Specifics of the farming algorithm

[oetyng]

@jlpell

Pay on Get with big rewards to vaults based on various relative performance criteria and chunk age is the only way to incentivise continuous quality of service improvements and perpetual data.

There’s the carrot, and there’s the stick. What you describe is the carrot only. I think it’s incorrect to say that it would be the only way to ensure those properties. If the only way you can keep earning money is to not get kicked out, and you get kicked out by not having the chunks you should, then the exact same properties are achieved.

[jlpell]

@oetyng

If the only way you can keep earning money is to not get kicked out, and you get kicked out by not having the chunks you should, then the exact same properties are achieved

Yes, you need the stick too. And the fear of losing out mechanism (FOLO?) you describe is one layer of the incentive strategy. But that will not be enough to promote continual investment to improve quality and performance. Farmers are people, and there is a significant psychological benefit to being rewarded for meritous service rather than for just showing up and fear of rejection. Positive vs negative reward mechanisms etc. Seems obvious that network needs all these features, POP, POG, Audit, Stick.

[oetyng]

@jlpell

Farmers are people, and there is a significant psychological benefit to being rewarded for meritous service rather than for just showing up and fear of rehection.

I include some measurement of quality in the definition of “having the chunk”, and so that audit would be more than just about “showing up”. It can be deviced to put the same evolutionary pressure on quality of service.

But I agree that there are many possible models, and there are models that I think could be more useful, but they are not within same ease of reach, which is an important factor now.

[jlpell]

I think you currently have a good approach… Need to start somewhere. Pay on Put has some nice features/incentives so use them. It will be easier to see a simple way forward for Pay on Get after you have a testnet with the Pay on Put mechanism fully functioning. Intuition tells me that that an ideal exists around weighting the total reward payouts somewhere around 10% PoP and 90% PoG. Of the 90% PoG you could then have payouts weighted based on node age, chunk age, xor distance, and latency with older and faster chunks closest to the original vault being worth the most. Might also consider giving some PoG for passing an audit. It then becomes a double incentive to do a good job as a farmer. Double carrot and double stick.

[Sotros25]

@mav

They’d rather get the bigger reward from the dilution

But it wouldn’t be a bigger reward if the relative value of Safecoin tanks. It would be like all these other coins that aren’t even worth what it costs to mine (or in this case, farm) them.

@DavidMc0

My expectation is that given the choice between a reward that maintains or grows its value over time relative to a reward that will be significantly diluted over time, most farmers would choose the former.

Agreed.

@DavidMc0

So I don’t think competition between similar networks would put downward pressure on price,

Once again, agreed. For this to not be the case would require that there are no economies of scale. The larger the network gets the faster, more efficient, and more secure it becomes. Those factors alone present formidable competitive advantage to rival networks.

@Dimitar

They are two separate networks. With separate safecoins. They don’t know about each other, but because they use the same types of data, I think it will be easy to import information from one network to another.

So are you planning to fork the Network? Perhaps SAFE has found its Roger Ver come Craig Wright.

@waveman352

So we end up with 100 different varieties of safecoins with various different supplies?

At best it would be like Bitcoin Diamond, Cash, SV and the litany of other Bitcoins that no one really trusts or uses.

[Traktion]

@oetyng

@jlpell

Farmers are people, and there is a significant psychological benefit to being rewarded for meritous service rather than for just showing up and fear of rehection.

I include some measurement of quality in the definition of “having the chunk”, and so that audit would be more than just about “showing up”. It can be deviced to put the same evolutionary pressure on quality of service.

But I agree that there are many possible models, and there are models that I think could be more useful, but they are not within same ease of reach, which is an important factor now.

If I understand correctly, I like it.

The idea of a reward being held back until relocation should keep vaults honest. It means:

• They can’t just cut and run without losing their earnings. They have to stick at it until relocation time.
• They must continue to prove they have what is requested (perhaps even spot checks, etc).
• If they leave after relocation, then the network had invested the least effort in them.

[digipl]

I think we are talking a lot about farmers but little about the other pillars that are needed to make the network a success.

We need:

1.-Users. Who will only enter the network if they find some advantage in doing so. The benefits will come from access to interesting data and helpful applications. So we need…

2.Public data and Apps. We need the network to be filled as soon as possible with useful information and applications that give something that is not found elsewhere. At the beginning the new data must be very cheap and, a point that we must emphasize, we need developers of applications that find it beneficial to work for the network.
Finally we need…

3.-Farmers to store and manage this data, which will have to be compensated in a fair and proper way to make it profitable to continue doing it in time. As the above points increase (users, data and applications) we will need to increase the number of farmers which will also increase the security of the network which, by the way, will be the best way to avoid the existence of forks.