Project Medici at The Bitcoin Center

Overstock.com + Counterparty = Project Medici

Overstock's CEO Patrick Byrn announced last year that his company had begun working with two members of the Counterparty team to build the world's first legal (read regulated) securities exchange built on top of the blockchain. The technical details have not yet been made publicly available, but the team working on the project, code named "Project Medici", is exceptionally technically capable, perhaps one of the most capable teams on the planet, and Byrn seems confident that the only hurdle that could be an issue at this point is regulatory. I've been to a few meetups at the Bitcoin Center before, but this is the first time I've had a chance to write about one of them. The purpose of the center is, almost exclusively, to provide a hub for the NYC Bitcoin community. This means weekly meetups, open working space, high profile project presentations and speakers, as well as pretty much anything else you could think of that could possibly include some aspect of digital currency. Judd Bagley, Overstock's director of communications, presented at the Bitcoin Center yesterday on project Medici. For the most part it wasn't anything that hasn't been said elsewhere, and the crowd would have appreciated it if a developer were present to answer the more technical questions, but there were a few things to note: Medici is primarily targeting naked short selling enabled by the DTCC Though marketed as a distributed open system, this will be a semi-closed system operatedbtransparentlybat a profit by Overstock. Overstock will maintain strict control of who is allowed to issue tokens on this network (unlike the pure Counterparty system which allows for almost complete token autonomy.) Drinks were had, chairs were in short supply, and the crowd was intensely nerdy. Some audience members were very critical of the Medici system, but for the most part there was a sense of cautious optimism in the room. Everyone has been hoping for something like this for a while, and, while it seems like a long shot, this just might work.