Regarding the forging algorithm. Are we still exploring options to improve this over NXT?
I am convinced that the design of the forging algorithm is one of the major things that may convice people to invest in NEM!
For this I believe the goal of the forging concept should be:
1. To attract as many people as possible to invest in NEM (preferrably even small amounts)
2. To make NEM more than just an investment
What do I mean by that:
Well I guess we can all agree that the forging algorithm of NXT does not attract the regular joes to the game. I believe this is exactly what we should aim for with NEM because there are alot of regular joes
This would also make it a more stable currency compared to when the majority of users are investors that only aim to make money with it.
Once the currency has proved to be stable you will establish trust. I believe a lack of thrust is the major argument merchants still have against cryptocurrencies. (and obviously the legal grey area debate but this can not be countered by the design of NEM
)
If we could make a concept that will attracht merchants (obviously this is long term thinking), I suppose this will benifit NEM hugely!
Please let's debate on this and share some thoughts.
Yes. The development team is currently having discussions around the forging algorithm. There are a few main considerations of any forging algorithm:
(1) Is it "fair"?
(2) How can people cheat it?
(3) Who will it encourage people to forge?
As long as the transparent forging isn't affected I think we can think about doing things differently. I always thought about taking the "age" of coins into account like I think peercoin does.
(1) Aging will reward coins that have most recently been transferred.
(2) One person transferring coins between N accounts.
(3) Only people with recently transferred coins will be encouraged to forge.
Also a forging rate ceiling at a given amount of coins would be good also, thus a forging rate a little more efficient until this ceiling, but it's probably too hard to implement.
We could put a cap on the maximum number of coins in an account that contribute to forging:
(1) Large accounts can be split up into smaller accounts, but they will have to pay fees to do so. So, this would be "fairer" than NXT.
(2) One person splitting up their accounts.
(3) Large account holders.
Or we could have unweighted forging where each account has equal forging power:
(1) Large accounts can be split up into smaller accounts, but they will have to pay fees to do so. So, this would be "fairer" than NXT.
(2) One person splitting up their accounts.
(3) Everyone or no one
.
Or we could have forging bands where a certain level of coins would put you in a group.
For example, forging groups could be:
- Accounts > 4M
- Accounts [1M, 4M)
- Accounts [500K, 1M)
- Accounts [100K, 500K)
- Accounts [1K, 100K)
- Accounts [1, 1K)
Each subsequent block could come from a different group. Assuming less concentration at the top, that would encourage asset consolidation up to 4M and then a splitting of assets less than that.
(1) Bands with less accounts would be more desirable
(2) As people move to less occupied bands, the bands will reach an equilibrium where they all have ~ the same number of accounts
(3) Everyone or no one
It's just something I thought up of now, so I haven't fully thought it through.
I did not get listed... 
