I thought I answered it quite clearly. And yes, this tool would be more effective with a shorter block duration to set transaction fees, or, a future network state that has more rapid blocks than our current one minute spacing.
Likely because you haven’t taken the time to read my full argument, understand how this is an empirically proven method of macroeconomic asset management as per the IMF document I linked above, or thought about what a capital flow management measure is.
Nothing about what I’ve introduced here is controversial in economics. It is a proven fact this works. The only debate is whether its particular application makes sense within our network, due to technical factors.
If we’re willing to disregard proven economic ideas on a gut feeling alone, we’re no better than Bitcoin. I want to see arguments like “capital controls will not work on the Nu network because we have this particular design feature”, not “capital controls are dumb”. If we take that ideological stand, we will eventually be passed by another network that is willing to implement a full spectrum of tools in managing a fixed peg.
Lol, ok dude. Crypto capital control is not fiat capital control. We have no say over what goes on on crypto exchanges like governments do on currency exchanges. There are fundamental differences. You are taking a purely ideological stand that something has been tried and tested when in fact it has never been even attempted before.
And again, fiat capital control can take place in a matter of minutes or hours. Our ‘capital control’ relies on 50% shareholder agreement, something that takes weeks. Not only all that, but also US companies are forced to work with USD by the IRS. No one is forced to use NBT so when we institute high network fees people will simply sell their NBT for something with low network fees.
I love how I spelled these points out nicely in 5 bulletpoints a week ago that were never responded to, yet somehow I’m the one not paying attention. (And yes, I read the damn PDF)
This has been brought up by others. The basic question is how can Nu continue to function under such conditions? There are a lot of subtleties and issues here. This is by no means a show stopper, but it most certainly is something we need to think hard on before we accept such a philosophy.
This is a critical difference between Nu and Fiat capital controls. We have absolutely no control over the marketplace, where the transactions actually happen. If this were happening on a virtual exchange like BitAssets, the situation would be different.
Seriously, not an ounce of thought has been paid to this point.
This is a corollary to point 3. USD has a fundamental use: paying taxes. NBT has no fundamental use other than its ability to be transacted. By preventing all transactions on the Nu network, the currency becomes worthless as does the network. I realize that the idea is to make this a temporary thing to isolate economies that are doing poorly from ones that are doing well to stop the network from dragging the floating economies down with it. However, when our entire economy is a trade economy preventing all trade is a wonderful way to tank it everywhere all at once.
Point 46 in the PDF: Introducing outflow CFMs should always be part of a broader policy package that also includes macroeconomic, financial sector, and structural adjustment to address the fundamental causes of the crisis. They should not be used as a substitute for policy adjustment.
Restricted Network Access simply cannot right a peg that has broken. It can slow down the fall superficially, but as the network can respond with NSR on the same time scale as CFMs, the negative PR it generates outweighs the benefits. At least in my mind.
If you were talking 5 or 10% fees at worst to simply restrict arbitrage between exchanges, this would be a very different conversation.
—motion begin—
If buy side liquidity drops below 30%, shareholders agree to increase fees above 2.5% (or however makes sense with the implementation) and increase park rates to 2.5% or 5% (depending on whether parking is excluded from the fee or not). If liquidity goes below 20%, the fees and park rates should double. If it goes below 10%, they should double again.
—end motion—
You can see why i think it’s pointless to talk about this before we even understand how volume-dependent fees will be implemented.
This statement is an argument for restricted network access, to increase the friction within the system to make capital outflows more difficult. In a crisis we want to prevent NBT from being converted to USD at a rate that exceeds our liquidity operations. Tier 6 (Restricted Network Access) is a temporary application of major friction (which could be 10%, 20%, 50% tx fees, whatever shareholders decide is warranted for the magnitude of a crisis). This friction will allow shareholders to use Tier 7 (NSR sales) more effectively and with less dilution. Point 45 from the paper addressed the concept of capital outflows, which is the biggest threat to our peg:
In crisis situations, or when a crisis may be imminent, there could be a temporary role for the introduction of CFMs on outflows. For example, when countries face domestic or external shocks that are large relative to the ability of macroeconomic adjustment or financial sector policies alone to handle [e.g. our liquidity operations model], or when the size or duration of the shocks are highly uncertain, CFMs [i.e. Tier 6 (Restricted Network Access)]may help to prevent a free fall of the exchange rate and depletion of international reserves. When a crisis is considered imminent, CFMs may be desirable if they can help to prevent a full-blown crisis.
There’s no reason volume-dependent transaction fees couldn’t be structured in a way to have quicker response, whether through a decreased block voting window, or faster network blocks in a future state. Current network limitations shouldn’t influence our imagination of better tools.
Fair enough. Points 3, 4 and 5 appear to be the remaining points of contention. Here are my thoughts:
We have to imagine NuBits from the perspective of a widely-used product five or ten years from now. This means a state where 95%+ of all NBT in circulation are off-exchange in peoples wallets. Most of us don’t hold USD on Forex exchanges. You’re correct that if the majority of NBT are on exchange, the damage will be done regardless of what transaction fees we vote for. I don’t see exchanges holding mass NBT as a likely state a decade from now, especially with the development of decentralized exchanges like B&C Exchange.
I admit I don’t understand this point. It seems to be a general declaration that anonymity/security will suffer, but I don’t understand the context. Could you provide an example for my benefit? How would these aspects suffer relative to a normal transaction fee?
100% Tx fees are the most extreme example. Perhaps I didn’t explain it well, but this was my relevant paragraph to this point:
The concept may be easier to understand as @woodstockmerkle described it, as a technique to decrease the velocity of money. A punitive transaction fee will still allow users to transact on the network, but they will be paying a premium transaction fee price to do so. Shareholders could however set a 100% transaction fee (on both NBT and NSR as @Sentinelrv suggested) if they wanted to completely stop the flow of NBT through the blockchain (temporarily, of course) while they coordinated NuShares sales in a responsible way, as opposed to selling to whoever had available capital in the first hours of the crisis.
Absolutely not. Discussing new tools is always valuable for the network, even if we don’t have a set schedule for its use. We believe parking rates are valuable, even if we don’t know exactly what they will be set at.
It can slow down the fall entirely, allowing responsible Tier 7 (NSR Sales) to take place, as I posted in my updated content. Over a long enough time period, it could right the peg by destroying enough NBT. This is less desirable than a multi-pronged approach with Tier 7 (NSR sales) that would end the crisis quicker of course.
This tool is voluntarily applied, and powerful. I don’t see why shareholders are afraid to incorporate it into a liquidity model, because it will make Tier 7 (NSR sales) more effective. I will continue to debate its effectiveness until it is placed for hashing in two days. It may not pass immediately - or ever, depending on shareholder views - but I think there is value in signalling we are prepared to consider real-world economics in our currency management. I appreciate that you took the time to respond more fully.
This argument can just as easily be applied to NSR sales and buybacks, which can happen theoretically at the same speed as a block, meaning once per minute. I am unconvinced that capital controls can be applied faster than NSR sales on a fundamental level.
We’re skipping point 2 then? Alright, but this is one of my favorite points. It just further stresses how not-ready we are to talk about volume dependent fees this way.
I’d love to have this conversation five or ten years from now. For the time being, the shareholders are not informed enough to pass a motion about this. You can talk theoretically all you want, but you posted this thread as a draft.
The nature of the beast with volume-dependent fees is that you have to pay the fee to move money from one address to another no matter what. That means that if an address is compromised or a mixer is used the fee will end up being paid multiple times. This is an inconvenience with normal fees, though most would agree people have to pay for the added security. For exorbitant fees, it makes advanced security measures nigh impossible. And stuff like this is just completely thrown out:
The blockchain is our voice as shareholders, but it is a time sensitive record. If we make this declaration now, the assumption is that we intend to use it. However, we don’t. The only real tangible effect this motion has is 2 fold. Firstly, it renames the tiers just to make all our discussions that much more complicated. Secondly, implies an arbitrary 10% threshold without proper definition (10% of what? T1-3? No concern for T4?) to trigger a state that shareholders can’t yet apply.
I’d love to have this conversation in Nu 3.0, once we understand the network implications of volume-dependent fees.
@tomjoad, how do you feel about using NuShare sales in a limited fashion before activating tier 6 restricted network access? I’m thinking about what @Cybnate said below…
I believe we at least need a limited number of NuShares to act as a buffer before activating the new tier 6. For example, let’s say we have a supply of 822,144,717 NuShares as we do right now. Shareholders would create a buffer grant of NuShares for FLOT to hold, which would only be around 10% of the existing supply. So that 10% would mean FLOT would hold 82,214,471 NuShares in multisig as a backup buffer for the peg.
In the case that parking interest rates failed to stabilize the peg, this limited NuShare buffer would kick in and FLOT would sell these NuShares in order to buy and burn NuBits. If it became apparent that this limited NuShare buffer wasn’t going to be able to hold the peg, only then would shareholders activate tier 6 restricted network access and higher fees. This buffer would either be enough to stave off the NuBits selloff and protect the peg, or it would give shareholders enough time to activate restricted network access.
The 10% number is just an example and could be adjusted up or down depending on what shareholders felt was a safe number of NuShares for this buffer. Setting it up this way, tier 4 buy side and tier 5 parking rates aren’t the only things protecting the peg and using a limited buffer (instead of LOTS of NuShares) in the event tier 5 fails prevents the NuShares supply from being quadrupled. So the following liquidity model would take effect, altered from what I wrote in my reply above…
1. Tiers 1-3 decentralized liquidity provided by ALPs and MLPs. 2. Tier 4 buy side (Bitcoin) and sell side (NuBits) managed by FLOT. 3. A raised tier 4 threshold for NuShare buybacks to allow for a higher tier 4 reserve. 4. A lower bound tier 4 threshold when it is advised that shareholders activate tier 5 parking rates. 5. If tier 5 parking rates are having no effect and tier 4 buy side funds are still dropping, FLOT will use the limited number of NuShares granted to them to act as a buffer for the peg in case tier 4 buy side funds run out. 6. If it appears that the limited buffer of NuShares isn’t going to hold the peg, then shareholders will need to activate tier 6 restricted network access and higher fees. 7. If tier 6 stabilizes the peg, then shareholders will stop voting for higher fees and the network will return to normal. If tier 6 slows the panic selling, but doesn’t completely stop it, then shareholders can active tier 7 and sell even more NuShares to reduce the NuBits supply even further until the network stabilizes.
I’d like to hear what @Nagalim and @tomjoad think about adding in this limited NuShare buffer before restricted network access kicks in.
I’m sorry, I know I’m being Mr. Cynical all over this thread, but it seems like the only concrete statement that people are making here is:
Park rates are already chosen by consensus, nsr is already used to support the peg when T4 funds are low, and shareholders already know it’s probably a good idea to increase fees when we’re having trouble making ends meet. So ultimately, this thread is just about the T4 % threshold.
I would prefer, as others have suggested, increasing T4 reserves if that’s the case. Tier 4 should have enough reserves to cover the majority of minor demand crash scenarios, and to prevent against speculative attack. NSR sales are unlikely to be very effective in a severe crisis that tanks the value of NSR, especially if there is a time urgency that limits the amount of investors able to provide new capital.
Your proposed sequence of actions makes intuitive sense, except that those 82,000,000 NSR may have lost 90% of their value overnight if the crisis is severe (such as a government announcing its intentions to search for and prosecute NuShareholders, and to criminalize NuBits usage). Tier 4 reserves are more reliable, especially if methods are ever devised to privately hold stable USD among multisig groups. I appreciate that you are thinking through this problem with us.
I will be placing this up for voting within a few hours. Thank you everyone for the discussion; even if this doesn’t pass in the near future, we still have the beginnings of a debate for a mechanism when Nu 3.0 is released.
I can understand that you may have a unique perspective, from NSR buyback, in seeing what would be coming when an extreme adverse event drives down NSR prices. The capital control idea is interesting and I suggest you bring it up whenever there is supporting evidence, so that shareholders can see what you see as Nu grows, paving the way of a consensus. As a motion it is way too early now I think.
Based on feedback here I don’t expect it to pass anytime soon, but I do think there is value in signalling our willingness to consider new macroeconomic tools. Even if it only has 5% support for months, I’m okay with that. It’s a good thing that motions can be voted on forever!
Still having a hard time weighing up increased T4 against the value of NSR in T6. I think we need a few scenarios of those adverse events. One obvious one is BTC halving in value, would NSR also half in value? If so then you are right. When NSR can stand on its own it would make sense to keep NSR. I tend to believe the latter, but again the reason of the halving of BTC might affect this.
It is hard to assess these scenarios as we haven’t seen it happening, but would be keen to hear whether some might have seen some trends during extreme volatility of Bitcoin and the response of NSR. That might help this discussion. It might just be too early to tell however.
This motion has been hashed and put up for voting: abab44f623bb3c5b29ce0d2dc873798cf2bfb8ae
I spent a great deal of time thinking about my arguments in the original post above, and I am convinced this Tier is the missing piece to a crisis response. With this new Tier, our network will have a capital controls tool that every national government has for managing their own currencies. We ought to continue pioneering our macroeconomic toolkit as a global leader in cryptocurrency.
In short, I believe this motion enhances our network by using empirically-proven currency management techniques approved by the IMF. Our ideal liquidity operations structure for maximum stability might look like this:
Tier 4: Increase the USD-value of reserves to 30-50% (outside the scope of this motion) to prevent speculative attacks. Tier 6 (Restricted Network Access): Place this safety valve on our network to restrict panic sell-offs in a severe crisis and give the FLOT team time to sell their NSR from the next tier. Tier 7 (NSR Sales): Use this tool as a method of speeding up the return to equilibrium between buy-side and sell-side, and to symbolize NuShareholders’ commitment to sharing risk.
I did my best to answer questions that were raised, so thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion. For those looking for more in-depth analysis of this issue, please have a read of my responses in the thread.
I am aware of at least one major shareholder who is against this motion, so I won’t be personally offended if shareholders disagree with this idea. However, I hope that with consideration of the arguments I’ve presented above a majority of shareholders will eventually vote to add Tier 6 (Restricted Network Access) to our macroeconomic policies.
I’m not in favour as it is presented. Tier 6 and 7 can only be somewhat effective when activated at the same time. Restricting network access and with that further lowering the value of the shares and then selling shares makes no sense to me. It also looks bad from a PR perspective.
Therefore I’m not voting for the current proposal although I like the proposed Tier 6 (restricted network access) approach very much. It is just the order of activation.
I encourage you to write out a scenario explaining how you think this chain of events would unfold, because I still don’t agree with your view here. In the event of a critical emergency where we would expect 80% of demand to disappear overnight, the very first thing I would do as a shareholder would be to sell all my NSR, because I know the value will tank. I’m saying this as an actual shareholder, not a hypothetical shareholder. This sell-off will require NSR sale dilutions that inflate the NSR supply by many orders of magnitude, because NSR will have lost most of its value. Imagine the NSR supply inflating from 800M to 5B or 10B or more. We cannot reliably back the price of an asset (NBT) with a second asset (NSR) that derives most of its valuation from the success of the first asset (NBT); we can only use it as a marketing tool to assure NBT users that NSR holders share in the risk of the network.
My proposal gives shareholders the confidence that mass NSR dilutions won’t be required, so that shareholders hold their NSR during crisis periods. The increased NBT transaction fees will slowly reduce the excess circulating supply over time while limited NSR sales occur to help keep our public relations positive and speed the removal of Restricted Network Access status.
I encourage everyone to take 5-10 minutes to read the motion and vote. This is a critically important feature for our network in my opinion, as it will allow shareholders to strengthen their guarantee of a stable NBT price peg over long periods of time.
That is partially true. When NBT holders know that NSR shareholders have barely any stake a NuBits sell-off will be even faster and with that encouraging a further decrease in NSR value.
You may try, but you won’t see much, if any, value of it back in such a situation especially not in a panicking market. No buyers. You and other Shareholders most likely end up as a bagholder in such a situation as it is already too late. Most of us know that. So most likely a large number of Shareholders will try to jump ship as soon as ‘Restricted Network Access’ (your T6) will be in place, basically diminishing NSR value for T7 at almost the same time. T7 is therefore useless by the time it is required.
With turning it around some NSR value could be used to buyback NBT before Restricted Network Access comes in place. This would likely slow down panic from NBT holders more than restricting Network Access basically implying that they may foot the bill.
As said before I can see a scenario where both measures would be activated at the same time. Dilution of shares and Restricting Network Access. Users and Shareholders would be both punished for panicking behaviour equally. It will be messy anyway.
We need to keep in mind that when Tier 6/7 needs to be activated, most likely there already will be panic. The real problem is how to get individuals (both NBT and NSR holders) behaving when the odds of losing are getting more favourable. I don’t have all the answers and literature is thin on this subject. It balances between rational and psychological responses which happen when certain triggers occur and one sheep crosses the dam. Usually thereafter the rational goes down the drain.
I’m still not convinced of the value of your proposal as currently worded. I would settle to have both Tier 6 and 7 combined in time. Still appreciate the concept of Restricted Network Access as an ultimate measure.
I think we’re in agreement here, and my intent was for both Tier 6 (RNA) and Tier 7 (NSR sales) to be used simultaneously. Both can be activated at the same time, with Tier 7 only taking a little longer to complete due to the logistics of selling NSR. Here is the section of the OP where I discuss this, where I assume a future network state that has the ability to set transaction fees quickly:
My intent with the motion wording was to keep things very high-level, so that shareholders could have maximum flexibility in prescribing the tools during an emergency. I share your view that Tier 6 (RNA) and Tier 7 (NSR Sales) should activate at the same time.
