Early demand, and effect on storage costs, after launch

How can PUTs be “discouraged”?
By making PUTs cost more, so that uploads fail half-way as I mentioned above?
That would be absurd.
(It also ties to my earlier question on this topic, about what does one Safecoin actually represent (in this case it apparently wouldn’t represent much; it’d be kind of equivalent of the farmer’s reward lottery; you may or may not get whatever amount of storage space you think you’ve just bought.))

You lost all context of that statement.

When you spend a coin, you know how much space it bought. The system at the moment only allows one coin at a time to buy space, so from one spend to the next the amount might change a little. None of the equations given will cause a large change in MB_per_SC during an upload over a few minutes or hour. Maybe over a day it might change more. Only if there is massive uploads over the network would you expect the MB_per_SC to change significantly. And the significant changes would only happen if the network is critical in its free space.

I wish you would go and get a grip of how the network works. Correcting you is becoming a significant workload lately.

Your statement is again incorrect, because people buy storage in advance of using it, in blocks - one block per Safecoin at the PUT cost at the time of purchase.
If a user decided to start uploading a file without sufficient prepaid storage to host it, that is either their problem, or hopefully the App they’re using will earn them in advance.

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Well, there you go.
If I want to upload a single DVD grade movie at 50KB/sec, I can’t know how many Safecoin I need to buy.
That would be completely ridiculous.

Let alone the fact that some content uploaders might want to know how much they need to buy this month, or this quarter or year.

In your opinion, for a specific use case. But that’s how it is. You have to pay in advance as in most retail transactions.

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But this isn’t like that, that’s why I’m saying it’s ridiculous.
Let’s say at the moment 1 Safecoin buys you 1 MB. So you buy 4700 Safecoins to upload your 4.7 GB DVD and by the time you’re 50% done, the network starts “discouraging” you, and now you suddenly need 4900 Safecoins.

And how is that a specific use case scenario? Anyone who regularly uploads stuff needs to plan budget and things like that, sometimes even on a per upload basis. Yes, I can see a value added solution that picks the right time to upload stuff from a queue, but if one needs to (say) put a backup on the network I can’t wait if that means I remain unprotected (in DR sense) for 2 extra days or something like that.
But more importantly, I think, consider what a Safecoin in this case represents. Merely a possibility of value. Probably that possibility would be very high (e.g. it’d be 90% likely you’d get as much MB on the network as you think you’ll get), but I don’t think that’d play well with those who hold. A best practice may turn out to be “don’t hold, and slightly over-buy just when you need it”.

Edit: I see Neo gave you a like. (chuckle)

What I mean is that it allows temporary support if it can do so without danger of causing insolvency. If the choice comes to down to not giving support or becoming insolvent, it should opt for not giving support.

A “full” network isn’t immediately a critical failure. The network first has to shrink before data loss may occur. In addition, last time I checked we have two primary copies, two backup copies and two sacrificial copies of every chunk. The network is “full” when all the sacrificial copies are gone. In the case of the network shrinking after it’s “full”, vaults can (and should) opt to first delete their backup copies to make room for any incoming primary copies due to churn. Sure, this is an undesirable situation, but the network may very well survive such a scenario without any loss of data.

In contrast, insolvency (hitting the supply cap) is I believe far more critical, since FR can become 1 while still not resulting in any issued coin. If the network relies on economically minded farmers to any significant degree, a lot of them may go offline. If this then leads to a “full” network, I would be extremely surprised if the network survived that. Both algorithms would be dead.

This could theoretically be done as well by flat out refusing new uploads at a certain level. I admit that a gradual discouragement is more desirable (continuity of a service using SAFE may be worth fortunes), but at some point there’s no practical difference between a horrifically high store cost and a flat out refusal of accepting new uploads.

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@happybeing just explained it:

@janitor So again it’s incorrect, even though you’ve been corrected about half an hour ago.

Skimming it quickly he means when price is high to upload, you’re not going to upload huge files because it’s expensive, so ‘discouraging’ it. (I’ve not read the entire thread carefully but this is what I believe he means.)

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We will have to agree to disagree on that one. To the network purposely deleting chunks to reduce them below 4 copies because of free space problems is critical in my understanding of the security against data loss SAFE works on. The backup group was created by splitting the normal group into 2 so that the chunks can be spread across the network more securely (address wise), not so we can lose them on space issues.

Yes it can survive but it is still network full state and a critical one.

Agreed

Actually this is a very long term issue (years) and yes your suggestion will have to account for it. I said some posts ago that the algorithm will have to perhaps use the Sigmoid curve to adjust the base_rate delta change amount according to the total amount of coin issued.

But as far as I can see increasing the PUT cost will help rather than cause problems. Higher PUT cost will return more coin to the network while space is low. Coin scarcity in the network will control the farmers getting too many coins. Also remember that when free space is a problem it is the number of farmers being too low and any algorithms will have to be tuned to reduce the turn away effects if too high/low.

Yes but increasing PUT cost at this time actually helps there because the coin supply increases faster. BUT I would expect that a correctly designed algorithm you design would put pressure on increasing PUT costs when the network does not have many coins left to give. It should aim to have a buffer of (say) 10% where if coin issued reaches 90% the PUT cost has a lot of upwards pressure.

The function would determine how “horrifically high” the store cost got, so make a function that does what it needs to do. Goldilocks point. Not too high to destroy it, but not too low to allow flooding.


My thoughts are that your function. Call change in base_rate a delta

  • has to incorporate your methods of determining the base_rate delta.
  • the algorithm needs to use a function to adjust the delta to address the total coin issued. Say to follow a sigmoid curve
    • Early on (from startup) let more coin remain issued (ie the function moves the delta lower)
    • middle range, the function has little effect on the delta
    • as remaining unissued coin gets low (near the buffer amount) the delta is affected so as to pressure the put cost higher (ie the function moves the delta higher.)
  • And as discussed a function of the spare space %age fn(FR) so that as free space gets very low Put costs are increased to throttle uploads for the short time till Farming rate encourages enough farmers to join.

rough idea

  • calc base_rate delta
  • use a function to add a calculated value, based on sigmoid curve, to the delta (-ve if low coin issued, 0 if mid range, +ve if unissued coin low)
  • adjust base_rate by the resulting delta_value
  • multiply new base_rate by a function of TS:TP as suggested in the earlier post, to get actual POST cost
  • base_rate is not adjusted by the free space factor, so as to keep the correct functioning of it.

So in effect you have the delta calculated and the delta is adjusted for total issued coin so that it has a measure of control on total issued coin and then increase put cost if free space becomes too low.

@janitor you are again arguing false points. If you had read and understood my reply, you would see that you’ve again responded on a false assumption, and made further misleading statements. I’m not going to repeat it for you because IMO you’re an inch away from trolling. I have seen plenty of evidence of your intellect, so your posts seem almost designed to spread confusion and misunderstanding, or you are being too sloppy in your own understanding to add value here.

You’ve been around on this forum and been part of these discussions more than long enough to know how much of the network works by now, yet here again @Melvin and I are having to spend our time correcting you on basic points such as PUT costs and how storage is to be bought and used. I find it very hard to believe you don’t know exactly how this works.

Please improve the quality of your posts by improving your understanding. I’m going to delete your last response to remove the misleading information.

For network security we could add safecoin savings, kept in good times, ready for use if necessary.

In the following case we would have a 25% safecoin available that would be added gradually:
12.5% if TP/TS is lower than 90%
6.25% if TP/TS is lower than 70%
3.125% if TP/TS is lower than 50%
(These TP/TS percentages are just an example)

This calculation could be done in the Farming Attemp. It could be something like this:

  1. Get request for Chunk X is received.
  2. The DataManagers will request the chunk from the ManagedNodes holding this chunk.
  3. The ManagedNodes will send the chunk with their wallet address included.
  4. The DataManagers will then take the address of each DataManager in the QUORUM.
  5. This is hashed with the chunk name and PmidHolder name.
  6. If this result % farming divisor (modulo divides) yields zero then
    • This data is sent to the group who are closest to result
    • This request is a POST message as a safecoin request
    • If there is a safecoin available of the name result then
    • If (TP/TS>0,9) and (2 last bit Hash(nonce+IDSafecoin)= 2 last bits IDsafecoin) skip
    • If (TP/TS>0,7) and (3 last bit Hash(nonce+IDSafecoin)= 3 last bits IDsafecoin) skip
    • If (TP/TS>0,5) and (4 last bit Hash(nonce+IDSafecoin)= 4 last bits IDsafecoin) skip
    • The safecoin is created and the owner set to the wallet address provided in the result packet
    • The safecoin close group then send a receipt message to the wallet address to inform the user
      of a new minted safecoin allocated to them.

Why? I’m just thinking that farming rate/coin issuance isn’t directly related to available Network space, but rather “gets”, therefore loads of coins doesn’t mean loads of space needed?

Why? Ah, because farmers will sell coins, driving price down.

I don’t see a convincing reason to adopt your alternative basic premise that farmers will sell either tbh.

Yes, great innit? :smiley:
Could anybody clear some things up for me, Maybe if I just give a quick couple of scenarios to outline my understanding and perhaps someone could spot where my grasp of things may be dodgy.
OK…say Safecoin Fiat price is sky high due to loads of apps/commerce/ etc on Network - it has gained monetary value not related to gets/space/supply etc. The Network algorithms only work out how much as a percentage in Safecoin , space costs. As this is in no way related to Safecoin price in Fiat , then it is feasible that Safecoin goes up 100 x in Fiat terms, but maybe only buys 10X more space (as not related dynamically). This would make space 10X more expensive in Safecoin terms, whereas in Fiat terms (or any other currency terms) space would be relatively cheap - it would be cheaper to use another currency to buy space. I think there would as a Net effect be no perceptible downward trajectory for Safecoin Fiat price in this scenario though - it will just mean Safecoin gains it’s value from all the things that raised it’s price in the first place, which were other than for buying Network space. Should this scenario play out, then those early holders of Safecoin will benefit greatly, holding and not buying space would appear to be best strategic moves to my mind if you believe this scenario is likely.
The alternative scenario would be Safecoin Fiat price could plummet for all the opposite of the above reasons - again not related to any algorithms or anything. To cut to the chase though, I think the optimum strategy would be to buy space with Safecoin in this case.
Whether people farm or not would seem only to be indirectly .influenced by any of the above scenarios.The farming is related to coin issuance and cost in Safecoin for gets and seems to take care of itself to me. The rest will play out as it plays out I think and is not a concern.
OK - what am I not getting? :smiley:

Well who knows how it’s going to be once we go live, I said that already and you can see in this topic that alternative approaches are being examined.
But I don’t know if all scenarios are accounted for. For example imagine a situation where there are only puts paid from those existing hundreds of million coins and no, or very few, gets. What happens in that case? I don’t know. Maybe weird edge scenarios don’t need to be considered “because they won’t happen”.

Also related to farmers hanging on to their farmed coins - if they don’t sell them, where are new users going to get coins? There is no other new source of coins than farmers. I don’t know what are mainstream expectations for that. To me if farmers save coins, then they become more scarce and more expensive, so a farmer with coins should wait even longer before he spends (or sells) them. I think everyone expects that most of newly farmed coins will be sold to users (or spent by farmers, which is the same, they’d be new users in that case).

Your scenario: who knows… I guess if Safecoin becomes popular that would be because it is being spent. I don’t think it can become popular because apps are great, but no one is using them (i.e. there is no spending). If that was possible, it could only happen in a deflationary scenario which means high savings which would contradict the popularity theory. Or maybe it is indeed possible that the coin is at the same time hoarded and the apps/puts not popular? That seems unlikely to me.

Hmmmm…I’m thinking that all the coins must have originated from gets - from the opposite scenario, ie there must have first been enough resources (space/puts) to get from. The Network has enough capacity to cope with the amount of coins.
Edit:
Sorry, I just realise you are referring to the existing coins - which are 10% right?hmmmmmm
My understanding is that it is being suggested that the algorithms will have to account for a “starting condition” of 15-30% of coins already/to be issued/created - I am unclear as to why this is necessary. Would just “coding it in” that 15% or whatever goes to a certain wallet until all coins issued? Just asking…probably a good reason why not. :smiley:

Well, on the open market, from investors and traders etc as well as the farmers who decide to sell - why do they have to be “new”? I don’t see it as any different from Bitcoin really - is that only bought from miners?

I’d agree if the first of my 2 potential scenarios was to play out. The opposite scenario could also play out though I think, where the opposite would be a good strategy. I think whatever scenario “market forces” will prevail with reactive strategies adopted to best “play the system”. New users also don’t need much to do basic stuff. I see the Network as withstanding these edge cases myself.
I’m just trying to unpick the last paragraph as I’m not quite sure what you mean. :smile:
Edit:

Ok, I think you are either positing the second of my scenarios, where Safecoin loses value against Fiat/Bitcoin etc, or saying a high valuation may not be down to apps/puts - indeed it may not - the high valuation would still be there though for whatever “other” reason. I do agree though that I would find it unlikely for Safecoin to have a high Fiat value, without apps/puts not being popular.
It looks to me that it’s likely that:Safecoin will have a short term low valuation with very good potential for long term investment. I base this on the belief that essentially nobody is going to “Farm” a great deal of Safecoin - it’s not set up that way. So who are the only people to have any significant quantity of them?
That’s right…us lot… :smiley:

.

Because on SAFE if most coins are spent on PUTs, those get “burned” and they’re regenerated as GET rewards for farmers.
My question could apply to Bitcoin miners as well, but there the incentive to hang onto the coin may be more pronounced (since the number of users and apps is now growing faster than the number of coins).
I don’t pretend to know, it could turn any way, but I am sure only that it’s going to create some unique situatations.

In most cases, “because there’s nothing you can do”. No matter how smart and dynamic we make the algorithms, there’s no way that they’ll be able to save the network under any circumstance. All they can do is try to give farmers and users the right economic incentives while keeping sufficient buffers of resources (space and unissued coin) to “buy time” for these incentives to restore balance.

Safecoin don’t ever get burned by the network (which means destroyed), they get recycled, which means returned to having “no owner” and so out of circulation, available to be paid out to farmers once again.

@janitor your points often seem to only take account of farming for profit, profit being your main interest, but farming for profit is not likely to be very worthwhile or dominant in SAFEnetwork. The network has been designed to keep farming decentralised and accessible to as many people as possible, as I’m sure you must know by now.

You ask where people will get coins from, if farmers hoard them? By which you imply everyone holding them will hoard them (people farming for profit, consumers farming for use, eventually retailers and service providers).

Well, in this unlikely event, individuals will be motivated to:

  • farm them for their own use
  • farm them to take advantage of their high price by selling them

You have championed markets in the past. Surely this is just a case of applying market theory - the price rises until it’s high enough to turn holders into sellers and meet demand. Again you seem ignore the obvious. What have I missed?

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You have this backwards. If the cost of safecoin goes up, then you can buy less safecoin for the same amount of money and so space would be more expensive. As the value of safecoin goes up, the more expensive storage space becomes.

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Will there ever be the possibility of people building Safe Apps that actually burn Safecoins?

I like deflationary forces and scarcity.