Could you summarize the requirement for the signers? The design doc has some but there are more scattered in posts. It seems that there are a lot of requirements as what and how the signer should do quickly and everyday. Being a signers is like a full time job. If a signer works 8 hours a day you'd need three to fill one around-the-clock position, which B&C needs ~10. Can B&C find so many dedicated reputable signers?
If they are to be paid to be motivated, B&C would need to pay 30+ person's salary (with fees or whatever)?
Being a reputed signer takes absolutely zero work on a day to day basis. Everything is automated except the release of other signers' security deposits, but that is likely to occur less than once a month. The first version of B&C Exchange will also require signers to occasionally broadcast deposit public key lists, although this can be automated in later versions. For now most signers will set up their operation on a VPS. It just runs. You get block rewards. That is all.
There is just a bit to set up to get started, but there really isn't much to it. Here is a hypothetical example of how a signer would get started:
Adam decides to commit to being a Bitcoin and Nu signer, which means he is promising to always be able to send verifications and sign transfers for the deposit addresses he publishes for those blockchains, unless and until he permanently transfers the keys and responsibilities to another signer (who has already established a reputation). He believes BlockShare holders will trust him because he has been an important developer in the Nu community for a year and has proved reliable and trustworthy in that role.
Adam takes the following steps to prepare for the responsibility:
- He pays for a VPS subscription.
- He installs the Bitcoin client, the Nu client, the B&C Exchange client and the Tor browser bundle on the VPS.
- Each of the three clients is configured to use Tor by configuring the proxy settings in each client's Options dialog.
- He opens the bcexchange.conf file to configure access to the Nu and Bitcoin clients. The IP address (127.0.0.1), port number, blockchain ID, rpcuser and rpcpassword are entered for both clients.
- Using the getnewaddress RPC command in the B&C client (which has optional parameters for specifying how many new addresses to create and a blockchain ID), Adam creates 1000 new Bitcoin addresses, 1000 new NuBit addresses and 1000 new NuShare addresses.
- He creates a BlockShare and a BlockCredit address he will use as his reputed signer identity.
- He creates multiple backups of all five wallets, using encrypted volumes.
- Using the pairaddresses RPC of the B&C client, a blockchain record pairing Adam's reputed BlockCredit and reputed BlockShare address is created.
- Using the depositaddresslist RPC of the B&C client, Adam publishes his public Bitcoin, NuBit and NuShare addresses on the B&C blockchain.
- Adam's technical preparations are complete, so he makes a forum post detailing his preparations, promises to be a signer for at least a year, promises to hand over keys to a top reputed signer in the event he eventually chooses stop being a signer, posts a security deposit in BlockShares worth $20,000 and asks BlockShare holders to upvote his reputed signing address.
BlockShare holders respond favorably to Adam's request for upvotes and after two weeks Adam becomes a top reputed signer. Everything he needs to do on a daily basis is completely automated. Adam only needs to ensure his VPS is running with the required software. As his Bitcoin, NuBit and NuShares signing addresses get consumed by exchange users, he will need to publish more. That can be automated in later iterations.
Adam has 6% of all reputation points, so he gets the reputed signer block reward in 6% of blocks as his compensation.