What makes this so special?
Counterparty is a community created protocol, which allows anyone to make and use decentralized financial assets that utilize the bitcoin protocol as a transport layer in order to provide the following functionalities:
- Distributed exchange
- Financial derivatives
- User created assets
- Dividends
- Betting
Counterparty differs from projects that hope to eventually offer a similar functionality because:
- Fully functioning - We are live.
- No IPO - Counterparty is a currency, not a corporation.
- No funding - Donation driven.
- No corporate ties - Free from outside influences.
- No fees - Free to use.
- No hype - The technology speaks for itself.
- Anonymous creators - Focus is on the protocol.
- Fair initial distribution - Risk and opportunity were shared equally.
- Development speed - Created from scratch in about a month.
- Open source - Anyone can add additional functionality.