Counterparty (XCP)
XCP is the native token of Counterparty. The total supply of XCP was created in a process called "proof-of-burn".
History
The “proof-of-burn” process was active between January 2nd and February 3rd of 2014. During this period, anyone was able to destroy bitcoins by sending them to a provably unspendable Bitcoin address and this destruction triggered the creation of a corresponding quantity of XCP automatically.
Burning each 1 BTC triggered the creation of between 1,000 and 1,500 XCP, with more being rewarded the earlier the burn took place, with each address being limited to 1 BTC burned in total.
Use Cases
Token Minting on Counterparty
XCP is needed to pay for various operations on the Counterparty protocol, such as minting named tokens (tokens with a custom name, not a randomly generated one). Nevertheless, on ORBital, the platform handles all these technicalities for you and you do not need XCP to be able to mint a token with a custom name.
Trading ORBs on ORBital
Some collections listed on ORBital, such as Bitcoin Stamps, use XCP as their trading currency.
How to Acquire XCP
You can purchase XCP on ORBital for BitCrystals (or any other currency listed on the platform). Just go to the “Browse” menu and then choose “Currencies”.