How To Incentivize Altcoin Developers

[FreeTrade]

I'm sad to see the decline of Quark Coin. Quark was one of the best altcoin designs, and I say that as a fellow coin designer. It's sad to see the developer losing interest in the coin, but in a way, inevitable.

There's a mindset in the altcoin community that developers should not be incentivized - many miners expect developers to pour in long development hours for little or no reward - it's naive and ultimately detrimental to the success of an altcoin.

There seems to be a few ways to incentivize development -

1. Rely on developer enthusiasm (Quarkcoin and countless others) - Works only for a short time
2. Large coin holders collaborate and fund development (Bitcoin) - Works successfully, but requires enlightened owners to be heavily involved 
3. Premine/Instamine (Stunts growth of coin as is viewed negatively by community, can cause pump'n'dump)
4. Postmine (Where reward for dev is specified in later blocks. Untried?)
5. Secret Mine (Where developer engineers a secret way to mine cheaply at launch YAC? Litecoin?) - Works but is disreputable - how far can you trust devs that do this?
6. Owners Vote (Tried in MemoryCoin) - Failed due to tragedy of the commons - owners voted to receive coins as interest

Actually I still think 'Owners Vote' might be workable with the right parameters, and I'm considering trying again but interested to know if there are other ways to incentivize developers, and crucially to successfully replace them if they quit (or go on strike! )

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[Kruncha]

Why not just mine the coin like everyone else?

If your a good developer the coin will take off, and you and the early adopters win. If your after a quick profit, then you should just stick to trading, we don't need anymore 'just for profit' coins.

K.

[FreeTrade]

Why not just mine the coin like everyone else?

The developer is free to mine his own coin, and many do. That would be fine if it worked - but it seems it doesn't provide sufficient incentive. I'd guess because the developer already has a large capital input through investment of skilled labour and doesn't want to bear additional risk through a large mining outlay. I suggest skilled developers need to be rewarded in proportion to the effort they put in to make it a worthwhile risk.

[pr9me]

You bring up very valid points OP. I've always been in the camp that says the dev needs to be paid, whether through a reasonable premine or other route (I really like the reward block idea). If you have never released a coin or helped with the release of a coin, you have no idea the amount of work goes into it, and I'm not talking about one of these copy/paste PnD coin varieties.

This is all well and good, and I applaud you for bringing this up, but the fact is that you have some in this community who thrive on the infighting and are looking after their own interests 24/7. These types have, and always will, attack any coin that isn't their own, legit or not, just to defame it.

[Max Guevara]

I'm sad to see the decline of Quark Coin. Quark was one of the best altcoin designs, and I say that as a fellow coin designer. It's sad to see the developer losing interest in the coin, but in a way, inevitable.

What makes you say that? I am still actively supporting Quark.

For example, I've been gathering support to get Quark on the Multi Cryptocoin Payment Processing the last few days.

Today is the last day to vote, vote for Quark here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=309935.0

[Snail2]

I think the community should agree in a reasonable amount of premine (something around 3%) or in a similarly small percent of mining tax, otherwise devs (except Sunnyking) will not be interested in putting much effort into development.
Funny to see when lots of people here loudly babbling about free market capitalism and stuff like "no free launch", however the same people expecting a socialist approach and a free launch from the devs. If a dev asks for a payment then these blokes start yelling about "no free launch" again.

[miffman]

Some of the best devs are behind CGB IMO. One of the main reasons I support CGB

[FreeTrade]

What makes you say that? I am still actively supporting Quark.

Sorry, didn't mean to talk down Quark in particular - just noticed it lost 50% of value over past few weeks and saw some complaints on the thread about absence of dev. I'm no expert on the current state of Q - generally I'd say its fundamentals are sound.

[FreeTrade]

Funny to see when lots of people here loudly babbling about free market capitalism and stuff like "no free launch", however the same people expecting a socialist approach and a free launch from the devs. If a dev asks for a payment then these blokes start yelling about "no free launch" again.

+1 - very insightful - these are ideologues without any understanding of their own ideology.

[FreeTrade]

Some of the best devs are behind CGB IMO. One of the main reasons I support CGB

Give me names?
You're in luck as they keep working on the coin..

Agreed - I'm a fan of CGB too - they've done a lot of things right, one of the best coins around, but how long will holders stay lucky for? These coins don't appreciate fast enough to keep the developers interested.

[mercSuey]

Some of the best devs are behind CGB IMO. One of the main reasons I support CGB

Give me names?
You're in luck as they keep working on the coin..

Agreed - I'm a fan of CGB too - they've done a lot of things right, one of the best coins around, but how long will holders stay lucky for? These coins don't appreciate fast enough to keep the developers interested.

I appreciate the kind words.

But honestly, CGB is not a side-project for me.  It's a major part of my life.  I learn so much each day that I would not have if I wasn't part of CGB.  I really love it.  I think CGB dev incentive qualifies as practicing #4 on the OP list.  I have mined it nonstop and I've bought it in the open market consistently, because I truly believe in what I'm trying to do and the projects I'll be releasing in the coming weeks and months.  And the best bet someone can make is on his/herself.  Price accumulation (wrt BTC) is tertiary. 

-Merc

[Snail2]

+1 - very insightful - these are ideologues without any understanding of their own ideology.

...or simple greed disguised as ideology .
Owners vote will not work. Wasting coins on the developer instead of channeling those coins into their own pocket? Are you kidding? That would be against the Rules of Acquisition .
Maybe the best what you can do if you can tie the owner's profit to your own independent profit, like issuing an IPO tied to the coin market cap and selling it on a stock exchange. However in this case I don't see the point of any voting .   

[Neo8]

It's an interesting question indeed. I think it's not profitable for real developper with skills. They won't spend time on a project where their work is not respected and rewarded. This is why in 99% of cases, you only find clone coins with people who don't know how to program well and cause big bugs (various problems in the recent PoW/PoS coins for example). I wonder how devs behind projects like Netcoin and eMunie will launch their coin, and how they will premine it...

I think it's much more paying for devs to make sharewares or services for bitcoin where the market is well-established.