Great post as usual @mav but yeah it has some major plot holes that could conservatively put your figures off by an order of magnitude or three. Bittrex is the least worst option for trading Maid at the moment, but it certainly is no place the majority of people would keep their funds or provide “liquidity”: There is almost zero incentive to do so, and a much longer list of scary negative reasons not to do it. For this simple reason extrapolating current Maid CEX volume to any DEX scenarios is a really long shot. Security and Incentives reign in this space, more on this below.
That statement is a long long from where I am standing and what I have written about on this topic for years - I am surprised this is your take away. I have expressed the problem and possible solutions in Maid-e previously over many years, but here is a quick summary starting with the “worst” one I have seen erroneously leveled time and again: “That this is just a few greedy people who want to drive up the price, get rich quick”:
I have a modest amount of MaidSafeCoin sitting in deep cold storage not doing me, this project, or anyone any real good. On Uniswap or similar I can add them to the liquidity pool alongside some other pair that I own, say Ethereum. Why would anyone bother?
A) Instead of some CEX profiting from trading activity while I take all the risk (stealing or locking my funds, extorting me on the transfer fee out etc), I can instead personally collect those juicy trading fees for myself. Sometimes my Maid-e at risk goes down as price rises, but my eth will increase then vice versa when the Maid price decreases. I collect the fees for being a liquidity provider and get to re-invest the fees in more Maid if I wanted. Oh and I keep control of the keys - security. I could have let my Maid just sit there working away for the last few years and forgot about them… good for me and good for the project, but why exactly good for the project?
B) “Liquidity” increases as Maid-e holders move some of their stash into the DEX pools and eat CEXs lunch, sure, but that is not the real benefit or what brings real sustained value to the project. The vast community of decentralised developers and dApp users reside in that space. A Maid-e bridge over to the largest pool of decentralised developers, dApp users and where they have their accumulated wealth stored allows easier transition to the future SN. Developers developers and dApp users! They are all over there in the hundreds of thousands+.
What do I mean by “easier transition to SN”? If we were to launch next month there is only one small segment of potential new users that could sign on:
- The few that will risk using a couple of questionable CEXs, then shuffling in on Maid-o transition mechanism.
- Those with a desktop machine/rented servers to earn SN tokens directly.
Everyone else is excluded, especially mobile users other than read only.
Just to take the top concerns:
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FATF will keep ultra private SN token off CEXs and away from direct fiat onramps like localbitcoins. Evidence for this posted previously.
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Native SN Dex will be unavailable for how long, months, years? (See last paragraph here). Then add extra time for stablecoins to reach SN. Fiat onramps have a chance of never happening.
The best “against” I have seen so far:
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@happybeing said that those on the inside could pay those on the outside to work for them. That assumes Mechanical Turk like DEX on SN which brings us back to the time to implement problem, and it reeks of haves and have nots… looks ugly.
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@dirvine and team are going to pull a rabbit out the hat and we are set to get bearer certificate SN Token. Amazing and extremely useful for sure …but… it is the same problem as before: the haves paying the have-nots that they know in bearer certs, or some other form of philanthropist endeavour. A mass worldwide release of SN Token Gift cards for purchase could work, but I don’t see it being likely… FATF. Also try selling them and see how fast your pulled up on money laundering charges.
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Jim raised possibility of using Maid-o with Thorchain as a lifeline to wider market. This could possibly do it and is the most promising solution outside of Maid-e so far. Do not know what the DEX situation is on Thorchain but would expect it to be decent.
I have seen nothing else addressing the enormous scale of the problem. I have not even seen much recognition that this is even a problem at all!!! Probably because most community members here are already hoarding a pile of MaidSafeCoin for years now, they want to keep it this way.
The proposal here is a relatively simple, actionable solution: New users already interested in decentralised tech hears about SN and that there is a simple Maid-e onramp. They jump on their favorite non custodial mobile wallet, some use their debit card, and they purchase Maid-e directly instantly via Uniswap or similar. They then send it to an exchange contract and receive their SN tokens shortly after… ready to use the SN. If they need cash to buy more hard drives then the process is reversed. Replace Maid-e with Maid-o and Thorchain as also very viable solution. Nothing else even comes close… does it?