So on "I'm basically asking how can we gain more users in a system that if it were working at median difficulty would normally need more supply than exists":
We're not expecting to hit median difficulty when we are hoping to gain users; we are expecting to hit very low difficulty at first. I think we will hit difficulty around 1000 in Environment B - simply because of all the tithing capacity available. I wouldn't expect us to come anywhere close to hitting the sum of (single tithes per user) being > total money supply (until we do gain more POG users). I expect a user to tithe 20 times per day in Environment B, using all their bank notes up, with minimum coin age being almost .25 and minimum coin amount being almost 1, and re-using the same banknotes 2* per day. I could see us collecting half of the foundation tithes per day in a low difficulty environment like this, that is until new users join.
The new users are not joining because we didn't tithe our entire money supply, they are joining because POG difficulty is too low and POG profitability is too high. We would shoot from 50 POG users to 500. Why you would disagree with that is beyond me, but thats what would happen if we are paying 1 mil in rewards and only have 50 miners on POG.
On these medium diff figures, the other thing about POG that is different than the math done here above is we have 5 sets of 40 blocks per day with difficulty based on the last 40 blocks, and that will sweep in a lot of tithers who missed the boat up to 5 times per day (IE diff will be a little more volatile) giving them opportunities. What Im implying is if diff is high in the morning in environment B, we will still see it drop once those 40 blocks pass, allowing a lot of low diff users potentially in the pool (unless things are constant through the transition period).
So in summary, I expect difficulty to be as low as 1000 and everyone to tithe 24 times per day. Each time they re-use a coin, it has a minimum coin age requirement of .25 - so theoretically they could re-use the stacks of coins up to 4 times per day.
With 500 users otoh, I would expect difficulty to rise to 20,000 and then the users tithe frequency will drop to what we see now (4* per day, etc) because more coin age will be required per user to maintain the status quo. This is the kind of environment Im hoping to hit, and more than that, 20,000+ users. This algo is tuned for mass adoption.
The entire only looking back 40 blocks thing is going to introduce mass confusion for new users. If user A and B both are new users and have the default set to tithe once per day, and User A's system tries on block 40 of the string...can't because the diff has spiked to 25,000 and he's got no coin stacks older than 23 days and literally ten minutes later, his friend, User B, is able to max tithe 10 BBP from his 1 day old block of coins because he's on block 1 of a new cycle...people will believe they have done something wrong or it's just not working. Then 18 hours later, when User B gets this giant stack of rewards (probably on a 25:1 or better return) User A is really going to be mad. The next day when it happens again, User A will likely just give up and when User B finally gets to the wrong part of the 40 block cycle and suddenly cannot tithe, he'll get confused. He'll stay a few days longer than A because he thinks this coin is supposed to have these crazy rewards but for some reason he's not getting them either. He'll call User A and say "I guess you were right, this coin doesn't work right". They'll both tell non-User C, "avoid BBP, it doesn't work".
The 40 block look back is a big problem in a system that strives to be fair. A look back should be 205 blocks but a look back of 410 blocks would smooth out most the bumps and give a lot more stability to the expectations of users and be much harder to game for unwarranted gains.
While a crazy large ROI will draw in some users initially, at best it's only a temporary influx and quite frankly with the price where it is at and trending towards I cannot see a good retention rate. How we shoot our user base ten fold as you seem to think is feasible, is not so simple. There are MN coins out there with crazy ROI, but they're still low end coins with low user bases. We have one of the cheaper MN costs right now for established coins, but we're not seeing the volume on the markets that would imply we're getting new users from it.
Getting to your point that the algo is tuned to mass use...20,000 users should be nearly impossible with the current parameters. The system (if fully implemented) at median difficulty (which I think we both agree is unlikely in the near term and I'll say is unlikely even in the long term) can only support 10,000 tithes a day. Since most power users will be tithing multiple times each day (even you expect everyone to tithe 24 times a day) this math doesn't add up.
I think you misunderstand my dislike of PoG. It's not that it is inherently a bad system. And it's not that I'm a PoDC-or-die sort of user. It's merely right now we have a system (PoDC) that works for the advanced users and could be simplified for the intermediate users (in fact, it's what was democratically voted to be done a few months ago instead of PoG). I freely admit a new user will be able to put tithe=1 in their config file but that doesn't show an understanding of Pog any more than them putting gen=1 genproclimit=1 minersleep=750 in their config file means they understand PoBH.
Thank you for your reply and despite my disdain for PoG, I do thank you and MiP for your hard work on the coin and the PoG system. At the end of it all, I just think we'll have to agree to disagree.
Well I think you all realize by now I answer in a non biased fashion even at my own expense.
This argument about the 40 block lookback creating confusion is something that is being blown way way way out of proportion. The 40 block lookback is internal and not intended to be communicated to miners - its not something that affects the everyday use in a way that should be in a training guide. Its really the same system that we have with DGW anyway. The lookback period is used by algorithms to get a barometer or a feel going as to where the trend is. Its exactly the same as our 28 block lookback that is hardcoded in to DGW. (Its used so the wallet can be efficient and not slow down). Miners dont know about it - they dont know exactly how the POW difficulty changes - they just know that when its high, its very hard to mine the current set of blocks. This is exactly the same with POG. They dont need to know how exactly the clocks internal mechanism works, but they know how to mine it because they have a steering wheel and a gas pedal. This is an unfair argument, its very clear that POG is easy to use and exposes a simple difficulty that reacts properly to the current pools tithe level. We will be able to get the exact feel for it after block 102025 and before Environment B, because the capacity will be here in just a couple more days (IE the pool capacity and behavior will be in prod at that point) so we will know very clearly how it will behave in Environment B within 7 days after that (short of the hopeful influx of users that would fill up the pool later).
I know the web vote shows strong support for POG and 3 votes more for Improving PODC, however we also didnt get this far by misleading the users or not being democratic. Togo raised the potential issue that the web votes could be being swayed by illegal votes. We spoke about the untrustworthiness of the attackers that swear, that dont really care about the orphans or Jesus, that are here just because they are greedy, and I even watched, yes I WATCHED the 10 new users per minute come in when I ran the forum.biblepay site before Snat got it, and even had to shut off new user registrations to keep the polls from being corrupted. At that point I went ahead and added the official poll as a sanc poll to get support to finish writing and then to deploy POG to prod for this phase. We even commented about the untrustworthiness about web polls. As I said when the poll was on, Im not anti-PODC itself, I just have reservations about its ability to bring mass adoption. I feel the Holy Spirit wants POG over PODC because of that reason; we are supposed to be spreading the gospel otherwise God may not bless this platform. That means my job is to come up with a killer feature that exposes miners and users to the Gospel in new ways (ways that arent here yet) - for example an event list in the wallet, a spiritiual warfare campaign with compensation, we need to inundate users with gospel reminders somehow, but who are we inundating if they are all PODC miners (IE 300, with 10 computers each), why not try to inundate those horizontally, IE 3000 users where we might save one per week (IE let them reach Jesus)? Thats the kind of system God would bless. But Ill clarify, Ill get back on the PODC wagon if its voted for and Ill construct the vote in a way that makes it clear that POG would stay in environment A, and PODC would stay. However I will add a couple catches, that we enhance PODC to address the oracle concern (IE I will virtualize it) and address the concentration in another way (IE I will concentrate PODC in a way that any miner can mine it) but Im not going slate this 300 hours of work for PODC if its voted to be retired. So at this point realize I agree wholehartedly the only secure voting system that exists is our sanc voting system and the next poll should be a Sanc poll for this (around block 106000 or so).
Thank you for bearing with me.