If we can learn from what is happening with bitcoin and its dozens of forks, I prefer smart people to consider the possibility that the network will have to compete with other networks for farmers…
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I agree that it’s worth considering the possibility of the network competing for farmers.
I don’t believe farmers would prefer to earn a coin that will face massive dilution in the future vs a coin that will maintain a stable supply. If there is competition for famers, it may be important to give, particularly early farmers, the best reward possible by not diluting their earnings.
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This is not really a question about the farming, it’s about the fundamentals of the project.
That is probably best discussed in a context of the fundamentals instead.
It has been known since the ICO what the total supply is.
That early adopters soon before start would get tempted to say “hey, it could be worth more if we have less supply!” is not very surprising. Doesn’t quite feel straight to start go down that road.
As I’ve understood, early adopters are super privileged already when it comes to distribution, and if there is any reality behind the vision that this would be a globally adopted technology, then there needs to be coins for people out there. As it is today, there is not even one per person.
But anyway, this is not really about farming. As I’m looking at nanos and need very high divisibility to implement certain features such as “micro payments”, it also doesn’t make much sense what level we decide is the level where we call it a “coin”. Is it a kilo-baseunit? A mega-baseunit? Giga? It’s arbitrary in a sense. And in the end it’s adoption that will decide how useful a base unit is (such as a nano), we can only guess about adoption levels in beforehand.
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There is a lot more to consider than the farmers, or holders / investors / speculators, but the scenario of multiple network forks competing for farmers & the attention of speculators may be worth considering. I think it’s quite unlikely, but if it happened it could be a serious threat to the network.
It has been known from the start what the plan is for the supply, and any attempt to dilute investors by more than was planned would not be right. But the other way around would be less, or not at all controversial if done for good reason, as nobody loses out through it.
I agree higher units makes more sense than tiny fractions. It’s hard to keep track of Bitcoin amounts past 8 decimal places, and it’ll just get worse if prices keep climbing.
If it’s just the number of coins that needs to be larger, it’s far easier to do that with a fixed supply by simply making 1 old Safecoin = 100 new Safecoin or something similar, so everyone has the same proportions, but higher units. Again, this shouldn’t be controversial if done for good reason, as nobody loses out.
I want to be clear on the benefits of an up to 900% increase in the money supply, and at the moment I can’t see it, though I can see some possible risks.
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These are the same people. The price depends on only 1 thing. Do people sell.
It can be assumed that it is pointless to sell something that you then have to buy back to use. Ie you will only sell what you don’t need.
And the question is, how much Safecoin does my Tesla need for 1 year to run autonomously and SAFE? 
The moment my vault is 100% full and I stop receiving new money, I will delete it and let my other vault farm in other SAFE network. At the same time, I will launch a new vault in the first SAFE network, waiting in line to enter. How likely do you think this is to work this way? Are there any disadvantages for me as a farmer to do this?
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The answer is; significantly more Safecoin next year vs this year, all things being equal & assuming currently planned monetary policy 
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But why? Hard drives grow in size every year. Should competition between the different SAFE Networks also provide additional downward pressure on the price for storage?
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I was referring to the plan for rewards to farmers to be larger numerically than what users pay to upload data causing inflation.
I think the price of network resources to users should be similar across competing networks (if they emerge), with the cost of storage space / bandwidth etc being what determines the price farmers are willing to supply at. So I don’t think competition between similar networks would put downward pressure on price, as farmers will be mobile, but differing monetary policy between networks may influence where farmers, speculators, and others choose to operate / earn / save etc.
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That’s not how it works.
Every time there is an upload to a section, all nodes in the section accumulate rewards. The longer a node has been around, the larger its portion of the reward is.
This system keeps paying nodes that stay around and keep proving they have the data they should have.
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Thanks for the clarification 
Can a section be filled to 100% or will it be divided into two new sections before then?
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Currently, if the nodes of the section start running low on free space, the section effectively is running low on free space as well.
Previous farming algos have included
(theoretical) measurements of available space as to adjust rewards based on it, and stimulate influx of new nodes (more space). But we dont have that measurement at the moment, so it is not part of farming currently.
I personally would see it as a very useful measurement, so I think it is important to achieve.
Section split is triggered by the number of nodes growing (beyond a certain limit) only.
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So in my earlier example we need to change the following:
The moment my section is 100% full and I stop receiving new money, I will delete my vault and let my other vault farm in other SAFE network. Are there any disadvantages for me as a farmer to do this?
Well, we can keep make up scenarios that speak of a dead network (if people are not attracted by the rewards, and do not add more storage, it means the network is dead).
But it is not very useful.
Here is one more: If everyone stops uploading then I will remove my node.
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I think it is important to know the conditions under which people will stop being farmers. I personally will keep my farms at a loss, but that won’t help the network if people are chasing money…
I explain how Storj solved this problem. They keep part of my profit as a hostage. If I turn off my farms now, I won’t get that money. If I turn them off with notice, some of this money will be used to upload the information to new farms.
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This is what we do as well.
So, things are being developed as we speak, and the reason it is being discussed in this topic is that we think it is nice to have the work being public at some point so that people can take part of the progress, and some people are curious about commits in development branches, and where I have time I’m happy to explain what’s going on. But this is not a feature that is ready, far from it. It is not even in testnets yet.
So patience is still needed. There will be more information coming out, as the farming system evolves. Especially when it is part of a testnet will there be plenty of explanations of how it works.
People get ahead of the events a bit on the money topic (hot one), but longer discussions, debates on changing the fundamentals and explanation of every detail in this topic will not be sustainable to involve in, so I am naturally a bit selective.
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Can you provide a better explanation of why people will be building additional networks and how that will effect the intial SAFE network in comparison to say bitcoin or ether.
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Yes it is very simple. You launch your section of vaults. You launch a site where you upload a configuration file in which your vaults are set as the first to which a new vault is connected. You run an ad for the site and a new SAFE Network is born…
Briefly for money, for the same reason there are Litecoin and Dogecoin…
In that fashion though the “new network” still counts on the function of safecoin as well as the main network to operate otherwise the new network doesn’t exist. Unless I’m understanding wrong, this is only a good thing for the large network as a whole, right?
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They are two separate networks. With separate safecoins. They don’t know about each other, but because they use the same types of data, I think it will be easy to import information from one network to another.
The SAFE network is like having 1 huge server. 2 safe networks as if you had 2 servers. You can easily imagine a future in which there will be 10-1000 SAFE Networks on earth, which play the role of huge servers…
So we end up with 100 different varieties of safecoins with various different supplies?
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