Are there any coins besides the currently available supply of 452,552,412?
How can I find out more about the SAFECOIN emission rate compared to BTC’s?
At what point (if ever) will MAIDSAFE be open-source?
If MAIDSAFE does not have a blockchain, where is the ledger which records everyone’s SAFECOIN balance?
Does MAIDSAFE incorporate BTC in any way?
Maidsafecoins can ben changed to Safecoins once the network is live and out of beta. There is no ledger, nodes sign the transactions as well as a lot of other nodes. So the new owner can prove that he got the safecoins and he now own the coins. This is different from a blockchain where there’s a timestamp. Safecoin transactions take place within a second. Maidsafe is already open source. But there are no installers yet. So if you want to try the program you have to compile the code yourself. Another option is to wait for a couple of weeks. BTC can probably be traded against Safecoin in a decentralised way. You have to run the Bitcoin client and Maidafe as well and use a program that creates a bridge between the to systems. There are no BTC inside a Safecoin. They are different coins.
The issuance rate is discussed here . I think @anon40790172 answered everything else.
Is there a maximum number of Safecoin that can be distributed?
Are there any Safecoin/Maidcoin beyond 452,552,412 currently in existence?
Where do the coins come from that are distributed as a reward to core developers? Are there any other ways to create/generate coins besides by Farming and Building?
Have the potential security implications associated with not having a ledger been discussed? Will there be any way to audit the number of SAFECOIN in existence at any given time?
Are there any components of MAIDSAFE that are not open-source?
Can builders create closed-source applications for use on the network?
Some of this is answered in the link I posted.
The are no Safecoin in existence.
The crowdsale issue of MaidSafeCoin has finished, and will be coverted to Safecoin one-for-one when the network launches.
The network will issue Safecoin as needed to reward farmers, app builders and content producers (as explained above).
The issue rate, recycling etc is determined by maths, visible in the code for anyone to check, and protected by the network consensus mechanism. All of the core code is GPL3 open source with the exception of the virtual drive library needed for windows clients - though this is likely to be replaced by an open source alternative is under development.
Anyone can create an app and license it however they like. There will be app stores, and the expectation is that these will themselves be SAFE apps, gaining popularity though doing a good job, informing users of the nature the apps listed, including whether the code is open. So we expect Open Source to be favoured.
When all Safecoin have been issued, that’s it, but rewards will come instead from recycling 1%-3% of Safecoin per year, through charging by the network for storage, computation etc.
Eventually all rewards will come from recycled Safecoin. At the moment, the Foundation (a Scottish charity) holds bitcoin and Mastercoin from the crowdsale, and uses these to support core development, PODs and so on.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to know how many Safecoin are in circulation, so @dirvine may answer that. If you have security concerns, please do more research as many have been raised and discussed here on the forum. The are also academic papers for you to read that deal with potential attacks and how the network defends against them.
Is 4.3 billion a hard maximum for Safecoin?
Where do the coins come from that are distributed as a reward to core developers?
How can an app builder create an app that is not open-source? Can the Maidsafe network execute binary code? Or can someone upload the source code for an app to Maidsafe and allow others to use the app but not view the code?
Yes the 4.3Bn limit is in the code.
For now, core developers don’t get Safecoin, they are getting bitcoin from the Foundation, or rather are paid by the Co which is funded by the Foundation.
After launch I believe there is a mechanism the Foundation to receive Safecoin earned by the network for redistribution, and this may continue to fund core development, or be used for other charitable purposes. I’m not certain about that, so check if it is important to you.
Open source refers to the license. Any app actually runs locally on the client, but by using the network api can perform operations on the entire network (eg store, retrieve, send message etc).
If someone writes an app they need to create something that can run on each client they support (e.g Windows, iOS, Android etc), or that will run in a cross platform environment like a web browser. You can create and distribute binary apps, but they will only run on clients they are designed to run on - just like the current internet.
EDIT: an important difference with the current internet is there’s no need for apps to be installed on the client computer as they can run using the SAFE API for all storage and communications, and will leave no trace on the computer when you quit. This is like those portable apps you can install on a USB drive.
Later, computation will be a service that can be run on the network as a super computer, but that’s a whole different mechanism from apps. For apps, just think in terms of the current internet, where SAFE also provides an API for storage and communications, with built in wallet and micropayments.
If you’re not a developer is hard to understand these issues, and even if you are to be honest! 