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Yeah it would be interesting to offer a lifeboat to Bitcoin

Great news! Ok, move over JL, CfB and Ksuhti and all you other clowns: A new core dev is in town   

Seriously, I have had a think about this though  Issues I have mulled over:

Scenario 1: Mass centralised migration
i) The core devs of a coin announce they are going to transition to Nxt MS (they could have had a community vote beforehand too). Those who don't want this dump the coin (problem 1: risk loss of significant market cap). They would then have to get everybody to send their coin to a centralised place (problem 2: trusting the devs not to run), convert the coin to Nxt (problem 3: each sale will drive the price down so you get diminishing returns, if there are buyers) and then lock the Nxt into the new MS based coin.

Problem 1: I can't see a way to avoid the dumping by some. This is a disincentive to the whole process unless Nxt offers some fantastic incentive that is valued.
Problem 2: Escrow? Is someone trusted to handle potentially millions of dollars. AT is a possibility but I was under the impression MS was almost a standalone system, you would have to convert to Nxt to use the AE, AT, AM.
Problem 3: You can't do this as the old coins will be effectively worthless once the transition is complete as the coin will no longer be supported by the devs.

Verdict: Non-starter

Scenario 2: Organic gradual migration

i) Once a coin has been traded within MGW, the idea that a MGW asset is the same as the original could take root. This would mitigate Problem 1 of people dumping as Nxt wouldn't seem so alien. It would get the altcoin into Nxt but you still need the NXT to lock into the MS coin creation. Nxt Assets won't be allowed to be used to lock into MS, I'd guess, so the MGW assets are likely to be no good. You would still have to to the transition in one go as no more Nxt can be locked into a coin, once it is created. So this 'bit-by-bit' method is flawed too. Someone could put the money up front if they have $10million, say, but how would they personally recover this? They will be echanging the MS coin to the original, which will soon have zero value.


Summary: both are unviable except for coins that are on their deathbeds and don't have much value to lose.


The way I see it, you always have the problem of getting the value from another coin converted into Nxt (you are likely to lose a lot in the process if you tried and there will be no buyers as there won't be any value in the old coin once the transition is made) and then gathering all the Nxt together to be locked into MS, creating the new coin and then redistributing trustlessly after the creation.


Additional brain dump:
i) I think the whole community would have to be behind the move (almost impossible?) otherwise you would split the community between those inside and outside of Nxt. Each side would have different risks (so price) so effectively you would then have two coins with the same name. Most likely, those on the outside will fork the code and go on their own with a new dev.

ii) Can they even be considered the same coin once transitioned? Will the devs have the same options for future development as staying on the outside? My impression is that there will be a menu of options but once you're inside MS, the terms are locked. Can MS coins 'hard fork' to new terms (i.e. add inflation) if they decide to?

So, it doesn't look like MS is feasible for existing coins. Only for new ones. Unless I am missing something 

The idea for MS is for the new coins to be backed by Nxt. If you spin off a blockheight, you preserve the record of who has what and maybe fix the price but it is the coin that is holding the value at that time and is difficult to port it over to MS.

So if your coin is currently worth $5million, you need $5M worth of NXT in hand to lock it into MS to preserve the value. But then you have two coins worth $5M each (assuming no price movements).


For the guy who put up the cash to bind it into MS to get his money back (Bob), the existing holders would have to buy the new MS tokens from him and recieve something they effectively already own (so pay twice)

or

Bob would have to accept the existing tokens as payment but he shouldn't as these will soon be worthless as the original coins will soon have no devs or community.


And there won't be many Bob's with $5million lying around either. I can't see a way out of this 'challenge' at the moment 

Quote from: Come-from-Beyond on July 07, 2014, 02:27:58 pm

Quote from: Daedelus on July 06, 2014, 06:35:58 pm

If so, how will it work?

Spin-off at some block height maybe?

How do you provide information that has been on the blockchain before?

Or would you just take a current picture and say "this is our distribution"?

Yes.

It seems to me that the main obstacle is still the lack of a specific MScoin client, or has there been any progress in this? I mean a light client that has the MScoin in the dashboard and keeps the bare minimum Nxt features in the background (just enough to buy/sell Nxt to cover transaction fees and maybe plugins useful for MS).