Counterparty is a DeFi platform and Internet protocol built on top of the

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

blockchain The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of th ...

. It was one of the most well-known "Bitcoin 2.0" (later known as

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

) platforms in 2014.

History

In July 2014, Counterparty was part of a plan by

Overstock.com Beyond, Inc. (formerly known as Overstock, Inc.) is an American internet retailer, online retailer that owns the "Bed Bath & Beyond" brand except for within Mexico and the "Overstock" brand, and runs online stores named with those brands. The M ...

to issue and trade legal

securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...

on a blockchain. The initiative, originally named "Medici", eventually became Overstock's tZERO. In November 2014, Counterparty added support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to the Counterparty protocol, allowing all Ethereum decentralized applications to be run on the Bitcoin blockchain within the Counterparty protocol. In early 2024, after a hiatus in development, some core developers returned to fix long-standing issues with stability, correctness and performance of the Counterparty reference implementation, and to prepare for future feature development.

Technology

Counterparty's native cryptocurrency, XCP, was created during January 2014 by 'proof of burn', which was purported to be an alternative to a crowdsale or '

initial coin offering An initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of c ...

' (ICO). The initial creation of XCP through this process involved sending about 2140 BTC, worth between US $1.6 million and US $2 million at the time, to a provably unspendable Bitcoin address. From its launch in 2014, the open-source Counterwallet (Web) was the primary Counterparty wallet, maintained by the Counterparty team themselves until July 2024 when it was officially discontinued. The original Counterparty explorer, Blockscan, was created by Matthew Tan in early 2014. In 2017, Blockscan.com shut down and relaunched as the Ethereum-based explorer Etherscan.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Cryptocurrencies Foreign exchange market Payment systems Digital currencies Financial technology