What if? You could lock a Bitcoin in a Safecoin?

Marketing
1

This is just a thought experiment to see if there is any logic/point to my reasoning. But imagine if you could lock a Bitcoin in a Safecoin and how would you accomplish this. As some of us may know, cryptocurrencies are just simply privatekeys, which enable you to spend coins. With that said, you would only need a privatekey to access the funds. Let’s start.

Step 1
First I did a clean install of the Bitcoin client, with only 1 address, copy the address.

Step2
On the Bitcoin client goto “Help” / “Debug window” / “Console”
In the console type in “help” and press enter. After that you get a whole lists of commands goto the top. You see “dumpprivkey” type that out, press on the spacebar and paste the copied Bitcoin address from step1. Press enter.

Step 3
Now you have your privatekey, copy it

Step 4 (here is where we really use our imagination, because I don’t even think this is even possible yet).
Imagine that you could add info into a Safecoins and that you could paste this privatekey in the Safecoin. So ooh kee, you got the privatekey paste in the Safecoins, but that doesn’t make it inaccessible to the current owner. So how can we achieve it, that the current owner doesn’t have access to the coin anymore, simply by knowing the privatekey. Solution add an password to protect the privatekey.

Here is where it gets weird. I have enter the privatekey of a Bitcoin into a Safecoin and I send it to you. On arrival to you, the Safecoin adds an password to the privatekey of the Bitcoin. This means that the previous owner can’t access, the Bitcoins anymore because it’s password protected. But in this scenario a Safecoin would have to be able to connect to the Bitcoin network and be able to change a password, without human intervention. I hear the question well if the Safecoin change the password how would the current owner know the password? Good question, they would just click on the Safecoin and see the password and the Bitcoin value in this case. By doing so, when they on their turn send this coin to some else. Again the Safecoin will change the password.

What would be fun, is if Safecoins had an internal exchange mechanism (So Safecoins saying eachother which value they hold, beside their inherent value). Let me explain, for instance if I had a Safecoin with a Bitcoin privatekey locked into it with the value of 1 Bitcoin and you would want to exchange your Safecoins for Bitcoins. All I would do is send you the Safecoin with 1 Bitcoin locked into it and this would be exchanged for your Safecoins. At current prices 1 Bitcoin is 386.81, so I would receive 15891.29 Safecoins (current Maidsafecoin price is 0.024341) from you.

If this what I describe above would even be possible, it would mean that your dealing with the real crypto asset instead of another mirror of the subject/object. To questions like why would you want to place your Bitcoins in a Safecoins? Well for starters it would make your transaction free, instant and even more protected (anonymous) than it would be on the Bitcoin network itself. What I describe is a little rusty for lazy people like myself. So you mean I have to goto help, the debug window, type help, dump my privkey, copy that and enter it into a Safecoin? That’s to much work… All jokes aside.

Imagine that you could take the idea of an Safecoin to a level that it’s not only a sophisticated curreny that operates on the Safe network, but also a place where you can Safe your other values. Imagine a password protected Safecoin, that serves as a vault. Yeah again this is plain old me with the easy talk, because I don’t really code. Lastly ask yourself, what would the price of 0.0000000001 Safecoins be if you can store 1 Bitcoin or whatever amount into it. Well @ today’s Bitcoin price that 0.0000000001 Safecoins would be it’s inherent price + $ 386.81.

There is also a way to lock a fiat (the real asset) into a cryptocurrency. But we’ll leave that talk for another day…

BTW this is just purely imaginative speculations, but maybe worth thinking/talking about. If the Safecoins could exchange info to eachother you would even need yet another exchange.

3 Likes
2

How do you know I would pay you? Or do you want me to pay you first and hope you wan’t “run out of battery” before you send me the stuff?

And what would I do with that bitcoin private key once I get it packed into a Safecoin? I have to copy it and add it to a bitcoin client.

That seems too complicated and since bitcoin can’t be spent on SAFE network, what value does it add? You can do this (cheap sending and even decentralized exchange of various assets) on almost any Bitcoin 2.0 platform today without copying and pasting.

1 Like
3

I think that perhaps a better question would be how could you take advantage of the security of the SAFE network to make a better mousetrap… I mean bitcoin wallet.

Another question is whether the SAFE coin protocol will include color coin capability, and in particular the ability to interact with public blockchains like bitcoin. If a Colored SAFEcoin could have independent access to the bitcoin blockchain, to the extent that it could verify that a particular wallet contains X amount of bitcoin, then access to that wallet could be traded in a truly anonymous SAFEcoin fashion.

So the goal could be approached from different ways. This workaround using the basic safecoins, might work, but as @janitor says its really complicated and may not be as secure as we would want for something like this.

4

@19eddyjohn75 There is something awesome in what you’re suggesting. And it very much remind of the old political alchemy where one would hollow the silver our of a sample of a neighboring princedome’s coins replacing it with an equal weight of some cheap alloy filler and then at the right time announce the debasement and sit back and watch the implosion and hence the latter stiff penslties in the forgery tradition. Here of course the trick is additive with benefits.

The words themselves are suggesting this ie safe and vault and coin. This is where I was wondering if money itself might become the actual means of production so that a SAFEphone would come to be known as a SAFEdollar but not a SAFEbill.

1 Like
5

I think the concept of storing a bitcoin privatekey inside of a safecoin is just the beginning. What is described of allowing that to function has greater ramifications. You’re basically saying “Let’s store information inside of safecoins and allow that information to be traded and exchanged as currency and instantly extracted and exchanged upon delivery.” What if you stored communications information inside of a safecoin? Or a password? Or fiat currency? Safecoin could become a medium of exchange but it could also become a medium for secure information transportation.

1 Like
6

Great discussion. But why do you want Bitcoin and Safecoins linked in a way like that? to make the Bitcoins trade fast? At Open Transactions the’re working on a way of doing Bitcoin-transactions in a tenth of a second. They use so called “trustless servers” and if you connect to one, they us a voting pool to decide which coins belong to who. They don’t use a blockckain but all the servers agree on every transaction. They will also work with Ethereum and make it possible for anyone to create a new coin and get them traded within seconds at extreme speeds.

7

Ìmagine that you have 2 options to send a Safecoin
1 SEND, in this mode the Safecoin would just normally be send to the intented address
2 EXCHANGE, in this mode the Safecoin would be send to the address and exchange whichever value it holds for Safecoins or whatever you specify. So I only have to send you the coin with the locked asset and it automatically gets exchanged, without human intervention. The Safecoins just communicate to eachother “Hee I hold this value, give me something of equal value in exchange”.

The Bitcoin privatekey would be kept in a Safecoin with password protection. So the former holder can’t access it, only the current holder can see the password to the privatekey. If the current holder looks at the password, when they send the Safecoin with the asset, the password will be changed again.

If you can lock the privatekey of a Bitcoin in a Safecoin, it is the REAL BITCOIN ASSET that your holding. It’s true that you can do this on Bitcoin 2.0 platforms, but some are not the REAL BITCOIN ASSET for instance, Counterparty/XBTC. How can you be sure if they will keep their word to give you BTC for XBTC. This is fractional reserve banking all over again on the crypto level.

What would even add more value to using Safecoin, is that if you can lock your cryptocurrencies in it. You have the possibility to make TX for free and instant. There is a ongoing talk to make the TX cost of a Bitcoin higher, so this would be great for some people.

To be honest coloring a coin for now is just giving it a name. What if you can add attributes? For instance:

  • If you don’t spend this coin within a month, it’s value will decrease with 1% or you can’t spend it anymore.
  • What if Safecoin can ID and value eachother. I could hold a Safecoin with 1 Bitcoin send it to you with the exchange function on and receive a Safecoin with € 323,76.
  • What if a Safecoin could be equity, but equity in the sense that your directly connected to the wallet of the company. And when you wanna pull out, you don’t have to sell shares or ask permission. The Safecoin automatically makes the exchange for you to whatever currency or what else you wish.
    A tweakable Safecoin could be the perfect way for communities to create community currencies.

The idea of storing/locking other REAL assets in a Safecoin is to expand the choices that people make. Do I send a Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network or on the Safe network? I know it sounds crazy, but if people can safe money, some of them will make that choice.

Wow Blindsite2k you are saying what I’m saying even better than I’m saying it. But that’s correct. I’m also saying “Let them password protect the asset to keep it out the hands of the previous owner”

If your making use of high frequency trading, storing a Bitcoin in a Safecoin might just be the solution your looking for. Although I don’t know if Safecoins are moving in nanoseconds, but it’s quicker than what the Bitcoin network currently does. I’m assuming that the Open Transactions Bitcoin is just another fractional reserve solution. What I’m talking about is locking/storing the Bitcoin privkey (so the REAL BITCOIN) in a Safecoin. In this scheme later on you don’t need a third party to hand you the Bitcoin, you allready got it. Just enter the privkey and type in the password to access, your Bitcoin.

BTW the Safecoin would only be in contact with the Bitcoin network, to change the password/check the value. Depending on if some one took a look at the password stored in the Safecoins. The other advantage that a Safecoin would have if you could store everything in it, it would probably not have a size limit, like other coins out there.

8

Sorry, can’t help it- or viral propagation. But so is everything else. And why did the designers of SAFEcoin include this Trojan capacity? If the value of the SAFTcoin were stable it would almost be like the face value was a floor. Could use this mechanism almost like a lottery to try to boost the popularity of SAFEcoin as a medium. But most important this might introduce a bit of a sense of uncertainty which may not be what people want.

9

Pay attention Warren we’re discussing a thought experiment and an idea. And storing info in a safecoin doesn’t make it viral or a trojan.

Also I think we need to discuss a few thoughts here.

We are proposing storing information in a safecoin but how does one distinguish one safecoin from another safecoin on the network?

  1. A way one could store info in a safecoin simply and easily would be allow safecoin to store dtatamap addresses. That way you aren’t actually storing information in the safecoin but merely the location to the information.

  2. I think people are getting too hung up on bitcoin and on currency exchanges here. So what if bitcoin can be exchanged? Some other assets can’t. What if you wanted to send someone the deed to a house? Or send them ownership of a measure of gold bullion? The information you sent could be quantified as worth something but not easily bought and sold on an exchange since it’s specific and specific to you and your recipient.

  3. If someone sends me say 1 safecoin and it has a note in it for 1 bitcoin that’s worth say 1000 safecoin (or whatever it’s worth) then how exactly does that work? Is that 1 safecoin now special and has extra value like a collector’s coin? Perhaps if safecoin can carry info then it should be sent as bundles, you can’t say encode safecoin to carry $100 without sending a $100 bundle worth of safecoin.

10

@Blindsite2k
You make some really good observations. Yesterday I didn’t use my imagination enough, because I was talking about exchanging something with something of equal value. But as you point out we have to ask ourselves, what is value?

Value could/should be for instance a domainname, this just like Bitcoins privkey is just a simple piece of info that domain registrars hold. To expand on the EXCHANGE idea, what if I can send you the domain maidsafe.com locked in a Safecoin and I can specify a asking price. What if I could even let people bid on it and when I’m happy with a price I can send it and get my money automatically.

This idea of value can even be taken to the iot. Imagine that I can send someone a Safecoin with the lock to 1 of the houses that I rent (airbnb style). All they need is that Safecoin to access my house instead of a key. Imagine beside being able to call this Safecoin back, that I could send it to the next renter. Just by taking it out of the current renters Safecoin wallet. This could all be done with the exchange function. I could just send him an 10% discount for the next time, when he returns.

You could even have Safecoin with spoken words of the previous owner “I here by relinquish my yacht to Blindsite2k”, so the Safecoin would serve as a key to the yacht and a documentation of ownership. It would be fun if we don’t need these anymore:

Since the Safecoin is in the Safe Universe you would be able to start your yacht with a smartwatch for that matter. I hope that makers @ one point abandon that idea of physical keys, in favor of Safe controlled keys. Ideally sometime in the future, with an open biometric system only accessible privately, you could sync your biometric to the Safecoin. I know that this sounds weird, but the Safecoin would know you.

To answer question 3
Let’s say that you have 1Safecoin with 1Bitcoin in it, worth 1000 Safecoins. If you send that to me through the EXCHANGE function, I would receive the 1Safecoin with 1Bitcoin in it and you in return would receive 1001Safecoins. Actually even a 0.000000000001 Safecoin could hold 1Bitcoin, it’s just about being able to store/lock info.

Fiat is highly controlled by governments and corporations. So actually you don’t want to play with it to much, because you can’t. But i’ll be sneaky with this one. Yes you can say that a Safecoin is $100. Place a NuBits or a Realcoin of $100 in it. This is actually the only way that we can tackle fiat for now. Unless we can have AI’s controlling Paypal accounts and sending and receiving money. But even then you run into problem, like Paypal account freeze, fraud etc. Although I prefer real assets, with fiat we won’t be able to have that way, so we have to trust a Nubits or Realcoin. There could be another way to get a grip on fiat. If Coinapult or Bitreserve would, auto convert each received Bitcoin into fiat and allow their accounts to be controlled by bots, small chance.

Who need an exchange, if I can send you a Safecoin with a asset store/locked in it and in return can receive value. This would just be us, showing the middleman the middlefinger and saying finally independent.
:stuck_out_tongue:

11

1 Like
12

What I’m saying is the exchange or the guy who’s buying whatever is inside cannot possibly know what’s locked inside your Safecoin until they get the password (or private key to that Safecoin, although that seems dubious as well because you couldn’t give them the private key of yours since that would be risk to all your possessions at that address).
So my main question here is how can anyone know what is in that Safecoin?

I understand there’s the private key and a PIN (lock). If you have a single account, how can you share these with the buyer without having dozens and hundreds of different addresses on the Safe network?

I already mentioned half a dozen times on this forum and also once in this very topic, an asset issuer can escrow 100 BTC with a trusted 3rd party authorized to buy-back his 100 MYBTC asset or create a permanent 1:1 bid (so that anyone who wants to sell MYBTC can always get the equal amount of BTC for them). Then he can sell MYBTC. The same goes for SAFE coin. I can buy 3 million of them today, escrow them and issue 1 million of SAFECLONE on NXT, Bitshares and Counterparty and reach a large ecosystem within 2 hours.

Your plan, on the other hand, fails to answer those questions above (how does anyone know what’s inside of your Safecoin and wouldn’t you need one new MaidSafe address for each transaction).

(I could also ask who is this trustworthy MaidSafe “exchange” of yours that trustlessly, risk-free and for free offers that wonderful service, but I won’t)

Kind of, because compute costs associated with this transacting are externalized and borne by the MaidSafe community. :smile:
What in fact happens is that you silently transfer (very small amounts of) value from SafeCoin stakeholders to SafeCoin traders.

Also, I’m not sure if you realize that in order for someone to send you “a bitcoin” they need to create a new bitcoin address and then transfer that bitcoin from their other bitcoin address to that disposable address. Shockingly, that incurs a Bitcoin transaction fee which your approach supposedly eliminates.

And finally, assuming it all can technically work and be economical, because the exchange (and buyer of that Bitcin) must run bitcoind or otherwise have access to a bitcoin blockchain service in order to verify that that supposed bunch of alphanumeric characters you’re claiming is 1 BTC is actually a bitcoin address with 1 BTC on it. This thing alone invalidates the idea because you’d need a real exchange service which cannot possibly be free because you cannot force every MaidSafe client to also run a bitcoin exchange and so you cannot externalize this cost on the entire MaidSafe community.

13

I think the basic idea should be, as already mentioned, the possibility that safecoin can serve as a container for the transmission of value for other crypto.

In the case of bitcoin, the safecoin, and maidsafe network, could be used as e-cash system with advantages that offers (speed, safety, anonymity and low cost).

Might work as follows (if sidechain is implemented could be easy):

.-A certain amount of bitcoin are locked associating it to a safecoin (can only use standardized values of mBTC, µBTC or satoshis 500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1, … 0.01)
.-Use this safecoin as bitcoin payment system but off-chain, fast, cheap and easy.
.-Only the last owner could unlock these safecoin to become standard bitcoin.

Advantages:

No conversion value. The system can be fully transparent, showing values and transmits bitcoin.

As support can use extremely low value safecoin. The cost of transmission is negligible.

The SAFE network become essential for the functioning of bitcoin helping its global expansion.

14

I’m sorry Janitor I’m still a disaster at explaining, but I’ll try:
Let’s say that you have 1Safecoin with 1Bitcoin’s privatekey in it worth 1000Safecoins. When you send me that Safecoin, the following happens.

  • I receive that 1Safecoin with 1Bitcoin’s privatekey in it
  • That Safecoin sends a message to the Bitcoin network and change the password to the 1Bitcoin’s privatekey
  • After that the Bitcoin privkeys password is changed so you the previous holder of that privatekey can’t spend that Bitcoin anymore, because it’s now password protected.
  • Because I received the 1Safecoin with 1Bitcoin’s privatekey in it from you automatically 1001Safecoin get taken from my Safecoins and send to you. (So you send me the coin and I don’t even have to send you the coins, it happens automatically, because the Safecoins communicate this to eachother)

How you know what is in the Safecoin? Good question, if you store 1Bitcoin in it, you will see:

  • The amount of Bitcoins
  • The Bitcoins privatekey
  • The password that encrypts that Bitcoins privatekey (If you take a look at this password, it will change when you send this Safecoin to somebody else)
  • The Bitcoins public address (if you click on this you will be redirected to blockchain.info to see how many Bitcoins are on that address, but you can also see this in the info store on the Safecoin)

What I’m talking about here, you don’t need a escrow/3rd party and furthermore your dealing with the REAL BITCOIN and not some name on a decentralized exchange that’s suppose to say something. When you take the privatekey out of your Safecoin. You can import that privatekey in the Bitcoin Core

Ofcourse first you’ll need to give the Bitcoin Core your password, which you can find in the Safecoin. After that just type “importprivkey (your private key here and ENTER)” and you have full access to your Bitcoin. You didn’t have to involve a 3rd party or have to go to an exchange.

Ofcourse every form of value you store/lock in a Safecoin will have it’s own safety measures to keep the current owner safe. In the case of cryptocurrencies privatekey, it’s password protection. I do here an interesting question coming up? What if I got a Safecoin with a Bitcoin locked/stored in it, can I spend that Bitcoin without having to go to the Bitcoin Core/Enter my password/Import my privatekey? The answer to that is: I don’t know, if I have to talk crazy. I would say that the Safecoin would communicate with the Bitcoin network and spend whichever amount you want it too. But reality says, where do I type the Bitcoin address and the amount that I want to send to somebody on the Bitcoin Network, while I’m on the Safe Network? How to code this? I haven’t got the faintest idea. You got dreamers and geniuses, unfortunately for me, I’m stuck with this guy:

1 Like
15

What I’ve been repeatedly trying to explain: there is no password to a privatekey (or to a bitcoin address). The private key is the password.
If you say this is a password to that particular (fraction of) SafeCoin, there’s no such thing either (as far as I can tell). If you claim otherwise, tell me about this.

If I have the private key and “share” it with you, the only way for you to prevent me from sending contents of that address somewhere is to transfer the contents of this address to another bitcoin address at the moment of the exchange. If you don’t do it, as soon as the exchange is over (I got what you gave me in exchange), I will transfer the contents of that address to my wallet.

So again:

  1. It’s not doable without an exchange and it can be a centralized or decentralized crypto exchange. The both already exist and neither is “free”.
  2. Even with the freeloading (on the back of MaidSafe network participants) idea of yours there are 2 transactions involved:
  • Send BTC from sender to this “temp” address
  • Send BTC from the temp address to another address

Even a Bitcoin-based 2.0 exchange (MasterCoin, Counterparty) is cheaper and non-Bitcoin-based exchanges are even cheaper.

How you don’t need a 3rd party or escrow? Are you saying you don’t give the sender anything in return? Then why doesn’t he simply send you Bitcoin to your address?

I already told you twice, unless he wants you to deplete all BTC on his address, he simply has to create another disposable address for you, and then send BTC to that account, which is a BTC transaction. And he has to do that every freaking time (and also do a separate send on MaidSafe) , instead of simply sending it to your address.

Well, that right there is a bitcoin transaction which you earlier claimed that this approach could eliminate.

My own conclusion:

  1. It can’t work because it’s not technically and economically feasible and there’s no need for this type of functionality on the main Safe network
  2. The Safe network should use SAFE as the unit of account
  3. Exchanges should be implemented by 3rd parties and therefore can’t/won’t be free. Bitcoin transactions are also not eliminated which is why this approach - if doable - can’t possibly be cheaper
1 Like
16

Just throwing this out there but perhaps safecoins aren’t the best vehicle for this idea. Perhaps it would be best to find a different holder for the info. We already have anonymous encrypted communications exchange on the SAFE network so I’m wondering why such an elaborate system is nessesary.

1 Like
17

@janitor the privatekey is the password if you don’t encrypt your wallet. The moment you encrypt your wallet the pasphrase becomes the password to your privatekey. To be honest you don’t even need a wallet.dat as backup, your privatekey is enough to access your funds. I know it sounds unbelievable, but if you don’t believe me you can try it at home.

In the scheme that I explained, the Safecoins would encrypt the Bitcoins privatekey, after that happens, you would receive the money through the Safecoin exchange function.

Imagine that Safecoins can store value and communicate/exchange that value with eachother. This means that the Safecoin itself becomes the exchange. Obviously you’ll need a push/pull to pull of this trick. One thing worth mentioning, if you would store/lock a Bitcoin in a Safecoin, it would be come static. Kinda like a coin of a Bitcoin, because it woulden’t be divisible. But still it could be usefull to store it and transfer it to other people.

Bitcoin has an API, the Safe network will also have a API, I can’t see why it woulden’t be able for the two to communicate.

Janitor if I have a Bitcoin privkey with Bitcoins on it and email you that Bitcoinprivkey, didn’t we just eliminate a Bitcoin transaction? Well the same happens when, I send you a Safecoin with a Bitcoinprivkey attached to it.

Why did Google create Google Docs if Microsoft office already exists? I think there are different answers to that.

  • Because they felt they could do it better
  • Because they wanted to offer consumers an option
  • Because they wanted to draw people to the Google party

Locking/storing a Bitcoin in a Safecoin is not even the most important here. A coin that can exchange value/property, all within the coin without the need of a exchange is the real message here. What I find strange, is that we’re still holding on to exchanges, like they are need for information to be transferred from one place to another. If we still want to hold on to these old rituals like they are reality, i guess they will be reality. But I also believe in the 1s and 0s capable of making changes, in ways we didn’t imagine. On the other hand, maybe when we reach 1s, Superposition and 0s, we’ll understand.

BTW what I loved most about Gmail when it came out, was that it had 1GB while Hotmail offered 2 to 4 MB. I only see it as fun when you do things like that.

2 Likes
18

I agree the altcoin exchange idea sounds good to me, whether that’s safecoin or another altcoin I don’t know. But the concept does sound good.

Question: Can other altcoins be created based on safecoin the same way other altcoins were created based on bitcoin and RUN on the safe network along side safecoin? That is can a safecoin deriivitive be run alongside safecoin?

19

I’m sure David had said this is both possible and inevitable. I don’t know the mechanism, but SAFE is a general purpose secure computing platform, capable of smart contracts and many other things. Much like many different kinds of app can be created for it.

20

I think your ideas are great:

What I find strange, is that we’re still holding on to exchanges, like they are need for information to be transferred from one place to another.

I’m not sure if the metaphor of “putting things inside a Safecoin” helps or not. From what I can see, you are describing a smart contract, and imagining it could look like a Safecoin containing a smart contract. That would not then be a Safecoin, so you’d have to call it something else anyway.

I don’t understand how things are implemented, but while there is something along these lines, I think it is inside out - i.e a Safecoin might be a type of smart contract.

What I remember is that SAFE allows arbitrary sized files, in fact directories of files, to be part of a smart contract.

I don’t see a way to eliminate exchanges using smart contracts (or by putting things inside a Safecoin if you prefer). Again, an exchange is a user interface for one particular kind of smart contract, and will always be needed so that assets can be exchangeable. The point of @dallyshalla’s starcraft project is to create a decentralised exchange, eliminating the risks and costs of present day centralised exchanges.