Have you thought about the possibility of adding, in the algorithm, the division by account?
Inflation generated by the Safecoin changed from token to account could, perhaps, be controlled by modifying the target % of SafeCoin in circulation.
Using a whole number for the smallest unit doesn’t mean you can’t name groups in useful ways. We have hundreds, thousands, millions as useful notation, even if we don’t give them specific group names.
Ultimately, it is easiest to say ten thousand safecoin than nought point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero one Bitcoin. Ofc, we can give the smallest unit a name like satoshi, but only enthusiasts know what one is or how many there are to a bitcoin (IMO).
Looking at it another way, a pound is a name we give to one hundred pennies. We often use K to refer to thousands of pounds (e.g 10k).
We can work both sides of a decimal, but whole numbers are easier to articulate, IMO. From a data size perspective, it makes little difference either - you need the same accuracy stored.
Really it is two sides of the same problem IMO. If whatever it is we are trying to value using Safecoin requires looking at ten zeroes on the left or right of the decimal then it is not aesthetically pleasing (is that 10 or 11 zeros, hard to tell at a quick glance). The interface can help make it easier on the eyes using as you say notation for hundreds, thousands, and conversely micro, mill etc. Ideally the most common things that Safecoin is used by humans to value is around 1 Safecoin ±100 but long term who knows where the market will price Safecoin, and is it really a problem anyway? The main reason I started posting on this topic back on the divisibility thread was concern from a usability perspective of introducing sub-currencies and exotic methods to represent fractions or groups of Safecoins which then leads to a lot of extra complexity that normal people have never had to deal with when using any other currency. People will not understand If you can’t take two halves and make a whole out of their Safecoin - it is added complexity and for what gain?
I think @dyamanaka idea is interesting and analogous to the Petrodollar. Most of the world must buy and hold USD if they want to purchase or sell oil but normal people outside that industry do not go around valuing things in barrels, gallons or litres of oil as a result no matter how volatile the US dollar gets or how much it has depreciated over time. So from that point of view I am sceptical that attempting to introduce and additional SAFE MB as a unit of account will be useful to people trying to value their goods and services but hey, who knows. As long as it is not forced on people it could work for those outside the industry of space allocation.
So is Safecoin to be a currency or a stock? If Safecoin is a stock then things get complicated - it does not serve the function of money and so is of little use pricing a wide array of goods and services from the very cheap to the very expensive, so what intrinsic value is backing the Safecoin stock if there is no future cash flow associated with it? If it is a currency then things are simpler. If due to many killer apps Safecoin becomes valuable, or due to inertia/apathy/complexity and lack of understanding by the wider internet community the value of a Safecoin falls very low Vs $USD, then pricing a 100GB “good” is the same method as valuing a news service subscription or anything else would be: it will adjust organically to some multiple or fraction of a Safecoin the way all goods and services are priced in any other currency and if that means 13 zeros before or after the decimal and need for unit notation then I do not see the problem.
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Please note this is all brainstorm. I’m not suggesting any of these things be done to solve a problem that may or may not happen…
Very good question.
If people start using SAFE GB as (common currency) then I had to figure out what other purpose/function Safecoin would fill to remain useful… needed.
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My first thought was voting stock because the SAFE community will need to decide on hardfork changes in the future. (1 Safecoin = 1 vote) Casting your vote recycles your Safecoin. This prevents people from “keeping” power after they accumulate a majority position. Also SAFE voting becomes more serious. This idea opens a door to political debates and I would rather avoid it on this thread.
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Another thought is “like” a futures contract, mentioned by @dallyshalla. Use Safecoin to buy more SAFE GB in the future? This assumes the Network will continue to increase farmer population and technology increases average drive space. I suppose this is also considered a store wealth.
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We could also combine #1 and #2… the more uses, the better.
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Domain Name Registration, proposed by @Seneca… see the post here.
The main reason I like SAFE GB is because it’s inflationary… good for spending. But it also has a tier structure (B, KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, EB, ZB, YB) that can be understood world wide. We don’t have to create new variations, trying to solve the Safecoin divisibility.
I also hope it will solve the “low hanging fruit” situation. This is when farmers contribute at the beginning because Safecoin is so easy to farm, then they move to a forked Network. Decrease in farmer population is very bad for the SAFE Network. A farmer in 2025 should earn just as easily as they do in 2015… in relation to their time period.
I like the simplest solution that requires the least amount of effort.
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Thanks @dyamanaka yes I am sharing my thoughts all in the brainstorming spirit sorry if I came across too strongly. More ideas and angles the better.
That is something I do not understand and would not mind to see explained for dummies like me (perhaps the topic for another thread though) - what exactly is the problem to solving divisibility - is it technical, political, a bit of both or something else? Divisibility appears on the surface to be easily solved in a consistent way if 1 Safecoin = X * the smallest unit of account, where the smallest unit of account is represented by a “signed structured data”. Bitcoins smallest unit of account has 2.1 quadrillion units as that is how many “Satoshis” can be represented in both a standard integer or a float representing integers. Perhaps the “chatty transactions” problem @Traktion talks about on the divisibility thread is a big deal and rules out the straight forward solution, but if that is the case then it would also be a problem for the current proposed setup if the market priced Safecoin very low and the majority of standard transactions needed to sign over a lot of structured data objects.
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I think safecoin is like a futures contract because if you have safecoin when network capacity is 100GB it will be more when there is capacity for 1000GB also consider how much safecoin circulates.
So having a safecoin today is similar to being able to have hedge on the future expansion of the network.
People will start to realize that when their 1 safecoin = 1 TB then that means they got 1TB of safe network for $.02
I wouldn’t say it is a futures contract, since it isn’t contractual but I’d say it has nuances economically that easily compare to a futures contract.
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No worries. 
My old post on this thread touches on why people like different tiers for pricing.
I am all for using rules for expressing monetary units in different denominations. My thoughts were mainly related to the usability of expressing those units in something else orthogonal to the currency, MB to $Safe being like oil is to the $USD, even if those are the main markets for the currency.
If I understood your question correctly.
That really depends on people. If they find it easy to understand, they will agree on a standard… in this case (GB) is a likely choice. But I can’t say for certain what they will prefer.
Just to clarify, SAFE GB is the currency, Safecoin is like the commodity/stock/futures.
So it would be like this…
Safecoin >> SAFE GB
Barrels >> $USD
I realize this is very strange. But instead of the Banks printing fiat, SAFE Farmers are generating SAFE GB, limited by real consumable resources.
I am thinking the possibility of using the notion of velocity of money to achieve the desired
economic stability of the network.
In the general theory the velocity of money is set as:
when
is the velocity of money for all transactions in a given time frame;
is the aggregate real value of transactions in a given time frame;
is the price level; and
is the total nominal amount of money in circulation on average in the economy (see “Money supply” for details).
In
our case
is Numbers of PUTs
is Price of PUTs
is the total Safecoin in circulation
Considering that all Safecoin is already distributed what we want is a stable system where is constant. (we can consider equal 1).
The network can only modify M as P and T are variables outside the network control.
So 1=PT/M or M=PT
If T (quantity of PUTs) increase P should decrease for that we increase M (total safecoin).
If T (quantity of PUTs) decrease P must increase, so we diminish M (total safecoin).
The M is controlled via the rate reward. This rate reward can be combined with the sacrificial rate and both control the stability of the system.
To accomplish this function the network must have available a significant amount of safecoin enough to allow control attack episodes or other situations.
What percentage should be? If we want to have an extremely secure network, 33% of the total safecoin in circulation could be a good number (the percentage could be agreed later).
At first, when the network is distributing new safecoin, the value of PT/M must be greater than one. The ideal is to establish a certain number of years of distribution and apply a formula (linear or logarithmic). In this way we know, at any time, the value that should have PT/M.
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Nice job formatting that comment!
“The main deficiency of the velocity of circulation concept is that it does not start from the actions of individuals but looks at the problem from the angle of the whole economic system. This concept in itself is a vicious mode of approaching the problem of prices and purchasing power. It is assumed that, other things being equal, prices must change in proportion to the changes occurring in the total supply of money available. This is not true.” (Velocity of money - Wikipedia)
But also, you seemingly arbitrarily map one variable in the original formula into another from the SAFE world.
For example, T from being the aggregate real value of tx in a given time frame becomes number of PUTs.
That sounds like the Fed’s proclamations on how they know how to “create recovery”, but we know they don’t (or worse, they are lying and simply trying to cause asset inflation and impoverish those who live from their labor)…
SAFE doesn’t exist in isolation from the Internet and as the criticism at the top says, what matters is individual action and not aggregates (which supposedly give the man behind the curtain an idea how “everyone” thinks and acts).
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Why? What are you trying to achieve?
Generally I think a formula like you propose is going to be good answer. There ought to be pricing as such that if storage gets jolted towards scarcity there is plenty of Coin available to purchase abundance again…
The issue with the velocity – And perhaps this is a bigger issue with the whole Concept of SAFEcoin in general, is that it is a multipurpose currency. It is going to buy more than PUTs and there may be a point where the pricing of PUTs has little effect on the scarcity, abundance or velocity of the coin. If everyone is spending it on everything else - the network pricing may be detached from the pricing significantly. The network can only recycle what is given back to it.
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One thought here is that the SAFEcoin >> GB is variable in time and variable by Group.
The Time is measured in Minutes or Hours (forget which)
The Group variability is minor but still a factor.
If this was the concept created then are you not purposefully creating trading in the commodity, across time and group?. Would we not then see people powering off then on again just to change groups to get a better deal? Buying GB in the US Morning when storage is higher then selling at US 2-3am when storage is lowest?
Honestly I prefer @BenMS thought (2 parts) 1) limit buying resource when already have say 5 SAFEcoins worth. And 2) freezing the SAFEcoin when purchasing resources and one frozen SAFEcoin is “deleted”/returned to the network when one coin’s worth of resource is used up. Which helps to limit the total resource pre bought and we do not see total resource value >> total SAFEcoins. This would of course make professional trading of resource less favourable but no hindrance to paying in resources for micropayments.
People can still hoard resource, but its real value is likely to decrease on them in time. People would be better to hold the least amount of their value (coin+GB) as resource (GB) for any extended amount of time.
Mind you I still feel that dividing SAFEcoin into say “cents” or mills/ micros/nanos will become a much better way for micropayments and maybe for buying resources when SAFEcoin buys too much resource to be useful.
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Very good points!
Yes, people might try to game the conversion system, causing unnecessary churn. I haven’t considered group hopping until you mentioned it. That’s a good reason to make conversion one-way on the Network. Exchanging SAFE GB back to Safecoin can be done via third-party exchanges.
Personally, I prefer a Quid pro quo system that is very simple. Supply 100 GETS and you earn 100 PUTS. The only issue with Quid Pro Quo is the non-starter, which requires someone to already have PUTS. Safecoin from the crowd sale solves the non-starter.
Believe it or not, the original plan was to have a two token system, see… 5. Economic System With Two Types Of Token. Along the way, we decided to disable POR Tokens and use Safecoin only. I believe the reason was too much load on the Network, constantly checking POR balances.
Please do not bother Maidsafe about a whitepaper that was written a long time ago. They are working very hard and could use some downtime.
The only reason I brought it up is because POR Tokens were created from heathy_space. But if POR Tokens were created via successful GETS, maybe it won’t be an issue. Old solution with a new twist?
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Re-reading your reply I think there may be a misunderstanding with my question that I did not make clear. If I understood correctly then to divide a Safecoin it will be necessary to exchange it for something else entirely, and once “divided” cannot be reformed - two halves will not make a whole. So really we would not be dividing a Safcoin we would be trading it for more of something else that is worth less.
My concerns on complexity, usability and familiaraity are about this “trading not dividing” idea and my question, to boil it down, is what is wrong with the straight forward simple method? To use the bitcoin example on the Safe Network then there would be 2.1 quadrillion “signed structure data objects” as the lowest unit of account (the “Satoshi”) and the standard “Bitcoin” is just a multiple of that, 100Million. Under that regime all divisions and multiples of a Safecoin require no extra tokens, exchange or trading mechanisms and two halves will make a whole so familiarity/usability are preserved. The answer you gave me appears to be about what you actually call those divisions and multiples, sorry about that.
It could be if the smallest unit is very small. Each unit of currency must be transferred in a transaction, which could result in thousands of data transactions for a normal payment, with small units.
When comparing with blockchains, even 1000s of small data transactions may still be more efficient than 1000s of nodes confirming the same journal entry. At least safecoin would scale better, as each new node added with not increase the number of nodes involved in payment transactions, but with blockchains they would be.
Maybe it is a price worth paying for simplicity, but it is hard to say. Maybe the dev team have a better solution in the wings. I know there has been discussion of splitting units when needed, so a safecoin becomes 100 safecoin pennies on request, etc.
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Yes, that is correct.
I was suggesting exactly as you said. Instead of dividing Safecoin, people exchange/convert it to SAFE GB, which is divisible. We would be running 2 currencies. I probably did not explained it well, my bad.
Safecoin = Preferred Store of Wealth Currency = Not Divisible
SAFE GB = Common Spendable Currency = Divisible
I take this to mean, why can’t we divide Safecoin, making smaller units?
The answer is, we can.
The problem with too many Safecoin units.
@fergish wrote a good OP about the effects of having too many units per transaction in Safecoin computational/communication density.
@Traktion described this as being “chatty” which he explained in his post above this one.
Basically, the concern is excessive workload, bogging down a small Network. But as the Network grows it can distribute this workload, making it less of an issue. Thus we can make smaller units at a later time.
Usability and Familiarity
Your concern is valid. The Networks conversion rate could be different from a third party fiat exchange. See example below.
SAFE Network Conversion Rate (based on Network storage availability)
1 Safecoin = 10 GB (Network at low capacity 10%)
1 Safecoin = 1 GB (Network at high capacity 90%)
3rd Party Exchange (based on average HDD cost $0.06 per GB)
1 Safecoin = 16 GB
If Safecoin was worth $1 on an exchange, people would likely demand 16GB per Safecoin. This could happen even though the SAFE Network is only exchanging 1 Safecoin for 10GB or even 1GB.
On the other hand, people might follow the SAFE Network’s exchange rate and adjust the “baseline” fiat value accordingly. So if the Network is exchanging 1 Safecoin per 10GB, exchanges would price Safecoin around $0.60 + Added Value.
I hope people will understand that Safecoin does not equal SAFE GB. These are 2 different currencies independent of each other.
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this is what have to be pursuit, in my opinion. by all means. close to impossible, but who knows
if we define an intern value based of an external one (fiat), we end up selling the network for debt
we have to define other things based on the networks own value, which is privacy and freedom. not viceversa
we have to start living inside the network, where we have disk space, privacy and freedom. and from inside out we should define what is a dollar, what is an apple etc
and for this to happen there have to be ‘regulations’ within the network, to protect it from outside turnovers
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A nice thought but hard to make a reality. People still live in countries with borders and have to pay taxes. 
What kind of “regulations” are you talking about?
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