Token Ownership Trading

[davestaxcp]

As discussed in the recent Counterparty Spaces with ZeroG and Adam K: https://x.com/g0barry/status/2002202432772698254

The community (for YEARS) has been asking and wanting a system to sell Token Ownership.

For people who don't understand what that is...

• when you create a named counterparty token and burn xcp for a name like "TIMELINEXCP" - the btc address of the issuer holds the token ownership for TIMELINEXCP
• this ownership gives the ability to issue subassets for the token ex: TIMELINEXCP.Calendar.V1
• this ownership also gives the ability to change description for the named token (TIMELINEXCP) as well as all subassets
• this ownership also gives the ability to issue more supply (if token is unlocked.... which is uncommon, but still happens)

Trading Token Ownership opens up a whole new market that expands just DEX, Dispenser, Atomic Swap, etc functionality on xcp tokens

• assuming you didnt want to new Token Ownership owner to change the descriptions of the token or subassets, the xcp protocol now allows for "Locking Description"
• this in effect makes Trading Token Ownership viable for artists who want their art to stay the same, but also introduce a market for future Token Ownership holders to issue subassets from the main token originally issued

It is COMMON for tokens such as POWH (all original tokens burned and lost... and ONLY 0/1 token in Rare Pepe) to have very high prices on the Token Ownership itself. (spoiler this was traded OTC in auction for a couple thousand dollars at the time)

It is extremely wanted, needed and would be heavily influential to expand Token Ownership to be traded on the Counterparty DEX, Dispensers, Atomic Swaps etc

During the space, Adam mentioned this as "very difficult to do" on a protocol level. But personally I would put this protocol update as "extremely wanted by the community"

[droplister]

+1 to this. I’m still strongly in favor.

For context: I proposed “Decentralized Asset Sales” in 2017 here: CIP Proposal - Decentralized Asset Sales — design was to introduce a new separate concept from the DEX, but with the same order → match → settle feel.

I’ve also approximated it in practice (e.g. on XCPFOLIO) by selling XCPFOLIO.SUBASSET on the DEX and then auto-transferring ownership of SUBASSET via server/webhooks after the fill — it works, but it’s inherently trusted/off-chain.

I think the minimal shape is still clear:

new message type for an ownership offer: asset, price (asset+amount), expiration

match transfers payment + asset ownership

keep it conceptually separate from DEX, so you can list offers make offers easily.

[davestaxcp]

can you offer to trade for Token Ownership in only XCP?

or could you offer in BTC, or even specific assets like PEPECASH for example?

[davestaxcp]

Could attaching Token Ownership to a UTXO be a solution here?

CounterpartyXCP/counterparty-core#2163

[subterranean1]

Selling token ownership in a trustless manner sounds like something hardcore collectors would appreciate. We can collect copies of tokens now. Why not have the option to collect THE token as well. OTC sales and auctions add friction and require a third party or trust in the seller.

[Cornholio-the-Great]

As a hardcore collector of token ownerships, I agree that this would be appreciated.