Also, it gets funnier. Let’s go back, I don’t know, 261 years ago. The British have heard American voices about being taxed without the right to vote.
They bring this little interesting thing, called “virtual representation”. They say that the Parliament represented every British subject’s interests whether or not they could vote for it, and that it would obviously do everything in their interest as the money goes to the proliferation of the British Empire, which in turns benefit them, despite them having no right to vote in the matter.
Kind of like how non-stakeholders voting for the “benefit of the stakeholders”, assuring that it will be beneficial because it expands Zcash overall, while them having no right to vote.
No, that’s not how either block subsidies or PoW works.
The block subsidy is currently allocated mostly to chain security through PoW, and partly to chain security through ongoing development. The choice of where to allocate issuance is a consensus rule decided upon by the Zcash community, as evidenced by everyone choosing to run those consensus rules, including the miners.
And miner profitability is linked to mining power supply and demand. If the block subsidy rules changed to send 100% of block subsidy to miners, then:
Miners would temporarily be more profitable.
More miners would start mining Zcash due to increased profitability.
The mining difficulty would increase due to increased mining power.
Miners have to spend more to mine blocks due to increased mining difficulty.
Miner profitability would decrease due to increased miner spend.
Directing more funds to miners increases the amount of PoW security the chain gets (by paying for more of it); it directs more ZEC to (ideally more) miners (instead of to developers etc.), but doesn’t inherently make the miners more profitable as a result.
And you don’t see the somehow counterintuitive thing that if the consensus rules got unfavourable, they can just… choose not to run the consensus nodes?
Which loops back to the “I fear a hard fork” problem?
This is LITERALLY the EPITOME of what I’ve been saying. I’m not a miner, you’re not a miner, you’re convincing me (not a miner) to justify changing what happens to the taxes of the actual miners while calling Cypherpunk and Fortitude (actual miners btw) capitalist cronies
I do see it! In fact, I am the owner of ZIP 200, which I wrote in January 2018; the first paragraph of its motivation is:
Zcash is a consensual currency: nobody is ever going to force someone to use a specific software implementation or a specific consensus branch of Zcash. As such, different sub-communities will always have the freedom to choose different variants or branches which offer different design trade-offs.
Well, if hard forks with higher hashpower are a desirable trade-off, then yeah, sure, my argument is invalid on that front. Just gotta look out for the miner hopping and hashpower bombing attacks.
True, digishield prevents hopping, but not bombing. It is entirely possible for a miner to pre-mine a chain of blocks 2-4 blocks ahead of the current tip but keep the timestamps spaced at 23-26 seconds, and then dispense them at the normal time. Since the blocks are empty except coinbase, no actual transactions are getting mined, while legitimate blocks are being orphaned. This attack can continue basically forever, and DigiShield does nothing to prevent it.
The dev fund is not remotely comparable to the American revolution.
Zcash Users are not represented by miners and their decisions. Nobody is taxed. The dev fund is a rational funding stream that has kept core people employed working on Zcash full time for years, and now we’re seeing the benefits.
Regarding a fork - that’s really not worth fretting about, and the threat of a fork only distracts community discourse. A fork is not on the table.
If a fork happens it won’t be called Zcash. That is a trademark held by the Zcash Foundation. Many exchanges and treasury companies like Cypherpunk and Grayscale are USA entities which can only hold what the Zcash Foundation, also in the USA, determines the word “Zcash” to mean.
Because this is a fight about the power of “coinholders” (actually, ZEC whales) relative to the rest of the community. This is obvious to everyone involved, really, but I think it needs writing out in so many words.
Why are we investing MORE, in a less important regime?
We should continue to diversify away from the US, giving it, at most, some sort of parity with other comparable populations.. say for example 1/3 of China.
I would disagree with that. Regardless of what you think about US and its standing in Zcash circles, in the regulated finance world US with its petrodollar has been the dominant force. Its sanctions are respected by almost every country. Not pretending the bully exists doesn’t make it disappear, especially not when the bully can literally write one piece of paper and make your life a living hell.
Plus, EU isn’t exactly an ally, ordering to delist privacy coins by 2027, US makes up most of the volume that props up the ZEC price. Asia is a… poor (literally) alternative that cannot sustain prices that high.
You know what? I have made my arguments already, I am not going to change your mind. Point is, say okay, they participated “voluntarily”.
What prevents them from using the same volition and hard forking Zcash?
“B-but the Foundation owns the trademark” You see, the hard fork isn’t the issue, the hash power is. ViaBTC and Antpool consortium controls 30-40% of hashrate. Cypherpunk controls 20%. Fortitude controls 20%.
They leave, Zcash has five to ten times lesser hashpower than the new hard fork.
The hard fork miners can now just DoS Zcash for shits and giggles, or do a 51% attack.
The US Dollar’s dominance is held by its oil monopoly, its P5 seat, and 8,000 nuclear weapons in its triad, not by political goodwill. That’s why sanctions are respected by almost every country not with backing of another P5 power, and that’s why the US Treasury bills are considered as good as cash. There is a saying, “if the US Treasury defaults on your bond, the bond is not your biggest problem”.
EDIT: Speaking of, it seems we’re talking past each other. I am talking about PGPZ’s lobbying and regulatory policy, not whether the US dollar is a wise investment. My arguments support why we should lobby in the US and Capitol Hill.
USDT is backed by US Treasuries, being one of the largest private holders of Treasuries in the world, so there’s a crypto benchmark for you. So does Circle.
Simply put, the “US has so much national debt” is ALL Treasuries. A “Treasury bill” is a bill of debt that the US owes you $X, paying you interest of y% (called a coupon rate) at the end of the period.
So it’s pretty intuitive: $30T of debt is the largest in the world, and the only reason countries still lend is because petrodollar and nukes.
Be really careful with the US dollar death narrative. Nothing organic about it. When the Euro, Yuan, Yen and Ruble have died, then yes it might be time to worry.