[XMR] Monero Speculation

[rpietila]

micropayments

CK

[illodin]

We all know DASH is trash (and their new model of increased mining rewards going to masternode owners discourages adoption by new small users) buts its decline does not have a direct impact on Monero.

Why would new small users care what % of the block reward goes to miners, and what % goes to masternodes (except that miners are known to autodump on the exchanges causing downward pressure on the new small user's freshly acquired holdings)?

If I were a new user of a coin that really hadn't gotten much of anywhere in the world yet, I would prefer to pay a low price than a high price. The last thing I would want to do is to have to bid up and pay a premium to convince an existing hoarder to part with some of his stash at a profit.

Mining as a mechanism of distribution works equally well whether new users mine themselves or rely on economic specialization in which professional miners are motivated sellers on an exchange and new users are willing buyers.

(Security is probably better in the former case, but that's another story.)

Sure, as a new user I'd want to pay a low price for my coins and then have it go to a high price immediately and inflation go to zero.

Paying a low price but then having miners constantly autodump huge amounts would sound like a sure way to keep the price low in the future as well.

[illodin]

We all know DASH is trash (and their new model of increased mining rewards going to masternode owners discourages adoption by new small users) buts its decline does not have a direct impact on Monero.

Why would new small users care what % of the block reward goes to miners, and what % goes to masternodes (except that miners are known to autodump on the exchanges causing downward pressure on the new small user's freshly acquired holdings)? They might care what % goes to blockchain governed development projects though (which is 10% currently) as those funds will ensure the development won't grind to a standstill while waiting on individuals' donations or some other uncertain sources.

If I wanted to start mining DASH (or any coin) I would want to receive as much as possible of the block reward and not be forced to give a lot (miners only get to keep of block rewards 45%.... WTF) of it to someone else against my will.
https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=8585240
45%   Mining Reward
45%   Masternode Reward for Proof-of-service
10%   Decentralized Governance Budget

The fact that most masternodes are owned by small number of early adopters who were in on the insta mine (and subsequent maximum xcoin/dark/dash supply reduction which increased their percentage ownership of all coins to exist in the future) adds insult to injury.

I think the majority of the DASH community (which was not in on the instamine and therefore being rewarded by this madness) has an IQ lower than most of the crypto community.

Donations for development are important. that we can agree on. Monero has a voluntary system that is not forced on all miners. Miners are free to donate as much or as little as they like without a huge % of their mining reward being taken away

New small users can't mine any of the established coins anymore. If you can mine any meaningful amounts you're not a new small user. As a new user, you'd have to invest so much money in a mining gear that you'd be better off buying a masternode instead.

[smooth]

Sure, as a new user I'd want to pay a low price for my coins and then have it go to a high price immediately and inflation go to zero.

Of course you would. But only instaminers get to do that

Paying a low price but then having miners constantly autodump huge amounts would sound like a sure way to keep the price low in the future as well.

What actual users want is price stability so a low price that stays low (or increases slowly, for example, as mining is gradually reduced) is fine. Speculators of course always want to buy low and sell high, but at some point we're going to have to move beyond that because you run out of greater fools. Or maybe we already have.

[illodin]

but at some point we're going to have to move beyond that because you run out of greater fools. Or maybe we already have.

Maybe we have, it'll be interesting to see what happens now.

Now I need to take a break from the markets and do mathematics excercises so I am not planning to buy coins now

[GingerAle]

The only core flaw I can still see in Monero is no way to incentivize full nodes unless they are also miners.  
  
You'll have to excuse my recent crusade on this topic, and I know we have spoken about this before.  I believe last time the consensus was that perhaps a feature could be added into Monero GUI to send optional donations to full nodes along with transaction fees.  
  
I feel like this would be better than nothing, but I still think this issue should be revisited (especially in light of Adam Back's recent comments: http://coinjournal.net/adam-back-on-the-overlooked-importance-of-full-nodes-in-bitcoin/)  
  
I'm not saying drop the database optimization and GUI for this, but I would like the community to continue brainstorming on ways to make this happen in the Monero universe.  We already have a TKO on all other cryptos; if we can figure out a way to financially compensate full nodes that will go from a Technical Knockout to a Triple Knockout (even a lottery system is better than nothing...  Run a full node for a chance to have all node donations for the week deposited into your address).  
  
Of course, I'm aware it's important we don't break faith with the social contract, nor try to do too much with the core Monero protocol.  Simple is best....  So maybe a voluntary donation system built into the GUI really is the most elegant solution.  
  
I still want to hear if anyone has any other ideas though.  

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

And now back to the weather. Damn, bitcoin's diving eh?

[Melbustus]

...

It doesn't suffer from glaring flaws like someone needing to pick magic numbers on the block size

No, instead of a magic blocksize number, Monero is using a magic adaptive algorithm. Someone had to set parameters either way; params which aren't necessary so long as there's orphan risk to miners. Why not let the market find the equilibrium between orphan risk and transaction fees, and therefore optimal blockspace?

nor failure of the penalty mechanism once the rewards run out

I see the result in Peter R's paper where the cost of blockspace to the miner is dependant on reward being greater than zero. I don't have an intuitive understanding of this. I would think that it shouldn't matter where exactly the cost of losing an orphan race is coming from to a miner (eg, new issuance vs fees). Any thoughts?

nor expecting an open competitive market to offer excess profits for no particularly good reason.
...

Because that's almost always what happens when humans are free to act voluntarily in the presence of demand for something? Though I would not expect mining profits to be "excess" for long.

Longer term I think the best way to incentivize nodes that don't exist for some other purpose (mining or people -- or perhaps only businesses -- who want to fully verify their own transactions) is with a fee-for-service model. So if people are connecting as clients to full nodes because they are using lightweight wallets or something like that, they can pay a small fee for that service. At which point supply and demand should work out the necessary incentives.
...

Yes, exactly. Why do you think that wouldn't work for blocksize?

[dnaleor]

The only core flaw I can still see in Monero is no way to incentivize full nodes unless they are also miners.  
  
You'll have to excuse my recent crusade on this topic, and I know we have spoken about this before.  I believe last time the consensus was that perhaps a feature could be added into Monero GUI to send optional donations to full nodes along with transaction fees.  
  
I feel like this would be better than nothing, but I still think this issue should be revisited (especially in light of Adam Back's recent comments: http://coinjournal.net/adam-back-on-the-overlooked-importance-of-full-nodes-in-bitcoin/)  
  
I'm not saying drop the database optimization and GUI for this, but I would like the community to continue brainstorming on ways to make this happen in the Monero universe.  We already have a TKO on all other cryptos; if we can figure out a way to financially compensate full nodes that will go from a Technical Knockout to a Triple Knockout (even a lottery system is better than nothing...  Run a full node for a chance to have all node donations for the week deposited into your address).  
  
Of course, I'm aware it's important we don't break faith with the social contract, nor try to do too much with the core Monero protocol.  Simple is best....  So maybe a voluntary donation system built into the GUI really is the most elegant solution.  
  
I still want to hear if anyone has any other ideas though.  

I don't know if it's technically possible, but would be cool to just have a "block sync market"
If you need blocks, you publish your offer in the P2P network. Someone can just decide he'll take your offer.
An offer could consists of a specific list of blocks (or a block interval, to have a bit more privacy) and the payment for that download.


edit:

If you can stream payments to a cam girl with streamium, you can stream payments to a node for syncing your wallet.

exactly what I was thinking

[dnaleor]

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Indeed, I agree. I don't really understand why no coin tried this before.
It wouldn't be that hard to implement I think. You just need to sign your mined block with your private key of the address to where you received the minted coins

Certainly easy in BTC. But also possible with XMR I think.

[iCEBREAKER]

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Indeed, I agree. I don't really understand why no coin tried this before.
It wouldn't be that hard to implement I think. You just need to sign your mined block with your private key of the address to where you received the minted coins

Certainly easy in BTC. But also possible with XMR I think.

BBR's Wild Keccak PoW requires a copy of the blockchain, as random bits of it are used in the scratchpad.

That's a huge incentive to run a full node.  No node, no (solo) mining.

Shall we schedule the hard fork?  How's next Tuesday for you?   

[luigi1111]

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Indeed, I agree. I don't really understand why no coin tried this before.
It wouldn't be that hard to implement I think. You just need to sign your mined block with your private key of the address to where you received the minted coins

Certainly easy in BTC. But also possible with XMR I think.

Uh...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=715435.0

[binaryFate]

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Indeed, I agree. I don't really understand why no coin tried this before.
It wouldn't be that hard to implement I think. You just need to sign your mined block with your private key of the address to where you received the minted coins

Certainly easy in BTC. But also possible with XMR I think.

Uh...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=715435.0

You can still make pools:
Ask people to deposit an amount greater than the block reward. Keep that amount the day they cheat.
Give a different work to each miner, with a specific coinbase address. If one cheat you know which one it is, keep their deposit and close their account.

Im sure it was discussed before.

[hodlmybtc]

Bottom buyer for today so far




Liquidity near-price is pretty bad, for example at the moment there is almost zero liquidity between 210k and 220k. When the price is relatively stable it's pretty easy to make some BTC/XMR by market making as a lot of people just market buy/sell.

I'm a small fish compared to a lot of you and it's also weird to see that my bids are >10% of the whole bid side, I try my best to increase the liquidity a bit and hopefully earning some BTC/XMR along the way, it would be great if more people would do this, even with small amounts.

It will ofcourse mean that it will be less profitable to earn some coins in stable periods by market making but more liquidity especially close to the price will be more attractive to buyers/investors and traders.

So ladies and gents place your bids (and asks)!

[luigi1111]

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Indeed, I agree. I don't really understand why no coin tried this before.
It wouldn't be that hard to implement I think. You just need to sign your mined block with your private key of the address to where you received the minted coins

Certainly easy in BTC. But also possible with XMR I think.

Uh...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=715435.0

You can still make pools:
Ask people to deposit an amount greater than the block reward. Keep that amount the day they cheat.
Give a different work to each miner, with a specific coinbase address. If one cheat you know which one it is, keep their deposit and close their account.

Im sure it was discussed before.

At length...I wasn't addressing that at all, just responding to "I don't really understand why no coin tried this before."

[newb4now]

Well, the two-birds-one-stone approach to this problem is the subject of my (hopefully forgivable) crusade - to prevent pool mining. If you stop pool mining, you remove the "mining without a node" option. So, miners *have* to run nodes. Thus, if you bring back true solo mining, you bring back incentivizing running a node. Indeed, this was the original model for supporting the network. Pool mining, IMO, is a tragedy of the unregulated commons.

Indeed, I agree. I don't really understand why no coin tried this before.
It wouldn't be that hard to implement I think. You just need to sign your mined block with your private key of the address to where you received the minted coins

Certainly easy in BTC. But also possible with XMR I think.

BBR's Wild Keccak PoW requires a copy of the blockchain, as random bits of it are used in the scratchpad.

That's a huge incentive to run a full node.  No node, no (solo) mining.

Shall we schedule the hard fork?  How's next Tuesday for you?  

There are several cool things I love about boolberry (which I wont list in this thread). Unfortunately as a currency it also has a few major drawbacks compared to monero such as:

1. much smalller community/development team
2. much harder to spend (no xmr.to or shapeshift)

[TrueCryptonaire]

I finished my math excercies and bought almost 8000 XMR more.

[newb4now]

I finished my math excercies and bought almost 8000 XMR more.

You definitely have been a lot more bullish lately. I am bullish too. There has been a lot of good news. What specific reason cause you to increase your position recently?  Personally I am not a gamer but am excited about crypto kingdom anyway because I know others are. I also love all the recent xmr updates in github.

[dEBRUYNE]

I finished my math excercies and bought almost 8000 XMR more.

I have to admit, I like the "new" you. Way better like this!

[TrueCryptonaire]

More than 14 k XMR have been bought today.
There is only one direction and it still is up.
I am buying because the emission curve is now getting steeper and the price is still undervalued.

[iCEBREAKER]

I finished my math excercies and bought almost 8000 XMR more.

I have to admit, I like the "new" you. Way better like this!

Plot twist: TC is buying on margin.