Topic: Idea/discussion: Adjustable difficulty and rewards for stable block generation (Read 432 times)

If difficulty is 5% of the "base difficulty", no coins are produced. Transaction fees are also forfeited.  64kb max block size (prevent spamming). However, this is useful in case of a sudden drop in network hashpower, to retarget the difficulty.

If difficulty is 40% of the "base difficulty", 30% of the base coins are produced. 256kb max block size. This can be more profitable when there are a lot of transaction fees waiting to be picked up (during streaks of bad luck)! You'd collect the TX fees faster (on average) than someone mining at base difficulty.

If difficulty is the base difficulty, then the base coins are produced. 768kb max block size.

If difficulty is 400% of the "base difficulty", 405% of the base coins are produced. 1MB max block size. Good for sudden increases in hashpower, without disrupting the network

Difficulty target would be placed in the block header, to force a miner / pool to choose an option. Generally miners will choose the base difficulty, unless there are a lot of TX fees pending to be collected, which miners may start switching to 40% difficulty to try and claim it before someone else does. Those who are about to introduce a lot of hashpower in the network would go with the 400% difficulty option, which won't spam the network with too much blocks yet give him a small bonus (to compensate for the variance).

Coinbase cannot reach zero (maybe a minimum coinbase of 5?).

The difficulty targeting system would obviously need to take in account the actual difficulties, and the confirmations system would need reworking (a 5% confirm is worth less than a 200% confirm).

Thoughts?