Only Ever 21 Million Gotts

1

There will only ever be exactly 21 million gotts

Introducing the “gott” unit

In light of the infamous saying by all who know Bitcoin’s inevitable supply cap (not yet reached until after most of us are dead), I would like to introduce to the Grin community, the gott.

The gott is a unit of account for grin that is relative to the current supply, or total, grin ever created. The formula for calculating the relative unit of a single gott measured in units of grin is:

1 gott = 1 / (blockHeight * 60) * 21 * 10^6

This formula means there will only ever be exactly 21 million gotts in circulation (now and forever). By owning 1 gott you own 1/21 millionth of the entire supply of grin.

However, because the gott unit is relative to the current block height, this means that the unit is decreasing in size over time relative to grin (linearly). To convert grin to gott we can multiply an amount of grin by the unit size.

gotts = (1 / (blockHeight * 60) * 21 * 10^6) * grins

The Script

I’ve included a script written in JavaScript which can be run using Deno:

$ deno run --allow-net convert.js <grin-amount>

Here’s the script convert.js script:

import { cheerio } from 'https://deno.land/x/cheerio@1.0.4/mod.ts';

const grin = parseInt(Deno.args[0]) || 0

const html = await fetch("https://grinexplorer.net/").then(res => res.text())

const $ = cheerio.load(html);
const $blockHeight = $(".card-header")
  .filter((i, el) => /Chain Height/.test($(el).text()))
  .siblings()
  .find(".card-title")

const blockHeightString = $blockHeight.eq(0).text();
const blockHeight = parseInt(blockHeightString.replace(/\D/g, ''))

const unitGott = (blockHeight) => 1/(blockHeight * 60) * totalGotts

const totalGotts = 21 * 10**6
const gotts = grin * unitGott(blockHeight)

const minutesInADay = 60*24
const minutesInAWeek = minutesInADay*7
const minutesInAMonth = minutesInAWeek*4
const minutesInAYear = minutesInAWeek*52

const unitGottsTomorrow = unitGott(blockHeight + minutesInADay)
const unitGottsNextWeek = unitGott(blockHeight + minutesInAWeek)
const unitGottsNextMonth = unitGott(blockHeight + minutesInAMonth)
const unitGottsNextYear = unitGott(blockHeight + minutesInAYear)

console.log(`
Only ever ${totalGotts} gotts.

Today:
\t1 gott = ${unitGott(blockHeight)} grin
\tYou have (=${gotts} (gotts)

Tomorrow
\t1 gott = ${unitGottsTomorrow} grin
\tYou have (=${grin * unitGottsTomorrow}

Next week
\t1 gott = ${unitGottsNextWeek} grin
\tYou have (=${gotts * unitGottsNextWeek}

Next month
\t1 gott = ${unitGottsNextMonth} grin
\tYou have (=${gotts * unitGottsNextMonth}

Next year
\t1 gott = ${unitGottsNextYear} grin
\tYou have (=${gotts * unitGottsNextYear}

In 5 years
\t1 gott = ${unitGottsNextYear / 5} grin
\tYou have (=${gotts * unitGottsNextYear / 5}

In 10 years
\t1 gott = ${unitGottsNextYear / 10} grin
\tYou have (=${gotts * unitGottsNextYear / 10}
`)

This script will show you the current amount of gotts you own, as well as the projected amount of gotts you will own at various moments in the future (tomorrow, next week, next 5 years, etc).

Conclusion

The motivation behind a new unit is to illustrate the following:

  1. The total supply of grin is bounded by time, and therefore it’s relatively fixed. The total supply of gotts is absolutely fixed, but the gott unit is relative. The hope is to show how the concept of supply cap is allusive.
  2. We can transparently show the relationship between miner reward and stake holders. The unit gott is decrementing at a fixed rate in order to pay the miners. Everyone holding gotts or grin is equally paying the miners to secure the network now and forever.
  3. We now have a way of expressing value in terms of a whole (the entirety of grin).

I hope the community finds this interesting and is willing to expand on this idea. If not, at least I hope it amuses some.

Cheers!
Happy grinning

4 Likes
2

@shush I find it an interesting concept, I think we discussed it before as well.
How about combining the gots unit and visualisation of its graph with another visualization where you apply the stock to flow model? So on the left you show holdings in got, on the right you show forecasted value using stock/flow.
The reason I think this is important is because if you would only show your holding in gots, it looks like Grins value is expected to decrease over time due to the increased market cap. However, basically the gots translated in expected value, so * stock/flow, compensates for this and shows that although your holding in gots decreased, its value stays constant.

For the discussion maybe nice to show the graph.

1 Like
3

I liked it.
It explains very nicely that a seemingly unlimited supply is actually closer to a limited-fixed one.

1 Like
4

I explain that differently in

2 Likes
5

A good read. Clearly Davinci15 did not read this when doing his “research” on Grin :wink:

6

I was considering a website calculator tool which incorporates graphs and visualizations. However, could you give a clearer example by what you mean; how do you propose we show stock to flow?

I may be wrong here, but off the top of my head stock to flow applied to gotts unit would be undefined because flow is zero and division by zero is undefined. (Though, we could equate that to infinity purely by conjecture.) So, I’m going to assume we want to use stock to flow on the units of grin, so how does gotts show usefulness here?

7

Wow, I never saw this video. I’d like to see much more thoughtful discourse on the Grin’s subject matter.

Could gotts help dispel the unproductive notions behind grins supply curve? My feeling is that if people know the current rate of change between a gott and a grin, they could more accurately make projections on their future wealth in grin. Currently, it’s not easy for people to maintain a helpful mental model for them to make financial decisions with grin because of the misnomers and misunderstandings.

An example of a useful mental model is “there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin”, and that concept alone influence the perceptions people have towards Bitcoin. The other aspects are ignored, there are many, and they are arguably as important. I imagine using the same mental model, “there is only 21 million gotts” will help people to see the value in owning grin. The next question people will have is “why does my amount of gotts decrease over time,” and the answer to that would be insightful: a fraction of all gotts is paid to the miners to secure the network in a decentralized and fair manner. The path grin enlightenment may be more easily achieved through gotts.

Interesting questions:

  1. What is the current block reward measured in gotts?
  2. Bitcoin has a roughly 4 year reward halving; what is the current rate of diminishing block reward measured in gotts? (Wait, grin has a diminishing block reward? Yes, it does.)

These are just some interesting questions that arise with a new model of thinking based on gotts. You can see how the answers are revealing and helpful for people to see grin’s value proposition more clearly.