The Bitcoin protocol already has a blockchain-validated (non-Turing) scripting language. You could probably write genuinely interesting games in it, that are financially self-enforcing, without any new protocol needed.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script
(Digression: are there any technically-interesting protocols built on top of BTC script validation?)
It would thence (uh, can i use that word this way?) be possible to e.g. implement three-party escrow using 2-of-3 signatures (second bullet point under Motivation, etc.) Two signatures would be enough to conduct a fund transfer from buyer to seller. If either buyer or seller defects (or there's some kind of a problem), there'll be <=1 signature present. The third mediating/escrow party would then choose whether to place their own signature or not (thereby validating or nullifying the transaction, accordingly.)
iirc there's also some BIP-level stuff (or an idea to implement it using bitcoin Script, anyway) to have things like NashX[1] work within bitcoin. Basically a Nash equilibrium based transaction scheme with no human 'escrow' party required - everything is formalized. If either the buyer or the seller fails (i.e.: if any of the two report 'failure'), all funds are burnt (e.g. sent to some provably bogus bitcoin address, whatnot.) Both parties have to chime in so that the risk is distributed accordingly/appropriately. There are nuances and gotchas here to be had, of course.
Its better than anything else I've ever used cross border. The weekly price volatility is currently lower than the cut any good professional escrow service would take. Furthermore the transaction goes through in an instant.
Once crypto assets which track USD, Euro, Yen, RMB pop up with turing complete scripting build in... man that's going to be a different world.
Nice!
> Once crypto assets which track USD, Euro, Yen, RMB pop up with turing complete scripting build in... man that's going to be a different world.
Gonna be quite a ride. Generalized financial derivatives? oof.
I have a hunch that we'll see Bitshares DPOS consensus algorithm partnered with Ethereum's turing completeness combined in one DAC. Open Transactions will most likely become the equivalent of the web browser to TCPIP.
We're still at the veeery early stages of the blockchain development. Our team is extremely excited to have caught the wave so early and to work with such great startups and people.
Marketing will be everything in the new economy.
Do you mean assets that are pegged to real world currencies? Is that possible with a Bitcoin-based currency?
I personally believe we'll end up with DPOS [1] based DACs, all with bitUSD/EUR/YEN/RMB/etc with cross-chain trading. Each DAC will have core code specialized for one or two specific tasks (e.g. distributed domain name system, distributed naming system, commons based IP/patent system, lotteries, notary systems, share issuing (most likely in a general Ethereum-like chain), distributed supercomputing and file storage, etc.
Ethereum's turing completeness will likely become standard in all DACs at some point (commoditized).
Open Transactions [2] will facilitate HFT and non=legal but financially binding cross-border contracts.
[1] http://bitshares.org/documentation/group__dpos.html [2] http://opentransactions.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
As in, someone who needs some custom cryptocoin work done could retain your services?