State of NuBits - what are the next steps?

[Cybnate]

With the current Bitcoin turmoil and what appears to be the flight of Bitcoiners to Ethereum and some other coins, I think it is good for Nu to assess where we are finding ourselves. I haven’t seen the price of NSR going up recently, so I think we need to find out what is missing and address it rather sooner than later.

I can probably list a lot of issues we are still facing including the sustainability of the peg in the context of the cost. However there is already a lot of energy going into that and progress is made, albeit slowly.

Regarding governance we are doing fine and I dare to say we are also leading in this area. With the NuLaw initiative it can only get better.

We also did invest in marketing with NuDroid and more recently in the Daily Decrypt. I don’t think visibility is a major issue at this stage. We are on the watch list I believe, but something is missing making people and particularly Bitcoiners to invest in Nu on a bigger scale.

In the recent weeks there has been a lot of emphasis on what attributes a good coin needs to have. Will name a few of the most important which I think apply to NuBits:

1. Aliases at protocol level to improve user friendliness (Bitshares and Monero have nice systems)

2. More nodes to increase decentralisation and robustness (Dash is leading the way in this area with as many nodes as Bitcoin)

3. Privacy features, we don’t always want/need to know what people are paying or receiving from others. Jordan Lee already hinted that this would be high on his list to be the next enhancement for NuBits.

4. Instant transactions, waiting for 1-5 minutes to receive a confirmation when buying a beer is awkward. A coin which want to be a currency needs to have this attribute imo.

The question is probably not; should we do more, but can we do more. Is there low hanging fruit where we can make progress towards these items without loosing too much focus or spending fortunes on development?

One thing what occurred to me is why won’t we piggy back on Dash nodes. Maybe we can have a contract for a year to host Nu nodes next to their Dash masternodes for an attractive fee as they are already running those hosts anyway.

Hope this community can come up with more creative ideas to address the items I think Nu needs to become a major player and attracts not only daytraders but also users using NuBits as a currency as I think it was meant to be.

[Sentinelrv]

While this isn’t a feature we’re missing, I feel we are missing large services which depend on Stablecoins like NuBits (rather than USD) for their operations. This dependence on NuBits for operation would require a lot of NuBits to be sold on a consistent basis, helping to increase demand. I have already heard some potential candidates mentioned that are favorable to NuBits like the Augur prediction market.

However, it just so happens that we are creating a service which is dependent on NuBits in the form of B&C Exchange. The major problem we’re facing however seems to be the lack of development help necessary to bring the completion date closer. Jordan has recently said that no strong candidates are actively being interviewed or considered at this time. Outside of myself and a few others posting advertisements on r/cryptocurrency and Peercoin related channels, it seems we haven’t made any progress in this area.

Not only is this holding up B&C Exchange, it’s preventing some of our main devs from working on Nu upgrades. We’re in a slow moving development cycle until this gets solved. What we need is for more shareholders to get involved. We need more ideas on how we can reach developers that might be strong candidates. Do we need to look through Github and message people directly if that’s what it takes? What else can we do to get @JordanLee the help he needs to complete the project? Nu and B&C depend on this. Rather than costing a lot of money, we simply need more manpower to help solve this. What can we do?

[Cybnate]

Augur and B&C are definitely two potential applications to increase the use of NuBits. Even though the developers of Augur are favourable it is unclear to me what needs to be done for an implementation. What kind of support from Nu community is required to get this started? Why would they choose NBT over an Ethereum based stablecoin?

What else can we do to get @JordanLee the help he needs to complete the project? Nu and B&C depend on this. Rather than costing a lot of money, we simply need more manpower to help solve this. What can we do?

Recruiting good developers is never easy. Currently there is a lot of competition from well-known companies hiring people knowledgable about blockchains including developers. Most full-time developers would prefer to work for them over an anonymous entity. Only those who believe strongly in decentralisation would consider working for Nu full-time.
Hiring part-timers might yield better results, but will be harder to project manage.

[Financisto]

What else can we do to get @JordanLee the help he needs to complete the project? Nu and B&C depend on this. Rather than costing a lot of money, we simply need more manpower to help solve this. What can we do?

Some would say: “skilled labor is the scarcest resource that exists (more than gold).”

It would be great if something like this embryonic idea worked:

whitepaper.pdf

BTW I’ve also mentioned that if P2P lending communities like Loanbase and BTCjam used Nubits it would possibly attract more attention to Nu.

Maybe should we advertise our efficient consensus mode while block size debate (BTC civil war) struggles goes on and on?

[irritant]

is Nu ready for a scenario where cryptocurrencies crash and dollar goes up?
maybe a couple billion worth of nubits would be needed (wild guess)?

say the world economy is imploding, in the next couple of years, dollar will collapse in 2018-2020, before that it will go up

hypothetically

(yes im reading a lot of that Martin Armstrong stuff lately)

[tomjoad]

I haven’t seen the price of NSR going up recently, so I think we need to find out what is missing and address it rather sooner than later.

Perceived scarcity, as I’ve said in another thread. Make the supply of NSR permanently static or decreasing by capping Tier 6 NSR sales and adding capital controls to the existing Tier 6 definition. Remove or reduce PoS minting rewards and rely on voting control being a large enough incentive. Complete the NSR re-denomination motion.

We all understand how valuable the Nu system could be but very few people are buying NuShares lately. I suspect many shareholders are not buying additional NSR because one crisis event requiring extensive dilution would make them worthless. The above measures make NSR scarce again, which will increase the share price.

[Sabreiib]

Ethereum has got plenty of IPO capital and invest, what we need is to develope B&C ASAP, and get profit from B&C operation to hire more developers.

[Sentinelrv]

Ethereum has got plenty of IPO capital and invest, what we need is to develope B&C ASAP, and get profit from B&C operation to hire more developers.

Agreed. I’ve talked about this before…

How much money left in Nu development fund?

Do you think BlockShareholders would be willing to contribute a small portion of B&C's profit to help fund Nu's development (maybe 10%) until Nu is able to gain more traction for itself? B&C's operating expenses are much smaller, compared to Nu's costly liquidity operations. Because of this, Nu's profit potential is considered more long-term once adoption starts to pick up and the network is used more often. B&C on the other hand can probably start earning revenue straight out of the box. I thin…

[Sabreiib]

Without micropayment system, cryptocurrency has only speculation function.

Look at the turmoil at BTC community, it’s clearer and clearer that blockchain tech is NOT suitable for micropayment.

B&C is the most important development for Nu because B&C’s escrow system can evolve into a powerful off chain micropayment. I’ll vote for provide 10% B&C profit for Nu.

@JordanLee Is the IPO fund enough for B&C’s escrow development?

[JordanLee]

@JordanLee Is the IPO fund enough for B&C’s escrow development?

Definitely not. In order to fund that, shareholders will need to vote to create a substantial additional quantity of BlockShares for sale.

I share everyone’s frustration watching many other blockchain networks grow in recent weeks while we seem to not be getting much attention.

To me the most important thing we can do to make the NuBit network prosper is to get B&C Exchange operational. Good progress is being made. CoinGame has just completed testing of the 4.0 release. I am currently interviewing a very promising candidate for one of the full time B&C developer positions.

We have to ask why Tether has had more growth than us. Tether had better exchange placement, with Bitfinex support and a much more prominent display on Poloniex. The second most important thing to do after progressing well on B&C Exchange is to get better placement on important exchanges.

Augur would be an important win for us as well and is certainly worth pursuing.

The network is very sustainable, even with the growth levels we have seen in recent months. Share buybacks continue. NSR supply is declining. NBT supply is increasing. It is working, but growing slower than we would like. The beginning of a bull market in Bitcoin or other blockchain networks is not a particularly good time for our network, because when people sense the beginning of the bull market they logically sell their NuBits for assets that can appreciate. While we can only be sure once our experiment runs longer, it may be that our best time will come just as blockchain bull markets are turning into bear markets. As the euphoria of the bull market turns into fear that value will be lost in the extended bear markets blockchain networks have historically experienced, people may turn to NuBits to save their value, causing NSR buybacks to soar just as the bear market sets in for other blockchain assets. We saw something like this in January 2015 when Bitcoin plunged briefly to $160: NSR shot up at exactly the same time. Bear markets are good for us, especially if they start from dazzlingly high valuations, such as right at the end of a bull market. At least that is my mostly untested hypothesis.

One may ask why NSR and BKS have not participated in the altcoin bull market on the basis of speculation (as opposed a bull market brought by NBT adoption and NSR buybacks). I think the most important reason is a lack of liquidity. The value of most coins are in large part determined by their liquidity. We have brought liquidity to NuBits, but NSR and BKS are quite illiquid. It may be possible to improve that by paying for liquidity, but it is more complicated than providing liquidity NuBits because the price can’t and shouldn’t be fixed.

[Nagalim]

Basically agreed. However, PPC hasnt grown much either. Also, an auction system (see maker dao but dual side) would do wonders for liquidity imo.

[Cybnate]

Remove or reduce PoS minting rewards and rely on voting control being a large enough incentive. Complete the NSR re-denomination motion.

Although they are probably drops in an ocean, I would support both.

I suspect many shareholders are not buying additional NSR because one crisis event requiring extensive dilution would make them worthless

I think it is not right to focus on existing shareholders. The focus should be on attracting new shareholders.
The risk of a crisis is always there and capping losses or risks during a crises is only possible by transferring risk to other parties involved. In our case are that NuBits holders and they should be the last to suffer from a crises imo.

A motion which describes how to deal with funds during a crises is unlikely to increase the interest in NSR imo. My experience learns that during a real crisis one needs to be very agile and strict rules are usually not helping and are usually the reason why a crises couldn’t be averted earlier.[quote=“JordanLee, post:10, topic:3612”]

Augur would be an important win for us as well and is certainly worth pursuing.
[/quote]
Someone already on this? Or how can we help to make this happen?[quote=“JordanLee, post:10, topic:3612”]
NSR and BKS are quite illiquid
[/quote]
The buybacks seem to help a bit for the NSR liquidity, although I suspect a few daytraders to grab a quick profit instead of gaining new shareholders. BKS liquidity is very low, maybe too many trades off-market? Could be a chicken and egg problem.

Finally particularly NSR is suffering from low anticipation. The networks who shot up on value are offering something new and/or are backed by major parties and therefore are attractive to speculators as there is a high risk of short term gaining of value.

Long story cut short, I think we need to continue investing in new features for Nu to attract new users and maintain interest for the current users. Just waiting for B&C and crossing fingers is going backwards imo, although I’m convinced that it will support Nu. The question is to what extent.

[Sabreiib]

I am currently interviewing a very promising candidate for one of the full time B&C developer positions.
-----------------------------\

It sounds great! I would vote for contributing majority B&C income to develope an escrow system in initial 1-2 years!

[Sentinelrv]

It sounds great! I would vote for contributing majority B&C income to develope an escrow system in initial 1-2 years!

We could also print BlockShares as Jordan mentioned in order to fund this escrow development. The profit coming in afterwards could then be used for BlockShare buybacks and burns, over time reducing our supply back to where it originally was.

[Sentinelrv]

Just waiting for B&C and crossing fingers is going backwards imo, although I’m convinced that it will support Nu. The question is to what extent.

I wasn’t implying that we should sit around and wait for B&C, merely that one of the things we should do is think outside the box of posting ads on Reddit to find our candidates. It’s great news that Jordan is speaking with a potential candidate now. Besides helping Jordan in this area, we should definitely try to tackle other things like the ideas in your list while B&C is being worked on. We can’t afford to be stagnant.

[Sabreiib]

It is said that the same group of people are pumping ethereum, just like what they did on bitshares, look out the pump & dump scheme.

I don’t think ethereum price rise is natural and healthy, BTW, I don’t believe it’s a good idea to store everything in blockchain, in the end the bloat blockchain will scare the public.

http://cryptomining-blog.com/tag/ethereum-blockchain-size/

[Nagalim]

Finally particularly NSR is suffering from low anticipation

This is why dropping the mint reward would be death to our minting difficulty, which is already suffering. On the contrary, mint rewards should go up with lowering mint difficulty.

[masterOfDisaster]

mint rewards should go up with lowering mint difficulty

They do!
The mint reward per block stays the same, but the reward per time is increasing with declining difficulty, because minters will be successful more often per time frame compared to a higher difficulty

[Nagalim]

Imagine an alternative scheme: each block the block reward is 0.01/D where D is the difficulty from 10 blocks ago. So if D is 0.00025 then the reward is just like it is now. However, a difficulty like .0002 would give 50 nsr per block. This would give incentives to nsr holders to mint if only to reduce the mint reward for everyone else.

The issue is that competition breeds dirty tactics. People could ddos other minters to increase their own mint rate. However, this is also a problem with the current system: minters already have incentive to sabotage each other. The same is true for bitcoin miners: you can substantially increase your share of the mining rewards by for instance getting the US to bomb large swaths of china and (coincidentally or not) wiping out big mining farms.

[masterOfDisaster]

This would give incentives to nsr holders to mint if only to reduce the mint reward for everyone else.

This sounds like a change that could/should applied together with frequency voting.
At least I think frequency voting would be able to mitigate downsides of people minting just for the sake of minting (while not configuring votes or registering fata feeds).
If doing those two changes in one update is considered too dangerous, I’d say that frequency voting is a prerequisite for dynamic minting rewards.