These comments about stepping away from crypto entirely reminded me of some similar thoughts that I had recently.
The big issue driving WWII was the “gold” system itself. The problem with an objective monetary system (whether gold or bitcoin) is that it is not immune to the “meta game”. That is to say that it has no way to prevent groups from coordinating together to benefit each other.
And when such an objective system also has a fixed supply cap, it is extremely “zero sum”. The group coordinating together is explicitly hurting everyone else that is not coordinating together.
And so this objective monetary system that you thought would save you is exactly what puts the nail in your coffin. People championing bitcoin naively assume that everyone is playing “fair”, but they aren’t.
The only escape at that point is a fiat system that rejects the objective monetary standard that is enslaving you. Fiat is the only way out.
So I guess what I’m saying is, is a fiat monetary system really that bad? It seems to me that fiat is as good as the one issuing it. If your government hates you, it’s bad. If your government loves you, it’s great, nothing better.
Now out of all objective crypto monetary systems, I think Grin is the best. Because the nature of the emission is just better for many reasons I don’t feel like going into right now. But if Grin doesn’t work, what is the real problem with fiat? The concept itself or the one’s running the show?
the real problem with fiat? The concept itself or the one’s running the show?
The one’s running the show. Those that take advantage from not paying debts (because that’s what fiat was designed for: default by devaluation of the currency). The governments of the countries that were defaulted the gold they were promised were utterly angry at that move by Richard Nixon. There are transcripts of the tapes that Nixon was caught, and he completely did not care when asked how that was troubling the government of Turkey.
Even GRIN could face such a fate if the majority of coin holders decide: “we’ll manipulate the currency for breaking the GRIN economy!” - Although in theory the issuance in decentralized, in practice it is not. Those that are able to purchase the mining equipment and pay for energy are those that already have plenty of fiat to spend.
It’s so strange that the coin holders do not put effort into building an economy that would give purchasing power to GRIN. If the coin holders of a project solely want to pump it so that they can dump it on the foolish ones that believe the false promises widely advertised, no amount of finely-crafted software can patch this.
There used to be a slatepack marketplace, but of course the usage was low. Truthfully, there just aren’t people buying and selling much with any crypto currency. Monero is arguably used the most, and most of that is just buying gift cards.
The commerce needs to be something that is easily done online and doesn’t require 2 customers to be involved. Gift cards or buying on Amazon via proxy is a great example of this because it only requires the one customer and the server admin / business. Messaging service like Keychat is another good idea.
Something that is recurring and doesn’t require mass user adoption in order to work. Something that is sustainable for the server admin / business even with only 5 customers.
A marketplace would be nice, but if it requires two customers (order makers and order takers), it’s going to struggle. And people get sick of buying honey and candles lol.
doesn’t require mass user adoption in order to work
One successful business is enough to provide the backing for GRIN. But why would anybody give backing to a cryptocurrency? What is the incentive for it? If the coin holders (not to be confused with the GRIN developers) help me set up my business, I’ll help them in exchange by converting fiat income into GRIN. I’m not confident that I can pay back a loan (there are plenty of risks in doing business), but that’s my offer.
I’ve been lurking the GRIN project for years, but only recently approached. It’s not an accident: the more time elapses, the greater is the circulating supply and harder it becomes for hoarders to corner the market and control the price of GRIN at will.
When one is holding GRIN, that someone (even the greedy speculators and pump-and-dump schemers) is thinking: “someone else is going to provide purchasing power for this token in the future”. The scammers think that someone else is the greater fool. But there could be investors that make business succeed so that there’s a demand source for their tokens: where is this group?
What do you mean by “backing”? What about just making services that attract customers?
You mean like Angel investors to pay for you to build it before it’s ready for customers?
The only way Grin is going up in value is if it’s used more often and by more people. The only way that happens is by building products with good UX that can compete with Bitcoin Lightning and even Fiat.
So yeah, the only way to pump Grin’s price is by investing in stuff like that. It also benefits developers if they’re holding Grin, of course.
In addition to the ideas I mentioned above, there’s no reason a Grin wallet can’t be equally as good as Venmo or Cashapp.
The one that is paid in GRIN is a “bag holder”, because of the inherent worthlessness of the currency. The currency only moves from “worthlessness” to being worth something when some arrangement is made to provide “backing”. Not even the U.S. dollar after the gold standard being abandoned escaped this: the petrodollar arrangement, where only U.S. dollar is used to purchase oil and Saudi Arabia purchases U.S. treasuries that pay a yield, created demand for the U.S. dollar.
I’m trying to provide the other side of the coin: the backing. The fuel, the food, the shelter and other products and services that people that hold GRIN may need in the future. But where is the incentive for doing so when I do not hold GRIN myself? That’s why business must be done.
GRIN holders have an incentive to increase the purchasing power of GRIN, but those that do not hold it like me are apathetic towards it (no matter how finely-crafted the software is or how clever the signature scheme is). Can you see the issue?
Yes, so what you want is the Community Council to pay a bounty for you to build something, but pay it in Grin so you also have incentive to improve UX / adoption.
Or just regular Grin users and not necessarily the CC.
The “backing” is the value of what it does. The value comes from the use case as a P2P cash, right? Just like every other crypto (other than Bitcoin which is mostly speculative)
In that scenario, GRIN is not the currency that finally settles the transaction, but a bridge currency. GRIN is not held, but immediately sold to whoever sees some use for it (a short seller that borrowed GRIN and has debt with interest to pay, only widespread legit use case for cryptocurrencies so far).
One must “bag hold” GRIN to reduce the supply of it in the market and protect its price from falling in excess (frustrating the plans of those that intended to use GRIN as a bridge currency, which was a serious problems in the early days of Bitcoin (before Mt. Gox), as the extreme lack of liquidity enabled speculators to corner the market, pump BTC and then dump it, causing disruptions to those that were using BTC as a bridge currency).
I’m offering to “bag hold” GRIN if it helps me succeed in my businesses. I will not hold fiat, but GRIN instead.
Yes, but while there is no mass adoption, I’m around to provide the early adoption that creates the foundation for the later adopters. I’m addressing this other issue you’ve raised before:
doesn’t require mass user adoption in order to work
I think there’s enough bag holders right now, but they have nothing to use it on. So I understand your logic and I agree with it, but my mind is just focused on the products themselves. I mean if there was a wallet with an experience like Venmo, I would be sending Grin back and forth to my friends like IOUs.
As it stands, there’s literally no crypto currency in existence that can replicate the venmo experience. Mutiny wallet got close, but they shut down because Lightning is such a nightmare to work with lol. But honestly I think Grin could do it.
I’m open to accepting their bags as a loan (although I can only see a time frame of ten years to pay them back and the first installment would be in the next year). There’s also the risk that the simple businesses I intend to set up (end-of-the-world restaurant, end-of-the-world fuels) fail to gain traction, so I would be unable to pay back the loan immediately (but would not refuse it, but would let the lenders know of the situation).
If it’s a good business plan, I’m sure you’ll get investors. If it isn’t, I wouldn’t count on it.
I have given a lot of ideas that would add immediate value to people in the grim community today. Unfortunately they’re just a little boring. The most used things are kinda boring, sadly.
We did before, but stopped it since we have no Grin as income from miners anymore. Buying Grin for a bounty where most receivers exchange it directly for BTC or USDT is pointless, so now we only do it if the receiver prefers to be paid in grin. E.g. some developers only want to be paid in Grin, like @renzokuken.
Long storry short, we do not force people to get paid in Grin, nor should we based on our past experiences (more overhead for the CC and loss in value due to exchanging and market fluctuations).
I would work on them if there were support and reward for it. The miners are those that earn the most from an increase in the demand for GRIN (because they are the ones that produce GRIN), so. What I’m asking as monthly support is about 1/26th of the monthly generation of GRIN, so there’s still 25/26ths for the miners left.
It would be easier to move forward if there was some indication of what you’re capable of doing, your ability level, past work, etc. We have bounties written out so expectations can be set and everyone can feel comfortable
Negotiation is a two-way street. You have expectations regarding me, and I have expectations regarding you. I can deliver whatever software (given time), as I have walked this area and know things from the low-level (transistors, logic gates, assembly languages, C, C++) to the high-level (algorithms, data structures, Haskell) and the things in the middle (Python, Java, JavaScript). I know both the useless fads and the useful practices.
I have my expectations clearly, so let’s get to your side: What do you expect from me? I know the old software infrastructure (C, C++) and how they make work excessively painful. I built Litecoin Core from the source code, grabbing odd dependencies such as a particular version of some database that also had to be compiled from the source code. I have experimented with Rust (and the only legit use case I see for it is developing WASM libraries, command-line executable binaries and nothing further from that). Rust is still an experiment and few people know it (software development is also about cooperation).
The problem with bounties is that they assume a linear development process. They imply “waterfall process”. But successful software is not done like that: it is a cycle where the continuous feedback from the real users refines the software over time. JavaScript has evolved after two decades of harsh criticism thrown at it. I remember the times when JavaScript was hated over two decades ago, are you that old? Yet nowadays it is the natural choice for developing software given the continuous improvement (which are not possible given the steamship, heavyweight nature of other programming languages that have long build times and produces software that takes an even longer time to be experienced by users and provide feedback for improvement).
I could work like a robot, fulfilling tasks (add this feature, add that feature) and collecting a paycheck, but that would not help in the success of GRIN. Software development is an exploratory process where the artisans (software developers) are continuously presenting something to the users and, from this real feedback, software is shaped and reshaped, features are dropped and new ones come into be.
Things that the users can experiment without delay by simply visiting a web page on their browsers get instant feedback. The users do not need to rely on installation of executable binaries: the sandbox environment of the web browser protects them. Are you interested in those? I would expect a natural increase in the popularity of GRIN (including among other developers) if they could easily get started with it. JavaScript is also a pleasure to work with thanks to the thousands of maintainers of NPM libraries, reducing the workload of existing developers by providing solutions to common problems.
The Community Council has always paid bounties, to a fault even. Their trustworthiness is proven.
It’s pretty easy to define what an MVP includes. Doesn’t need to be a long term bounty either. Can do smaller bounties for shorter stages, which would allow more flexibility in terms of changing priorities on your roadmap of whatever you’re building.
Here is a different idea that doesn’t involve bounties (more freedom for you). Build a basic fundraising app. This could then be the vehicle that funds your own work!
Use view keys to allow contributors to see how much has been contributed.
Use payment proofs as a way for contributors to prove how much they’ve contributed, so optional rewards could be given like on Patreon, etc.
The actual issue is the bounty model. I’ve navigated “BountySource” over eight years ago (never to look at it again) and it was shocking the amount of work that was expected for some feature and the appallingly low fixed reward set for it. No wonder bounties stay idle for years! I’ve checked the website a few minutes ago and it’s gone! It failed so hard that it’s not there anymore!
What is a “Venmo-like app”? We’ll discuss how it looks like, how the users are going to use it. I’m assuming that you’ll want slatepacks presented as quick-read codes, correct? That was not specified, but I’m sure that will be asked later. That will take a long time of exploration and the bounty is fixed. The ratio “reward per time spent” becomes unfavorable for the software developer, but dropping the bounty ensures full loss for the developer. This arrangement is only feasible when the software developer has spare time to risk on bounties.
Where are the bounties, by the way? I’d like to see some of them and see if it’s possible to have survival income from it. If it’s not, my request is not unreasonable.
The app is useless if there are no people willing to fund it. It would be wasted time and energy.
Never heard of bountysource. I don’t think it’s relevant to the Grin CC bounties considering we have nothing to do with that.
We just recently approved updating a reward based on changing rates too btw. It’s not like the CC is looking to rip people off. It’s in the CC’s best interest to treat developers as good as possible. That’s the “game theory”.
If you want to work on it “full time”, then you complete it faster. If you want to work on it part time, then it’s like a part time gig and it takes longer to complete. It’s sort of whatever you want to make of it.
The venmo product was just an idea I was throwing out there btw.
I’m not sure anyone has ever been able to compete with the private sector in terms of salaries though. Most of us are involved with Grin mainly because we believe in the project, not because we’re getting rich.
Idk, it works for Monero https://bounties.monero.social/ That’s basically how they fund all development. I’ve wondered before if it would be better to just move to a system like that.
Ideas that people like get funded. If something doesn’t get funded, then it’s an indication that people don’t like it, right?
