Hi Steven
Personally, I have absolutely no concerns about the pace of progress; I have total confidence in you to deliver this update in a reasonable time-frame and to the highest standard. I had already told myself it wouldn't happen until Q2 anyway, as it's such a huge undertaking, but if you can do it by end of Q1 then that's a bonus!
As you specifically mentioned PIVX does that mean you have decided against the other options you were considering, Solaris, Crown etc? I'd just be interested to know why you opted for PIVX over the others.
Sterling Sentinel
You are absolutely correct. I should not suggest PIVX as a certainty. It is not at this time. I only mention it as such because it is the base I have spent the most time experimenting with forking, but that is no reason for it to be a certainty at this point.
I have gained a lot of familiarity with Solaris during some of its hardforks with issues on its masternodes. Another community member and I aided during getting the chain moving again. My thought on PIVX was that it has a mature base with many active developers contributing. Amsterdamcoin-v4, a decedent of PIVX, is being observed also, if even to see successes and pitfalls of their forking. Solaris is probably the least mature of the 3 we have been heavily considering, but is a decedent of AmsterdamCoin-v4 and therefor PIVX. Some of these 'roads' all lead back to PIVX.
I was surprised to learn the longevity of Crown. Crown also has an attractive feature of not only masternodes but systemnodes that are rewarded lower and require lower collateral. I appreciate this from a fairness perspective for smaller investors. Though Crown's mining methodology does pose big questions, merged mined with BTC. Of course, the security that would come from that is alluring but, at this time we are not considering additional PoW rewards. But if this could be leveraged and security gained while retaining the 5.5% PoS, which I believe it could, it should remain a viable option. On that note of leveraging Bitcoin's immense hashing power,
VeriBlock's technology is closely being monitored and I do have colleagues on that project.
I do want to deliver a Sterliningcoin that is of all expectations of a state-of-the-art cryptocurrency for present-day. I also would like to do this with the minimalist impact of any inflationary aspect for long-standing community members and holders. I do not want to change the supply, thus changing their investment calculations. However; masternode rewards will do as such if we retain the 5.5% annual as is. I think it is best to trade some slight supply increase that will come from masternodes in exchange for having the feature and continuing the 5.5% as is. We have a very scarce supply, I do not want to increase that much but, a new 'inflation' to the coin base will occur unless we changed the 5.5%. That too would alter previous investor calculations and I feel it would do so more unfairly.
Not to contradict any previous statement but, I do personally have concerns of zerocoin and such additional protocols that lend themselves to what could easily be viewed as potential illegal-activity-promoting enhancements. Especially for a 'country coin' or a coin aiming to be such. I think the pseudo-annonimity of the blockchain should suffice and people wanting more could add more layers themselves, such as mixing. Making it a feature of Sterlingcoin might be near-sighted and might prevent adoption in the future as laws catch up with the technology.
So yes, all options are on the table. None have been removed. If anyone in the community has concerns or wishes to voice any opinion, please do so at your earliest convenience. It will be much easier to incorporate your thought into the plans sooner rather than later. I invite those conversation here or, perhaps better for debating, in our
Discord or
Telegram. But the culmination of those debates will always make it into this thread, as some have into this post. Try as I might, I cannot keep complete awareness of everything in this industry. Input is always appreciated. Thanks in advance.
