Rehash of the divisibility thread with some new points.
The Safe Network requires its own data-based economy to function (just check all the heated “Pay the …” threads for example). An economy functions efficiently when it has a dominant, widely accepted a unit of account (UOA), and is much less efficient when it lacks one or is highly fragmented by many UOAs (*). For Safecoin to “serve the network” economy it needs to be a UOA and so by definition must have simple divisibility and recombination that people can understand and use. As also detailed in the research paper linked, the dominant currency on the network will be the one in which the majority of people are paid in (and so have to spend/lend/invest etc), which AFAIU will be “Safecoin”. If the cryptographic identity resource allocation token we now call a Safecoin cannot by nature fill the role of a UOA, then it may be better to rename it to “Safetoken” as “coin” is unrepresentative of its true function. Let the name Safecoin be applied to another core data structure than can fill all the roles required of a UOA.
The problem here of course is that if Safecoin cannot be designed to serve as a UOA as it is speculated to place an undue computational burden on the network, then the burden of supporting “many other easily managed currencies” is also a critical show stopper, and even more so. Many alt-Safecoins vying to fill the UOA role will place a far higher burden on the network than having one baked in Safecoin fill all the check boxes of being a UOA from day one.
Super-high level of divisibility is needed already - IoT. The danger of leaving such a fundamental thing until after launch is too great as Bitcoin is now demonstrating with the Block size limit controversy/war tearing its community apart. I would flip your idea on it’s head: Alternative currencies on the Safe network are not needed till their needed, and certainly should not be burdening the network from the get-go unless they can demonstrate some truly amazing use case not served by a full functional baked in from the start UOA called Safecoin. It would be a tragedy IMO if the Safe Network becomes burdened down under the weight of hundreds of alt-safecoins vying for dominance simply because they are true UOAs and Safecoin is not. I recommend reading Vitalik Buterin article In Defense of Alternative Cryptocurrencies where he provides a balanced outline of the arguments for and against alt-coins. Having one dominant currency on the Safe Network is not a bad thing, quite the opposite especially if we are concerned about the efficiency of both the network and nurturing any nascent economy forming around that network.
David and the core developers are very smart cookies and I have no doubt they will hash out all these issues when the time comes, if not already. I do not get much time to stop be here and comment but do try to keep up with the progress, and love the MVP release so will take this opportunity to say congratulations guys, you deserve a long holiday when this is over!
(*) See Money as a Unit of Account specifically section 5. The following two questions are answered:
“First, why do economic agents often find it useful to coordinate on a dominant unit of account? Second, what should a useful unit of account look like?”. Just replace “Government” with Safe Network as it is the network that will be the dominant issuer.