When - what date or what blockheight - would the tail emission kick in ?
It is hard to know the exact date/block because it depends on penalties. Each block's reward is a function of the actual number of coins created so far.
It will kick in whenever the reward according to the formula would be less than 0.3 XMR (approx 0.9% annually), which is expected some time around year 8.
Why 0.9%?
Edit: I guess what I'm asking is, what is the actual formula for the tail emission, the resultant inflation year over year and why was that amount chosen?
The formula is "0.3"
The amount was chosen based on being a round number within and close to the <1% inflation maintenance reward specified in the ANN OP.
I found this on github
Code:
+#define FINAL_SUBSIDY_PER_MINUTE ((uint64_t)300000000000) // 3 * pow(10, 11)
Does this mean a constant block reward = 0.3XMR ?
Yes. that's what it means, unless the block time target is changed higher or lower than one minute, in which case all rewards including that one will be scaled accordingly. That is the base reward, but there will still be penalties for having blocks that are >median so the actual reward may be lower (in fact this is one of several reasons it is necessary to have a maintenance reward).
So the tail emission is now defined in the code and protected by the proof of work. I was concerned about this but alas no more concern. Excellent!!
