I've been doing some thinking about Nxt, and would like to make a guess at the third part of BCNext's plan:
The minimum transaction fee for Nxt must be set to zero, OR (far less likely) the process of awarding fees for forging must be removed completely.
We'll see if I'm right when the next part of The Plan gets posted, but here's my argument:
- "Value" for Nxt is derived based on the services it provides. Many of these services are yet to be created, but are in the works: AT, NxtCash, Atomic Cross-Chain Trading, data storage, etc. Nodes that participate in providing these services should be rewarded.
- Treat Nxt as a "base layer" upon which other currencies, applications, and services are built. As few constraints as possible must must be placed on these services by the Nxt core. The first two parts of BCNext's plan hint at this: transparent forging does away with "mining" based on probability and even introduces flexible block-generation timing; "atomic" transaction types like aliases, arbitrary messages, voting, and asset exchange operations are a flexible foundation for the creation of high-level functions at layers above the Nxt core. Contrast this with Bitcoin, which is forever constrained as a proof-of-work system with fixed block generation times, slow transaction processing, and the implementation of a "scripting language" at its base layer.
- Just like a web page does not know anything about the network on which it sits, and the network knows nothing about the physical characteristics of the wires/fibre it runs on, all Nxt layers should be agnostic towards one another (i.e. abstracted). As a result, a higher-layer application (such as NxtCash) has to be able to operate without dependencies on the Nxt core. Taking this analogy further: businesses don't deploy TCP/IP networks in their IT closets for the sake of deploying networks; they do it because they want to provide a service on top of the network. The service covers the cost of the network equipment; the equipment doesn't generate revenue on its own. For the astute: this is basic OSI model thinking.
- There is no automated mechanism or algorithm for adapting or scaling minimum transaction fees. It's hard-coded. This is an odd, hobbling flaw in an infrastructure that is otherwise so effectively decentralized and so wisely architected.
Putting these items together:
Nxt services already operate on top of nodes, so the network is secured and the blockchain is maintained as a consequence of the service's existence. Value is created at layers above the Nxt core, and "forging-only" nodes become valueless and therefore obsolete.
Services built on top of Nxt cannot be dependent on fees "charged" at a lower layer, because eventually the accounts that operate these services will be depleted. A depletion due to fees would kill the service associated with the depleted account(s), since it would render those services unable to generate transactions. In fact, a network attack could be formulated by flooding a Nxt service with transactions, causing it to "go bankrupt". The only way to allow 100% availability is to remove the dependence on a minimum transaction fee, and move the profit/reward for the service up into the
same layer at which the service is offered.
I believe that one element of BCNext's plan is to set the minimum transaction fee to zero. And now I've posted my theory here, for posterity, so that I can either be mocked for my stupidity, in the future, or praised for my intuition.
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