Yes, this has always been part of the consideration, and one that I’ve argued strongly in favour of. It would most definitely be the simplest solution to just forget about the 70% of supply… but not necessarily the right one.
It’s also been part of the prospectus since the 2014 white paper. That’s not a reason to do it in itself, but an observation that it’s not a last minute bolt-on: it’s been laid out since before the ICO.
Your arguments are not unreasonable… and certainly not if we are looking purely at supply and demand, and a nice and efficient market for storage.
But what if there are bumps in the road to getting there? Such as unforeseen lean spells, or external factors that aren’t the sole preserve of the that market, like speculation on the token?
We want a resilient and robust network, one that can weather some storms, and have nodes stick around through them.
Distributing the remaining supply steadily, and over an extended period, to those actively supporting and sticking with the Network come rain or shine, seems like a reasonable way of doing it.
And it does so in a decentralised way too.