Some clarification from one of the authors of this piece on their twitter stream [1]:

@mikejcasey are they using Bitcoin-inspired blockchain technology or "the" blockchain?

@jerrybrito THE blockchain. It's a colored coin implementation. That got lost on cutting room floor.

@mikejcasey Any more details? That is a little vague.

@brantonbits They're using the Open Assets Protocol, a colored coins implementation on top of bitcoin. That clearer?

[1] https://twitter.com/mikejcasey/status/597530065035988995

For anyone interested in learning more about the Open Assets Protocol, the official specification is here [1]. It's relatively short, and really quite readable.

The reference implementation is in Python [2], but I've been working on a JavaScript implementation [3] that's available via npm [4]. It's mostly complete, but I would love help from anyone interested in getting it over the finish line...

[1] https://github.com/OpenAssets/open-assets-protocol/blob/mast...

[2] https://github.com/OpenAssets/openassets

[3] https://github.com/andrewfhart/openassets

[4] https://www.npmjs.com/package/openassets

Obligatory link via google. Somebody ought to write a bot for this.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

Or build a micropayment system that takes off, so we can collectively pay for good reporting....

It would be interesting if once a certain revenue threshold was met the paywall would be removed.

He did ask for one that takes off.

And/or use tax money to pay for good reporting, as has been standard practice in many jurisdictions for a long time.

If you live in the US then you may not be aware but your tax money does pay for a news service: http://www.voanews.com

Isn't that more propaganda meant for export?

The well regarded BBC World Service falls in the same category.

I wonder how well this would work for WSJ type stories. Some of their stories are generic newswires, but the juicy stuff is from knowing insiders and building relationships over the years. A generic reporting service will tell you that "Company A unveiled product B" but will unlikely report that "Company A gave up a bunch of liquidation preferences to get a $1 bln valuation".

e.g. China, Russia, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc.

The UK (BBC), Australia (ABC), New Zealand (Radio New Zealand)

Sweden (SVT, SR), Norway (NRK)..

Yes! Is anyone working on it? Single click microdonations from a dedicated bitcoin wallet? I am not a bitcoin nut but this sounds like the perfect application for it.

Yes - I did: https://www.coinbee.io - lobby them to implement the API!

Oh, you mean blendle.com

So how does it work?

To my knowledge: Google requires that you can't serve different content to its bots than a user can reach from the search results. So the link from a Google search changes the Referrer to Google (since it's a redirect) and WSJ gives you the content.

The announcement from NASDAQ has some important details the original article left out:

http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/nasdaq-launches-enterpri...

Specifically, this article points out that Colored Coins will be used, together with the Open Assets protocol.

Why would they use OAP as apposed to their own blockchain based system?

Sounds interesting - however, if they are successful in reconciliation, then seems logical that the next step will be addressing the transfer of wealth that happens after reconciliation (ie, clearing). I am not sure how much of a problem this truly is - ie, how much of counter party risk is attributed to how often the counter party agrees on the reconciliation but just does not have the capital to pay up at t+3.

Whatever it is, if you could instantaneously reconcile and clear, then some forms of trading could get a lot faster.

sounds interesting, but will probably be fundamentally closed, so i'm curious to see how the concept of "consensus" plays a role.