[XMR] rpietila Monero Economics thread

[Este Nuno]

There is a simple solution to bad Gini -- if you hold the dominant portion:  Distribute it.

I am about to build a grand palace in Crypto Kingdom. My estimate of the labor cost alone is 300 XMR. It will go to Labor pool, and becomes distributed to all the players in the game. Crypto Kingdom uses XMR as the ingame currency.

Not to be rude, but doesn't this game distract from the fact that Monero has no DB and no real GUI? The current GUI's seem hodgepodge and Bitcoin is gearing up to destroy all the alt coins.

It seems we are trying to win a battle, as Bitcoin is about to win the war.

To be fair it's not like rpietila is the one who's going to be coding any databases or GUIs. I think mass adoption projects like this are good. If his game gets popular it could mean big things for XMR and crypto in general.

[drawingthesun]

There is a simple solution to bad Gini -- if you hold the dominant portion:  Distribute it.

I am about to build a grand palace in Crypto Kingdom. My estimate of the labor cost alone is 300 XMR. It will go to Labor pool, and becomes distributed to all the players in the game. Crypto Kingdom uses XMR as the ingame currency.

Not to be rude, but doesn't this game distract from the fact that Monero has no DB and no real GUI? The current GUI's seem hodgepodge and Bitcoin is gearing up to destroy all the alt coins.

It seems we are trying to win a battle, as Bitcoin is about to win the war.

To be fair it's not like rpietila is the one who's going to be coding any databases or GUIs. I think mass adoption projects like this are good. If his game gets popular it could mean big things for XMR and crypto in general.

Well we can't even afford Tacotime to work on the code full time, I guess the game just seems a little premature.

[BanditryAndLoot]

Well we can't even afford Tacotime to work on the code full time, I guess the game just seems a little premature.

I don't recall any conversations about that, were they in irc?

Either way, I don't really see the game as being a major focus of the core team's efforts in coding Risto's game at all. Actually it looks like they've been working heavily getting cmake implemented much more efficiently amongst other core issues.

Are you saying that, you think perhaps Risto should have funded the development of the protocol directly, rather than pursue one of his own personal interests as a game creator? I think he's already done so. I see this venture as going above and beyond doing anything of the sort.

Maybe he made the decision because any investment he put into his game venture could serve the purpose of raising funds in alternative way (spurring smaller buys for people that might otherwise not grab any xmr at all), providing entertainment, and give people a reason to use the currency as my recollection is that most of the core team is already volunteering what time they can offer. I'll admit I grabbed a few thousand darknote and huntercoins for this exact reason - to play with and familiarize myself with their creations, because they have utility. The difference between darknote and huntercoin, and Monero, is that this feature is outside of the focus of the core development team. I see that as unique.

I don't think whatever monetary investment, and especially time investment, that has gone into his efforts by himself would even be enough to put anyone on core protocol work full time, let alone secure a full-blown software developer full time if he pursued a direct route.

What makes you think the game is premature, in relation to Monero?

[rpietila]

To be fair it's not like rpietila is the one who's going to be coding any databases or GUIs. I think mass adoption projects like this are good. If his game gets popular it could mean big things for XMR and crypto in general.

Yes, get real dudes. Anything that pushes Monero further, pushes Monero further, and is so precious in this stage of the coin.

[rdnkjdi]

To be fair it's not like rpietila is the one who's going to be coding any databases or GUIs. I think mass adoption projects like this are good. If his game gets popular it could mean big things for XMR and crypto in general.

Yes, get real dudes. Anything that pushes Monero further, pushes Monero further, and is so precious in this stage of the coin.

Couldn't resist ...

[smooth]

and Bitcoin is gearing up to destroy all the alt coins.

It seems we are trying to win a battle, as Bitcoin is about to win the war.

You are being hyperbolic. I have serious doubts about a side chain used for anonymity specifically and I don't see how side chains could possibly destroy, or even impair, alt coins that aren't feature-based at all such as Litecoin (which happens to be the largest alt by a wide margin; I exclude Ripple from comparison as its true market cap is rather nebulous).

The highest this coin has ever traded at was around 0.01. Surely you understand that what is going on here has always been a high-risk high-reward proposition right?

[smooth]

Well we can't even afford Tacotime to work on the code full time, I guess the game just seems a little premature.

I don't recall any conversations about that, were they in irc?

I doubt it, and affording tacotime full time has never even been in play. Tacotime was already committed to another project since before this coin started, so full time has been off the table. He contributes part time as he can given the reality of other commitments as we all do.

We have hired some full time contractors for various development projects, so some money is there to get work done (in large part from the core team's own pockets but also from donations). We don't have unlimited resources to pour into it indefinitely on that basis, and donations have been somewhat modest (MEW did help a chunk) but that's not really unique to this project.

Agree the game has nothing to do with core development.

[Wekkel]

The lower and lower price sure makes it easier to step in with 1,000 XMR. It's about the number of coins in the end, not the entry price in a long term strategy. Privacy is a very valuable asset for crypto's and at some point, a lot of people will recognize this is essentially absent with Bitcoin. I consider dev activity key for the coming 12 months, not price. It will take some time for this one to fly.

[rpietila]

The lower and lower price sure makes it easier to step in with 1,000 XMR. It's about the number of coins in the end, not the entry price in a long term strategy. Privacy is a very valuable asset for crypto's and at some point, a lot of people will recognize this is essentially absent with Bitcoin. I consider dev activity key for the coming 12 months, not price. It will take some time for this one to fly.

Exactly. If XMR flies, it's like you had invested in 1,000 BTC when it was sub-$1.

[nakaone]

technology choice game

I want to share a different approach from the more or less empirical driven approach by risto why monero could be the special one. It is more in the tradition of evolutionary economics and game theory. I think it is quite a helpful approach to make sense of these uncertain markets and should be easy to understand even without an education as economist - I taught it to m.a. students which did not have a background in economics. probably even a guidance regarding development can be derived by it.

we need a few assumptions:

1.) the success of cryptoprotocols especially currencies is driven by network effects

2.) there is a niche for a decentralized private ledger and this niche cannot be filled by bitcoin (otherwise we could stop here)

3.) there is a competitors on the market, existent, or coming in the future

4.) the utility of a network grows with the number of participants



5.) we have two competing technologies, in this case monero and zerocash and three different agents

6.) we assume that zerocash is even superior to monero (zerocash is a placeholder for all coming superior private decentralized ledger)

7.) we assume that two agents coordinated on the inferior technology (in this case monero) get the same utility as the one coordinated on the superior technology, whereas three agents coordinated on the inferior technology get as much as two on the superior technology



8.)
T1 = Zerocash > T2= Monero

9.) utility: numerical example 1T1=2, 2T1=3 3T1=4; 1T2=1 2T2=2 3T2=3

10.) 3T1 with the utility of 4,4,4 is obviously a nash-equilibrium, what is more important is that 3T2 with 3,3,3 is a nash-equilibrium as well, in this case the utility of the network outweights the superiority of the technology


What is important to understand is that we should make very sure that we get the second agent, if we reached this stadium and the rest is relatively sound the war is won. The guidance is obviously that we need a gui to include more people of the agent 2 case. At this point there is no serious competitor, but this will probably change in the future. We do not need to be feared as long as we manage to get agent 2.

This illustration also shows why bitcoiners do not need to be feared of any altcoins - the war over the transparent ledger is won.

The weaknesses of this approach are obviously its simplifications - how do we measure utility of privacy etc. pp, but as an illustration, I guess it is sound

 









 

[aminorex]

The weaknesses of this approach are obviously its simplifications - how do we measure utility of privacy etc. pp, but as an illustration, I guess it is sound

And much appreciated.  Thank you.  It will serve as a stimulus for further work in this vein.

[dewdeded]

I don't understand who is selling XMR and keep lowering the price this massive and long ongoing.
Just curious about your opinions.

Still have very big faith in the dev team, CN-tech, the coin distribution concept.

So I just dont understand who is selling.

[sandor111]

I don't understand who is selling XMR and keep lowering the price this massive and long ongoing.
Just curious about your opinions.

Still have very big faith in the dev team, CN-tech, the coin distribution concept.

So I just dont understand who is selling.

Botnets? They are mining XMR at a fraction of the cost of regular miners.

[dewdeded]

Botnets? They are mining XMR at a fraction of the cost of regular miners.

kinda strange, hard to believe, botnet admins should/must see XMRs value (vs. random shitcoin) and history showed they normally act rational (like keeping hoarding % of BTC and selling 100% of LTC)

even if they wont believe in XMR, they should notice that they kill their own earninings/profits with this overselling

[smooth]

I don't understand who is selling XMR and keep lowering the price this massive and long ongoing.
Just curious about your opinions.

Still have very big faith in the dev team, CN-tech, the coin distribution concept.

So I just dont understand who is selling.

Botnets? They are mining XMR at a fraction of the cost of regular miners.

Why does the difficulty not continue to go up?

[Este Nuno]

I don't understand who is selling XMR and keep lowering the price this massive and long ongoing.
Just curious about your opinions.

Still have very big faith in the dev team, CN-tech, the coin distribution concept.

So I just dont understand who is selling.

Botnets? They are mining XMR at a fraction of the cost of regular miners.

Why does the difficulty not continue to go up?

Perhaps because regular miners are getting pushed out due to mining being unprofitable for them. Just a guess, I have no data either way other than seeing people complaining about mining costing more than their power bill in the main XMR thread.

[dewdeded]

Perhaps because regular miners are getting pushed out due to mining being unprofitable for them. Just a guess, I have no data either way other than seeing people complaining about mining costing more than their power bill in the main XMR thread.

which is no problem for an believer in XMR, as with the low price he can buy instead of mine
no negative effect on development/economy

[nakaone]

The weaknesses of this approach are obviously its simplifications - how do we measure utility of privacy etc. pp, but as an illustration, I guess it is sound

And much appreciated.  Thank you.  It will serve as a stimulus for further work in this vein.

what is an interesting question is the quality of agent 1 or user 1 - I think some guys already tried that.

xmr is from what I have seen here the most supported altcoin by realtively early bitcoin investors.

I think it is safe to say that an agent being in crypto since 2010 or 2011 is worth more than a newbie who joined 2013 or 2014.

Maybe power law in this case is a good indicator.

[jehst]

Monero Distribution and the Benefits of a Near Death Experience: Don't Fear the Reaper


All of the top coins have an extremely top heavy distribution. Perhaps 1.4% of bitcoin owners have over 70% of the coins (if Risto's distribution numbers are still accurate). Of course, this leaves a tiny amount of coins available at any given time to be used. This supports the relatively high market caps of BTC, LTC, and DOGE. However, if too much supply is held in few hands, liquidity and volume suffer, as is the case with Bytecoin. So there is a sweet spot when it comes to distribution. We can come up with a lot of theories about how to determine that sweet spot, but I think that the simplest way to do it is to assume that the distribution of the top 3 coins is the sweet spot, which is part of the reason why they are the top three coins. In these coins the top 1-3% likely own more than 70% of coins.

1. XMR lacks this sweet-spot distribution because of its fair launch and extended high-inflation phase

2. This sweet-spot distribution is the only reason that shitcoins such as Blackcoin and Ybcoin are able to compete with XMR's market cap.

If XMR were similarly to have 1.4% own 70% of moneroj to achieve this sweet spot, then perhaps 189 users need to own an average of ~20,000 XMR each (assuming 13,500 users). Of course this is a far cry from the current situation (even assuming there is still a top holder with 250,000+ moneroj). At current price levels, it is not feasible for the top 189 users to own an average of 20,000 XMR and these users will never collectively own 70% of moneroj at these price levels (~0.35 to 0.60+ USD each)

My conclusion is the a Near Death Experience is not only survivable, but is in fact the best case scenario for XMR. If XMR approaches a value of .05 USD each, it will become much more feasible for the top 1.4%, including the devs, to grab 100,000+ XMR each. Perhaps the top owner can begin to approach Satoshi-like holdings. Then, with 70% of coins in the hands of a dedicated business class, with developers owning significant stakes, and with an active, interested community of even just 1000 users, XMR would violently rise again from its lows. Dogecoin is up more than 100% from its near death at .00000025 lows and retains strong volume and an active community. It is far from dead. A near death experience will similarly not be the end of XMR.

[David Latapie]

I don't know much what to think of your post. Cognitive dissonance, sound theory? I honestly don't know. I'd appreciate opinion from other people.