I also question the viability of Mastercoin’s present and future… to be blunt, after seeing how much the Mastercoin Foundation sponsors hackathons, etc. it seems as though the protocol is only supported because of the original BitAngels investments.
I would personally like to see the BitAngels take the Mastercoin protocol as a loss and move on.
I’m only skimming these posts but I think you are doing valuable work here @Al_Kafir and really appreciate it. When I first looked into Mastercoin there were some comments on Mastercointalk (?) that raised my eyebrows - someone from MC trying to placate people and say their first priority was to ensure that Mastercoin value would rise etc., while explaining there was no point in forcing its use in a particular case.
I wondered at the time how they were going to get the stuff to have value, and I’m still wondering.
The MaidSafe sale seems to have been the only reason so far people have had to buy the stuff, and we’ve seen how no-one is going to get messed up like that again.
I think we are learning a lot from them! 
P.S. Reading this and thinking about Mastercoin and other alcoins lead me to write this: Safecoin FAQ: What gives Safecoin value and differentiates it from altcoins?
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I hope somebody did that snapshot you mentioned happybeing. The following is interesting in light of recent dev criticisms:
Strictly a snapshot doesn’t need to be taken because the blockchain serves that function. So taking a snapshot would mean identifying a cutoff point on the blockchain, after which transactions would not be ignored.
looks like Mastercoin properly dying now, I can hear the death rattle, pretty worthless now. It looks like its actually the Devs selling out now too - price regularly drops each time they receive them and can’t see it coming back from here as heading below original ipo price…mastercoin ipo price I mean. Their community has totally lost any faith/trust in the team, the impression being that funds used to furnish lavish lifestyle and squandered on crap projects, none of which work.
On a better note, there are calls for Mastercoin foundation to return the 2000 btc they have left to the Maidsafe team, who it is pretty universally agreed were scammed by the foundation. It appears that the devs themselves are pissed off with the foundation and further calls that they should just help Maidsafe. The one good thing about this situation is that the Maidsafe teams talent, integrity and honesty is widely recognised amongst the cryto-community and the feeling is one of support and anger at Mastercoin foundation. Keep up the good work guys, it shows and is recognised and please be wary of wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing in the future.
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I think they need to focus on platform exclusives and automation. Automatic trading features and smart contracts will be in demand. They need scripting and should not wait for Ethereum to do it.
The more they wait the less utility Mastercoin will have for users and the less valuable individual coins will be. They also need to charge until a time when the competition catches up. When you’re a gaming company for example you charge for your exclusive titles and for use of your platform.
Now if it becomes competitive then you lower the price. It makes no sense to start out with low prices if demand is high for your product. Mastercoins should not be free and if the token is to have value it has to be consumed.
Face it, the reason Mastercoins are so cheap is because theres too many of them and not enough uses for them.
Mastercore and Omniwallet are in development. They claim release is going to be in August. I think the wallets will be just fine.
I also think Mastercoin is a good design. But I think they need to focus on monetizing early on to fund development. I also think it’s about utility and exclusive content. The Mastercoin developers should be thinking about what they can do exclusively for Mastercoin holders.
If I can do all that they can do on Counterparty then what do I need their tokens for? So they have to have exclusive assets and other content that I want so that I’ll need some of their tokens. If everything on their platform is free then they are like the video game company that tries to offer every game for free when all the market is charging a price.
There is no reason to offer everything for free. The freemium model only works when you sell privacy or use advertisements. Mastercoin doesn’t have people’s privacy to sell and they aren’t advertising anything so the freemium model doesn’t work for a decentralized autonomous corporation.
Freemium doesn’t work for SAFE Network either. It might work to bootstrap it so it has enough users but once we all have Safecoins you can’t go and say “oops, we’ve decided that Safecoins wont be used and it’s all worthless”.
Instead there has to be apps which accept and run only on Safecoin. Why? Because it funds the development of the apps as well as the use of those apps. If you can do stuff on the Master protocol which is exclusive then it should have high fees. Once other protocols copy it then you reduce the fee in competition with those others.
Starting out with no fee means you can’t bargain to add fees later. Competition will not have a problem copying or forking your idea and charging no fees for that. Exclusive utility must have fees.
Oh…they’ve definitely done this…lol
Why post this with no explanation? I ain’t watching a 20 min vid to find out.
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The video is from Dan Larimer about the importance on focusing on making sure the decentralized autonomous corporation is profitable from the initial stages of it’s design.
Bitshares X was designed to be profitable form it’s inception. This is necessary because if it isn’t profitable it cannot sustain and grow. The goal of a decentralized autonomous institution isn’t all that different from centralized. They both must sustain and grow.
Evolution is basically what he is describing. Mastercoin has to adapt it’s economic structure before it’s novelty wears off. It has to continuously add value and utility in exchange for it’s tokens.
Those tokens would then come to represent the value and utility which is exclusive to Mastercoin. The move to try to go for freemium is similar to the non-profit model. It’s not sustainable to do it as a non-profit unless it’s a government which can tax people. Mastercoin is not a government so it cannot live off taxes (transaction fees) as it already lives on Bitcoin. Also transaction fees aren’t enough to support the continued growth, development and sustainability of the Mastercoin ecosystem.