So the easy (and common) assumption is that the early adopters are investors, which I would say is currently the case in this community. I'm arguing that early adopters don't have to be investors, only enthusiasts who see the utility in the project. Thus we shouldn't feel obligated to cater to investors when designing a currency, because they may not be the "early adopters" we wish to attract. |
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It seems the question is whether the trend from the current block reward to the minimum (subsidy) reward is too fast? What criteria would deem the trend too fast? Are miners running for the hills as we speak? I'm only trying to clarify what exactly the problem is.
Is the issue simply that XMR's emission schedule isn't similar enough to bitcoin's?
Preface: I operate at about 1/10 the speed of smooth with <1/10 of his knowledge and what follows was written before his post. It is another side I have seen discussed and I wasn't even thinking of the mining aspect. Since smooth believes the value must increase in order to keep miners then what follows should be taken with that in mind. Also realize that I am not in anyway qualified to speak on the subject especially considering the talent in Monero. OK so why is this idiot doing so? Selfishly to help me understand it. Also I don't presume I'm the only idiot here so maybe they can learn something from the perspective of one of their own. I'll give my observations although I believe you know more than your question suggests. It seems the non selfish argument is along the lines of a) people don't want to buy a coin that is mostly mined. If that is the case almost every coin will have this problem at some point. What does slowing emissions so it takes another year or two really accomplish? I guess a better distribution but that comes from adoption because it is useful. therefore b) they believe the time it will take for adoption to occur will happen at a time when most coins are already mined. This is due in part to the time needed to develop Monero to the point where it can be used by the infrastructure that also needs to be built. I have no idea if the central premise is correct. For the people that will find Monero useful, will they really care if it is mostly mined? I understand Risto's concerns about this but I wonder if this is because he is looking at it from an investment perspective more so than the perspective of a Monero economy. I definitely have my reservations, but so far it seems we've mostly been thinking inside of a very small box. You make valid points that should be looked at from another perspective: a) people don't want to buy a coin that is mostly mined. Which people are we talking about about? Bitcointalk investors? Grandma? Assuming the answer is both, let's consider the latter as a long-term goal. Will grandma ever really understand or care about mining? Will she ever understand or care about block rewards and distribution? What will matter to grandma is how easy the money is to get, and how easy it is to spend. Of course there's the argument that you have to conquer this pond before entering the next, but I'll leave that alone for now. If we really want to take the non-selfish approach, we have to consider the options that can't make us rich. If that is the case almost every coin will have this problem at some point. What does slowing emissions so it takes another year or two really accomplish? I guess a better distribution but that comes from adoption because it is useful. I agree it will always be a problem if we're trying to create a widely adopted currency that will also make us rich. For example, a perpetually increasing block reward would never punish new adopters regardless of their timing. It would only punish investors like us  But we will continue to paint ourselves into the same corner expecting a different result. I honestly believe we have to let go of our ideas of how cryptocurrencies should work if we ever want to win the money race. And no, I'm not advocating any radical changes to XMR emission, so this reply is a little off topic. |
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It can also be argued that BTC's abrupt block reward "halving" has the effect of driving the price up (and hash rate down, temporarily) to acheive profitability equilibrium. Perhaps CN's gradual "per-block" reward calculation isn't such a good thing after all.
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It seems the question is whether the trend from the current block reward to the minimum (subsidy) reward is too fast? What criteria would deem the trend too fast? Are miners running for the hills as we speak? I'm only trying to clarify what exactly the problem is.
Is the issue simply that XMR's emission schedule isn't similar enough to bitcoin's?
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If emission scaled linearly with hashing, we would lack an important check on the production of hashing hardware and the consumption of power for that purpose.
How do current crypto emissions keep hardware production in check? I was under the impression the effect was the opposite. Poorly. But I already regret what I said (and which you quoted) because: It doesn't matter whether emissions scale or are independent of hash rate, because the economy will be the same, and only the money supply will change. If we accept the assumption that velocity is independent of the emission/supply ratio, I would have to agree in the main. (The assumption is questionable, however.) The result in the linear scaling case seems to be one in which a mining monopoly inflates the float to zero, and hoards the emission (up to the tolerance of the military powers). The brutal picture this paints seems no better than today's system of debt-serfdom - and not dissimilar in its bipartite power balance. I agree that the priviledged can hoard emissions and control the network just as easily, but at least it comes at a cost (as opposed to creating endless debt out of thin air). But when comparing the evils, linear scaling still seems to be an improvement over the "traditional" decreasing block reward, as every coin has an equal cost and all mining work has an equal, "fair" value over time. And there wouldn't be a race to upgrade hardware to win blocks before the next halving. |
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If emission scaled linearly with hashing, we would lack an important check on the production of hashing hardware and the consumption of power for that purpose.
How do current crypto emissions keep hardware production in check? I was under the impression the effect was the opposite. |
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What I don't understand is why BCX's behavior is even tolerated on this forum. It's one thing to have an attack and to actually use it (which would be beneficial), or disclose it (also beneficial). It's another story to stomp around and threaten to steal/destroy people's investments for weeks at a time.
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but using the excuse that Risto would be afraid of financing the actual attack is nonsense in my opinion ,for all we know BCX might loose the bet and be out off 800BTC (using DEBRUYNE's 300BTC attack fund as example)
I believe you're intentionally playing dumb. Assuming BCX knows he can successfully attack, he may not want to pay for the hash power to do it unless Risto takes the bet (guaranteeing his money back). So yes, in that case Risto's money would fund the attack. |
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What I'm suggesting basically means the same hardware will yield the same profit whether it's used for mining now or 10 years from now, because every contributed hash will always have the same return over time (CPU mineable forever?). I'm guessing this would also reduce the profit incentive for special hardware manufacturing.
I don't get it. How does manufacturing an ASIC that hashes 1000x more efficiently than a CPU not have a high profit incentive if rewards are tied to hashes? I'm assuming there would be no increased competition to "win" blocks if the same asic is just as profitable today as it will be tomorrow (ignoring speculative coin value). If the hardware race is truly a product of bitcoin's manufactured scarcity (a growing network competing for a decreasing reward), then assigning a fixed value to every hash would remove scarcity from the equation. More hashes is still better, but there's no more race to dominate the network. However, I'm simply thinking out loud and could be completely wrong about everything. |
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I believe they are hoping in vain, because the "new money" not yet invested, does not see such a coin as a very interesting investment and do not buy it. So instead of a rise, a fall in value is the result.
This is why I've always believed in a perpetually increasing (or difficulty-dependent) block reward... it encourages use as a currency (medium of exchange) as opposed to an investment vehicle, and new adopters are never punished for arriving "late". Imagine a coin with a difficulty-adjusted block reward of 10 coins per 1 billion. Block rewards would be very small during the coin's early growth, but would scale up or down with the network. When difficulty reaches 1.45 billion (XMR's current difficulty), the reward would be 14.5 coins. This would also be the most fair and fungible crypto, as all coins would cost roughly the same hash power regardless of when they're mined.I like this notion and have fostered it myself, though I don't think it is the whole picture. Bitcoin is perpetually inflating. In the current picture up until 2140. It goes well beyond this when the decimal point moves. Coins are lost/destroyed over time too increasing scarcity. So there is more to it than just the difficulty, but that should be considered. Bitcoin is different because the money supply is finite. I don't see how lost/destroyed coins are an issue with an undefined/infinite money supply that grows with the network. Am I missing something? What I'm suggesting basically means the same hardware will yield the same profit whether it's used for mining now or 10 years from now, because every contributed hash will always have the same return over time (CPU mineable forever?). I'm guessing this would also reduce the profit incentive for special hardware manufacturing. |
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I believe they are hoping in vain, because the "new money" not yet invested, does not see such a coin as a very interesting investment and do not buy it. So instead of a rise, a fall in value is the result.
This is why I've always believed in a perpetually increasing (or difficulty-dependent) block reward... it encourages use as a currency (medium of exchange) as opposed to an investment vehicle, and new adopters are never punished for arriving "late". Imagine a coin with a difficulty-adjusted block reward of 10 coins per 1 billion. Block rewards would be very small during the coin's early growth, but would scale up or down with the network. When difficulty reaches 1.45 billion (XMR's current difficulty), the reward would be 14.5 coins. If the network stagnates, then you essentially have a fixed-reward (perpetually decreasing) inflation. This would also be the most fair and fungible crypto, as all coins would cost roughly the same hash power regardless of when they're mined. |
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I'm confident the entire reason BCX wants to "bet" is to pay for the hash power required to attack the coin. The reason he hasn't (seemingly) tried is probably because he doesn't want to expense it.
So no, Risto's refusal of the bet would have little to do with his confidence in Monero and everything to do with him not wanting to directly fund its attack.
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I do as well. I like his candor.
As for Monero, it reminds me of junk bonds.
The coin itself may be great, but the overbearing approach towards promoting the coin puts me off from acquiring any.
The faux fanaticism displayed by a bunch of new accounts; the patronizing approach towards criticisms screams of dysfunctional groupthink (which even extends to exchange chat boxes); the repeated putdowns of other coins and technologies - all these seem to be par for the course.
Monero needs to learn to be graceful.
Says a new account commenting on the behavior of nobody in particular. |
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AM: You mentioned previously that you were experimenting with anti-inflamatory/paleo dieting. If you're not already aware, ketogenic diets have been shown to be very effective against brain cancers when combined with other therapies.
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Out of courtesy...
This thread isn't that long (yet), so please take the time to read all the points made upthread before making new arguments.
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I doubt he wants to finance an attack even if he does have an exploit. Wouldn't that be the point of the 3 day ultimatum?
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I've said it before, and ill say it again.. Those in possession of the exploit should execute it and be done with it. The constant barrage of inane banter regarding XMR is just a complete waste of everybody's time.
Should? Why would you expect anyone to do what you think they "should" do? Agreed. And if he does have an exploit there's no reason to believe he'll keep his word and wait 3 days. He may attack sooner. If an exploit is discovered, I wouldn't announce it publicly until after the fix has been implemented. |
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There exist right now a very deployable, possibly lethal TW exploit that I have sandbox tested with success. But rest easy because , in all of crypto only two people have successfully deployed a true TW exploit, myself and Artforz and I said I am not going to bother XMR.
Then why not disclose it? If you're not selling it, and only you and one other person are capable of executing it, then why not simply tell us what it is? The only reason I can possibly think of is that there is no exploit in the first place. |
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Clearly BCX is seeing an unfortunate confluence that has trapped many innocent parties. And he is trying to be as fair as he can in terms of how this will all unwind.
Unfortunately, he timed his post right on schedule with the bi-weekly FUD/attacks XMR has been receiving. This will cool down and in two more weeks there will yet again be more bad news for monero. I'm not particularly familiar with BCX but his timing couldn't be more precise. |
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Now that has been proven and I am waiting for something better. I have been looking into PoS and maybe NEM PoI, but listening to AnonyMint's suggestion that also seems really interesting. Basically, if lots and lots of uses were miners, that any time a wallet was open it was mining, then the network could be supported. His solution makes a lot of sense.
BTW, I posted this idea earlier than the post I saw from AM that described it the way JM did. I don't know if AM got it from me, in reality he and I probably just think in similar directions so I won't claim plagiarism or anything of the sort. In fact he might have posted something earlier than mine, but I never read a lot of his posts so I can't say. The problem is, this tells you the goal but not how to get there, and even more importantly stay there. Remember, Bitcoin started with a miner in a wallet. Eventually mining become professionalized and the wallet miner was ripped out because no one used it. Although a wallet miner is pretty pointless with ASICs, the miner was ripped out earlier, during the GPU era. Another option could have been to add GPU support to it. I wonder if possibly the fact that Satoshi expected mining to become professionalized helped push things in this direction, in a sort of self-fulfilling way. The fact that we have seen how Bitcoin has become not only professionalized but highly centralized might be enough to nudge successor projects in a different direction. Centralization is certainly one of the things (besides anonymity) that does interest the Monero developers. I'd be interested in reading your explanation of the idea, as AM's posts are intentionally vague as to not give away the secret sauce. I was also thinking another possible solution could be to somehow eliminate the need for pools altogether. This may be achievable with a multi-level GHOST PoW, where stale blocks could be mined at various difficulties with corresponding profitability. |
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