Gridcoin 4.0-2018 General Roadmap Poll - Solving the Stake Weight Problem
Gridcoin 4.0-2018 General Roadmap Poll - Solving the Stake Weight Problem
This is the description and thread for the Gridcoin 4.0-2018 General Roadmap Poll pertaining to how users are incentivized to help secure the blockchain. You can find the Cryptocurrency Talk thread, which contains information on all polls, here. Any questions asked on this thread should relate only to this poll. Any questions on the Cryptocurrency Talk thread that are related to this poll will be relayed here and vice versa. Please, do not be afraid to ask questions. We want to make sure that everyone understands what they are voting on.
You can find the poll on Gridcoinstats here.
The poll was made by @tomasbrod with address: SFhy5MRyNqVcC2pCtEYeMSULe6wA5SPYMk.
Gridcoin provides a transaction fee reward for staking a block. As a result, many users with large balances do not contribute to securing the blockchain. They do this because Gridcoin promises 1.5% interest on all GRC in circulation so long as the GRC stakes a block at some point in time. This means that a GRC coin can be kept offline indefinitely, and as soon as it is brought online and stakes a block it receives all interest it is owed. For large balance holders the time between bringing a coin online and staking with that coin is negligible.
We propose removing interest earned and replacing it with Constant Block Reward. Essentially, each block staked will reward the staking node with a set number of GRC. This will stop rewarding idle coins, forcing investors to keep a balance online in order to earn idle profit, which in truth will no longer be idle profit. The resulting increase in blockchain security is good for all of Gridcoin as it provides stability and brings more trust to the Gridcoin network.
EDIT: It was brought up that this article does not summarize what a masternode update would entail. Those of us putting this together definitely succumbed to the curse of knowledge here -- we recently had an extremely in depth conversation about masternodes so it did not even cross our minds to put a synopsis in this article! You can find the in depth conversation here. If you are interested in learning more, I would highly recommend reading some of the in depth thread. Below is a summary.
Note that the masternode proposal was already turned down, however we do not want to completely dismiss the idea. It might be explored further in an open-source arena as opposed to an extremely centralized environment, which was a major complaint with regards to the original proposal. The results of the poll regarding the original masternodes proposal can be found here.
A masternode system is based on the Dash blockchain. It is the idea that development and financial decisions would be made by a select few "masternodes." These masternodes would be determined based on the commitment of a minimum number of GRC. For example, the proposal suggested 400,000 GRC would be required for a user to qualify for masternode status. This minimum can be changed to anything. The pros and cons of this sort of system are discussed and debated in the thread linked above.
Do you think the Stake Weight Problem is something that should be fixed in 2018, and how?"
-Yes, Constant Block Reward with continued exploration into more long term solutions.
-Yes, Masternodes.
-Yes, Not Constant Block Reward or Masternodes.
-No
-Need more information
-Abstain
Your discussion is pretty clear about what changing to CBR would do, but doesn't outline what it would mean to have master nodes even though that is one of the poll choices. Would you please add a short discussion of how master nodes fit in with CBR?
Excellent point. Those of us putting this together definitely succumbed to the curse of knowledge here -- we just had an extremely in depth conversation about masternodes so it did not even cross our minds to put a synopsis in this article!
I will see what I can do about adding a short description of masternodes before the end of the week. In the meanwhile, feel free to take a look at the at length discussion from last month here:
https://cryptocurrencytalk.com/topic/90700-gridcoin-future-technology-base/
The proposal was already turned down, however we do not want to completely dismiss the idea. It might be explored further in an open-source arena as opposed to an extremely centralized environment, which was a major complaint with regards to the original proposal. There are also many serious concerns with regards to masternodes expressed on that thread, including that once we implement masternodes, it will be incredibly difficult to implement any other technology base in the future (blockchain tech is still gestating!).
added a quick synopsis.
It's too large a change IMO, it would require rebasing and snapshot/sharedropping which would risk splitting the Gridcoin crypto in two. CBR > Masternodes.
Both rebasing and Sharedropping are still separately considered for future. Argument for rebasing is to get more maintained code-base. And for Sharedropping it is the removal of leaked historic data.
We've already successfully voted twice within the Gridcoin client to implement Constant Block Rewards (POSv3 & Fixed blocks), let's implement it and move on.
There will be a fourth poll in the actual reward amounts :)
-Yes, Constant Block Reward with continued exploration into more long term solutions.
Be sure to put that in the client!
Done!
All this proposal voting has doubled stakeweight. Around 8-9 to 23 million currently. Did this improve the network?
I'd guess that people are bringing coins online to vote. Also, people from years past might be noticing the developments and are now deciding to once again get involved with the project they love!