Thanks Justus - good article.

What's your take on the problem I discuss in my piece about ensuring inevitability of settlement once two orders have been crossed?

i.e. regardless of how assets are represented or issued, my take is that anybody wanting to trade two assets will want certainty that a validly matched order will lead to the assets actually being exchanged on whatever platform they happen to be represented on.

Ultimately, this means those making bids/offers need to relinquish some control at the point they make their bid/offer....  in other words, there needs to be a way for them to be "compelled" to exchange if their order is validly matched. And you can't do that if they have the ability simply to send the asset/coin somewhere else... that freedom has to be relinquished.

Counterparty et al do it through the protocol (and my distaste stems from the pollution of the blockchain but I also accept having app-specific coins is troublesome) - but I don't see any way of achieving something similar with a colored coin system...  unless you're prepared to put your assets into escrow at the time you post your bid/offer.  And that might be fine - but it does require you to trust an identifiable entity rather than "the protocol".

Is this an issue you recognise?  Is it only a problem in theory or are you perhaps arguing there is something in OT that can help here?  (I don't know enough about OT but it's on my to-read list)

Richard