As a potential small time Safecoin farmer with an Internet connection that sometimes struggles to load video (most of the day it’s fine but can get a bit slow loading in the evenings), I’m wondering what kind of impact farming would have on my Internet connection + browsing experience. I’ve used cloud storage called sugar sync before and whenever my computer is ‘syncing’ the Internet becomes too slow to use comfortably. Also when I’ve been downloading the bitcoin blockchain in the past my connection has become too slow causing browsing the web to become frustratingly slow. Would being a farmer have the same effect?
It’s a good point you raise. the software should include either a limiter or an automatic sensing of only using unused bandwidth capacity. It is without a doubt though the intent that any computer, small or powerful, fast or slow can join the network and farm. Of course, the more you contribute net resources, the more you’ll farm.
We won’t really know definitively until the test nets are studied.
According to what I have seen so far, the data pull is a small chunk, not a full file like the blockchain ledger or a full movie. Also the pull will access other sources (farms) besides yours. So it may not be as taxing on your resources as you would imagine. The easiest way to describe it is when another person asks you to read one page out of a book instead of the whole book. It only takes you a very short time to do it. However, see below…
Extreme Situtation… If you have a 4TB fully seeded dedicated drive, and ALL the data chunks are constantly being pulled, then yes, your internet bandwith would be affected. On a good note, you will be farming safecoins in exchange for this sacrifice. Because the Network plants data chunks randomly, the chances of ALL chunks being popular becomes less likely.
Vault farmers will specialize with (high bandwith), (large farm space), and (24/7 online time). This is for good reason, they are providing a reliable service which cost them resources. In return, they farm more safecoins. Unlike Bitcoin mining, this system does not discard small resource contributions. Farming on your smart phone is not practical, but its resource can still be rewarded.
Safecoin farming motto = Equal pay for equal work
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