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I think the difference is the degree of anonymity that is possible with public key cryptography.
Let's assume it becomes a problem would there be measures to excludes such PM / bets?

I guess the worst case scenario would be that everyone involved with the project is assassinated by the military. I don't think that the actual ongoing operation of the software would be affected, though.

At least something...

Apart from all the legal tricks, let's try to think what the parts are that might upset people (rightfully or not):
- Risk to be defrauded by the PM operator (in case of a centralized PM by the operator or if the voting model of a decentralized PM fails) for a lot of money especially if the PM is big.
- A scenario I would be worried about myself: Someone goes short on a company's stock -> attacks this company (bombing plants, injecting poison into food the company produces) -> takes profits anonymously.  There was a discussion here https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=2921.0;all

Any arguments or measures to prevent these two scenarios (the first one you addressed with your whitepaper, the second one is more interesting)?

Was there some legal due diligence? What is the legal status of PM? Would a blockchain based PM be different in that respect? Best- and worst-case scenario?

"can DApp tokens only be traded against ether on the Ethereum blockchain?  If no there would not be a need to use ether (Except for the Gas fee?). "
I didn't understand the question.

My point, I could have made a little more clear, was that if I can buy the DApp token for BTC on a centralized exchange and ether is not necessary to use the DApp (except for the tx fee that is paid in ether (that is the gas fee I assume) then there is no demand for ether

On the other side if the DApp contracts are denominated in ether then the DApp tokens have no value which made me question the incentive for developers to build a DApp.

But based on your answer the first option (DApp tokens needed to use the DApp and tx fees paid in either) applies.

Regarding "atomic cross chain x" is there a structural difference between transfer, transaction and trading or are those just different terms for the same thing? (see post above)

Whether it will be more popular for DApps to use native Ethers (for more than just gas fees) or to issue their own sub-currencies is a very good question. I'm still chewing on this, but my initial thoughts are that for DApps which have their own-subcurrencies, the exchange process for Ethers->DApp-tokens will need to be seamless/frictionless, otherwise most users will ignore it (just as most people ignore most alt-coins).

Can a DApp dev allocate the DApp tokens as he wants and can the DApp tokens trade on centralized exchanges like bter/cryptsy? Can DApp tokens only be traded against ether on the Ethereum blockchain? If no there would not be a need to use ether (Except for the Gas fee?).
What incentive would a DApp dev have to develope his DApp on Ethereum if the contracts are denominated in ether? What would the DApp token be necessary (-> valuable) for?   

Clarification: I asked what the difference is between "atomic cross chain trading" and "atomic cross chain transactions". Toast used those two terms... http://forum.truthcoin.info/index.php/topic,27.msg202.html#msg202
I just know this: "atomic transfers" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.0 which is what you described as "atomic cross chain trading".

[edit: ah, I just saw cross-chain atomic *transaction* and not trading. NVM, we do not have that planned for the short term.]

edit:  ah, I just saw cross-chain atomic *transaction* and not trading. NVM, we do not have that planned for the short term.

What exactly is the difference between atomic cross chain trading and transactions? What different functionality does the user get with both?

edit: that was a bit confusing... see two posts further..

Bitcoin's unique status as money not only incentivizes development/maintenance but also co-opts money's-status-as-a-network-effect to onboard and coordinate programmers.

By unique do you mean money as the prominent use case for blockchain technology? ....and because this one use case is the most relevant many will work to realize a projects (e.g Bitcoin) that successfully realizes this use case? I would agree to this. But there is more than that necessary for get the incentives right.

I mean that there can only be one digital currency, and it looks like it will be Bitcoin or use Bitcoin's ledger. So people have an incentive to maintain it because it is so valuable to them.

Agreed that the Bitcoin LEDGER has the highest chance of becoming the one crypto currency ledger even though it is completely an open question (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4942.msg72542#msg72542). As for the maintenance and innovation happening in Bitcoin as it is today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jbMopz8Jtw Min 39:45- ~ 45

I read your OP and agree with the majority of the statements. It is a good basis for a discussion.

Here is my feedback:

A service provided by blockchain has two key differences from other service-providers: the service is codeable (digital information only, no physical products or services) and it is reliable (performs the same way regardless of the country, time of day, the user's age, race, religion, criminality, or morality).

Other services/products are codeable as well. The key difference is that there is no counterparty that users have to trust so that the service is provided as suggested. "codeable" is a limitation (as opposed to an enabling/positive feature like reliability is) of blockchain based services. But you said that (indirectly) later anyway...

How would you want to realize a currency exchange with truthcoin?

A lottery seems to be codeable completely so there would not be a need for a prediction market. No?

Some feel that these designs are cheaper, but this is hard to see.

To me this comes down to whether the costs for securing and updating the tx ledger or the costs that result from counterparty risk (compensation for credit card fraud and regulatory costs) are higher.

Software development/maintenance requires a great deal of highly-skilled work, and then the software "rots" as it gradually becomes obsolete.

If it "rots" then either because the incentive system of the respective is weak or because there has been another project that realized the same service more efficiently. This doesn't seem to me like a structural argument against the use of blockchain technology in general. Or are you just implying that the costs for maintaining a decentr. network of software instances is high? The question would be whether it would be higher than if the system is not decentralized.

Bitcoin's unique status as money not only incentivizes development/maintenance but also co-opts money's-status-as-a-network-effect to onboard and coordinate programmers.

By unique do you mean money as the prominent use case for blockchain technology? ....and because this one use case is the most relevant many will work to realize a projects (e.g Bitcoin) that successfully realizes this use case? I would agree to this. But there is more than that necessary for get the incentives right.

Citizen coins give a horrifying amount of power to the government.

Since you cannot get a new address, it is possible to attach a criminal record to your address.
It is possible for government to turn off a person's ability to spend money, or confiscate it all.
With bitcoin-like systems, you can only count votes based off of how invested a person is. Similar to a privately owned business, if you own 1/13th of a business, it makes sense that you should have 1/13th of the say in what happens. This type of voting is essential for private property and liberty.

With citizencoin it is possible to count one-vote-per-person. There is no object that is owned between everyone this way, and there never will be. This type of voting is not done to make decisions on our own property, rather this type of voting is done to decide how we should use someone else's property.

For example, with one-vote-per-person they might vote on how much taxes to gather from each social class.

Bitcoin is to anarchy what citizencoin is to statism.

I know what you mean now. Thanks

What effectively is the difference between trusting third party oracles and pool operators? There is a difference in what you trust them with / what they can do if they collude.... But no one can say that Bitcoin is trustless...

I can. We are using 'trustless' to mean "expect them only to act in their economic self-interest".

Its sophistry to say that "we are trusting that the laws of physics will continue to operate" or "we are trusting that we exist" or something stupid like that. Just because you can work the word "trust" into a sentence, doesn't mean that that sentence actually contains any ideas. Bitcoin miners are different from a mint or currency-issuing bank because the bank would make money (in this case, literally) if they broke their rules and fired up those printing presses.

When people say "trust me", they aren't saying "trust that I'll act selfishly and stab you in the back as soon as convenient", they're saying "I know I have every reason to stab you in the back, but please trust that I won't because I also care about X". This fine on a case-by-case basis, but is systemically unreliable because X's influence and context can change over time.

Oracles can make an above-market economic return by betraying user's trust, while pool operators cannot. Oracle-funds are stolen permanently, whereas a 51% is extraordinarily expensive and can barely do anything. Reverse a few 8 confirmation transactions, in exchange for losing your entire revenue stream? Is that a joke? The attack chain might not even succeed in becoming the longest, or the community could coordinate an emergency checkpoint. Theft-by-oracle would leave the oracle with still-valuable Bitcoins. 51% would leave the attackers with devalued Bitcoins. It doesn't even come close.

I agree that there are worse things you can do as an oracle but it might still make economic sense for the ghash pool operator (around 51% atm) to take the cash offered to him by a third party that either is a government that doesn't like Bitcoin or a third party that does some very heavy double spending.

What effectively is the difference between trusting third party oracles and pool operators? There is a difference in what you trust them with / what they can do if they collude.... But no one can say that Bitcoin is trustless...

9) votecoin. one address per citizen. This type of coin is evil. My hope is that all the good developers will refuse to make it.

What are you arguments here?