Here are some ideas I can propose and others here tell me what you all think about it.
Proposition 1: Suppose we all pledge X amount of Bitcoin to the project as a way to reserve shares in the project. A certain percentage of transaction fees early on can go to paying for the development of the project itself and toward paying the share holders. If done right then this project could get hundreds or perhaps even thousands in Bitcoin from initial investors on top of Kickstarter. The price of the shares should be cheap early on for early supporters but slowly rise in price later on for people who decide to come in with big money late. The point of this proposition is to somehow find a way to tie in an economic incentive for people to pledge X amount of Bitcoin or cash to the project, if it can accomplish this it will generate more than $50,000 easily.
Proposition 2: Suppose we don't use a transaction fee model but instead use a sort of privileged mining model where those who want to mine early must pay to reserve a spot on the mailing list? The problem with this would be accusations of premining so it's not the best solution.
Proposition 3: Allow investors to be among the first to BUY these coins prior to them reaching the exchanges. This would likely generate some interest but I don't know how this would be set up.
I've been thinking about this a lot the last few days and I think it's best to keep things simple. Percentages of transaction fees really is not transparent to people who don't understand cryptocurrency yet ( even people who do haha ).
K.I.S.S. Keep It Simple, Stupid ( no offence, just a nice expression !)
Your proposition 3 is the most appealing, to me at least. Have you used Kickstarter ? We wouldn't call it "buying" an MC2, ( or Netcoin ) but it could be like this.
Pledge 5 USD and get a big thank you, and your name on the credits list on
www.netcoin.orgPlegde 10 USD and get the above, plus 1 netcoin
Pledge 20 USD and get the above, plus 3 netcoin
Pledge 50 USD, etc, etc.
So how do we get those netcoins to rewards kickstart supporters ?
Simple, we also have a "supporter/donator" system HERE in the community. Members of this board and the future MC2/Netcoin board can pledge to donate the first 50 coins they mine, for example. There would be no reward to this except for your name on a list that you can brag about, and the sweet feeling of making a valuable donation to the future of cryptocurrency.
The kickstarter supporters won't get their coin RIGHT at launch of course, but this is fine. It never works like that on Kickstarter.
If we ( I mean you, TacoTime ; ) use this altered version of Luckybit's proposal 3, we would avoid any smelly premine, avoid making stuff to complicated, and have a lot of extra people rooting for the popularity of MC2/Netcoin.
More publicity is GREAT for a coin, look at what happened to Feathercoin.
Why would any reasonable person do it without any reward to it? (I suppose an unreasonable person would choose that option) You're basically relying on an altruism model but if that could work why not just ask miners to donate their GPU's to the Bitcoin foundation? (I'm not against including the big thank you name to the credits aspect I just think it wont generate much money, I don't see myself putting my precious limited Bitcoins up to get my name in the credits and a thanks).
I think on a very small scale it might work but it wont get nearly as much money as the relying on direct crypto-incentives. Think about it, if these coins are really going to be worth so much why would anyone want to give them up? Also the people who would give them up would be human sacrifices for those who don't which doesn't encourage the behavior for the next big coin or next big thing. I think the main problem is perhaps the scale, $10 for 1 netcoin? $20 for 3 netcoin? $100 for 1000 would work. $500 for 5000 would work. $1000 for 10,000 would work. $2000 for 20,000 would work. $3000 for 30,000 would work. If you set it up like that I'd buy $100 worth on the spot. But then you have a problem, it's still in USD and it's now going to look like a pre-mine. It absolutely must not favor USD even if USD is involved in my opinion if you fund with USD you should pay 20-30% extra as punishment. If you have the USD it wouldn't take much effort to convert that into Bitcoin and receive the discount. I think we should work the badge system in and replace the name in the credits and thank you. I would prefer to be in the background and not have my name attached to something like that but if I could have a badge, that badge could give a noble status or any status we choose as a community. This would encourage people to fund it to get that noble hero status.
I think if we follow an IPO process and actually provide incentives for funders and developers then you'll have the maximum amount of funders and developers. If you go the charity route then you're exploiting kindness. I'd rather exploit and reward greed than exploit and punish kindness. Also you're asking that people pledge dollars which makes no sense at all to me because that does not encourage adoption of cryptocurrencies.
So I still think proposition 1 is the best. It encourages people to actually make use of their Bitcoins to invest in Netcoins. Key word is invest because I don't see why anyone should just give their Bitcoin or USD away to a project before it's even developed and even if it were working what a donation is, it's basically making Netcoin into a kind of shareware model where the first suckers to buy it are paying for everyone else to get it for free.
I think Bitcoin has it right, reward the early adopters who mine it, but also extend on this and reward the early buyers. If you're willing to take a risk to buy and hold these coins (consistently reward risk takers, never punish the bold), or if you're willing to invest in it with Bitcoin you should get a return on the investment (reward the bold, never punish them but encourage). Nothing motivates behavior like profit. It's up to Tacotime of course as he's the lead developer but if he wants the maximum amount of money in the fastest amount of time and the ability to quit his job and focus exclusively on this project then all he has to do is set up a kind of IPO and many people will fund his project and his development fees. And those who do should be rewarded by those who ultimately use the finished product (everyone). Tacotime should also set up the funding amount to be enough that he can quit his job and fund development for approximately 2 years. This will probably mean something like $100,000 which I actually think is doable.
Here is a list of novel incentive mechanisms for consideration- Reward risk takers
- Reward early adopters
- Reward with badges which bring community status
- Reward with limited transaction fees for early funders
- Reward all who pre-buy pre-exchange with a badge
Badges can be the solution to determining who is owed what rewards. It can also bring prestige, privilege or status. So for example if you fund the project early on you should receive a badge of a specific colour, type and rank. Associated with that badge should be the privilege to receive transaction fees of a certain percentage for a limited amount of time so that it's enough to profit from your investment. Or you can receive a badge which gives you 0 transaction fees for a certain amount of time so that you don't have to pay transaction fees up until it reaches a certain fixed amount of value lets say double what you initially invest, to code this miners would have to put certain individuals on a whitelist who have a specific badge number/hash. Perhaps namecoins could work for implementing this.
We can have many different colour badges with many different ranks, many different insignia, but the point is that these badges must be limited in the same way coins are, and people who invest in this project should receive a badge proving they were an early adopter, early investor, early buyer, and honestly there should be real community status for being bold, brave, and taking the risk. The badge system is something which developers probably would have to work on prior to anything else if they want to implement it but I think it would work great for this.