One more point: Counterparty can bring immense benefits to Bitcoin, and this will especially become more apparent if/as Ethereum (and other similar non-Bitcoin-meta "2.0" type coins) enter the picture. My personal feeling here at least is that Bitcoin may very well need offerings in the ecosystem with this kind of functionality to effectively compete with Ethereum and (future) crowd's feature list and draws -- or risk becoming obsoleted, at least among investors and financial market operators, which offer the ability to bring billions and even trillions into the Bitcoin ecosystem as it gains more recognition, trust, and mindshare with them. This process is, of course, only beginning, but we feel that the clear benefits that the blockchain can offer to finance (for not only Bitcoin payment operations, but for the more advanced finance operations that the technology can enable) will set off the next great phase of Bitcoin's growth, IF allowed to unfold organically.