Mastercoin and XCP are weird things that rely on the good will of Bitcoin.
Heh "weird things." Hey, relying on the goodwill of Bitcoin is better than relying on any other cryptocurrency out there.
The only reason why more people aren't using Counterparty is because they are indeed a weird introverted bunch, but their product is more amazing than weird.
I am interested in Bitshares though because it sounds like maybe I can win the race to develop Skynet first.