Should Boolberry implement a tail emission?

[smooth]

I do not think that anyone can be certain that even a tail emission will be sufficient to solve this problem. For tail emissions (or finite) cryptocurrencies to work, a cryptocurrency would have to be a great success.

I don't believe cryptocurrencies that aren't a great success can work at all. They're both insecure and useless.

So in designing, you might as well design with the assumption of great success because other possibilities don't matter.

Meh, if I have to choose in between:

A. An 80% chance to make a small but above average income by running a mom and pop business

or

B. A 20% chance to make large corporation that is highly successful and earns millions, or nothing if the corporation is not highly successful.

I am a bit of a nit, but I am going to choose option A- especially if option B is an alternative cryptocurrency going against highly network effected super powers such as Bitcoin and Litecoin. Hell, I can name approximately 10 coins with greater network effects than Monero (I could name exponentially more for Boolberry.) With those odds I'm taking option A all day long...

I don't believe there is niche for a successful mom-and-pop cryptocurrency. We don't know how many successful cryptocurrencies there will be (including zero) but it will be closer to the number of very large businesses than mom-and-pops. That could still be hundreds or even thousands (or a much smaller number of course), but one way or another they will be very large or will fail.

[languagehasmeaning]

I do not think that anyone can be certain that even a tail emission will be sufficient to solve this problem. For tail emissions (or finite) cryptocurrencies to work, a cryptocurrency would have to be a great success.

I don't believe cryptocurrencies that aren't a great success can work at all. They're both insecure and useless.

So in designing, you might as well design with the assumption of great success because other possibilities don't matter.

Meh, if I have to choose in between:

A. An 80% chance to make a small but above average income by running a mom and pop business

or

B. A 20% chance to make large corporation that is highly successful and earns millions, or nothing if the corporation is not highly successful.

I am a bit of a nit, but I am going to choose option A- especially if option B is an alternative cryptocurrency going against highly network effected super powers such as Bitcoin and Litecoin. Hell, I can name approximately 10 coins with greater network effects than Monero (I could name exponentially more for Boolberry.) With those odds I'm taking option A all day long...

You are conservative and are probably not alone in that view. If taking a lie detector test, I don't think anyone here would claim to think Boolberry has a greater chance of commercial success than Monero.

The current market cap of each coin reflects that:
14,323 BTC for Monero
153 BTC for Boolberry
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/boolberry/

Monero is valued at over 93 times that of Boolberry today. Putting aside the risk/reward analysis there are non speculative reasons to care about Boolberry.

Boolberry and Aeon also provide value as a testbed for potential features that may one day be implemented into Monero (such as pruning). If there is a new promising but "unproven" feature that could cause catastrophic loss if a flaw is found would there be less economic loss if that happened in Boolberry or Monero? Boolberry is definitely a useful experiment. Only time will tells what happens. Until then all we can do is our best.

[fernforest]

I do not think that anyone can be certain that even a tail emission will be sufficient to solve this problem. For tail emissions (or finite) cryptocurrencies to work, a cryptocurrency would have to be a great success.

I don't believe cryptocurrencies that aren't a great success can work at all. They're both insecure and useless.

So in designing, you might as well design with the assumption of great success because other possibilities don't matter.

Meh, if I have to choose in between:

A. An 80% chance to make a small but above average income by running a mom and pop business

or

B. A 20% chance to make large corporation that is highly successful and earns millions, or nothing if the corporation is not highly successful.

I am a bit of a nit, but I am going to choose option A- especially if option B is an alternative cryptocurrency going against highly network effected super powers such as Bitcoin and Litecoin. Hell, I can name approximately 10 coins with greater network effects than Monero (I could name exponentially more for Boolberry.) With those odds I'm taking option A all day long...

You are conservative and are probably not alone in that view. If taking a lie detector test, I don't think anyone here would claim to think Boolberry has a greater chance of commercial success than Monero.

The current market cap of each coin reflects that:
14,323 BTC for Monero
153 BTC for Boolberry
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/boolberry/

Monero is valued at over 93 times that of Boolberry today. Putting aside the risk/reward analysis there are non speculative reasons to care about Boolberry.

Boolberry and Aeon also provide value as a testbed for potential features that may one day be implemented into Monero (such as pruning). If there is a new promising but "unproven" feature that could cause catastrophic loss if a flaw is found would there be less economic loss if that happened in Boolberry or Monero? Boolberry is definitely a useful experiment. Only time will tells what happens. Until then all we can do is our best.

I think Monero adopting Boolberry's best features is the biggest threat to it.

[CoinHoarder]

I don't believe there is niche for a successful mom-and-pop cryptocurrency. We don't know how many successful cryptocurrencies there will be (including zero) but it will be closer to the number of very large businesses than mom-and-pops. That could still be hundreds or even thousands (or a much smaller number of course), but one way or another they will be very large or will fail.

I think there will certainly be niches. Collectible card games, multiplayer games in general, music-centric coins, cause coins (like Gridcoin but for many of them for different purposes) etc....

I even think there are successful niche coins that exist today with low market cap but with solid development, solid marketing, and/or solid innovation.. such as Qoura, Crypti, Siacoin, Bitcrystals (although its overvalued atm), GetGems, etc...

It is much easier I think to have small (but still substantial enough) adoption and be somewhat successful than to knock it out of the park. You are claiming that every cryptocurrency should try to knock it out of the park, or end up completely worthless and there is no middle ground. I don't like setting money on fire though, and that is what everyone is doing if they follow this logic. Only a handful of coins will win, and if yours doesn't then it's dead- game over. I don't see the appeal in that unless you're simply pumping and dumping, and I'm definitely not betting much on the fact any alternative cryptocurrency is going to knock it out of the park (even Litecoin.)

[smooth]

I don't believe there is niche for a successful mom-and-pop cryptocurrency. We don't know how many successful cryptocurrencies there will be (including zero) but it will be closer to the number of very large businesses than mom-and-pops. That could still be hundreds or even thousands (or a much smaller number of course), but one way or another they will be very large or will fail.

I think there will certainly be niches. Collectible card games, multiplayer games in general, music-centric coins, cause coins (like Gridcoin but for many of them for different purposes) etc....

Those can easily use metacoin protocols, especially if someone can work out the ugly issues of how to secure them in a decentralized manner. May always require some degree of centralization.

Anyway, not relevant to BBR.

[languagehasmeaning]

I think Monero adopting Boolberry's best features is the biggest threat to it.

Of course I want Boolberry to succeed but I also support Monero. We are friendly communities. Monero does not seem to be upset that we are discussing implementing their idea (tail emission) so we should not be upset if they later implement some version of pruning (likely to be different than Boolberry) or that they are also moving to 2 minute blocks. Open source development always benefits other development projects. Should Boolberry modify its LevelDB plans due to the Monero success with LMDB? I don't know.
https://github.com/cryptozoidberg/boolberry/tree/db

This is all just an experiment. Lets make Boolberry the best we can and build an economy around it rather than worry about which coin is implementing ideas developed by another.

Monero and Boolberry will never be the same. I am certain that when the official Monero GUI is released it will be much different (with many new features) and not based on the current Boolberry GUI. If the community agrees that we should implement tail emission I hope that we make it different than the tail emission designed by Monero.

[CoinHoarder]

I think higher tail emissions (or other solutions to the problem) should at least be given a fair shake. At the very least, I think a tail emission is better than nothing though. It is easy to not be worried about the issue now because it is years down the road.

I think that it is something that should be thought about well in advance, because if changes need to be made then it affects the economics greatly and could cause a huge rift in the community of a cryptocurrency- a large enough rift that could kill it. So, I think IF there is an issue that it is better to fix it sooner rather than later.

Again, if you're simply interested in pump and dumping this doesn't matter to you...

[languagehasmeaning]

I think that it is something that should be thought about well in advance, because if changes need to be made then it affects the economics greatly and could cause a huge rift in the community of a cryptocurrency- a large enough rift that could kill it. So, I think IF there is an issue that it is better to fix it sooner rather than later.

I think we all agree on this point. Monero was wise to make this decision early. Based on the feedback I have received so far I think Boolberry should be able to gain community support for this as well.

As of today just over 1/3 of (pre-tail) Boolberry has been emitted:
6,243,478/18,446,744

[fernforest]

I think Monero adopting Boolberry's best features is the biggest threat to it.

Of course I want Boolberry to succeed but I also support Monero. We are friendly communities. Monero does not seem to be upset that we are discussing implementing their idea (tail emission) so we should not be upset if they later implement some version of pruning (likely to be different than Boolberry) or that they are also moving to 2 minute blocks. Open source development always benefits other development projects. Should Boolberry modify its LevelDB plans due to the Monero success with LMDB? I don't know.
https://github.com/cryptozoidberg/boolberry/tree/db

This is all just an experiment. Lets make Boolberry the best we can and build an economy around it rather than worry about which coin is implementing ideas developed by another.

Monero and Boolberry will never be the same. I am certain that when the official Monero GUI is released it will be much different (with many new features) and not based on the current Boolberry GUI. If the community agrees that we should implement tail emission I hope that we make it different than the tail emission designed by Monero.

Monero could learn a lot from Boolberry of course, and I think they need to implement some of Boolberry's ideas (especially the ability to require a certain amount of mixins for an output). But it would be sad to see Boolberry die because of it.

[languagehasmeaning]

Please to stay on the tail emission topic

[newb4now]

1. This account "louisdor" account is very likely to be "crypto_zoidberg" (based on post history and pattern of logging in often without posting)

Good thinking. Looks like there may be more activity soon:

We hope that Alpha will be available in january.
We want to do everything really good.

I wish crypto_zoidberg or louisdor would share their thoughts but I agree the community should move forward on its own on the tail emission issue if that does not happen.

[languagehasmeaning]

This account "louisdor" is very likely to be "crypto_zoidberg"

Last Active:   2016-1-18, 09:01:06

louisdor logged in again today without commenting. Are you one of the small number of no votes? Please voice your opinion!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=524591

I sent louisdor a PM.

[crypto_zoidberg]

Hi Folk!

Still have no idea, why u think need this tail emission ?
Can someone give clear and short explain of the problem?

[LucyLovesCrypto]

Hi Folk!

Still have no idea, why u think need this tail emission ?
Can someone give clear and short explain of the problem?

Thanks for the reply Crypto_Zoidberg!

I am sure someone else can explain in more detail, but the basic idea seems to be to better incentivize miners with a tail emission in addition to the transaction fees generated by the network.

[CoinHoarder]

Hi Folk!

Still have no idea, why u think need this tail emission ?
Can someone give clear and short explain of the problem?

Historically, PoW-based cryptocurrencies utilize inflation to subsidize the mining efforts that secure their blockchain. Towards the end of a cryptocurrency's emission curve (or inflation stage), it is unclear whether transaction fees will be able to effectively secure the cryptocurrency. If there is not enough incentive to mine the cryptocurrency, then miners will move on and mine other cryptocurrencies which leaves the cryptocurrency vulnerable to 51% attacks. Several cryptocurrencies with expedited emission curves, and a finite amount of money supply, have suffered from 51% attacks due to this issue (Quarkcoin to name one.) A "tail emission" is intended to combat this issue by providing incentive for miners to continue mining the cryptocurrency indefinitely. Without a "tail emission", a cryptocurrency would need to increase greatly in value and transactions per second to be able to afford sufficient protection from 51% attacks. Not having a tail emission, or another solution in place, is effectively making an "all or nothing" bet in which the cryptocurrency will end up a huge success or worthless. I would liken a "tail emission" to a "safety net", in case your PoW-base cryptocurrency falls somewhere in-between a huge success and worthless (which, in my opinion, is a likely outcome for Boolberry.)

[smooth]

Hi Folk!

Still have no idea, why u think need this tail emission ?
Can someone give clear and short explain of the problem?

Historically, PoW-based cryptocurrencies utilize inflation to subsidize the mining efforts that secure their blockchain. Towards the end of a cryptocurrency's emission curve (or inflation stage), it is unclear whether transaction fees will be able to effectively secure the cryptocurrency. If there is not enough incentive to mine the cryptocurrency, then miners will move on and mine other cryptocurrencies which leaves the cryptocurrency vulnerable to 51% attacks. Several cryptocurrencies with expedited emission curves, and a finite amount of money supply, have suffered from 51% attacks due to this issue (Quarkcoin to name one.) A "tail emission" is intended to combat this issue by providing incentive for miners to continue mining the cryptocurrency indefinitely. Without a "tail emission", a cryptocurrency would need to increase greatly in value and transactions per second to be able to afford sufficient protection from 51% attacks. Not having a tail emission, or another solution in place, is effectively making an "all or nothing" bet in which the cryptocurrency will end up a huge success or worthless. A "tail emission" is like a "safety net" in case your PoW-base cryptocurrency falls somewhere in-between a huge success and worthless.

Some of those coins that have been attacked had tail emissions, I think. For example QRK:

"Total of 247 million QRK will be mined in ~ 6 months, after that ~ 1 million QRK p.a."

It isn't clear whether a tail emission even helps if the value of the coin drops so much that the cost to attack is negligible. It may or may not help if the value is high enough. (I think it does but that is just my opinion.)

[CoinHoarder]

Some of those coins that have been attacked had tail emissions, I think. For example QRK:

"Total of 247 million QRK will be mined in ~ 6 months, after that ~ 1 million QRK p.a."

It isn't clear whether a tail emission even helps if the value of the coin drops so much that the cost to attack is negligible. It may or may not help if the value is high enough. (I think it does but that is just my opinion.)

To be fair, I mention up-thread that "tail emissions" may not be sufficient protection. I had forgot that Quark had a tail emission, so my bad... it has been a while. I stated up-thread that a larger tail emission, or a whole different solution may be necessary. You will not like this, but a Vericoin-like approach may be necessary (the cryptocurrency eventually switches from PoW to PoS after its initial distribution phase.) Alternatively, if you want to remain purely a PoW-base cryptocurrency, a larger "tail emission" may be the only solution.

[smooth]

We can agree to disagree, but I don't think there is any solution when the value is too low.

At some point it is just time to consider the experiment a worthy one that didn't work out. This is not meant as a comment on BBR or any other particular coin, I'm speaking in generalities. It might even apply to Bitcoin some day.

[mathgal23]

We can agree to disagree, but I don't think there is any solution when the value is too low.

At some point it is just time to consider the experiment a worthy one that didn't work out. This is not meant as a comment on BBR or any other particular coin, I'm speaking in generalities. It might even apply to Bitcoin some day.

Most PoW coins do not have a tail emission. This seems like a good economic experiment.

[crypto_zoidberg]

Hi Folk!

Still have no idea, why u think need this tail emission ?
Can someone give clear and short explain of the problem?

Historically, PoW-based cryptocurrencies utilize inflation to subsidize the mining efforts that secure their blockchain. Towards the end of a cryptocurrency's emission curve (or inflation stage), it is unclear whether transaction fees will be able to effectively secure the cryptocurrency. If there is not enough incentive to mine the cryptocurrency, then miners will move on and mine other cryptocurrencies which leaves the cryptocurrency vulnerable to 51% attacks. Several cryptocurrencies with expedited emission curves, and a finite amount of money supply, have suffered from 51% attacks due to this issue (Quarkcoin to name one.) A "tail emission" is intended to combat this issue by providing incentive for miners to continue mining the cryptocurrency indefinitely. Without a "tail emission", a cryptocurrency would need to increase greatly in value and transactions per second to be able to afford sufficient protection from 51% attacks. Not having a tail emission, or another solution in place, is effectively making an "all or nothing" bet in which the cryptocurrency will end up a huge success or worthless. I would liken a "tail emission" to a "safety net", in case your PoW-base cryptocurrency falls somewhere in-between a huge success and worthless (which, in my opinion, is a likely outcome for Boolberry.)

CoinHoarder, thank u for clarifying it.
It make sense, especially for cc with fast emission curve.
For now i think we have more important technical things to do, but this could be an option in future.
As or me emission curve is very important part of cc, and now i thing it's not fair that biggest reward comes in first blocks when nobody knows what this coin about.
It would be more interesting to have small reward in the beginning, then after some time - valuable reward, and then the rest of emission could be linear... something like tail emission that CoinHoarder mentioned.


Zoidberg