I mine this coin, and I support lowering the block reward although I think there are other solutions!
The net effect of lowering the block reward will be that people will be mining a coin that is more stable in value but less profitable to dump, thats all.
I have mined over 60,000 UTC, i have sold all but 10,000 coins.
The reason I had to sell those coins was not because of the price falling it was because of the following concerns:
1) Inflation rate is out of control(not because it is high, but because it WILL BE HIGH for a VERY LONG TIME)
2) The coin is very centralized on only one pool, there pretty much is only one pool to mine Ultra-Coin on, because if you mine anywhere else other than Nitro, you will have 30~40% less coins than if you mined on nitro, due to stales, rej, orphans , etc... etc.... while on Nitro simply because of their size you are pretty much a subsidized miner compared to other pools, (that goes to say that other pools are essentially suffering for you to mine more on Nitro).
Thats not a healthy model for a coin, I can't really be a long-term part of that, even though I been with this coin from the beginning.
3) This coin was markted as "ultra coin" yet there isn't really all that much about this coin that makes it "ultra anything" its pretty much just a normal coin, with a good algo that makes it hard to mine with ASICS.
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Things that would make me really say "wow ultra coin is ultra awesome"
-Find a way to cut costs for miners, make this coin run colder on GPUS, I don't think CPU mining is the answer.
A dedicated Ultra-Coin Miner not based completely on Cgminer is needed, the miner should just attempt to self-tune and mine on graphics hardware, breaking even while mining on cpu/gpu is not going to end-well, the net hash will drop HARD.
If you could lower electrical consumption that would be awesome.
Honestly, If you could make a more Asic resistant version of X-11 or something similar, and cut electrical consumption to simply make GPUS COMPETITIVE with ASICS that would be better.
-The wallet sucks and is boring MegaCoins wallet is interesting, also UltraCoin wallet TAKES FOREVER TO LOAD (not sure if a new version addresses this).
-Maybe instead of lowering the block reward , just increase it , so we can mine out the coin and put it into TxFee Mining only mode.
This way everything is already in circulation, think of increasing it as a community AIRDROP of coins to miners.
Miners would love this cause they would get coins and save electricity (since they wont have to mine for years to get the same coins).
Buyers and Bagholders would love this because the coin would finally just crash and hit its low and start to rebound in real value.
THE KEY TO SUCCESS IS VOLUME, NOT HIGH PRICES.
What I would focus on as dev:
-Improve Wallet (not just skins) but make it more appealing and easy to use and more robust, all the coins are essentially on generation 1 wallet software and lets be honest, the wallet is a steaming pile of Doge Doo
-Write some dedicated adaptive mining software, even if its still based on Cgminer
-Focus on keeping it a community coin, best way to do that is to appeal to people with GPU hardware since the majority of people mining . . . mine with GPUS, what will happen when ultra coin becomes a CPU only coin? the community will dissolve thats what.
-Fix the nethash being 99% Nitro, its ridiculous and makes the coin look like a joke.
-Fork the coin to a more GPU efficient algo, like X11, Scrypt Jane is getting OLD, make some hybrid X11 thing or something or Dual Algos X11/Jane give people a choice.
-Make the coin mine-able with some other coin, like vert or something this way people can mine Ultra and still stay profitable.
-Maybe don't lower the block reward, INCREASE IT so the coin finally crashes gets mined out and goes into POS mode and mining for TxFees, make it mine out in a month , it would be like an air-drop to the community (pretty much consists of miners and a few bag-holders at this point).
There really isnt a reason to draw out such a high rate of inflation for YEARS, just put coins in circulation the free market will adapt and the coins price will rise once it is fully distributed.
I know that sounds un-fair to people who bought in on IPO'S etc, but do you really REALLY think they care if their 50,000 coins go from 3 cents to 1 cents? at this point?
In-fact airdropping the coin to miners, would probably endup BOOSTING the price as volume and volatility will soar!
Just my 2 cents.
I vote
CUT THE CAP IN HALF
INCREASE THE BLOCK REWARD TO WHERE WE WOULD ENTER TXMINING Mode in a month
Fork to more energy efficient algo / dual algos
Lower time required to gain interest on coins to 0.05% a month thats like a little over 1% a year.
Why not put up a POLL with a few OPTIONS? let the community vote on the direction of the coin!!!!