The suddenly announced abdication of the King is of course the main news today. I needed to put this plan in action because it is likely I am indispensable in the management side, but changing the King will hopefully turn beneficial for the game. So this was both necessary and expedient.

Also there is the New Start(TM), but that does not include any details yet, and the points have already been on the table. The reason we are not calling a vote and just.do.it. is that our rules do not know voting (except to elect the Council), so it is not a legal way of deciding things. Of course we do not want to bend or break the rules without knowing it is universally accepted. So this is the reason these proposals just float in here, and soon something is locked and executed.

The important CKG and CON markets have calmed down, therefore I will increase the Coinshop marketmaking depth as promised.

Currently CKG and CON marketcaps are the same, and this has raised the idea to marry them on equal terms, with both getting half of the new "CK". On average, CKG has even been worth more, which would nicely account for the additional value CKG would still have as a luxury resource.

Also still undone is the buildings windfall dividend, after which the building pool funds are repurposed to Town general fund. The dividend will be in the form of M regardless of the building usage. The past taxes are also forgiven.

In the spirit of releasing people from debts and taxes, tentatively B.9 land can be redeemed for 5,000 m/sqm and 1-SE for 10,000 m/sqm. If this is done, the land becomes normal land. (The extra tax is 700 m and 7,000 m, respectively, so in no case it makes sense to keep the land - the alternative is to give it to the Town).

I luckily do not need to burden myself with the RAF-4 allocation. The Royal project passed on to the King, so he will decide the worthy recipients of the tickets, and I'll help out with the technicalities of the raffling of his gold when the tickets have been gifted.

The old king left the Crown+OldDuchy character about 25,000 CKG but that is largely in non-tradable forms, and in the context of royal needs, is not that much really. I am looking forward to what the King decides to do with the balancing of his assets. If the Crown decides to list some royal treasures for sale, be sure to scoop them up, because it has never happened before, might not happen again, and only happens in limited quantity now.

It feels awkward to give away the Royal Palace, originally built with 1,000 XMR, then renovated with 1,000 XMR after the earthquake, and finally rebuilt with 1,000 XMR after the fire, all from my pocket. From the surface, it might seem that the XMR should just have been deposited away and everyone would be better off. But knowing history, my personal holdings were compromised and stolen, so without CK, I would not have anything anyway. Now at least I can give the palace to the new King!

All hail the new King! Let us see what name he takes

HM rpietila II


My loving people


The tide of the ages has hit our most ancient Kingdom with its unstoppable power. When my virtuous father was in power, the strength of the Kingdom was unquestioned and despite our small numbers, we were able to demand tribute from peasants and foreign nations alike, including the 1,000,000 CKG.

During my 15 years in power, life has not been so simple. Growth pains, my insufficient capability of organisation, and difficulties in personal life (I am also 211 years and not the same as in the glorious years of my youth), are taking its toll.

If the leader of the nation is weak, all evils prey upon the peaceful people. After long and careful meditation, having the best interests of our people in mind, I have decided to abdicate in favor of HE Prince Crichton of Plath.

I have important, crucial, responsibilities in the management of the whole project. While there is the initiative for finding a CEO, there is no guarantee how long it takes, or whether the choice will be a blessing. I will have to be the de-facto CEO in the meantime (responsible of eg. finances), and also coordinate the development (PJ), do the design, and recruit the new CEO and train him. Having less time than before in my hands, the die fell on abdication, which not only eases my burdens, but also gives the whole game a new and surprising flavor, which I hope will boost everybody's spirits and make the sun rise over our lands again!

As I leave this high and noble throne, it will not be left desolate:

* Crown character will keep all the historical state items, construction resources, Wine cellars and public lands and buildings that are essential for the Kingdom. Enough gold items will be left to not make the King feel a pauper.
* OldDuchy character passes to the new King with all its gold, armies, horses and other things.
* Coinshop character stays in my ownership, and honors its promise that I will only get the dividends, and cannot sell out the principal during the game.
* New Department Store stays with me.
* Most investables including CON and ingame shares, I will keep. If the shares have special storytelling or other significance, they will remain with the Crown.
* I will be known as Zechariah #36 with the long title tba
* Other details will be decided/announced as they become relevant.

King is an important connector of the players, and a full time job in the current stage of the game. I trust in Prince Crichton whom I selected to succeed me on the throne, to reign in truth and for the success of everyone, rich and poor, current and future player, alike.

Proposal to:

1. Write a new constitution for CK;
2. Merge CKG and CON to one token;
3. Get rid of Town fixed liabilities (ie. CON);
4. Offer all holders of XMR-denominated private debt the possibility to pay back early at favorable rates;
5. Give the owners of land in 1-SE and B.9 the possibility to redeem them at a lump sum and consequently abolish extra tax;
6. Donate all OldDuchy land inside the Wall to Town ownership;
7. And use this basis for getting back to developing and playing the game and growing the community.

Without further details at present. In principle, I have sensed that (or explicitly asked) that out of the 13 largest CON holders representing 89% of CON,

3528 support
523 blank
841 not contacted
0 against.

It has not been discussed in the Town Council yet. The proposal needs a simple majority of CON and a Town Council majority to be accepted in the form proposed by me, or 100% of both CKG and CON holders in the voluntary form, or whatever is suitable, if proposed as a revolutionary action and a fork.

ADD: THE IDEA IS TO DISCUSS IT HERE.

^ this.

500*RAF-4 given. Soon we will have the first raffle of 1,000 CKG. Feels like the 1400s once again. When the 1,000 was the unit of account 

Overall comment is that things can be done many ways and the "right way" is usually impossible to know both when the heat is on, and also afterwards. That is why I disclosed my moral compass #1 promises #2 future #3 fairness.

I think my proposal is a bit more structured to fulfil the promises, albeit it is possible to think my story does not really avail anything - default is default. For these guys, all the money needs to be distributed first so that Town factually does not have any, before default and restructuring is legitimate. Some others probably do not care about the promises or rules at all, in favor of the principles #2 and #3.

The future is difficult to know, and the most important aim, abolish Town debt yet leave it in possession of the money, that is fulfilled in both.

Fairness includes fulfilling the initial goals of the both groups of people, giving them opportunity for decisions, and equitable outcome in the restructuring. Here the tentatively proposed 90% for CON seems out of range:

* Council can decide to distribute everything to owners, so there is a minimum that a CKG is worth (again, I am listing this just for completeness)
* If the game would be liquidated by running the dividend scripts until money runs out, the result would approximately be that:
- 50% go to building owners
- 25% to CON holders
- 25% to CKG holders.
* The markets after the opening have assigned CON an average of 38.8% (now: 49.2%) of the combined market cap value of CKG+CON. In a simple merger, market cap includes the information needed to decide the ratio.

ArticMine proposed the eventual number of Town stock to be 60 million basic units. I was thinking what the suitable number would be and ended up in 5-10 million. Anyway we are close here.

Retaining a legacy role for CKG owners is not needed because everyone who cares about the game, will own CK anyway. So there will not be a separate group of CKG owners, just confusion. Rather let us keep CKG as a limited quantity resource (as is CKS, with the distinction that CKS can be created). Or flip the tables and decide that CKG from now on has fixed dividend. 

New constitution is needed and the ideas presented were promising.

In the beginning I thought alts are secondary to Bitcoin, so can only serve niches that entitle them to at max a few % of marketcap. Bitcoin used to be between 90-95% of total crypto marketcap then.

Some time after I had bought into Monero, I realised that it does everything that Bitcoin does, but better (by being anonymous by design). This lead me to think that normal innovation adoption rules apply, and even if Commodore 64 has 100% of the markets at some point, it can be replaced by IBM PC, or NES, or both, subsequently. For this stage, I even formulated the wealth preservation theorem that stated "if any of the alts reaches 20% of BTC marketcap for the reason that it is better than BTC, this will cause 2-5% of BTC wealth to move to that alt for wealth preservation/hedging, which will snowball the alt to become 80% instead of 20% (hence trump BTC in market cap).

Now I am unsure if such a mechanism would actually take place, due to so much inertia that has been accumulated in the system. So I am leaning towards peaceful coexistence, which allows multiple coins to live and have higher and lower market caps. The history shows this is not a winner-takes-it-all market, even if I had thought so. The opposite is true: small things grow and die, BTC stays. But BTC does not account for 90-95% of the market cap any more, as the small things have grown faster.

Yes, there is still a scenario that some coin will take over Bitcoin, and the only coin that has realistic chance to do it is Monero. This will likely require a major flaw in Bitcoin first, but it is already suffering from a death by thousand cuts, if we are honest and clear-sighted.

As the 3rd largest holder, I have difficulty choosing between the generous proposals of the largest and the second largest, so I will abstain from voting, as long as 100 mil minimum is donated.

This also serves as an example for other companies that have excess liquidity. Of course it is not expected that a small company would donate as much as the mighty PGC, but the culture of donation and helping out has always been in CK and is one of the reasons it has weathered out the storms so far.

Please others also express your views! Especially important this is from players who own significantly more of one or the other. My holdings (excluding Coinshop) are almost exactly even percentage (28% of CKG and 26% of CON), so I have no selfish reason to favor one side over the other.

What guides me is the long term success of the game, and the aggregate market cap of all the game items, as a proxy of the success. As of this writing, CON and CKG are valued 35,000 XMR each.

Sunday is workday in CK, and Monday will be as well. After those, 2 days will pass with not much action from my side.

I managed to draft a proposal for a merger of CKG and CON (as per previous post). It got mostly positive initial feedback. Please note that matters of this importance are not made haphazardly or in a day. On the other hand, if the proposal enjoys the support of both majorities, there is no rule nor reason to delay it so that it hinders the development of the game. The Town is not in a position of being forced to default. The proposal is there for the reason that if CKG and CON will both become primarily instruments of speculating if, when, and how Town will default, this is a very unfortunate basis for continuing the game and is in nobody's interest. If the rules allowed a peaceful merger, that would be proposed. But this would require 100% of votes, so is not possible. Breaking the rules, on the other hand, should be avoided if the situation at all can be handled within the rules.

The energizing effect of the merger would be that we could unpause the time and let the dividends roll again. The money in the Town coffers could revitalise the economy, instead of being hostage to possible future need to pay CON payments, which would be rational to postpone as long as possible. Instead of getting more entangled to this web, let us break free from it!

The "market war" to determine the conversion rate is only one idea. We can be dull and negotiate it, or you propose something!

Dr.C deserves a special mention for helping PJ in his troubles. Actually no one else has helped him  I did explain the situation yesterday, everything counts!

Dr.C gets 2000*RAF-4 for this. Other contributions are:
Roopatra 100
Syksy 100
saddam 100
Crichton 100
smooth 100
These are for postings, commenting and market actions.

I am not trading, so my opinion does not have effect. There is a poll on this. I last voted 0.011-0.016, but it was before the recent one. I think there is a big chance it will go back to 0.01-ish, but also a big chance it will go up, I see 0.1 realistic. Or anything in between. You can't know which one will happen, so you can as well forget about it and stay invested. my2cents.

In the old days, 100k ask was a legendary wall, 50k was a big one, and 25k sometimes got noticed.

On the buy side, more. Because BTC was easy to get and XMR was cheap.

A possible way to remove unnecessary insecurity from the game


TL;DR

Let's merge CON and CKG, so that the market decides in which proportion their holders are awarded a new token "CK", which is Town votes, ownership and dividend token. This will cause Town to become debt-free and we have a very liquid token to invest in. Simplicity gains back the value that we have lost because of uncertainty. With excessive torture of the rules, this is not even a fork (just a default), and simple majority suffices.


Preface

For a few days I have been trying to find the solution to our two main challenges - human resourcing, and financial stability. Inspired by ArticMine and his analytical and resourceful thinking and suggestions, I have now outlined one possibility to remove unnecessary insecurity in the latter. It of course relates to CON. The point of view I am now taking is both systemic and owner perspective.

The systemic perspective is that CON has become a gamble on the timing of default, whereas its proper role is a perpetuity. This erodes the Town's possibility to raise funding through it. Raising more funding at a 50% fixed real-annual rate increases the chance of default and makes people less willing to pay for CON, creating a vicious circle.

The owner perspective is that CON owners usually invested large sums, and did it in the assurance that CK has a good chance to continue. Even more than CKG owners, the CON owners need to ensure the continuity. There are no hopes of big windfalls in either dividends or value appreciation. The only determinant of success is the perpetual stream of small payments, and CON does not even give any lever to ensure it (no council votes).

Despite that CON market cap until recently was only a fraction of that of gold (about 1/10...1/5), it is likely that the actual sums invested into CON are larger than those invested into CKG. The CKG had been fully created over the first few real-months of the game, and large parts of it were allocated against a small payment. Why I open up this matter, is to give perspective to what kind of people invested in CON.

Now the original role of CON is questioned, and CON is no more the vehicle to invest if you are a conservative investor who favors small but secure returns, which compound nicely over the long, if not perpetual, life of CK. These investors would not invest in CON in this environment, as it has become too risky and volatile. They would also not invest in CKG, which is in the risk of losing all just because of debt payments that are denominated in a mercilessly potent currency.

Without a way to appeal to this kind of investors, we will certainly suffer. We are not a hobby project any more, we increasingly need to be able to accommodate investors. Due to the default risk, turning both the values and the roles of the main investments, CKG and CON, upside down, the whole investment atmosphere will soon (if not already) degrade to betting on our own default.

I cannot personally function very well in that kind of situation, because my decisions (or lack thereof), have inordinate weight in timing of the possible default, and nobody else can function very well either, if they believe I am scheming to time it to my benefit. CK absolutely does not need this kind of spirit. We had fun enough in the good old days without having debts and defaults, (and when men were men and horses were horses and ships - well we did not have them, but we had swords, and lazy servants lost their ears and thieves their noses..)

So, the blessed and blissful interplay between CON and CKG is lost, because the investors cannot anymore fully trust in their roles. Instead of 2 interesting and worthy investment alternatives, we now have none.

Luckily, if even a dead dog can be turned to money if its ownership is settled first, also this CK problem can be remedied. CK is after all not a dead dog but a functioning gaming platform with 2 year history, 500 accounts, $100k in town account and much more in players', only debt is inside the game, and the 24/7 self-hosted active markets show that the aggregate market cap despite the carnage is still more than EUR 1 million.

Solution

A further consolidation in Town (and hence CK) ownership is needed to remove the uncertainty. Special importance is given to find a way that conforms with the rules to the extent possible, ensures the way forward and satisfies everyone in the practical level, giving those who are not satisfied, a market-driven way to cash out in the atmosphere of nice liquidity (and their counterparties buying more, etc.).

Please note at this stage that I have not talked about this to any of the councillors even, and this is not any proposal that I am fixated on and will push at any cost. It is just an idea. I literally got this just 3 hours ago when walking outside in the sun (now it's raining again so I got lucky).

First the Town Council decides to default on CON, announcing publicly that they will not be paid anything from now on. According to the interpretation of our rules, which was not challenged when published some time ago,


If there is a default on CON, the holders of CON will decide about the future collectively, but no consensus needed. In practice, 51% suffices unless otherwise decided. (Nothing has been decided by the Town Council of CON holders yet, because it has not convened, and does not have any power since CON has not been defaulted.)

So now the "CKG-council" becomes mean. Unwilling to see their ownership and votes go, they empty the kitty. To the last penny. After all, the default looks more convincing if there is no money at all in the coffers.

If the money would actually be dealt as CKG-dividends, it would seriously hamper the future of the game. This kind of trickery might even paralyse it altogether. So it is a good bargaining chip when the "CON-council" has its first meeting. The CKG-council says:

- We have taken all the money from town before the default. It is in a separate account, owned by us CKG holders. You have received the right to make rules by virtue of the default, but you don't have any money. We can return the money to you against a share in the pie. How about a split according to the following scheme:
* In the future, there is only one Town ownership token, let's call it "CK".
* Since CON was defaulted upon, all CON will automatically become CK. There is no need to ask this from anyone. CK is just a new name for "CON that was defaulted upon, and has become Town stock".
* Since CON was defaulted upon, everything that the new council decides to grant to CKG holders in excess to "becoming a limited-quantity luxury/collectible resource" is just a bonus, and the receivers (CKG holders) likewise do not need to be consulted.
* This allows the new council to pay in CK to redeem back the money that the gold holders had in hostage.
* The conversion rate need to be determined. The whole thing became necessary when the trust in CON was broken. The CON price prior to the events was on average 20.0 XMR. If it still retained that price, nothing would be wrong, and CKG would still own 100% of Town. The lower the price of CON, the higher the market perception of the likelihood of default, and the more the CON-owner will receive of the final pie, with the formula:

% share of CK allocated to CON owners = [20.0 - X] / 20.0    // X = CON midprice during determination

- So a lower price of CON during the determination period causes CON-holders to grab more of the pie. Unintuitive at first but as you think it through, it carefully ensures that all incentives are correct and the market will find a balance since nobody can push the price even close to either end. The price of CKG does not matter in the allocation. Their share will be the rest. The incentives cause large holders of one but not the other balance their holdings in the markets (because if you have a lot of CON, dumping it will actually cause you to own more of the result, and if you have a lot of CKG, buying some CON will increase the price of CON and therefore the value of your remaining CKG holdings). The process causes much liquidity to the markets, which is needed since the merger is such important and this way nobody can say the conversion rate was unfair.

The somewhat tricky sequence of events, is instrumental to avoid requiring 100% acceptance from either CON or CKG holders, and preserve the spirit of the game, and not break the rules, (unless going broke is, as such, against them).

Assuming that the midprice were 10.0 mil/CON, this causes CON owners to receive half of CK and CKG owners will get the other half.

Since we have 1,000,363 CKG, it makes sense that they get 1 (or some even number) of CK each. The CON that are only 5500 units, will get equally many, so each CON would be converted to 181 CK. If the midprice of CON indeed were 10.0 mil, this would cause CK to be priced at 55,250 m. And since 1 CKG = 1 CK in value, that would correspond to HM02B100 price of 5.5 mil.

The CON would disappear as they are mutated to CK. The items made of gold would stay (stripped of their dividends and votes) and the CK would be a spinoff for the gold holders.

This can be made happen with 3/6 councillors incl mayor or 4/6 without, plus a simple majority of CON holders.

I tried to express the legalities, technicalities and some of the benefits. But as usual, it is done in my clumsy language. Feel free to ask, comment, approve and disapprove.

Yes. Therefore, in this case, what is fair (sticking to the promise to tax the land) may have to yield to what is good for the future (Town restructuring the future tax to a heavily discounted lump sum and offering people to retain their lands, unburdened of taxes).

The tax will not be adjusted, because it was discounted in the purchase price. (Others paid 1000 per chap, which also would be big $$ now.)

But, part of the whole deal here (to benefit building and land owners since the earmarked funds in the system have increased in value) is that the back taxes do not need to be paid. For just 5 years, it would amount to 52.5 mil per chapelry, which is clearly too much, and in the future, paying 10.5 mil each week is likewise too much. The profit potential of this land is not that high.

So the clearcut solution we offer, to stop bleeding, is that Town just takes all land that the owner specifically does not want to retain (and pay exorbitant taxes).

OF COURSE, my brain is working overtime to find ways out of these plights caused by the revaluation. My moral compass is to satisfy the following conditions and in this order:

1. What has been promised.
2. What ensures continuity and future.
3. What is fair.

Since it is fair that the tax-burdened lands are taken, but it does not break any specific promise if they are not, the deciding factor in my thinking is which outcome is better for the future.

Nope bro, you are too young to remember that I was originally famous for BTC, even the most famous of all. And this was long before Monero even existed.

Of course, before me, others were famous, and after me, others have become famous, and life is vanity and chasing of wind.

And if I ever made any money, it is thanks to silver. Without silver, I would not have had the initial capital to invest in BTC. Or, more exactly, I would not have had the confidence to wait so patiently.

But since then, oh how much I have lost in thefts and hacks.

In this world, if you become rich and are not willing to become mainstream, you lose the riches.

If you do become mainstream, you cannot use it for anything meaningful, which also counts as losing it.

Not sure which one is more tragic to live in.

I take pleasure I have given more to good causes, than I need to live the rest of my life myself.

So with any sort of karma equality, I should be ok regardless.  

Could be. The world was still young then, and I had things to do.

Now I am old and seen everything.

I donated you 100*RAF-4, with the EV of 10 CKG.

The summit is cancelled. See link for details.



Information is updated with recent developments.

1. The target size of the event has been increased to 40 due to encouraging reception, and the willingness to have a comprehensive event, and because we want to integrate both early adopters, recent investors, developers, infrastructure providers, the media etc.

2. Only the pre-summit will be organised in Malla Castle (pictured), the main event will be hosted in Rakvere Aqva Spa Hotel, the best spa in Estonia (itself the country with the most spas per capita in the world), from where the summit office is pictured.

3. The dates are open to fit the schedule of the main speakers (in the range of Oct-15...Dec-15 tentatively). I have asked fluffypony and Roger Ver (in addition to myself) to speak in the event.

4. The designation "speaker" does not mean that the feeling of a graceful summit is at risk. The spa section of the hotel is gorgeous, the rooms very nice, we will have private suites and a conference room with the "official" programme. Everyone will have a chance to grab the mic and everyone who wishes, will get it recorded. Outside the podium, we have a no-recording policy.

5. The 2 restaurants in the hotel and several elsewhere in Rakvere offer a choice of international and Estonian cuisine and have been tried and accepted.

6. Grand Dinner can still be hosted in my castle, but that will be an experience since despite all the heating available, the castle will be cold. The grand dinner will last typically about 8 hours with about 10 courses of food.

7. Rakvere is located about 1 hour from the Tallinn airport. A flight to Helsinki can also be considered if travel time is not a priority, since Helsinki is only a scheduled ferry ride from Tallinn.

8. Cost is still open, it will consist of event fee and accommodation package. A limited number of room upgrades available. A two-day stay in a single room, food and most drinks included, event fee, airport transfer = total about $1,000. Nobody is sponsoring the event but we are not fleecing either, the cost is what it is. The hotel is classy.

The command "OWNS M" reveals the M balance of everyone. PJ #134.