Wouldn't the proposed loyalty system scare away any newcomers and cause a slow monotone decrease in the network speed?
People possibly would either simply skip the coin if they take the time to read about the system (and don't risk it / sacrifice their freedom), or jump out of the mining soon because they don't understand why they get less shares compared to other similar miners.
This is similar to the pool loyalty systems like PPLNS. PPLNSs take away the miner's freedom, so nobody joins to a new PPLNS pool unless he plans to stay for a while (but he needs to be convinced that he will want to stay) or he has no idea what to do (but he will probably join to a multipool or squer one LTC).
It works because most of the pools use PPLNS, so the miner doesn't really have a choice (and this fact makes the remaining few PPS pools look like the target of the oldschool poolhoppers).
I don't say it's a bad thing to have courage for trying new things. But may be it's not the best idea for a weak coin if you want to keep it alive for all costs, instead of being ready to sacrifice it anytime.
I just say it's risky and CAT might not need more risk factors right now.
Thank your thoughtful reply.
This may be a chicken-or-egg type thing where it may be argued that the chicken had to come first or that the egg has to come first. A related question is, if having incentives in place for coin hopping miners to come only when they can cherry-pick, and people who are inclined to mine the coin long-term are given incentives to just drop the coin and mine elsewhere, is it wise to value the coin hoppers above the would-be long-term miners, or the other way around? Which type of miner is healthier for the coin's longer-term success?
I would suggest if we take it for granted that long-term miners are going to leave anyway, and the only hope we have to have any miners at all, is the coin hoppers, then I would suggest this means in effect the coin is already dead and there is no hope for the coin. Why? Because if all the long-term miners go away, then in one of these high difficulty eras, the coin will have unacceptably long confirmation times which stretch into days or more, and the exchanges and pools would drop them because it appears there is simply no activity anymore on the coin.
On the other hand, if we lose all the coin hoppers and the network hashrate drops to something pretty low, but more consistent regardless of jumps in difficulty level, then the coin would continue to generate blocks at approximately the rate of one per 10 minutes, so in that respect the coin would be very much alive; and since coin hoppers engage in dumping cheap coins on the market, the coins would have less downward pressure on price. If I am right on this, then some of the people who have cheap sell orders would rethink getting rid of Catcoins for cheap - by making them rethink they can always get more CATs for cheap. Then the prices can show a modest and consistent gain, and win more believers who mine the coin longer-term, and we see the network hashrate rebounding.
I am in no position to guarantee any outcome, and once a coin is in decline there is a lot to overcome, but in my estimation, the coin hoppers phenomenon has been putting a downward pressure on altcoins (into their graves) for a long time, and upward pressure on LTC and BTC (because when they dump, they are dumping *for* LTC's and BTC's to hold generally, otherwise they can't compute any "profit"), and just compare the market capitalizations of the coins involved. So either an alt can find a way to climb up in relevance and stability and value to hopefully have decent market cap one day, or they continue to have bad reputation as a graveyard for any BTC's you convert into them, unless you can dump them and get out in time, we will continue to lose more and more loyal miners and loyal coinholders.
Catcoin is not alone in this - most of the altcoins are languishing in the rapid oscillation of difficulty territory, and this is a systemic problem with incentives built into the difficulty adjustment algorithm. Systemic problems generally call out for systemic solutions, unless we are satisfied with the status quo.
So the real question seems to me - is it preferable to do everything possible to stabilize the difficulty and reward structure of the coin network, so maximum generated coins go to loyal miners - watch as the slowest portion of the difficulty cycle picks up network hashrate while the fastest portion of the difficulty cycle loses network hashrate, and accept the outcome what may come, knowing we did everything possible to make the coin healthy? Or is it preferable to try to chase after a higher hashrate from coin hoppers, bribing them with lots of cheap coins, knowing full well they have zero belief in the coin's potential and only come mine when they can "make a killing" doing so to obtain the coins for "cheap" and dump them on the exchanges - and hope somehow while keeping this reward structure in place, underpaid loyal miners continue to mine underpaid during high difficulty times so we don't end up with many hours between blocks?
I also specifically want to address the "new miners" angle, because this argument has a strong emotional appeal in that it paints a picture of a sympathetic wide-eyed and inexperienced person trying out Catcoins. I suggest that coin hopping for maximum profit is sophisticated behavior of someone who has been in the coin mining activity for a long time and not someone likely to change this mode of behavior until the incentives are fixed. Someone who is actually new to mining a coin would tend to just mine Litecoins, or if they find a non-LTC coin to mine that they like, they would tend to set their rigs up to mine that coin without particularly paying attention to 'profitability' ratings, at least for awhile. So if anything, keeping profitability low for loyal miners (who are more likely to be people new to mining) seems more likely to me to scare away "new" miners who will realize sooner or later they are being fleeced. On the other hand, fixing the incentives would scare way old-timers who are exploiting employing a sophisticated scheme to extract cheap Catcoins at the expense of the loyal miners many of whom may be unsophisticated miners - almost in a scam-like fashion. So if we want to be pro "new" miners, as miners who are too inexperienced to pay attention to profitability - then we should fix the incentives. Unless - do you really believe we should be taxing loyal/unsophisticated miners to pay for coin hoppers to only mine sometimes, when it's convenient for them, and to hell with people who are too "dumb" to mine when the difficulty is too high to be profitable?
stupid fork with idiotic parameters
i agree need second fork
adjust max diff increase to MAX! 1.5x current diff
..and the cat is saved
How does this not equate to a recipe to generate lots of cheap Catcoins just when the coin starts to get going? If the value of the coin goes up 50x or 100x due to some positive development we cannot currently foresee, then it means it would take many cycles of being at the top of profitability charts all over the place, inviting every tom, dick, and harry engaged in coin hopping to pick up "cheap" catcoins and dump them on the exchanges and put an end to the upward trend of the coin valuation, before we have had the opportunity to truly see how high it can go.
So we should be asking ourselves what is the root cause of our predicament? Is it that the difficulty adjustment has the freedom to make large changes when it seems appropriate - or that we have coin hoppers systematically show up to mine the coin on a cherry-picking basis, and cause an unhealthy oscillation in the difficulty levels? I submit that the former is merely a symptom, and the latter is the actual root cause. If you have good arguments in the other direction, please show the arguments, because if it is indeed the other way around, then a more general approach like you suggest may be more effective and/or there is no hope for any altcoins.
