...part of the reason there wasn't more delegate uptake <in Crypti> was because of the lack of proper rewards due to low volume. Therefore they instituted a block reward. In Lisk, 5 new Lisk are created each block to reward to the delegates. So each one of the 101 blocks in a round creates 5 new Lisk that are cumulative for the 101 blocks. When the round is complete, the Lisk in that round is evenly distributed to the delegates who forged a block in that round, much like tx fee's would be. This ensures that there will always be a reward in every block and creates a built in incentive for running a delegate. It also makes the coin a small bit inflationary, but not enough to make much of a difference....
I respectfully disagree with this story. Inflationary forger rewards are the one thing I would change about how Lisk is organizing. Let me rant a little.
First, "a small bit inflationary" is not correct. Lisk will have 15% inflation in year one. Bitcoin had 12.5% inflation in year one. So Lisk will have an inflation rate that is 20% higher than Bitcoin had at its start.
Second, I think Crypti was doing just fine attracting volunteers to become Delegates without any inflationary forger rewards at all. The problem was (and is) that once these volunteers arrived at Crypti, the Crypti Foundation did a terrible job of processing volunteers into becoming Active Delegate forgers.
Here's the background. The Crypti Foundation started Crypti DPoS with 101 Foundation-run nodes and no forging rewards. They expressed a willingness to replace a Foundation delegate with a Community delegate one-for-one as Community Delegate volunteers showed up. Key point: Crypti Foundation members had enough personal and organizational Crypti between them to vote up any new Community volunteer into Active Delegate status (and simultaneously vote down one of the Foundation nodes) the very day that Community volunteer registered. The Crypti Foundation did not use their massive voting power to routinely make new Community volunteers into Active Delegates.
Instead, the Crypti process to groom Community volunteers into Active Delegates was a mismanaged, unorganized mess. Community volunteers declared themselves as Standby Delegates merely by clicking on a button in the Crypti Client. Then they had no idea what to do next. They did not know where to go to describe their qualifications and ask for votes. They did not know where to go to find documentation on how to set up nodes. They did not check the Active / Standby list daily to see if they were getting votes. They did not register on sign-up any email address so they could be contacted and told they had suddenly been thrust from Standby to Active. No Foundation member mentored them step-by-step from the day they registered as Standby until they became a functional Active Delegate with a forging node. And worst of all, the Foundation did not coordinate its voting power to vote themselves down when there was a new Community volunteer to vote up.
Look at the facts. Go look at the Crypti Delegate list right now at
https://cryptichain.lisk.io/delegateMonitor and look at the Active Delegate (AD) and Standby Delegate (SD) lists. There are currently 12 Active Delegates and 22 Standby Delegates at Crypti for a total of 34 people that have 0% uptime. This means they have never forged a single Crypti, because they never set up a Crypti node. Yet a dozen of them were voted up anyway as Foundation nodes went offline through disinterest. EVERY ONE of these 34 people is a tragic failure by the Crypti Foundation to build and strengthen its DPoS system. They all wanted to set up a node and be forgers and secure the Crypti blockchain without any inflationary rewards to motivate them.
Besides these current 34 Zero-Uptime Crypti Delegates abandoned by the Crypti Foundation, there were at least a dozen other community volunteers who become successful community Active Delegates running a node. I know because I am one of them. The dozen or so Community Active Delegates like me who succeeded in setting up a Crypti node had to pretty much figure things out on our own. When we needed help, that help came from Max and Olivier.
Bottom line, despite a being a low-publicity coin with a disorganized recruitment process and no forger rewards,
Crypti actually got over half of the volunteers needed to fill its 101 DPoS slots. This is very impressive, even if Crypti didn't use those volunteers effectively.
Lisk could do even better, even without forger rewards. With ICO publicity, the volunteer pool is going to be bigger. The Lisk Foundation could upvote initial Community volunteers and downvote their own initial DPoS nodes with great efficiency until a Community DPoS group of 101 was established and community voting took over. Guiding a volunteer from registration to setting up a node could be streamlined and mentored. The Lisk Foundation genesis nodes could be run as long as necessary with no ill effects on Lisk blockchain security while building up this no-forging-reward DPoS community of 101 Delegates.
As proposed, Lisk forging rewards carry some risks that must be acknowledged. Yes, there will be a fight to secure a top 101 Delegate slot and make 150K Lisk in year one. I will be in that dogfight myself. But when the dust has settled, what is the motivation for Standby Delegates to set up Node 102, 103, 104... ? Under Crypti, the financial gap between Active and Standby delegates was practically zero. In Lisk, the financial gap between Active and Standby Delegates is huge. This will certainly motivate the Active Delegates. The Standby Delegates? Not so much.
Well, I've had my say. Even as I wave bye-bye to the Crypti volunteer DPoS system that I prefer in my heart, I wish Max and Olivier good luck with Lisk forging rewards. I know they have learned valuable lessons from Crypti Foundation's DPoS experiences. I believe they will turn these lessons into success for Lisk. They are right, forging rewards are indeed a motivator. I will be asking for your vote in a few weeks to become a Lisk delegate myself.
