With a bachelor in economics that statement seems to represent a, not so good, understanding of how markets work.
If there is a significant interest in the network then there will always be supply, even if the price might go up, if demand exceeds supply.
Example If price goes up then demand is higher than supply, a new price will give that more wants to sell which gives supply goes up until a new equilibrium is discovered between supply and demand.
Example derived from general understanding of the concept of supply and demand curves and shifts.
As Safe is a ultra high risk/reward investment, if it becomes a success, a natural expected move would be for many to move a major amount of funds to more secure assets within a short term after a successful launch.
While what you say is true in that storage requirements have a long tail over time, it is the rate of change in data needs that will govern the initial growth trajectory of the network. Consumption vs Wealth is well studied and with very few exceptions follows the general trend of the below graph. In this case consumption would be need for storage and wealth the number of SNT available to the initial holders:
100% awarded to Maid holders will have a high initial rate of change as they dump their existing data onto the network. After that the rate of change will slow compared to the initial uptake, apart from a few very extreme and rare cases if other markets are anything to go by. I was not saying that the Maid holders will stop using data services to hold out for higher prices, only their rate of usage will slow and that will make a huge difference to growth trajectory. Perhaps that is desirable IDK. If the initial Maid holders also have high overlap with those running the majority of the initial nodes then that will further retard distribution.
Thanks!
Ahh, the myth of aggregate demand and supply… I bow out of that debate.
Imagine “significant interest” leading to lots of competition to farm, but not much so much opportunity to be awarded tokens as you missed the initial RoC impulse of all those SNT wealthy Maid holders and were not one of the first farmers that benefited off it. Those still interested could always buy the tokens required on the open market but SN does not exist in isolation and your competing against free to very cheap storage elsewhere so the (myth of) “equilibrium” cannot be set through price alone.
Rate of change is an important concept in economics too and note that I am only talking about initial network growth rate here.
Price of SNT will not be the only factor representing storage cost as a higher price would make it more profitable to be a farmer and suppliers of storage(farmers) will go up if price goes up, that would make the price to store would go down to a new equilibrium.
As it is known as accepted general economic theory, it would be better if you could show that you have understanding of that theory and feel free to show example of markets where it don’t apply.
Wealth and consumption ratio is not applicable to describe movements in one asset on a market, between risk and other factors. Wealth and consumption ratio should represent a individuals total wealth and general consumption.
I actually like the idea above of making the foundation a historical archivist of sorts. Instead of distributing the tokens as extra “bonuses” to the farmers, simply have the foundation store useful data for the good of humanity to put new tokens into circulation.
This is also already a decelerating process, as public domain data is limited and expanding slowly.
There can be no shortage of tokens for farmers due to divisibility. Remember, rewards will tend towards a fiat value of the cost of storage give or take. What that equates to in terms of token value is irrelevant. If people hold their tokens the value goes up and the farming reward goes down in terms of tokens, but should stay roughly the same in terms of fiat.
True, however divisibility is not the limitation being talked about here. In short rate of change of requirements for space by Maid owners with 100% of the supply will guarantee below-potential growth rates for the network vs an alternative more widely distributed SNT policy. Divisibility does not play a role or make a difference as it is not about how many SNT there are, rather how they are to be distributed.
I have referenced here previously “general economic theory” is not generally accepted and there is a wide, deep and ever growing economist movement to change economics from the inside employing tools from various branches of modern science to do so.
It would be better if you could show that you have an understanding that linear econometric models have failed in almost every capacity to be predictive in the real world complex systems we call economies. Feel free to read up on the economists that have embraced techniques developed in the scientific realm for the study of complex systems (referenced here previously) and are having much greater success at modelling future states of complex economic systems for doing so vs linear econs.
However all this is way off-topic and I have no desire to wade into those weeds with you. You will have a much more productive debate and learning experience engaging with the “rethink economics” or related branch groups, as referenced.
Thanks for clarifying. I see your point and agree. Max network growth rate would tend to occur with the widest productive distribution of the 70% of tokens.
There are other people in the world than current MAID holders who wants to store data too. A major factor in the growth rate will be the price of storing data(in fiat terms). How tokens are distributed is not really relevant in itself.
If token distribution affects the price of storing data it will affect growth. For example the foundation could subsidize storage costs, say the actual cost for storing a terabyte og data was 10 SNT, the foundation could then pay 7 SNTs and let users store it for only 3 SNTs, people would then flock to get cheap permanent storage. Whether or not that is a good idea is another discussion, but it should affect the growth rate.
To make reference to some political movement that wants to taint and replace science with some pink unicorn ideology gives no value whatsoever. Some pink unicorn ideology have no say in what is generally accpeted, only the most prominent economic professors do.
I would never do that as “predictive” is not important. It is important to understand economic theory because it gives you understanding about how the markets work and what they are affected by and in which way effects have consequences on further events and how they tie together. It is like physics theories that only work in vacuum but they are critical in understanding how physics work.
You write things that sounds great but lacks substance and don’t provide anything to make it worth consider that you know about economy. I exposed the lack of knowledge and have no further ambition.
Agree, that is core to my point: How easily can these people obtain the SNT they require to store data (at any price point).
Also agree but with the awareness of the external price storage factors would sway certain percentage of potential new users:
I also agree with this. Others have also pointed out that as price rises (and factoring in the price limitation mentioned) it will attract more people to farm which I agree will happen.
What you appear to be missing is that influx of farmers attracted by higher prices only get a chance to farm SNT when someone who already holds SNT stores data. The rate of change in data needs of this initial SNT holder cohort has an enormous influence on growth trajectory of the network i.e. how many farmers and how frequently they will be able to farm tokens regardless of the price of those tokens since that is already factored in: High prices, less tokens needed to store more data, less a new farmer receives to then spend on their own data storage needs at a similar price point, and vice versa.
I remember reading elsewhere on this forum that perhaps a slow growth rate is desirable for the Safe Network. In that case perhaps giving majority of the supply to a smaller cohort of people is a desirable outcome. This RoC factor is the reason why crypto projects go to such extraordinary lengths to attempt to airdrop tokens to as many people as possible while avoiding people gaming the distribution. The affects on the growth trajectory of the network and where it will end up in X amount of time are significant. Projects have done this at many disparate price points since that is not the most important governing factor for growth.
What will be out there, and the granularity of the token, ensures that when someone wants to store data, they can get SNT. If they haven’t farmed it, they buy it.
If it’s “scarce” on exchanges, then not much is needed to store data either.
Even if maid holders have all the remaining 70%. Those 70% were never meant to be accessible immediately on launch, so it has always been the case. It would have been locked up in the network if not with the hodlers. Or in the foundation. Or in lockboxes.
I don´t disagree with anything you just said. Would just reiterate that “just buy it” has the external limiting factors I just mentioned as storage is part of a larger market regardless of the SN storage advantages vs other options for new users.
I understand and it does help the main point I was trying to get across:
Perhaps it will be useful to work backwards and calculate what the ideal network growth rate will be, then choose the combination of distribution methods to arrive near to it as possible. No easy task due to all the feedback loops like probability of Maid holders also being majority of initial farmers etc. Test networks will hopefully go a long way to clearing all this up, looking forward to it.
Buying SNT to store was always second best. It has a lot of friction so one of the plus points was that it should be easy to farm by anyone.
Practicalities mean that farming has more friction than I, and I think others hoped. It’s still easy, download and run, but also hard: you may have to wait al long time both to join, and then prove your worth before earning begins.
There are ways to mitigate this, not just by tweaking these, but by providing other ways to acquire SNT. These were discussed in the past but not so much lately. Donating to friends is one that’s still feasible I believe. Another was fawcets or airdrops but I’m not sure if they are feasible practically or legally.
We should I think have renewed discussion on ways to make SNT widely available because these also impact on the RFC. For example, is it something the Foundation could or should do, and if so how?
Unfortunately @JimCollinson is away I think, but maybe useful to have a recap on this when he comes back?
Agreed. The concern that strong hands won’t sell (I.e. release) SNT to the open market was an issue when SNT was conceived as non-divisible. That is no longer the case. The fact that SNT is divisible provides the flexibility to service both market and Network demands without dramatically increasing SNT in circulation (I.e. people don’t have to trade / use whole SNT for every transaction).
Moreover, the reasons why there isn’t much liquidity or trade volume in MAID inherently cannot persist once the Network launches. Those reasons include people refusing to sell b/c
The Network hasn’t launched yet
They doubt that the market price reflects the value of the token
They have difficulty accessing markets to buy / sell the token
There is limited interest in buying the token due to low awareness / lowly perceived “brand” reputation
If any of the above factors persist at and after the time of launch, these factors will impede successful Network growth. Quickly releasing additional SNT will exacerbate rather than solve (the negative impact of) these factors. Rather than flooding the market with SNT that people outside current MAID holders haven’t demanded (and therefore will not value or use), it would be optimal to deploy mechanisms that increase interest in using the Network. Thus, demand for SNT would also naturally increase. As demand for SNT increases people will sell b/c
The Network would have already launched
The market price would better reflect the value of the token (to both buyers and sellers)
More convenient ways to access markets to buy/sell SNT must be created to support increased demand
There would be real interest in buying the token due to high awareness / improved “brand” reputation
Presumably, the network will have a functional browser at launch. If this is, in fact, true, the most logical place for a newbie to get enough tokens to store a minimum amount of data is for the new browser to come with a small amount of SNT attached, with easy access to purchase more if needed. The big question then becomes: Who funds this default amount of SNT located within the browser? That should not be a deal-breaker, there’s more than one possible solution.
I don’t think the browser will be ready at launch but soon after so not a killer in itself. One issue to solve is how to prevent spamming of any free SNT to ensure it gets to many individuals rather than a few. Who funds it is more or less easily soluble depending on the amount and rate decided. But these are issues for their own (linked) topic do you think?
let the network itself (using lockboxes) slowly dole them out over a century.
break the 70% into chunks, some to the foundation, some as lockboxes, some as bonus for hodlers (many of whom have been very loyal and steadfast to the project for a long long time).
Give it ALL to @dirvine and see if we can make him richer than Elon Musk – cause that would be really cool!
I would like to suggest another related distribution for the rDBC’s.
1.) Put the rDBC’s into low-effort lockboxes.
2.) Put the locked rDBC’s into a DAO.
3.) Allow only staked eMAID or some sort of future wrapped DBC to function as votes for the DAO.
4.) Establish a DAO constitution wherein the foundation approves “what” is going to be voted upon and allow anyone to submit proposals to the foundation (there should be a clear process here, but foundation get’s final say on what is voted upon).
5.) Require a decently high ratio of positive/yea votes approve any distribution to prevent whales from controlling too much … there are some other anti-whale methods too - we can research those if there is interest here.
Thoughts/reasoning:
1.) This would be seen to the public as a mostly fair and secure way to deal with the excess tokens.
2.) It would engage supporters to develop new projects by giving a clear process for accessing funds.
3.) The low-level lockbox prevents too much from being dumped all-at once in any circumstance. As low-level it’s not an overly burdensome proof-of-work.
If there is much interest in this idea I’ll create a new thread.
… We are discussing potentially billions of dollars/euros in capital here … so I don’t think we can really overthink the possibilities … if we don’t try to come up with the best of ideas for it … and later whatever default idea is chosen ends up being… well … sh!t … and really hurts the network and the project as a whole; then we only have ourselves to blame.
