reboot of a community driven, community comprised foundation in order to more effectively establish soft governance and generally steer CounterParty forward. As counterparty is an open source, grass-roots decentralized project, each individuals voice is important and is listened to. Please feel free to peruse the full thread below, and consider contributing your viewpoint if you haven’t already https://counterpartytalk.org/t/counterparty-foundation-in-2019-new-updates/5446/67

Ultimately discussions originating from the thread above spurred the announcement of the newly formed CounterParty foundation; by community member J-Dog and marks the start of the first election for the new entity. Below is a description of the stated goals and directions

The Counterparty Foundation is a group dedicated to advancing the Counterparty protocol and its products, educating the community on the Counterparty technology, driving global Counterparty awareness, and ensuring Counterparty remains a successful and growing platform.

The Foundation is governed by five Community Directors.

Today, we’re happy to announce the start of the Counterparty Foundation Community Directors 2019 election.

For the next three weeks, from June 10th till July 1st, we are inviting everyone to participate in the election process by nominating candidates to fill five Community Director seats. The only requirement for the nomination is that the candidate hold at least 50 XCP and prove this by broadcasting a message from his or her address with the name of the nominee.

If you would like to nominate yourself or another candidate, please reply to this thread with the following candidate information:

After the two week long voting period, at the voting closing block, the top five addresses that receive the highest number of votes will be announced as winners, and their owners receive Community Director positions for the term of one year.

The forum thread for contributing to the ongoing 2019 election is as follows: https://counterpartytalk.org/t/ann-start-of-the-counterparty-foundation-2019-election-nomination-period-jun-10th-july-1st/5535

Please feel free to chime in with suggestions, votes and nominations. Again, as a grass roots project- there is no costly financial barrier or restriction- anybody is free to nominate themselves.

Community member monkey has also set upon creating a thread that aims to work towards documenting and facilitating a community editable interface for the more efficient outreach to exchanges, with a goal to to improve liquidity and discoverability of the base token. Monkey mentions that as of early June, two exchanges have been contacted and are currently looking into listing counterparty, with further dialogue and dialogue with other exchanges to follow. The thread is as follows

https://counterpartytalk.org/t/exchange-outreach/5514

In meatspace news, The second Rare AF (Rare Art Festival) took place last month during Blockchain week NYC. The digital art festival featured from Ethereum, EOS, and CounterParty community and builders, artists and buyers involved in the nascent NFT (Non fungible token) space. A RAREAF afterparty took place with admission tickets available on the blockchain, and DEX– tokenized via the counterparty protocol

Development news

In development news, counterparty developers, in collaboration with IndieSquare are gearing up for an announcement of a major signature project– HAZAMA.

HAZAMA is a bitcoin side chain technology built using the federated peg model. It allows the 2 way peg of BTC, Counterparty and other blockchain assets such as ERC-20 to a cheaper and faster side chain. HAZAMA has no HAZAMA token nor native asset/ICO, it only supports 1:1 pegging of existing assets (for example XCP and other assets running on top of counterparty).
A current complaint of leveraging main-chain bitcoin/ethereum for asset transfer is high transaction fees and slow confirmation times in periods of peak congestion or spam attacks

Hazama allows dAPPS the ability to let users transfer digital assets & tokens with faster throughput and much lower fees. Peg in and Peg out at anytime.

Due to the instant confirmation property of Lightning and Hazama users will be able to instantly buy and sell HAZAMA assets for BTC. This opens up a world of new use-cases for counterparty assets.

https://www.hazama.indiesquare.me/

Core Counterparty development

Two new CIP’s (CounterParty Improvement Protocols) were publicized, fully funded and are currently in development due to be released on the next development milestone.

CIP 20: Segwit address sweep

CIP 20 Will provide a way for users to easily sweep legacy accounts onto Segwit accounts operating on counterparty protocol.

Counterparty has been receiving multiple fixes and enhancements, Counterparty was one of the few projects that has been updated with Segwit support.

However, moving assets and ownerships between addresses in large batches (e.g to a segwit enabled address) has been cumbersome and expensive in the past due to how Counterparty addresses are encoded.

SegWit adoption has proven to reduce the burden of on-chain transactions by a huge factor on the main chain, and as users of the “commons” we must set forth an example of “good citizenship” on the usage of the limited resource that is blockchain storage. Using and promoting SegWit addresses only prove to be a winning move for lower fees, but it will also show to the main core detractors that we’re well behaved inside the parent blockchain.

This CIP (CIP 20) Provides a simple, fast migration path from legacy accounts to Segwit for counterparty users.

The github repo for the CIP 20 (Segwit address sweep) can be found here: https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips/blob/cip21/cip-0020.md
Discussion on CIP 20 (segwit address sweep): Can be found here: https://counterpartytalk.org/t/cip20-address-sweep/5487

CIP 21: BTC Dispenser

CIP 21 details a clever mechanism to swap arbitary tokens for on-chain BTC without the need for a third signed message, unlike the current BTCPay implementation that existing on-chain BTC sends currently use that mandates the counterparty sending BTC must remain online in order to trustlessly sign the transaction authorizing the send of the BTC to the recipient on theother end within a certain timeframe.

This elegant new solution allows the set-up of non interactive ‘offline’ ‘dispensers’ that simply swap amount of a particular asset upon receipt of BTC, avoiding counterparty risk

The github repo for the CIP 21 (BTC Dispenser) can be found here: https://github.com/CounterpartyXCP/cips/blob/cip21/cip-0021.md
Discussion on CIP 21 (BTC Dispenser) Can be found here: https://counterpartytalk.org/t/cip21-dispensers/5488

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter 05-01-2019

May 1, 2019

It’s been a buzzing couple of weeks all round in the Counterparty space. Check out a snippet of what’s been happening in the past month via the updates below.

Ecosystem Updates:

The eleventh MAFIACASH rewards distribution has been completed – all players of the mafia themed, blockchain based idle accumulation game have been rewarded with MAFIACASH token distributions. A full breakdown of the distribution stats including changes in family membership and current profits can be found here: https://mafiawars.io/news/mafiacash-distribution-11#

Elsewhere, some continued good news for fans of Bitcrystals following last newsletters Gems news. BCY; The native token of the popular Blockchain based card game Bitcrystals has recently been listed on the Alterdice exchange!

Alterdice is a Singaporean cryptocurrency trading platform established in 2018 currently listing 20 cryptocurrencies and 70 trading pairs. It offers relatively low fees (0.2%) mobile and web based trading, and offers clients various crypto and fiat pairings.

Alterdice is listed on CoinMarketCap and other aggregators with healthy reported volumes. And as of today, BYC joins the likes of Ethereum and LTC on the exchange with it’s successful listing. BCY markets are currently available for customers to trade with BTC (with the full range of USD, BTC, and ETH pairings reportedly being rolled out.)

The Bitcrystals team have also been very busy networking with a meeting in Paris with French Gaming Giant Ubisoft as part of the blockchain gaming startup incubator program, Paris Blockchain week summit and a talk by the CEO @ShabanShaame at the Crypto Games Conference in Minsk, Belarus


In other ecosystem news, as mentioned in the April newsletter Augmentors took the step to remove their app from the app stores earlier this year and redesign the game from scratch. The first phase of their redesign was to start by build an MVP (minimum viable product)

The team has been reporting progress on their MVP coming to fruition and is offering a closed Alpha testing. The testing period will run from 14:00 UTC on Friday, 10 May 2019; until Monday, 13 May 2019 14:00 UTC. Those who have registered to be a tester will receive an email on Friday 10 May with instructions on how to install the app for testing. You can find full details of their testing process below.


Freeport updates

The easy to use Cryptogoods Chrome Extension Wallet, Freeport by developer and rockstar CounterParty contributor Joe Looney that was first showcased in last months newsletter has received several updates, minor bugfixes and general improvements– including dust and transaction format fixes (allowing spending from unspent UTXO’s) , the addition of twitter verification (linking a cryptogood address to a twitter handle) and various smaller UI and UX cleanups.

Check it out on the Chrome Extension store or Github at https://freeport.io

CounterParty in the news

The website CardRates, with input from CounterParty contributor and speaker Theo Goodman has published an excellent article on CounterParty entitled “Open-Source Counterparty Pushes Blockchain Capabilities Beyond Money Transfers” where they cover the wide range of applications of Blockchain beyond simply “store of value” and specifically hone in on how CounterParty has, since 2014 enabled transformative token economies by writing in the margin of traditional Bitcoin transactions– citing a number of innovative projects running on the platform and expanding on Counterparty’s vision for the future.

Read the full article here: https://www.cardrates.com/news/open-source-counterparty-pushes-blockchain-beyond-money-transfers/

Theo also speaks at the seminal Consensus NYC blockchain conference (13-15th May) with a talk entitled “Cutesy Cats: Tokens Come to Gaming and Betting”

In more conference news, the second Rare AF (Rare Art Festival) is scheduled to run on May 18th during Blockchain week NYC. The digital art festival features pundits from Ethereum, EOS, and CounterParty community and builders, artists and buyers involved in the nascent NFT (Non fungible token) space

NFT’s designed for digital collectible platforms like counterparty-based farming phenomenon Bitcorn Crops are among some of the artwork that has been accepted in submissions.

A new DEX emerges

Raizer DEX- An new alternate implementation of a Decentralized exchange for CounterParty assets/tokens has been launched, with a view to letting users not just trade tokenized Counterparty assets/assets via an intuitive web-based interface but Bitcoin too via a similar process to wrapped Ethereum (WETH) that various Decentralized exchanges incorporate on the Ethereum ecosystem (albeit more centralized).

The team states in their website their design goal is letting have the same user experience and interface as traditional stock exchanges they may be used to. By incorporating XCP and BTC markets into their online exchange frontend (via a process of exchanging BTC into representative tokens exchangeable for their equivalent Raizer BTC token the stated goal is to facilitate more frictionless trading of the liquid BTC asset). Several pairs are currently active.

The Raizer team has an official twitter account which can be found here where they also link to their telegram and discord communities

You can find a link to the Decentralized exchange implementation itself here https://raizer.cc/ (where the answer to several FAQ’s also lie)

editors note: counterparty.io cannot vouch nor endorse for the safety or trustworthiness of alternative implementations of DEX frontend by third parties. We would urge end-users, as they would on any new platform to be cautious about re-using existing seeds or transferring large balances when evaluating wallets published by external sources

CounterParty behind the bar

Avacus is a Purse like system with it’s flagship token, VACUS operating atop of the counterparty protocol. Avacus connects people who want to shop for great deals using cryptocurrency and people who want to get cryptocurrency more conveniently without using an exchange, all through the Amazon wish list. The service primarily caters to the Japanese market segment but has a view of expanding to international markets in future. You can find more info on Avacus here.

In May 2018 Avacus launched it’s own pop-up sake bar concept, AVA-SAKE with a view to providing an avenue for like-minded cryptocurrency enthusiasts to mingle. In addition to payment in Yen (naturally) the bar also accepts Avacus and XCP tokens as payment for it’s range of Sake, whiskey and other potions.

AVA-SAKE’S 1 year anniversary has now been reached, and to mark the occasion a special collaborative event was recently held at Bar the WU in Shibuya Tokyo, Japan, with limited edition beer mats, special brews and other swag available in exchange for various tokens.

Development news

Pebble – IndieSquares latest counterparty supported, lightning wallet – has continued to see developmental updates with the announcement of easy to use channel funds recovery feature (restore from cloud services) as a feature soon to be added.

Elsewhere in other counterparty related development initiatives Developers at Circuits of Value (Coval) have recently developed and published an API that aims to simplify the process of integration and management of XCP and other tokens running on top of the Counterparty protocol. This is especially helpful for those exchanges or other services seeking to integrate CounterParty assets into their ecosystem

The NodeJS API handles transaction construction, transaction signing and wallet management and is purported to be near feature-complete and in continued development
The code has been published on Open source Mecca Github for interested persons to download, inspect and play with at their leisure.

In internal generalized development focus, work continues on the following CIP’s

CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding:
P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA):

Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.


CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT):
MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their send costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter 04-01-2019

April 1, 2019

It’s been a quiet month all round for the Counterparty community. Nevertheless, check out the updates below.

Ecosystem Updates:

Mafia Wars completed both their 10th distribution of MAFIACASH this past month. In another successful month for the COLOMBO family, the family grew by 56%; adding 545 new members. The GENOVESE family lost a member but still maintained their number 2 ranking. The Mafia Wars team is continuously promoting new card designs via their twitter handle. You can find out more information on how to purchase them here as well as check some out below:

BitCrystals has some positive news following last month’s announcement to discontinue the progression of Spells of Genesis. Spells of Genesis players can now use the BitCrystals currency (BCY) to purchase one of the in-game currencies; Gems. Previously, Gems could only be bought using fiat currencies, and allow players to purchase speciality card packs and refill their stamina during gameplay. Spells of Genesis also celebrated the sale of more than 40,000 cards via Book of Orbs.

The BitCrystals team also launched their ‘Bloom Campaign’ this past month, to incentivize users to download the multi-chain wallet; Casa Tookan. Ending April 30th, players will be rewarded with BCY the more they use Casa Tookan. Read more here.

The team has also promoted their Satoshi edition, Spells of Genesis themed cold storage ledger. Check it out:

In other news, Spells of Genesis held the number 1 spot on Digirare at one point over the last month:

Lastly, BitCrystals and EverdreamSoft CEO; Shaban Shaame, will be speaking at Belarus’ Crypto Games Conference.

FoldingCoin shared via social media that FNTS; a cloud solutions service, was providing free cloud sharing services to help with the computer power distributing process.

FoldingCoin was recently added by a bilingual stat service to their project. Available in English and Dutch, the blockspot service analyzes the FLDC token in its circulation.

Augmentors continues to engage its community with some major news over the past month. The game has temporarily been removed from the app store whilst the team rehauls the game as a whole; following feedback to make the game more engaging and fun. The main point of focus for the team is to increase user retention within the game and VR experience, and as a result, any roadmapped blockchain progress has also been delayed.

Two upcoming improvements to the game include the feature that allows for multiple creatures in battle, as well as the testing of turn mechanics to determine which creature will feature first in a battle and how often.

This is currently dependent on the creature’s speed. Existing and new creatures in the game are also being redeveloped to be more unique. You can check out all of the team’s community updates here.

Age of Rust follows on from last month as their social media recaps their presence at San Francisco’s Game Developer’s Conference (GDC).

The team also highlighted how the project was getting some attention in Korea:

Freewallet, an opensource Bitcoin and Counterparty wallet, powers through with another update this month. Version 0.1.9 includes some bug fixes and increases wallet stability:

Freeport.io is an app created by Rare Pepe Wallet founder; Joe Looney. Available as a Google Chrome extension, allows users to create cryptogoods- much like the beloved Rare Pepe – via the Bitcoin Blockchain. Freeport promotes image anchoring to ensure the authenticity of any asset created. Check out more here:

Counterparty in the News:

Pebble – as mentioned last month to be IndieSquares latest counterparty supported, lightning wallet – was mentioned by the bitcoin merchant directory as one of seven lightning wallets to try out.

With RareAF2 taking place on May 18th in New York City, submissions of rare art for the event were held (and closed) last month. To learn more about the event and who will be selecting the art from all of the entries click here.

In a new video by Bitcoin Weird; sponsored by Bitcorn Crops, JScrilla lends his experience to the discussion, and also talks Rare Pepes:

Development News:

Development news is quiet this month as our team continues to work on the current CIPs as listed below:



CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding:
P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA):
Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.


CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT):
MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their send costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.




Counterparty Newsletter 05/02/2019

March 5, 2019

This month’s update is full of exciting updates, as projects within the Counterparty ecosystem continue to take progressive steps forwards within the community.

Ecosystem Updates:

IndieSquare has announced plans to launch their new lightning network supported wallet. Known as Pebble Wallet, IndieSquare aims to help integrate Bitcoin micropayments within projects.

Pebble Wallet is currently in beta and will feature a LAPP browser, allowing users to access lightning web apps such as YALLs directly from within the wallet.


The beta version can be found via the Pebble homepage.

Mafia Wars completed their 9th distribution of MAFIACASH this month; celebrating the final sale of all remaining family tokens from the token sale (exceeding 2,500XCP).  The Colombo family gained the majority of new players this month, although the total number of players added to the game grew by over 330; totalling 900 so far. Adding to their success, Mafia Wars took the number 1 ranking on DigiRare in celebration. Furthermore, the team also released a new card. You can check out ‘the Undertaker’ and more news regarding the monthly distributions and card design contests here.

BitCrystals has some unfortunate news this past month. With some tough decisions having been made within the Everdreamsoft parent community – progression on the development of Spells of Genesis has ceased for the time being. Monthly campaigns will also be removed as of March 8th. Taking a refocused initiative on Blockchain tools and end-user tools, Casa Tookan and Book of Orbs will remain, as the BitCrystals community continues to develop more blockchain tools.

The team is also working to get BitCrystals listed on several exchanges to allow for the selling, buying and trading of the token.

FoldingCoin has small news this month, with less than 20 days of their raffle initiative with CureCoin remaining. To learn more, click here.

Augmentors released a community update reviewing their tutorials and user engagement plans. With plans to weave more of the game’s intricately told narrative into the game’s tutorials, the update moves on to discuss development plans for the game.

With plans to improve the AR technology for both iOS and Android, the Augmentors team have roadmapped improvements for UI and UX (user interface and experience) in the near future. Check out the rest of the update here.

Age of Rust announced that they were heading to the GDC (Game Developers Conference this month in San Francisco. You can learn more about the conference, that takes place March 18-22 here. Check out a demo the team put together for the event below:

To partner with the demo, the Age of Rust team also published a piece covering their intentions for GDC 2019; acting as a message for their community and newcomers alike.

The team also continues to preview development updates via their twitter handle, check them out:

Freewallet, an open-source Bitcoin and Counterparty wallet, recently released version 0.0.9 of their desktop and mobile wallet; designed to increase overall stability across all platforms.

Counterparty in the News:

The first piece of Counterparty news this month comes from an article discussing the tokenization of art of on two Blockchains. In a continuation of the discussion of rare art, the piece compares art on the counterparty protocol vs Ethereum’s ERC-721. Counterparty is mentioned with an appreciative backstory regarding the protocol; giving a nod to the streamlined efficiency of the protocol in regards to making assets and distributing them. In terms of the author’s counterparty use, he mainstreams his asset use in tokenizing Digital art for collectable game items and art pieces in Bitcorn Crops and Mafia Wars. Ultimately, they cite both Ethereum and Counterparty as great protocols for Art scarcity. Multiple projects within the Counterparty community, such as Rare Pepe, Spells of Genesis and Book of Orbs, are listed as references for the piece. Check it out here.


The second piece of Counterparty news comes from Artnome entitled  “How to Launch Your Own Blockchain Art Marketplace”; and discusses how the Blockchain is being developed to allow artists to tokenize their art without coding. For Counterparty traders, this tool is known as Freeport.io and is currently in its pre-alpha. Within the post, Joe Looney’s; who has created Freeport, Rare Pepe Wallet, draws a notable mention. Also mentioned is Dan Anderson’s DigiRare and Bitcorn Crops. Check out the piece here.

Counterparty is also highlighted via the newly formed #LNTorch campaign; created by Joe Looney and started in order to bring more awareness to the Counterparty community. More specifically involving cryptogoods, the Rare Pepe Wallet founder started the ‘#passtheDUTCHIE’ campaign – wherein users on social media post their Counterparty address to receive the torch – to get news of the community circulating.

In other exciting news this past month, a Bitcoin satellite transmitted the first meme in space. With Rare Pepe doing the honors, Blockstream’s satellite sent an encrypted Pepe meme via the Lightning Network.

In another piece by Breaker Mag, Jessica Klein writes that on February 27th 2019, the image ‘Pimentoloaf’ was transmitted. She goes on to explain that Rare Pepes are rare because each card has a unique smart contract that dictates the supply of each card. Check out more here.


Other news this month surrounds the recent TAB conference. You can check out a recent Hodlcast with JScrilla; with nods to Bitcorn Crops below:

J Scrilla also wrote about his experience at the conference over on Hacker Noon; that mentions Bitcorn Crops and some references to Rare Pepe in regards to how mainstreaming Bitcoin fits in with Counterparty. Check it out at the jump.

Development News:

In development news, Counterparty released a very important Hotfix this past month. Counterparty-lib 9.56.1 resolves an issue that would stop a Counterparty server from operating normally.  Please upgrade as soon as possible.


Counterparty’s current and future CIPs are as follows:



CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding:
P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA):
Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.


CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT):
MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their send costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!



Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.



Counterparty Newsletter 01/07/2019

January 7, 2019

Happy New Year to the Counterparty Community! As it is with the holidays, it has been quiet on most fronts from projects within the ecosystem but nevertheless, let’s continue with this month’s updates:

Ecosystem Updates:

Mandel Duck paired with HashHub Tokyo to release the beta version of SaruTobi Lightning for android. As mentioned last month, the beta version features lightning payments and tipping for users. Over 3000 tips have been sent so far.

Mandel Duck also teased the release of SaruTobi RakuGaki mode, check out a sneak peek below:

Mafia Wars started the new year with a reward for any new members. Offering 1,000 MAFIACASH to help them get started in the game, as well as, the opportunity to join a crime family for free, new users need to sign up to the Mafia Wars telegram group to proceed:

Continuing on, the team has continued to release new card designs via their social media platforms that you can purchase here. The team also completed their 7th distribution of MAFIACASH (their first of the new year).

BitCrystals has had a quiet month with only an update from the Spells of Genesis team. This update involves an updated version of the game. Version 1.2.21  includes a new victory/defeat screen alongside additional ways to earn in-game currency.

Resident BitCrystals artist; Joey Chips has also recently released another card design for the CrystalsCraft environment. He recently published a piece on his portfolio of work, check it out here.

FoldingCoin has a few updates this month as Executive Director of the project; Bill Beard met with the CFO of a major healthcare organization, with plans to follow up concerning both funding and the affiliation of a research organization.

The team has also made it to the next level of selection on the echoing green grant.

The FoldingCoin development team has been working with getting Humber College set up to conduct usability studies on their installer and product, to improve ease of use.

For more news, check out the team’s public meeting below:

Augmentors recently posted a year-in-review via their medium publication.  

Highlighting their achievements of the year that include the launch of their open beta in August, as well as, most recently, their feature by Apple’s app store. Check it out in the jump.

Age of Rust continues to tease their community with sneak peeks of their game via their twitter handle. Game developer; Space Pirate, will feature counterparty and BTC rewards that are also cross-platform (as they have done in their previous Beta release) in-game. Below are a few in-game previews that demonstrate how players will discover their rewards:

Infi.space, a project still in its roots as a collectible trade card game and strategy project, recently shared a call for users to join their telegram group via social media.
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Counterparty in the News:

In a piece by Rare Pepe Wallet founder Joe Looney, “the real cost of Cryptogoods” discusses the altered value of tokens aka ‘cryptogoods’ depending on the platform. Going beyond gaming items, Looney’s work often includes nonfungible tokens and cryptoart too – mentioning that this emerging media can often be overwhelming to newcomers.

The article begins to discuss the platform and longevity of cryptogoods as a basis for its realness and value. He begins with a history lesson going back to 2015, citing Counterparty and the popularity of trading cards via the protocol on the bitcoin blockchain. This lesson draws popular mentions to projects such as Bitcorns and Rare Pepes.

With his definition that “a cryptogood is a token issued by an artist, game developer, musician, etc. that is generally represented by an image, video or text” Looney goes on to point out they are not representative of currencies or physical goods.  After going on to discuss his original points – comparing the issuance of cryptogoods via Counterparty vs Ethereum – Looney ends rather open-ended with a fair warning to users not to get caught up in mass opinion. A worthwhile read, check it out here.

In other exciting news, the Rare Digital Art Festival is returning to New York on May 18th, 2019! Expanding on Looney’s article, “Rare digital art is a movement to take internet assets that have previously been infinitely copyable (songs, memes, etc) and turn them into provably rare, tradable blockchain assets”. (source)

Development News:

Counterparty 9.56.0 was released just before the new year! Alongside immediate support for Segwit (CIP15) on testnet, and mainnet (which activated at block 557236). 9.56.0 is also updated to use Bitcoin Core 0.16.3 and includes the changes listed within CIP19 as mentioned below (to replace the addrindex patch):

  • Faster blockchain sync and parsing
  • Segwit support for lower fees

  • Hash Timelocked Contracts (HTLCs) which enable atomic swaps and lightning

  • Better fee estimation

All users and projects within the Counterparty ecosystem are encouraged to have upgraded by today (January 7th, 2019) for the hardfork.


Again, here is a reminder of current and future CIPs, following this upgrade:



CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding:
P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA):
Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.


CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT):
MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their send costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

To stay up to date with any pending and currently developing CIPs check out their Github pages and the official Counterparty donate page here.

If you have a project that you’d like included in our newsletter please contact us at projects@counterparty.io

Please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.


Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!

Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.



Counterparty Newsletter 08/01/18

August 1, 2018

Ecosystem Updates:

Although it has been another quiet month for the community, a few projects are making strides towards some exciting changes in the months ahead as new projects get their start and others are set to begin as we end the summer.

Spells of Genesis recently celebrated 2134 blockchainizations of their in-game cards on July 3rd.

For those who aren’t aware, the term ‘blockchainization’ refers to the method that allows Spells of Genesis players to take an in-game item and make a blockchain asset. Whilst there were already blockchain items that players could use in-game, this method requires users to ensure that their cards are quad-fused and fully leveled up. Players can also only blockchainize 3 cards per month with Parent company, EverdreamSoft, taking on all fees. These in-game items would then appear in any Counterparty supporting wallet.
To stay up to date with Spells of Genesis follow their public roadmap.

In further news from parent company, EverdreamSoft; Founder, Shaban Shaame, is giving the Spells of Genesis and BitCrystals community 4 days to submit ideas as to how to better serve and use their gaming community. As a reward, Shaame will distribute a reward of $200USD in Bitcoin. To read more click here.

BitCrystals launched a blockchain asset creator this past month. With the online tool, the team behind the project has produced an easy guide alongside the tool, to allow users to publish their designs as blockchain tokens. The tool falls in line with the design-heavy nature of BitCrystals’ CrystalsCraft environment on Book of Orbs, and the upcoming Soap Arena project. To learn more, click here.

Soap Arena, as mentioned, is EverdreamSoft’s and BitCrystals’ latest venture into Blockchain publishing. Currently described as a “2D strategic brawler”, Soap Arena will utilize BitCrystals within pixel art graphics, with hero characters for users to lead throughout gameplay. For more news as it happens, follow Soap Arena on Twitter!

Book of Orbs news follows with a couple of articles via the project’s medium platform.
The first comes in the form of a how-to guide for users wishing to use Book of Orbs’ relatively new Web application and its RBF function. RBF – aka replace by fee – is a handy function for users utilizing the custom fee setting, when making a transaction. The guide is a useful tool for less advanced users, who don’t wish to use in-app fee presets. Check it out here.

The second article welcomes Casa Tookan to the BitCrystals ecosystem. As mentioned in the last newsletter, Casa Tookan is a multi-chain wallet and third-party hosting application, launching this September. This article contextualizes Casa Tookan for Book of Orbs users; especially given the prevention of new installs of the app, for the iOS app store. Check it out here.

In other news, the Bitcrystals team published a guide on how to obtain BitCrystals from both Bittrex and Poloniex recently. However, news sadly follows that BCY (BitCrystals) is being delisted from Poloniex alongside some other cryptocurrencies.

IndieSquare continues to progress with their recently launched ‘WebXCP’ standard. The protocol that allows developers to make XCP web apps has since reflected these changes within its own wallet. Having started to list decentralized apps – aka DApps – the IndieSquare Wallet is set to feature many Counterparty-based applications. Separated into two groups, you will ultimately find both in-wallet apps such as Pepe Arcade, and native iOS apps (and Android alike) such as Spells of Genesis and Takara. IndieSquare Wallet also supports Ethereum-based apps with this new standards, with lightning network apps and wallet functionality soon to be added also.

SaruTobi Island launched chapter 3 recently. In this third edition of the RPG (role play game), SaruTobi is tasked with stealing a crystal from the confines of a castle. The next chapter of SaruTobi Island will also feature a collaboration with Age of Chains. In a recent tweet from developer Mandel Duck, he also provided a few developments on the Sarutobi Universe as a whole. The original 8-bit game featuring the Monster Rancher Monkey is now in beta for its lightning network, web mini-game edition. You can try it here. As the thread from the tweet continued, he revealed that a planned development for a mobile edition and tipping system is coming in the near future.

FoldingCoin has some unfortunate news this month. FLDC – the project’s currency – is sadly being delisted from Poloniex alongside BCY. The FoldingCoin team is advising its community to withdraw their funds, urging those who fold directly to a Poloniex address, to change their FLDC address in their Folding username as soon as possible, or their funds will be continued to be sent to Poloniex addresses – despite this news.

In other news, the FoldingCoin team has been working with Tokenly to update Merged Folding to integrate with their new API and has begun a discussion to create a stats page with Tokenly.

For more about FoldingCoin, please attend their public meeting this Saturday at 10am EST here.

Age of Rust is hosting a new logo design contest. With 47 designs to choose from, click here to help the team decide which logo will front the game upon its release.

Continuing to celebrate the progress of the game so far, the Space Pirate team behind Age of Rust tweeted some before and during graphics of the game’s progression. The tweet really celebrates the strides of indie game production within the Counterparty community.

In a development update on medium, the team elaborates more on what gameplay will be like; making a point to stand apart from other projects on the blockchain. Self-described as a “first person adventure game where you solve puzzles, explore vast areas, and if your [sic] lucky, find a treasure in cryptocurrency”. Age of Rust compares itself to Myst. The post goes on to expand upon its premise and gameplay, as well as explain its in-game currency and rewards.

Finally, the team teased a week ago about some big news coming soon! Be sure to follow the Age of Rust project on Twitter to find out the news as it’s revealed!

Augmentors’ alpha battles campaign starts today, ending August 7th. Featuring a revamped UI (user interface), some players will have experienced a similar campaign back in March. For more details click here.

Mafia Wars has been gaining traction in the Counterparty community recently. Earlier this week, a whale – a term for someone with money to spend – bought up 20% of the game. Additionally, more than 100 cards have been created for the game of idleness in the last month alone. As usual, these cards are featured via the project’s Twitter page. Notably, a lot of Rare Pepe designs have popped up, with the Frog being highly popular within the Counterparty community.

Rare Pepe Wallet developer; Joe Looney, previewed a new application via his Twitter account recently. The application teases the combination of the long popular Rare Pepes with the new and upcoming Bitcorns. Check it out below:

Counterparty in the News:

In Counterparty news this month, Age of Chains was interviewed by Cryptobit games. The article discusses the project’s origin and premise before discussing Age of Chains’ roadmap for the future. Check it out here.

Spells of Genesis was covered in an article on Gadget Helpline. The article covers the game’s premise with some suggested tips from the writer as to how to get started. Also mentioned, is Book of Orbs and the BitCrystals economy, following reference to the game’s blockchainization element. Check out the article   here.

Spells of Genesis was also mentioned among other projects in an article by Bit Starz, discussing how blockchain will change the video game industry. The article goes on to discuss how the mainstream gaming industry such as Microsoft and XBOX, is starting to embrace the blockchain and tokenization, and what this could mean. Check it out here.

In more news from the EverdreamSoft family, BitCrystals was featured in an article on blockchain gamer.biz, mentioning their recently launched ‘blockchain gaming market sector’ map.

The rare digital art discussion has also made the rounds again this month as further discussion from the ATL Blockchain has been released. The video features discussion surrounding Bitcorn Crops and Rare Pepe Party; check it out below:

In other news, Jason Bailey recently published an article on Art Nome covering a recent visit to Christie’s; a 250-year-old auction house, summit on Art and Technology.

There, Bailey covered a panel called, “Exploring Blockchain — Is the Art World Ready For Consensus?”. Bailey’s article compliments Christie’s concise understanding of Blockchain’s ethics and methodology but disagrees that art mediums such as Christie’s auction house are ready for the Blockchain.

To read exactly why Bailey thinks this (with a swift nod to Rare Pepe Wallet and its founder Joe Looney), check out the article via the jump.

Counterparty Development News:

Counterparty continues to work towards improving its protocol and progress with CIP development; with the development efforts coming from John Villar, FoldingCoin, and IndieSquare. Thank you again for your patience during this slow time. Please stay up to date with our social networks regarding any other CIP-related matters. Notes for meetings Dan Anderson recently held for interested developers to attend can be found here.

Going forward, development status on future CIPs are as follows:

1) Work has started on integrating the indexd branch to master as this will allow XCP to use the latest features from the Bitcoin daemon and lower the maintenance burden. (Special thanks is extended to btcdrak for all their support during these years with their txindex fork).
2) The FoldingCoin team has started to devote some of their workforce to maintenance duties on the code, namely PR review on the latest CIPs.

3) Chris Moss (aka Mandelduck) is going to get full commit access to the repos thanks to his long-standing record of positive collaboration with the ecosystem.
4) The RarePepe.party team is working on getting MPMA (CIP10) ready for the release of the indexd support, so the booster pack sales start functioning right away.
5) A new project is using Counterparty technology in private blockchains to create an advanced and secure trading platform called Virtual EXchange Engine (VEX for short). The main advantage of this is that their changes could bring “controlled” markets and special trading pairs with fees that feedback to the token owner.

You can stay up to date with current and future CIPs, as well as links to relevant GitHub pages via the Counterparty donate page.

CIP 6 – P2SH data encoding

P2SH data encoding will allow Counterparty to utilize more space for transactions. CIP 6 will be beneficial to large transactions and is a prerequisite in supporting some of the more advanced send types, such as multi-peer-multi-asset (MPMA) and Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT).

CIP 10 – Multi-Peer Multi-Asset Sends (MPMA)

Multi-Peer Multi-Assets sends will allow many assets to be sent to many peers in a single transaction, simplifying batch transactions, and reducing transaction fees even further.

CIP 15- Segwit Support

Enabling Segwit support within Counterparty will enable users to spend less on transaction fees and enables potential future enhancements. Updating Counterwallet will allow users to choose if they want to send assets to a segwit enabled address or a traditional address.

CIPs planned for release this year:

CIP 13 – Multiparty Counterparty Aggregate Transactions (MCAT)

MCAT will allow Counterparty users to group their transactions with those of other Counterparty users, to reduce their sends costs considerably. Most users will be able to utilize this feature to send transactions for less than the cost of a single bitcoin transaction.

CIP 13 will also allow Counterparty users to utilize MCAT nodes, to send assets across the Counterparty Network, and pay for the transaction fees in an asset other than BTC.

Counterparty is an open-source, community-funded project which progresses solely through the generous time and monetary donations of others.

Again, please visit our donations page to stay up to date on the current bounty and development status of any CIPS, and consider making a donation to support their continued development. Alternatively, please share or RT Counterparty CIPs on social media so we can help fulfill them faster!

We have also recently opened up a press channel for any media inquiries and would ask any media outlets to contact press@Counterparty.io.

Please join the @Counterparty_XCP group on Telegram for breaking news and real-time Counterparty conversation!

Disclaimer: This newsletter is sent as an informational piece, and no part of it should be taken as financial advice.