As I have been saying for years, a foundation will solve this problem. We have the example of dozens of crypto foundations that work on this principle. You give the money to the Safe Foundation and it uses it to help the network in its early years - in nature very few living organisms are born capable of defending themselves immediately and that is why we have a parental instinct.
Privacy. Security. Freedom
Yes, thatās one of many strategies, but it may solve one issue and introduce 10 other problems. Itās supposed to be an autonomous network, so Safe should be able to handle its own endowment. Technical solutions should be the goal not more human intervention imo.
Last time I checked I am an autonomous organism too, but not from day 1. If you look at what happens in nature, the highest form of self-organizing matter in our known universe uses parental help in its early years. This is an indisputable fact.
It makes sense to copy what works. Crypto Foundations work very well.
Privacy. Security. Freedom
Agreed, but extensive beta testing can also fulfill that role. After the beta testing is concluded, the network leaves the parentsā nest and is said to have launched.
I am talking about a foundation in the context of the money. If you give all money to the first people from the beginning, the new people will feel cheated and create their own networks.
If you give the money to a Foundation that spends it to upload useful data, then the new people will have a stable income and I think they would rather join our efforts.
You canāt ignore peopleās sense of justice when designing game theory. Look at Hex for example - a brilliant new way to monetize time, but with accusations of unfair coin distribution. Just look at the Hex copies pathway to fame - Axion, Wise - copies with a fair distribution of coinsā¦
Privacy. Security. Freedom
Iād rather have the autonomous safe network in control of its money and make those decisions based on code and the state of a section like the classic safecoin paradigm portrayed/insinuated.
Ah I was amiss in that I should have said the meaning is the equivalence at exact time of exchange. The market will react after the fact when it considers the flow on effect. But as far as regulators etc are concerned it is an equivalence face value situation and not changing the securities situation.
And yes as you know I do argue that the 85% to be issued is a big difference to having the 0% to be issued at launch. As you explain further on.
Personally I feel it doesnāt need to be as high as 85% to have the desired effect. Even 35%-50% to be issued would mostly give the needed benefits.
Iām not convinced the capped supply will be a bad thing for early farmers at all, and actually think it will be preferable.
At any time, would a keen farmer prefer to earn SNT that represents a permanent share of total tokens & therefore total market cap, or SNT that will be diluted over the coming years by a large amount & drop in share of market cap?
Overall farmers as a group may not ever reach the same share of network tokens if original holders retain a high portion of the total vs if there were a farming subsidy, but the tokens earned will retain value better, which has to be a plus for them.
There will be meat for farmers whether the supply is fixed or not because itās a market for resources.
Would you prefer to earn tokens (āmeatā) that will hold their share of network value over time, or tokens that will be diluted up to around 1/5 of their initial share of network value?
If someone started a fork that offered tokens that will be diluted over time, I very much doubt early farmers would jump on board that network vs one where earnings will retain value better over time. But if the original 85% dilution over time were in play I could imagine farmers joining a fork where token supply is fixed & value retention likely better.
How many times have we heard these arguments? Is this not the same as what @knosis was suspended for? 
I can understand this perspective, though the real āmeatā either way comes from the market for network resources & what uploaders are willing to pay for those resources, not from any additional minor dilution that comes with that meat (I say minor dilution in respect to an individual earning event, though itās not minor in its effect on token supply over the years).
I hope the mechanism that splits farming rewards to help fund development etc is still in place if the supply cap were to go ahead.
While I can see early investors keeping such a large share of value for potentially a very long time seems less than ideal, I donāt think the up-to 85% dilution actually imprives anything in terms of incentives due to the dilution effect eroding rewards of early farmers / developers etc alongwith the ābeneficialā dilution of early investors.
While that sounds fair, it doesnāt hold up in my opinion. The network will be growing for one and the SNT will become more valuable as the network is used more thus contradicting dilution. More people buying resources will more than compensate the perceived dilution.
And of course there is the example of BTC where we had the situation.
The advantages means the network is not living hand to mouth. Ask anyone who lives hand to mouth to learn the problems of that. Sometimes its OK other times its a struggle.
Its complex and not easy to say which is best. That is one reason we have people who are on each side of the fence or sitting on it.
@scottefc86 No not at all. He got a ban for constant negativity and reckless bad-mouthing of the team.
A week might have a tad harsh but he surely tried the patience of the mods.
A crypto focussed foundation would likely help with BGF and more. Jurisdiction in someplace with clear regulations and laws would also help that. There is some background work on such a thing, but itās moving slowly right now. I would expect that a foundation will happen though, exactly what it will do is I suppose up for grabs right now. Initially, BGF payments would be well handled there. That fund seems suited for that and there is a BGF group, but with the admin hell of the last few months it has stalled. After Xmas that will hopefully start to move with some vigour though.
Takes one to know one 
I speak from a position of some authority here 
Farmers will only care if the fiat price is reduced, which it wonāt be by definition of a successful network. Long term, percent of total supply offers no benefits since SNT is NOT like common stock and offers NO voting rights. At genesis, percent of total supply has much larger implications -we want to get the distribution of token ownership/use to as many unrelated hands as possible.
Again, the supply is capped at genesis under both scenarios. DBC balance laws ensure conservation of total supply. Weāre debating about whether to give control of the 85% of total fixed existing supply to the autonomous safe network or to distribute it to current maid holders.
Iāve been absolutely enamored by DBCs since the first time they were introduced on the forum and am thrilled about the possibilities they have opened up for network. I know I donāt understand all of the technical implications but the idea of being able to have a clean initial distribution, certainty of supply and removal of the sybil attack vector all in one go feels like Christmas has come early this year.
In my mind, however, the thought of increasing the token supply is a complete non-starter without a 100% engineering requirement for launch.
Proportionality may be the same, but raising the token supply to helicopter money levels reeks of a desperate project, a potential wealth extraction scheme or garden variety pump-and-dump.
It just seems like such a reckless, unnecessary risk on numerous levels.
With what limited technical knowledge I have, I spent the previous day pouring over all the various arguments around this topic and am unable to find a convincing defense of the split proposal.
What is the focal engineering argument for the split over the cap? Whereās the upgrade? Whatās the advantage, if any?
If we have divisibility solved, whatās the issue?
At this point, the 600m+ cap with the development funding mechanism for farming rewards retained appears to be the superior option. What am I missing?
Iām not sure why if the network holds the coins it makes any difference to farmers and adoption?
You are still getting paid for your resources so why does it matter?
Is the whole idea of not letting section wallets hold vast treasure troves the reasoning behind this?
Small early network with a only few sections holding hundreds of millions in a few wallets $$?
That is my understanding, so the fork better be very smart, if it is, that is evolution and a good thing.
Hereās another incentive that I think should be considered: an ongoing farming dividend to all token holders. I think we need to incentivize not only farming, but also token value. I too worry about the highly dilutive effects of the overhanging 85% of tokens especially during the early years. This will hurt current MAID holders, but more importantly early farmers. Yes, early rewards will be higher in terms of tokens, but that balance will be tricky. If the fiat value of the token goes down for a prolonged period that could be the death of the network. There is also the issue of failing fiat currencies world-wide and it would be helpful to the network to provide a refuge to that. So what I propose is simply that we keep the 15% for existing holders and open the rest (85% less foundation and other hold-backs) to farming. BUT, I propose for every token farmed a token be distributed to all account holders proportional to their holdings (their fraction of held tokens). This would then provide an ongoing bonus to early farmers, obviously all token holders, and would help bring extra money into the token, which can then be used to fund projects, apps, etc. Itās a sort of compromise between the two main ideas being considered in this thread and I think could work well.
EDIT: and this aligns the holderās and the farmerās interests into a win-win rather than a competition for tokens
My understanding of the difference is as follows. You have 16k addresses that hold MAID at the moment. How many of them are ready to start a new job?
What new job?
Well, we say let these people spend their tokens. Finding and uploading data is a job. It is very doubtful that a large percentage of this people will do this job.
Well, if they donāt work, what will they do? They will sell the tokens to other people.
Why do we think that the new people who buy tokens from the old holders will buy them to start a new job?
Do we see this in any of the other projects like Sia, Storj, Filecoin? I see only speculators.
A Safe Foundation that spends tokens to upload data to the network is a perfect solution to this problem while creating a real economy around the network.
Privacy. Security. Freedom
