[XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency

[smoothie]

What's the update on funding efforts? (This is for Devs and MEW). With the effort that was put in over the last few days and continues to be put forth, I think some people might want to give back  A thank you can only go so far.

The devs (core team) and MEW are different entities. The funding requirements mainly arise from the work that is coordinated by the devs. The monthly burn rate for developing Monero by the 7 core team members and several specialists, is significant. So far there has not been an efficient mechanism for recouping the costs already paid by the devs, and supplying the ongoing efforts. Our developers are so great that it is not fitting for them to go around begging for donations, they have rather concentrated on their excellent work and paid the outside help from their own pocket.

A great reason for MEW to even exist is that it can support the development. 50% of MEW membership fees are directed to the developers from the onset. So joining MEW automatically aids the development. More than 2000 XMR are thus received, from the founding members alone.

MEW has a voting system where the community can vote on matters related to Monero. Some members have brought it to me (as Operational Executive, it is my job to arrange the voting if 10% of the votepower so requires) to exhort the devs that Monero software should be developed to include some or all of these:
- a one-time bonus block that gives coins to the development (similar to premine that the other coins have, but "post-mine" and smaller in percentage);
- Permanent diversion of some % of the block rewards to the development;
- Slowing of emission curve, whose side effect would be that coins mined prior to the change would be considered a sort of fast mine. At this point it might be able to rally the owners of the privileged coins to donate large chuncks to the developers, since their remaining coins may likely gain in value.

It must be further underlined that:
a) the core team cannot stop the MEW members from taking whatever to be voted upon, so merely the fact that something is being discussed and/or voted in MEW, does not mean that the core team is at all behind it, and may be against it, or not even considered it.
b) if such proposal to do something with the software passes, the MEW's authority to enforce it stops there. The developers may do whatever with their coin. Since some of the core team members are also in MEW, their voting may indicate whether the resolution is likely to be implemented in the core team.

The purpose of MEW is to be a legitimate and functional way to find out what the coin owners think how things should be developed. The owners of the coin are an important peer group to the developers, eg. for a reason that the aggregate demand for ownership determines the market cap (price of the coin).

In any way you can donate to the developers directly to the donation address. Also hopefully even today, the MEW (in the mouth of David Latapie, the Members Executive) will announce that the membership is opened for everybody starting at 10 XMR entry fee.

Personally I believe excess funding leads to problems with prioritization, thus the "lean and hungry" approach will lead to better results. Concerning Monero, however, the funding situation has been ridiculous for too long already, and if the MEW is allowed to help, the problem will be put to rest even this year.

Hopefully the devs take into consideration the overall community's take on such changes.

Personally those suggested example changes I am against as it sets a precedent that insertion of XMR can be on a whim and to adjust the emission rate is a flaw as the rules of XMR were set from the get go.

Personally, if it has nothing to do directly with the security of XMR using CN then changes are only monetary and economical in nature.

Of course this all comes down to the network consensus in the end.

Just some random thoughts 

[windjc]

It almost feels like this is a panic decision driven buy Risto and his "whale" collective that are watching their BTC wealth dwindle and have been unable to prop up the XMR price. So they seem desperate to do anything to increase the price. No patience.

The whale are propping up the XMR price just fine.  It's been stable despite the ongoing generous early emission, Troll Block Attack, and BCX FUD.  The market cap is doing very well.  Thanks for your concern.   

We don't expect the price of XMR to really pick up for another couple of years, when block rewards begin to fall rapidly.

We haven't even integrated a DB and i2p yet, much less released an Official Wallet.

By calling XMR people "desperate" and whatnot, you sound like the "impatient" one here.

As for whale subsidies, they are not avoidable absent a 'wealth tax' in the form of a post-mine bootstrap.

And at least one whale is giving directly back to the community.  All whales help by absorbing new coins, so it's not an entirely one-way street.

Wow. So whales buying coins to prop up the price is considered their contribution?? Wow oh wow.

An investment is not a contribution to dev. You have 1 whale who gets this.

And posters are now openly admitting that decreasing emissions is an appeal to reward whales.

This is incredible imo.

[mr_random]

A post mine is completely out of the question in my book.

Jesus. This isn't the USD where the government just tries to solve it's problems by printing more money. I mean wtf.

The only option is to change the emission schedule.

In my book, forcing the devs to abandon Monero for lack of funds is out of the question.  And so is continuing their practice of subsidizing the whales, miners, and everyone else, by working for below-market rates.

A post mine is in some sense a change to the emission schedule.  But the Bootstrap Block would be auctioned off and thus its emission change kind-of happens 'off-chain.'

No matter what, the now-undecided emission schedule must change when a solution for the tail-end is implemented.

All the Sturm und Drang in the universe will not change that simple fact.

What on earth are you talking about. This is an open source voluntary project. XMR is not designed to pay developers. You might as well start talking about poverty in Africa and use that as your argument for a post mine.

The justification for this post mine is simply ludicrous. That's not even why I'm against it. I'm against it because pulling money out of thin air is against EVERYTHING which crypto stands for. Go ahead and kill this coin by making such a foolish move and watch it become the next Vericoin.

I just hope people like me are given advance warning so I can dump my holdings before the shit hits the fan.

The options are change the emission schedule or do nothing. So long as we don't do something retarded like a post mine which will kill the reputation of this coin dead then I don't care what we do out of those options.

[windjc]

A post mine is completely out of the question in my book.

Jesus. This isn't the USD where the government just tries to solve it's problems by printing more money. I mean wtf.

The only option is to change the emission schedule.

In my book, forcing the devs to abandon Monero for lack of funds is out of the question.  And so is continuing their practice of subsidizing the whales, miners, and everyone else, by working for below-market rates.

A post mine is in some sense a change to the emission schedule.  But the Bootstrap Block would be auctioned off and thus its emission change kind-of happens 'off-chain.'

No matter what, the now-undecided emission schedule must change when a solution for the tail-end is implemented.

All the Sturm und Drang in the universe will not change that simple fact.

What on earth are you talking about. This is an open source voluntary project. XMR is not designed to pay developers. You might as well start talking about poverty in Africa and use that as your argument for a post mine.

The justification for this post mine is simply ludicrous. That's not even why I'm against it. I'm against it because pulling money out of thin air is against EVERYTHING which crypto stands for. Go ahead and kill this coin by making such a foolish move and watch it become the next Vericoin.

I just hope people like me are given advance warning so I can dump my holdings before the shit hits the fan.

The options are change the emission schedule or do nothing. So long as we don't do something retarded like a post mine which will kill the reputation of this coin dead then I don't care what we do out of those options.

The whales have way to much influence in this community imo. It almost feels centralized.

The options created by Risto seem greedy and disasterous.

Crypto was born from volunteerism, not deep pockets. These ideals that were the reason Bitcoin survived its early days seem to be lost on current profit seekers.

The culture of a coin is so important to its success.

[dEBRUYNE]

A post mine is completely out of the question in my book.

Jesus. This isn't the USD where the government just tries to solve it's problems by printing more money. I mean wtf.

The only option is to change the emission schedule.

In my book, forcing the devs to abandon Monero for lack of funds is out of the question.  And so is continuing their practice of subsidizing the whales, miners, and everyone else, by working for below-market rates.

A post mine is in some sense a change to the emission schedule.  But the Bootstrap Block would be auctioned off and thus its emission change kind-of happens 'off-chain.'

No matter what, the now-undecided emission schedule must change when a solution for the tail-end is implemented.

All the Sturm und Drang in the universe will not change that simple fact.

What on earth are you talking about. This is an open source voluntary project. XMR is not designed to pay developers. You might as well start talking about poverty in Africa and use that as your argument for a post mine.

The justification for this post mine is simply ludicrous. That's not even why I'm against it. I'm against it because pulling money out of thin air is against EVERYTHING which crypto stands for. Go ahead and kill this coin by making such a foolish move and watch it become the next Vericoin.

I just hope people like me are given advance warning so I can dump my holdings before the shit hits the fan.

The options are change the emission schedule or do nothing. So long as we don't do something retarded like a post mine which will kill the reputation of this coin dead then I don't care what we do out of those options.

I agree mostly with this. When a post-mine is issued, all people will say when they hear about XMR is "post-mine scam", "post-mine scam", like most of the users here now scream pre-mine scam. I think we should look at something like crowdfunding first.

What about an option for miners to donate something to the dev fund? Just something they can easy enable, like: donate xx percentage of block reward directly to the dev fund. Personally I think a great option will enable this option, enabling something is just far more easier to do than donating funds afterwards. Just my 2 cents.

[BitcoinDN.com]

I am a (somewhat) large holder of monero, and I promise to dump every single one of the coins I have if there is a post-mine or otherwise dedicated portion of block rewards to the development team.

Ideally, the development team is non-financially motivated, but since they are, they should either back away from the project and allow volunteers to step in,

OR

Purchase Monero, and provide work on the project in an effort to boost the value of their investment.

The coin will never reach mainstream potential if there is a 1% block dedicated to the development team. Imagine if George Washington owned 1% of the USD that did not inflate, he would be a dictator of the economy surrounding the dollar.

[windjc]

I am a (somewhat) large holder of monero, and I promise to dump every single one of the coins I have if there is a post-mine or otherwise dedicated portion of block rewards to the development team.

Ideally, the development team is non-financially motivated, but since they are, they should either back away from the project and allow volunteers to step in,

OR

Purchase Monero, and provide work on the project in an effort to boost the value of their investment.

The coin will never reach mainstream potential if there is a 1% block dedicated to the development team. Imagine if George Washington owned 1% of the USD that did not inflate, he would be a dictator of the economy surrounding the dollar.

Well if you believe Icebreaker this is exactly what is going to happen.

[smooth]

What about an option for miners to donate something to the dev fund? Just something they can easy enable, like: donate xx percentage of block reward directly to the dev fund. Personally I think a great option will enable this option, enabling something is just far more easier to do than donating funds afterwards. Just my 2 cents.

The pool software already does this afaik. The amount of such donations that actually get enabled is negligible, with the notable exception of cryptonote.org.uk, who I mention in order to encourage signups. They donate 1% which is small but not negligible, and get relatively little hash rate.

I don't think an individually voluntary block reward directly in the node would be worth the coding effort, especially given the low amount of all such previous voluntary efforts (and the support in pool software I mentioned).

[dEBRUYNE]

I am a (somewhat) large holder of monero, and I promise to dump every single one of the coins I have if there is a post-mine or otherwise dedicated portion of block rewards to the development team.

Ideally, the development team is non-financially motivated, but since they are, they should either back away from the project and allow volunteers to step in,

OR

Purchase Monero, and provide work on the project in an effort to boost the value of their investment.

The coin will never reach mainstream potential if there is a 1% block dedicated to the development team. Imagine if George Washington owned 1% of the USD that did not inflate, he would be a dictator of the economy surrounding the dollar.

-I think this is a misunderstanding, IIRC the dev-team just want to cover their cost and thats it.

-IIRC they already hold around 50k together, maybe even more. Who knows?

[binaryFate]

I am a (somewhat) large holder of monero, and I promise to dump every single one of the coins I have if there is a post-mine or otherwise dedicated portion of block rewards to the development team.

Ideally, the development team is non-financially motivated, but since they are, they should either back away from the project and allow volunteers to step in,

OR

Purchase Monero, and provide work on the project in an effort to boost the value of their investment.

The coin will never reach mainstream potential if there is a 1% block dedicated to the development team. Imagine if George Washington owned 1% of the USD that did not inflate, he would be a dictator of the economy surrounding the dollar.

This. And the part in bold in particular.

All proposed solutions floating around would be highly detrimental for the coin perception in the public eyes. Starting with the cryptocoin community.
I am pretty sure of that, no coin can survive on the long run with such little arrangements that look so crapcoinish done at one point of its history, even with the best intentions.

I am also a (somewhat) large holder of monero, and I will also completely get out if there is anything touching what I thought would never be touched, no matter how or what exactly. I will be sad because I have a lot of hope for monero, I love the community around and being a small part of that great project, but still I'll get out.
 
 

[smooth]

The coin will never reach mainstream potential if there is a 1% block dedicated to the development team. Imagine if George Washington owned 1% of the USD that did not inflate, he would be a dictator of the economy surrounding the dollar.

Considering the entire purpose of it would be raise money to spend it on development right now, this metaphor of a founder who holds on to the money for 250 years is inaccurate. The coins would be spent, sold, and otherwise dispersed just as they often are through mining.

Also, numerically that isn't even true. The widely reported M2 USD money supply is about $10 trillion. 1% of that is approximately Bill Gates's net worth. He is not dictator of the economy.

[binaryFate]

The coin will never reach mainstream potential if there is a 1% block dedicated to the development team. Imagine if George Washington owned 1% of the USD that did not inflate, he would be a dictator of the economy surrounding the dollar.

Considering the entire purpose of it would be raise money to spend it on development right now, this metaphor of a founder who holds on to the money for 250 years is inaccurate. The coins would be spent, sold, and otherwise dispersed just as they often are through mining.

Also, numerically that isn't even true. The widely reported M2 USD money supply is about $10 trillion. 1% of that is approximately Bill Gates's net worth. He is not dictator of the economy.

I think what matters here is not the analogy, but the fact that it's awefull for the coin perception, which penalizes strongly adoption.
Maybe there aren't enough people in Monero that were in other altcoins before... because my feeling is that some here don't realize how allergic the crypto community is to some of the changes proposed. We won't get adoption if we don't start first with the current crypto community.

[oda.krell]

@windjc

Your recent shilling in here is as transparent as it is pathetic.

If feigned outrage ("Oh my! You guys have manipulating whales!", or: "How dare you discussing the emission of a coin I do not even hold!") is really the best you can do, it's probably better if you head back to your amateur hour coin Boolberry.

[smooth]

@windjc

Your recent shilling in here is as transparent as it is pathetic.

That's exactly why it is fine if he stays. He's making his level of objectivity and preferred tactics more obvious every time he posts.

[windjc]

@windjc

Your recent shilling in here is as transparent as it is pathetic.

If feigned outrage ("Oh my! You guys have manipulating whales!", or: "How dare you discussing the emission of a coin I do not even hold!") is really the best you can do, it's probably better if you head back to your amateur hour coin Boolberry.

Oda. We've chatted on multiple forums/chat rooms. I've never BSed you. I've been honest with you always.

In fact, today we exchanged PMs about where you and I stood as speculators vs. true advocates. I think we were very honest with each other.

If you think I'm trolling, I'll leave.

[myagui]

[...]
I honestly don't agree with what Risto is purposing here. If you do, that's cool. But I don't.

I am not making any misdirections about where my long term interests are, hell, I openly tell whoever ask what my book looks like (how many people in the "anon" world do that??).  
[...]

Did Risto even make an appearance?
Pretty cool non-misdirection...

Can we perhaps organize a location/time for such discussions to take place, not here?
I suppose that reddit or irc would do much better for these interactions.

[robinwilliams]

I think what matters here is not the analogy, but the fact that it's awefull for the coin perception, which penalizes strongly adoption.
Maybe there aren't enough people in Monero that were in other altcoins before... because my feeling is that some here don't realize how allergic the crypto community is to some of the changes proposed. We won't get adoption if we don't start first with the current crypto community.

pffft we r bitcoin holders.  stupid altcoin bitches know nothing bro

[smooth]

[...]
I honestly don't agree with what Risto is purposing here. If you do, that's cool. But I don't.

I am not making any misdirections about where my long term interests are, hell, I openly tell whoever ask what my book looks like (how many people in the "anon" world do that??).  
[...]

Did Risto even make an appearance?
Pretty cool non-misdirection...

Can we perhaps organize a location/time for such discussions to take place, not here?
I suppose that reddit or irc would do much better for these interactions.

This is reasonable.

As I said earlier, its fine for this thread unless the volume is high, and the volume has gotten fairly high. Creating a new thread is not a good idea given the level of trolling and if the trolls create an unmoderated thread please ignore it.

Better venues are suited to further discussion back and forth, unless you have something new to add.

[aminorex]

This thread is now dominated by trolling.  None of the stakeholders are discussing these issues here.  Anything you read above, in the past day or so, is probably just FUD, supposition, or dissimulation.

[David Latapie]

Ideally, the development team is non-financially motivated, but since they are

We are not, but tell me how we'll pay the developers and the consulting and everything? Have you cake and eat it? How much did you donated? How much ALL  OF YOU holders donated?
Answer: not enough. Now if you have a solution, we are all ears. You are calling us greedy and I take it as a personal insult.