Your first suggestion sounds reasonable, I will propose this as a rule for Bitmark.

I will take a look at Unobtanium.

Attracting the "right" miners until the coin has a strong hashrate is very important, it is my main concern. We will see what happens.

Funding through other channels is ideal, but it also can detract from the project development as you said earlier.

Distributed risk seems to work to some extent. For example I needed to raise 0.6 BTC to get resources for bitmark. A few donations of 0.1 average came in, no single donor spent more than they could reasonably afford to lose, and they did not need to take a big risk of trust and belief. Some IPOs seem to work the same, with many buying a small amount.

Speaking for myself, we never know what will happen in life. So it is possible that at some time I will require money to live due to something unexpected. At such a time the issue would be whether to put it to the community transparently, or whether to commit to taking a break to work on something funded. The problem with taking a break is that it can lose momentum and create negativity, forcing prices down, and making it harder to return or pick back up. The problem with the community reliance is just that, there are very few people who are happy to donate cash on the hope that it will increase or maintain the value of an asset they hold (the currency in this case. It is ideal to have emergency funds or reserve for an event like this, but after working unfunded on something for a long time most people would not have an emergency fund left.

I can see you have put a lot of thought in to this, thank you.

edit:

I will think on this more. I considered it and have forked the project to create "Pfennig" a clone-able version, but I felt that creating a coin with no intention of creating long term value or support felt ethically wrong, it would be unfair to those buying the disconnected coin.

You have described the problem perfectly.

Long term funding should cover itself, the rationale is simple, if the foundation holds a small percentage of total currency, and that currency has a high value, then expenses are covered and downward pressure is not created when a small portion is sold. This is why the bitmark foundation won't touch any funds until at least 1 year in to the project, longer if possible.

There are multiple things which need balanced as you mention.

I think the problem reduces to developer living expenses. If everything is balanced fairly then I can only see two possibilities:

1. The developer(s) prepare and fund themselves for a period of development time
2. An investor takes a gamble on the developer(s)

Or a mix of both.

A variation is for an investor to acquire an amount of the currency being developed, and then sponsor the development team.

As you say, the main problems are ensuring development incentive and commitment, combined with limiting or alleviating downward pressure.

thank you for the feedback, it is good to know somebody else thinks this is a good approach.

You make a good point.

We have tried to counter this in two ways.
1. people may invest if they like, any "investment" will be spent on mining rigs to support the network at say 35% of the hashing speed, the btm minted will be split 5% to the foundation and 95% to the investor*
2. we aren't explicitly keeping bitmark off exchanges, we just aren't actively pushing for it to be on exchanges. If an exchange wants to add it at some point that is fine.

* I prefer the term donor, this methods keeps it fair, ensures the network is healthy, and doesn't preassign any would be value to bitmark other than base hashing power cost. Overall network speed and health entirely determines how many bitmarks are returned for any donation. Bitmark distribution is then fairly distributed between those with cash and those with mining rigs. No markets/ipo/premine/price-specification needed.

then we are agreed, that is exactly what I am doing here

Thank you for not reading anything.

I am also glad it was raised again.

To start there isn't really a need for coins to be moving around other than testing.

Yet we can take some comfort in the fact that a block time even 5x higher than the target 2 minutes is still only 10 minutes, which is reasonable and works for bitcoin, 10x higher is 20 minutes, it is not insufferable.

The network will re-adjust. Those responsible will look bad.


A fine point

If this happens, blocks are mined faster until the difficulty increases, if the hashing power is then removed the chain runs slower for a while until another 720 blocks have passed. If the hashing power isn't removed then the chain is just getting stronger.

However, Bitmark is setup so that non of the coins minted are mature until 720 blocks later, after the difficulty has changed again, so somebody who did this wouldn't get the coins for quite some time.

More importantly, the coins and chain has no value, it doesn't matter if it runs slow for a while, nobody has any need to be transferring valueless coins unless they are testing the code. There is no exchange, and even when there is nobody can mine coins today and dump them today, they have to wait another day yet before they can be spent, then wait for them to transfer. If they "rape" the coin, it could be two days before they get the coins to spend, by which time the price could have dropped considerably due to their own actions.

Thus we try to avoid this, and by the time it is of a concern and Bitmarks have any value, we should have a reasonable network hash rate and stable chain such that impact from a multipool or private entity with lots of hash power is mitigated.

So far I know miningpool.co has intentions of adding support on release.
I can speak to MineP.it, or you can, or bring him here


Considering the coin has a decent starting difficulty, zero value, no exchanges, potentially no pools, and doesn't expect to have any value or exchanges for a long time, do you think these things are still a concern?

My own original rationale was that Bitmark is crafted in such a way that the usual MINE DUMP can not happen, since there is no value, and so no concern.
edit: The next post covers this in more detail.

The first release serves one purpose, to allow early adopters and those contributing to the project to slowly get the network going and prove it is in fact stable and good code, whilst we work on the important things which give value to the coin, once they are happening then we may reasonably expect a natural rise in hashing power, and perhaps some value.

Remember, the first release is just a rebranded bitcoin, fully tested, converted to scrypt, and with a different block chain configuration. That itself has no real value other than as a code base for some other projects to use.

I have reposted this so it is at the top of a new page

Status
1. the domain bitmark.co has been purchased for the project
2. the dedicated server is purchased and being configured for bitmark
3. the dns seeder is being set up
4. we will be able to launch any time from tomorrow

Funding
Start up funding, required to get the project running has been kindly been donated.
Short term development over the next year is covered by me freely committing my time to the project, and maybe some others.
Long term development after the first year is to be covered by a donation based foundation.

I am not rich, I am not a miner, and my time is spent on Bitmark. Periodically I may have some spare change to rent a mining rig for a few hours, I hope I can get some BTM this way. It is likely that I will have the least BTM out of everybody, especially if the hash rate is high.

IPO.
There is no IPO, there will be no IPO. Bitmarks have zero value, any value they achieve will be earned, any IPO would mean giving a supposed value to each btm before it is even launched, we can not do that.

IPM.
The bitmark foundation will be funded by donations, if any btc donation or 'investment' is given to the bitmark project it will be spent on hired mining rigs, 5% of the btm mined will go to the foundation, 95% to the donor/investor.
There is no IPM period and no call for investment or donations, if somebody gives 0.0001 BTC today or 2 BTC next year it will be used as described above.
BTM donations are more appreciated and will go directly to the foundation.
This is fair to all.
If somebody explicitly wants to donate to the project developers (currently that is me) they can, but there is no requirement or request to do so.

Mining (important)
Maturity and Retarget
Bitmark block rewards take 721 confirmations to mature, the difficulty re-targets every 720 blocks (1 day). You cannot unlock any mined bitmarks until the next day, if you attempt to rape the coin with hashing power before dropping off the network, you won't see a result to your efforts for a long time.

Zero Value
I can not stress enough that Bitmarks have no value, do not expect any financial return on expended hash power for a long time. There is no exchange, there are no plans to be added to any exchange.

No Rush
The block reward reduces in 18 months, and only by a quarter, mining a block in 2014 gives you the same return as mining a block in 2015, and 75% in 2016.

Be fair and mine wisely
As there is no financial benefit to mining early and hard, it is detrimental, wait until you are comfortable and confident in the project before committing resources.
Be fair, if you want to mine some bitmarks early on, spare a mh for a few weeks not 100mh for an hour.
Strengthen the network because you see value in it existing.
If you mine this way you will increase the chance of being rewarded in the future financially.

Ideas and Outreach
Here is an example of a PM I received from macbackfat, who has been a huge asset to the project all ready


I trust you as a community, and I am not an omnipotent leader, if you have a suggestion like this I can do it or you can do it, I have an email address coinsolidation at gmail dot com, cc me in and have these discussions. Refer to me as "Mark Pfennig".
My name is Mark, that is not why I chose Bitmark as a name for the project. Pfennig, no that is a pseudonym.

Discuss amongst yourselves as to what is or is not a good idea, discuss privately or publicly, include me when you feel it would be good for me to be included.
This is what I am doing, I will engage you all here in any discussions I have, you can do the same with each other.

You collectively are wiser than I am alone.

Focus
Over the next two to three days my own focus is the launch of bitmark, I have coding to do and software to release to you all.

Immediately after focus moves to our long term goals, making this easier to use and integrate with, branding and websites, documentation, software development kits, resources for adopters, plans to target adopters, discussions with adopters and users to get their requirements, community engagement. Speak out on any of these things.

If you know of tools which can help us organize ourselves and plan suggest them, perhaps you use something at work that is good for collaboration. Perhaps you specialise in design or marketing, share your ideas and we will make them a reality together.

Thank you all for your input and kind words, I am very happy to be working on this project with you.

Exactly.

I would be interested for you to read the section "funding" on my latest update to see if you think this is fair.

bitmark.co purchased, there is no point having a helpful community if you do not listen to them.

Thank you for the input.

bitmark.co, it is short and brandable. Perhaps this domain speaks to potential corporate adopters, or users who trust a corporate approach.
getbitmark.com, this feels familiar as a programmer, the word get makes me feel as a user as if I have now acquired bitmark.

I like both.

"project bitmark" or "bitmark project"? I find myself using both frequently, you should pick one and I will change the repositories to match before we go live.

1. getbitmark.org
2. projectbitmark.org

They are both available in .com, .net, and .org.

I will catch up on the other points for discussion later, keen to register a domain so I can setup the dnsseeder.

Any preferences?

Are we okay with being a country specific top level domain? .in, .co
Others like org, net, and com are taken.
I really want to avoid the word coin, sorry. 
We can pick another for the website later, this is mainly for the first dns seeder.
Although it would be nice to find the right name first time.

The logo, or icon, is complete and available here https://github.com/project-bitmark/art-of-bitmark it is also in the client.
Logo with font "Bitmark" suffixed, buttons, and resources for use in media are not complete yet. This does not hold up development or going live.

Exactly.

Androidicus and deepcoreotc, thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot to everyone involved I am sure.

I would also like to take the chance to thank you all, we have 10 pages of useful on topic discussion, many related other threads, a fully tested pre-release, and a funded project. That is a major achievement for everyone involved, in any setting, let alone the alt coin announcements section of bitcointalk.

We have the makings of a small Bitmark community, and I am already proud of it, of you.

Points to discuss

1. A starting difficulty?
There is a balance between being able to generate the genesis blocks within 24 hours on a standard computer so that we may launch on saturday, and not allowing the coin to be hashraped too badly on launch. I previously though 2.4 but we may never see a genesis block at that difficulty.
Perhaps we start with 1, which needs 35MH of hashing to hit the block targets.
The maximum difficulty jump is 4x per retarget, so the first retarget would max out at 4, or 170MH.
After that first retarget I am unconcerned.
Is difficulty 1 a fair start for a scrypt coin?

2. Domain name?
We can pick another later for branding purposes, but we do require an available name today.
The obvious bitmark.org is taken, perhaps projectbitmark is available, any suggestions?

3. What have I forgotten?

Bitmark specific.
The startup costs are now covered, and I as the primary developer am financially organized for roughly one year, not including any misfortune which may occur.

So the funds sent to the foundation would be for use from 12-18 months onward, we do not know what that equates to in fiat or btc terms yet. We can conclude that if the project is successful and earns value, that they should be worth a fair amount, the more valuable the work and the wider adoption is, the more valuable the holdings of the foundation.

From an investors perspective, so long as the coin holds 95% of the cost to mine, they should get out with no loss if they want to.


Other coins.
Other currencies which took this approach may wish to change the variables to what suits them, to modify appropriately, for example requiring xxBTC of startup funding. An expecting to be paid team of five will surely have higher startup costs.

Bitmark Foundation, certainly, it's how development on Bitmark will be funded in the future.

As for people hoarding and dumping, I accept this as natural, early adopters in successful technologies typically cash out some of their holdings, which in turn distributes the currency and creates one less whale. I view this as healthy, and would not want to have the market manipulated or "propped up" in any way.

Your point remains valid, and it is worth further thought and discussion.

Funding Update
We have now achieved the amount needed to launch the project, 0.6 BTC!

Thank you to all who donated, and to ethought and deepcoreotc the latest donors.

Any further donations will be used in line with this proposal: PROPOSAL: An alternative to IPO for PoW coins.
tl;dr: used to lease mining rigs, 5% of the generated bitmarks would go to a foundation, 95% distributed to donors.

If I came across wrong sorry, that wasn't my intention.

You made a perfectly valid argument, and one I agree with, any valuation of a project or currency should be earned not presupposed or inflated.

That's principal one of my own project.

Thanks for your input Spoetnik, it was appreciated.

I always love your replies until they are in my threads, but then you make it better with a typo.