Nice idea and the first development I realy like to see is voting using DApp.
btw only voting for the mined SOIL I think and not with the community reserve?
there are decentralized voting DApps available against the ethereum platform, but they tend to be one person/one vote schemes. by going with oneSOIL/oneVote, we dont really have an option for that yet DApp-wise. ive crossed my eyes over the code behind the voting DApps but cant see how to call ones address balance to weight ones vote.
the community reserve balance will not be used for voting. i think thats an unfair advantage to create a voting bloc that truly, in the most basic way, BELONGS to the community. the developers reserves, seeing as they each represent a single individual, will be eligible, as peter and i SHOULD have input where we think the outcome should go, but with ten times the volume of SOIL compared to the developers reserves potentially available to vote (which is why i set the threshold for this to begin institution) i feel there will be a greater deal of democracy.
ill give it until friday to allow community members to offer up what elements of SOIL theyd like put to a vote and if theres a clear cut majority regarding that, then thats what we'll vote upon. i have my personal idea of what id like to see voted upon, and ill present that, and reasons for and against.
i think that one thing that is important to have community input over right now is the
targeted block time. if the mining process is the engine behind the blockchain, the targeted block time is its heartbeat. it underpins the frequency of currency issuance and the speed of transaction confirmations. it keeps the system running to the ordered rate, with the block difficulty adjusting itself compared to the overall computational power performing hashes against the algorithmic problem on the network, which keeps this heartbeat steady. to avoid extreme volatility in the difficulty, the retargeting adjustment is less than a factor of four per cycle, and with the kimoto gravity well algorithm acting as our difficulty adjuster, our system is fairly reactive to keep the block time fairly equal.
one of the things that has kept our valuation low is the healthy but inflationary distribution of SOIL through the mining process. At present, with the 15 second targeted block time, which with an 8 SOIL block reward, is equal to approximately 48,000 SOIL being minted every day. This brings us to the first scheduled block reward halving (at 15,000,000 minted SOIL), reducing from 8 to 4 SOIL per block, within a single calendar year from our launch, in ~ mid-October, 2016.
now, our original intention had been for a 35 second blocktime, but in refreshing gsoil thru the update of geth, oversight and standardized ethereum parameters resulted in a reduction of that time to 15 seconds, skewing our original distribution scheduling. realistically, in practice, doubling the target block time back to the approximate 30 seconds originally sought, would decrease the inflation rate by a third, and at the same time increasing the time until next halving from ~1year to closer to 2years... giving more people a chance to mine during its highest inflation period and presenting a convenient period to watch how PoS on ethereum-based systems works or fails in differing implementations on ETH or the other forks.
short block time consshorter block times causes more mining power to be wasted on orphan blocks that are created thanks to block propagation delays across the breadth of the network. after a new block is generated for solution, it takes differing times to reach the whole of the network. some nodes receive the new block hash quicker than others. if, after a block is solved; and a new one is spawned; not everyone will receive the new block at the same time. nature of the beast. if the new block is solved nearly immediately, while the late receiver creates a separate new block with a -1 height compared to rest of the blockchain, it will most likely be an orphan block that will be rejected by the rest of the network. the mining power that went into creating the orphan block was practically wasted.
it usually only takes a few seconds for a block to propagate across the whole network, but for arguments sake, let's say it's averages out to 3 seconds. SOILcoin presently has a block target time of 15 seconds. so on average, every 15 seconds, someone makes a new block, and the rest of the network wastes 3 seconds of mining power trying to make an orphan block. that's 20% of global network mining power wasted. furthermore, individual miners with slower produced hashrates will waste much more mining power on orphans. this is on the assumption of 3 seconds total network propagation, it could be lower or higher than that, but it *IS* a factor.
there are also security implications. the ratio of typical generation delay to typical block mining time also affects how frequently confirmations may be reverted, as transactions could be confirmed on an orphan block. if the target block generation time is too short, then it is more likely that blocks may be solved nearly simultaneously. this causes the network to split its time mining power on both chains, on which MORE simultaneous blocks may be solved; and the resultant overall effect can sometimes be a something resembling a tree of blocks rather than the desired long and linear chain of blocks; before network consensus is remade and everyone is mining on the longest, and thus, official, chain.
short block times prosa fast distribution has it advantages, it presents a vigorous amount of SOIL reaching the market every day, which benefits the miners in a way because they can sell in volume, and benefits the purchasers by presenting larger blocks of inexpensive assets. unfortunately, with a larger distribution, the process of accretional upward value momentum is much more difficult to attain.
it benefits retail integration as there are MORE SOILcoins available to spend. fast block times help retail confirmations occur in a much shorter time frame, which helps the merchant and customer using SOIL to purchase goods. especially in Point of Sale purchases, where the customer doesnt want to be standing at the counter for several minutes waiting for transaction confirmation. online purchases, this would be less of a problem.
with faster block times, difficulty can be adjusted much more swiftly, it can be more REACTIVE to the demands and hashrates of the system. this assists in keeping the difficulty from becoming impossibly high after a mining farm disconnects from the network, resulting in a stagnant chain. it helps solo miners and small pools as there are more blocks available a day that are solvable, which means more potential SOIL available.
short block times also reduce the risk of double spend attacks, where a transaction is made between X and Y. X sends his amount to Y and recieves the asset the Y returns. X then IMMEDIATELY cancels the transaction, keeping Ys asset and retaining his asset as well. with a short block time, this becomes MUCH more difficult.
long block timesif block confirmation time is too LONG, then blocks are propagated infrequently and creates inconvenience when transaction confirmations take too lengthy a time. this has been an issue with Bitcoins trouble at time gaining a stronger foothold with retail integration, whether this is truly the case with confirmations or just the general perception. it DOES make for a more stable blockchain, as there are less orphaned blocks and less mining power is thus wasted on creating those, even with network block propagation delay.
a reduction in the distribution creates a different supply/demand ratio, and this can help increase the valuation of SOIL via less making it to the market daily, even among the high hashrate dedicated miners, making mining more profitable and creating advantages for those who have held and not traded out at low valuations.
ANY change to the block time, shorter or longer, WILL require updates to the system, meaning a new downloaded update version of gsoil will be necessary to ensure everyone is on the same blockchain with the new block time.
i propose the following options for block time targeting
A - 10-12 seconds - what Buterin proposes would be sustainable
B - 15 seconds - leave it as is
C - 30 seconds - closer to what we intended in the first place
D - 60 seconds - about the average block time target among all altcoins
E - 120 seconds - about 1/5th the time of BTC, still leading to stronger stability but longer overall confirmations
thats my idea and reasoning why i think we should base our first community driven vote on the block time generation (and distribution schedule) for SOIL. id love to hear others ideas on what to vote on, or to hear their thoughts on my proposal.
