MemoryCoin - Grant System

[FreeTrade]

MemoryCoin's grant system is failing.

Grants are awarded every 20 blocks, and 5 grants are supported, all by popular vote. This means that a grant can be supported by as little as 17% of the vote.

It was obvious to me that near the start, some coin owners would vote to award grants to themselves as a form of interest rather than support developers, community projects and the MemoryCoin foundation. Indeed I encouraged them to do this to get owners to interact with the voting system at the start.

I thought that as the coin grew this would become less of a factor as it would be difficult to continue to control 17% of the coins. This is true, but has been complicated by the large amount of coins being held on the Bter exchange. Bter has not started voting (through technical difficulties), and this means the voting participation has dropped below 50%. Effectively now a grant can now be controlled with less than 8% of the coins. One coin owner is close to securing 2 grants.

Even if Bter were to start voting, there's no guarantee that another exchange would not become dominant later and start to vote for interest payments on coins they held.

And even if ownership becomes more widely distributed, Mr. Wax's fund would likely become a permanent feature, gaining more and more support.

My strike was not successful in securing a long term change in the voting patterns of coin holders. Owners continued acting with short-term self-interest. It is a tragedy of the commons.

This dynamic ensures the grants will not be used in the future to support the coin.  With one of the main aims of MemoryCoin failing, the value of the coin has dropped significantly. Large coin owners were not prescient enough to understand this would happen, although I did my best to make this clear. In short, I overestimated owners ability to act in their own enlightened best interests.

Without radical surgery, the coin will die a slow death. My proposal for surgery is to fork the coin, changing the number of grants from 5 to 1 - so only 1 large grant is supported rather than 5 small ones. This will make it more difficult for individual coin owners to control, and will remove the uncertainty about whether the grant system is succeeding or failing - there will be a binary choice - either coin owners will vote to support the MemoryCoin foundation or similar organization (success), or they'll choose to support a Mr. Wax style interest fund (failure).

This is an important change, but not particularly urgent, so I'm opening it to debate. Interested to here everyone's views on it - coin owners and others too.

[stas]

I am not sure if it's an ideal way to do it.
But for sure it's better if only one grant exists.

[smolen]

Simple rules of voting will be outplayed by coin holders and miners. Looks like something more advanced (like reverse game theory or auction theory) is needed, but I have no idea how to attract economics theorists' attention to this problem

[jonytk]

From my point of view it's not failing,
once bter and other exchanges start voting for themselves, everybody will rush to buy a coin that pays interest and hold,
at the moment everybody moved the coin there and can't vote.

In the worse case scenario nobody will give anything to memorycoin foundation, being the reasons:
1- greed
2- it's perceived as a hidden effort from your part to get coins,
and few people believe you will actually donate coins to those charity you mentioned in the web.

this is internet, pics or it never happend...

So everybody is acting in their own selfinterest...
You will have to talk with bter and or coinholders to donate to you or the mysterious "foundation" to improve the web, and list in it, properly, the addresses to send the votes and develop things for the coin.
I mean wordpress, really?

I mined 2 blocks in this month with my laptop and will happy vote if there was a tool for that.
most likely the coin holders voting for themselves are doing it with an automatic tool putting regular users in a disadvantage.

possible ideas, could be:

web and continued development in the future top priority.
Maybe only 1 grant per day? So there could be discussions in the forums/chats about what to vote today.

i don't understand the voting system; how often do you have to do it, and how it knows how many coins you have.

Just my 50MEGs

[QuantPlus]

My strike was not successful in securing a long term change in the voting patterns of coin holders. Owners continued acting with short-term self-interest. It is a tragedy of the commons.

This dynamic ensures the grants will not be used in the future to support the coin.  With one of the main aims of MemoryCoin failing, the value of the coin has dropped significantly. Large coin owners were not prescient enough to understand this would happen, although I did my best to make this clear. In short, I overestimated owners ability to act in their own enlightened best interests.



Without radical surgery, the coin will die a slow death. My proposal for surgery is to fork the coin, changing the number of grants from 5 to 1 - so only 1 large grant is supported rather than 5 small ones. This will make it more difficult for individual coin owners to control, and will remove the uncertainty about whether the grant system is succeeding or failing - there will be a binary choice - either coin owners will vote to support the MemoryCoin foundation or similar organization (success), or they'll choose to support a Mr. Wax style interest fund (failure).

-  extreme First Adopter coin design
-  20% Mining Tax meant SOLELY FOR YOU
-  blotched launch
-  buggy client
-  threatening to quit
-  patronizing attitude towards miners/investors LIKE THIS POST

That made "enlightened best interests" = short term profit..
Because coin was likely to fail vs others in pipeline like SecureCoin, etc

The exact opposite of the Bullshit in your Manifesto:

"participation for the economically marginalized...
individuals don’t require an account with a bank or exchange...
anyone can mint new coins with a PC by consuming electricity"

What baloney.

[FreeTrade]

From my point of view it's not failing,
once bter and other exchanges start voting for themselves, everybody will rush to buy a coin that pays interest and hold,
at the moment everybody moved the coin there and can't vote.

I'm not so sure interest payments are that enticing as a feature - just lowering the inflation rate is nearly the equivalent of paying interest through the blockchain on a cryptocurrency - and so much simpler. I guess the difference is that the entity holding the coin, rather than entity owning the coin receives the interest. (Or in MC's case, the voting rights)

In the worse case scenario nobody will give anything to memorycoin foundation, being the reasons:
1- greed
2- it's perceived as a hidden effort from your part to get coins,
and few people believe you will actually donate coins to those charity you mentioned in the web.

this is internet, pics or it never happend...

Yes I guess this does require trust, but someone is required to administer the funds. I'd rather it was someone else, but anyone I could nominate and who would take the responsibility would likely be less trusted than me.
 

web and continued development in the future top priority.

i don't understand the voting system; how often do you have to do it, and how it knows how many coins you have.

Thanks - yes a better organized web site with more information would be helpful.

[FreeTrade]

My 2 MEGS......I've come to thing that the failure was the reward structure.  If you had started with reward of 1 and then worked up to 24 in a year, this would have discouraged using voting for self-gain as the future reward would have made any self-interest pointless.  Then, you get people used to voting first.

Hmm - you mean you start with a small amount, and gradually increase it, or a small number of grants and gradually increase that? I'm not sure how that would help.

Basically, with BTC going though a transition period the last few weeks, I'm negative on all the alts now.

Hmm - noticed nearly all of the top 10 alts by market cap had the same sharp increases this week. Thinking the news is good for all alts.

When I first heard of Bitcoin, I started out thinking that there could only be one cryptocurrency. Because if you have two, why not have a hundred or a million? I've changed my mind about that. My view now is that future is a world of multiple competing and complimentary cryptocurrencies. All with different strengths and weaknesses, and floating exchange values. In some ways we're already there, although it's a very fragile nascent market.

BTW.  You have done a good job and a very interesting [Experiment].

Thanks! And it's not over yet

[SlyWax]

i don't understand the voting system; how often do you have to do it, and how it knows how many coins you have.

Since nobody replied :
>How often do you have to vote ?
You just have to vote once per address holding your coin.
Ie: if you send your coin to another address you have to vote again with the new one.

>How it knows how many coins you have?
Like every other bitcoin fork : it's in the blockchain (the database that stock every transactions)


As for the rest, we have to ask us this question :
What are the differences between a grant grabber, and a normal grant ?

If we find those differences then we can start thinking how to implement the grant to defeat the former.

As for the coin dying :
- First I'm not sure it's dying (as in "it never was alive" or "it's just a newborn", you chose).
- Second the coin dying is not because the grant system doesn't work as you expected it would.
Most of the miners doesn't care about it and the rest doesn't understand it, or vice versa !
Yes, I'm sorry to say that, but you suck at marketing FT, and you probably know it. (and from my point of view it's a quality as a human, but anyway...)
In the first announcement, you could have hyped the fact that the grant is good for long term support, and no premine etc...
Then when we saw the grabbers, you could have hyped that anybody with some money could get enough coin to get an interest rate, or mine without a rig (that's a catchy phrase, use it !
Instead, you went on "strike", which hurt the coin, I think you lost QuantPlus on this one.
And now you are saying the coin is dying, but you didn't give it a chance to raise. Yes I know when you create something you expect it to be successful very quickly, but hey how much time it took Satochi to get bitcoin famous ?
Same for the exchange, it was to early. If not a lot of people are aware of the coin, there won't be a lot of byers.
And I hate to say that, but you need to pump it if you want to establish a stable price.

If you look at SRC for example, it's just a clone, but with lots of hype and people involved.

Enough with this error pointing,
yes your coin is innovative, and we can push it forward.

If you want people to understand voting, you need a step by step tutorial, but even that is not enough.
So you need an interface that will tell people what are their vote at the moment, and make the voting process a one click of a button.


Keep the good work, Rome wasn't build in a day.

[power]

freetrade,

1）did you write a detailed manual for the voting system， if you did, where is the manual, if you did not, why not ?
Most people do not understand the voting system， and they don't know how to operate the voting system, the voting system is failed because nobody to use it,  even the voting system did't have any defect, it still is not  successful  until someone use it . 

2）pool is not import for a coin, upgrading voting system to fix defect,  let someone understand the voting system and use it, this is important, then promote it as a  electronic coin that people can use it to Exchange products and services， exchanging products and services is essential for a coin, exchanging products and services not only means the coin can be exchanged on beter.com but also it can directly buy some real products and servers as btc .                                                     
 

[FreeTrade]

Thanks Mr. Wax, I think you provided a good summary of tactical errors that have hindered the coin. These are important points, but the issue of how many grants should be awarded is a critically important strategic one and I want to get this right before considering the tactical matters. I had hoped that owners could vote to distribute the grants to worthy projects, but this didn't happen. Reducing to one grant means that MCF should capture the whole grant award and can then distribute it to those working to improve the coin and its value.
 

[FreeTrade]

freetrade,

1）did you write a detailed manual for the voting system， if you did, where is the manual, if you did not, why not ?
Most people do not understand the voting system， and they don't know how to operate the voting system, the voting system is failed because nobody to use it,  even the voting system did't have any defect, it still is not  successful  until someone use it . 
                                               
 

Actually, just before Bter supported MC, we had 80% vote participation. There wasn't a dummies guide, but clearly those who wanted to understand it were able to read about it and vote. They just voted for interest payments. 

[stas]

Hi, FreeTrade!
I have thought some more about the voting system and the "surgery".
I think that it's not that bad that we have 5 grants, even though some of them are going to people who just hold on a large amount of coin.
Grants can be thought of as an interest for the amount of money someone holds without spending it. (it's not that unheard of)
So I don't think now that any "surgery" is needed.

Thanks.
Stas

[FreeTrade]

I think that it's not that bad that we have 5 grants, even though some of them are going to people who just hold on a large amount of coin.

Actually I think all of them would be going to pay interest for large coin owners if I wasn't voting to support the community grants. Interest payments might be an interesting feature for a coin if they were handled fairly, but the way it is with MC now is large coin holders who have put in effort to game the voting are being rewarded disproportionately. It's a destructive boondoggle.

Simply the rich are getting richer. That might seem positive for the rich right now, but it is shortsighted  - it'll kill the coin.

[stas]

I think that it's not that bad that we have 5 grants, even though some of them are going to people who just hold on a large amount of coin.

Actually I think all of them would be going to pay interest for large coin owners if I wasn't voting to support the community grants. Interest payments might be an interesting feature for a coin if they were handled fairly, but the way it is with MC now is large coin holders who have put in effort to game the voting are being rewarded disproportionately. It's a destructive boondoggle.

Simply the rich are getting richer. That might seem positive for the rich right now, but it is shortsighted  - it'll kill the coin.

what ever you decide, I am with you any way on this

[stas]

I think that it's not that bad that we have 5 grants, even though some of them are going to people who just hold on a large amount of coin.

Actually I think all of them would be going to pay interest for large coin owners if I wasn't voting to support the community grants. Interest payments might be an interesting feature for a coin if they were handled fairly, but the way it is with MC now is large coin holders who have put in effort to game the voting are being rewarded disproportionately. It's a destructive boondoggle.

Simply the rich are getting richer. That might seem positive for the rich right now, but it is shortsighted  - it'll kill the coin.

By the way Memory Coin has a bigger problem than the grants voting system, at least for now.
I think that the Pool is much more important than changing the voting system.
First it needs people to be able to mine it.
Than people might think of voting system. Not the other way.

Stas

[FreeTrade]

By the way Memory Coin has a bigger problem than the grants voting system, at least for now.
I think that the Pool is much more important than changing the voting system.
First it needs people to be able to mine it.
Than people might think of voting system. Not the other way.

Stas

I agree that the a pool is very important for the coin. The changes to the voting system should simplify it a lot, and most users won't need to concern themselves with it after that. The voting method will be there as a check on MCF - so funds can be redirected to a competing organization if MCF is not advancing the interests of the coin.

[SlyWax]

Some propositions :

- Make new "opinion" voting address, that don't give any money to the winner, but are used to ask a question to the community.

- Give voter a small fee for voting, so that they are encouraged to vote.
For example you could split 1 MEG from the grant and give a slice to every voters.
You could make this slice by voting address (with more than 20 MEG) and not % of the money, this way small miner have a little more incentive to vote (and if people want to trick this by splitting money over many address, they won't get much with it and it will be a pain to handle it).

- You could make a voting address that will determine the number of grant awarded. So the community can adapt itself to the situation, and make more grant if there is more stuff to do. Off course the total awarded by all grants would stay the same.

- The amount of grant awarded could be a % of total coins, so it won't be to much at the beginning. (This may cause a problem at the end, cause it can be too much, so you could divide it by the age of the coin (ie:number of blocks or something) )

I think giving all this parameters a dynamic community chosen value could be a great experiment !
We have to determine the threshold of the vote to change those parameters ( could be more than 50% ).

[FreeTrade]

- You could make a voting address that will determine the number of grant awarded. So the community can adapt itself to the situation, and make more grant if there is more stuff to do. Off course the total awarded by all grants would stay the same.

I think giving all this parameters a dynamic community chosen value could be a great experiment !
We have to determine the threshold of the vote to change those parameters ( could be more than 50% ).

This is a very interesting idea. Indeed many of the parameters for a coin could be adjusted over time by means of a vote - the inflation rate, the hash algorithm, the transaction fees - it's a wide open area for experimentation. The code doesn't require much changing to support these kind of votes, but would require some testing.

[QuantPlus]

Thanks Mr. Wax, I think you provided a good summary of tactical errors that have hindered the coin. These are important points, but the issue of how many grants should be awarded is a critically important strategic one and I want to get this right before considering the tactical matters. I had hoped that owners could vote to distribute the grants to worthy projects, but this didn't happen. Reducing to one grant means that MCF should capture the whole grant award and can then distribute it to those working to improve the coin and its value.
 

This is just a repeat of OP.

CLIFF NOTES

FreeTrade gets 20% of the coins (400,000 out of 2,000,000)... OR HE QUITS.

This is the 2nd time FT has threatened to QUIT... if not 20% CUT go to his POCKET.

Let's be real here...
The "Foundation" will not be feeding orphans in the streets of Calcutta...
This is a skewed, "highly deflatinonary" coin designed as a fairly sophisticated Pump n' Dump...
Where FT plan was to get 30-40% of the coin in 6 months, dump, and disappear.

Maybe make $10K or minimum wage for his P n' D. This is shameful, baby.

MemoryCoin has zero chance of long term success...
FT is broke/cheap and is up against better, VERY well financed coins...
Coins with serious Dev teams and real staying power.

On the other hand...
I sold 500 MEG yesterday @0.00025 = Mining Cost...
So it will probably drift up to 0.0002 or whatever Mining Cost is.

[SlyWax]

QuantPlus stop your troll, we are trying to have a conversation here, and invent new things.
What you are saying is just speculation on what FT would do, this is not interesting.
May be you should try to help us find new idea.