I wonder with cryptocurrency projects in general, do economists and finance business types serve on advisery boards as consultants? I think the input from such professionals would be really useful in helping cryptocurrencies be more viable and address challenges and solutions from their professional perspectives.
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SAFEcoin is likely a really complicated economyā¦ Particularly if you tack the ācontent creator rewardsā on to the schemeā¦
Expert advice would be wise, but I kinda doubt expert advice exists.
RippleLabs seems to have a lot of big establishment brains on staff ā but that alienates themselves from the larger crypto community and tends to steer that project back to being āenablingā of the status quo vs ādisruptingāā¦
I would prefer the ākeep it simpleā approach, and have it centered around reimbursing hosting costs ā but that will not be popular with a lot of people. Having it try to be too many things to too many people is going to cause it to interfere with itself in value.
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Thanks for the reply. My concern is for Safecoin to have real world value to incentivize development of the network ecosystem. For instance, look at the Safecoin crowdsale. Real money is making it possible to fund the MaidSafe project. App Developers need real money to support their efforts to build apps on top of the network. Disruptive technology is super cool in that I think it fosters innovation and creativity. I just think Safecoin needs an economy to really thrive, and economist types may have ideas how to help with this.
Yes, it seems to me that a lot of people plan to make money by farming ā If the system works correctly that is a relatively bad idea ā Farming ought to always economically wind up being a break even enterprise at best - especially since most computers have excess space, bandwidth that CPU timeā¦
The reward is the network, and if other P2P projects are the guide, people participate without much bribe.
The network ought not overpay ā that just isnāt sound economics and it is begging to be gamed ā But if you add all sorts of different things that rewards are paid for, it will be really hard to manage.
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I concur, but if you keep your farmed SafeCoins they may appreciate a lot over time. I canāt remember who it was, but one of our forum members told how everyone told him to stop mining bitcoins when breaking even with a market price of $4. 
So the best strategy for maximizing profit is probably farming with the resources you have anyway while buying SafeCoins with the fiat currency you can spare, and keeping them until you think they hit peak value.
For a professional dose of keynesianism?
I, personally, donāt think thatās how itās going to work out in the long run. I donāt think farming will be super profitable, but I think that it will always generate safecoins which are more valuable than the resource contributed, perhaps by a notable margin. That is, for people who are using resources they would already be using otherwise, at least. Going out and buying hardware specifically for it may not me so profitable, especially if handled as a commercial enterprise, with space purchase or rental, extra bandwidth infrastructure, utilities, etc.
Senecaās point is well taken, too. When other services are introduced, like distributed computing, I think safecoin will come into greater demand and start to really escalate in price. Also, as individual find they have extra, they will start spending them directly amongst themselves and for other small purchases, causing an increase in demand and thus value. But the whole cycle is buffered because of the way safecoins come into being and are distributed. No easy large-scale manipulations or fluctuations are likely, because the issuance is so decentralized.
Just some thoughts.
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Iāve read this statement a few times from you but Iāve no idea on what this is based actually
Iām not saying it will be (super) profitable or not but 100 coins youāre buying right now for 2 might be sold for 50 next year, or even $1 if things arenāt working out as weād like to see. What Iām trying to say is that the profitability eventually should come out of the fiat value (which we canāt predict).
that could have to do with: Safecoin network value will expand. So when you put 1GB and got 1 Safecoin back then on a network of 1000 Safecoins and 1000 GB your computer got 1, if in 1 year the Safecoin on the network is still 1000 and the capacity is 10,000 GB then your 1GB got you 10GB in the future. So the intrinsic value of the Safecoin went up. So if you start at 0GB, and itās worth $0.02 today eventually the the 0GB will become many millions of GB and therefore the price could expand with demand.
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My response was initiated by @jreighleyās point that farming ought to be a break-even activity. My point being that going into it as a professional activity probably wouldnāt be like bitcoin mining, but I think weāll see a lot of added value to the safecoins, above what is need to supply the resource and use the network for individuals and āsmall farmersā running some extra raspberry piās, etc., at home.
Over time, of course safecoins will likely appreciate in value, both in terms of network resources (as @dallyshalla points out) and in the broader market, because of its characteristics as a currency. In that view it WILL probably be fairly profitable.
I donāt know that this is too much different than the cost of Hard drives and bandwidth dropping by mooreās law thoughā¦
In order for the price of SAFEcoin to skyrocket it will need to be used for other kinds of transactions other then farming. Then limited supply and increased demand will boost it substantiallyā¦
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The farming rewards are designed to give early adopters a reward. People here who are intent on farming are all going to be early adopters and so are in a good position, just as with bitcoin and other similar projects. The effect will be very dependent on how adoption proceeds from the user side.
Donāt expect huge profits and you wonāt be disappointed, and youāll be able to enjoy being part of an exciting and perhaps world changing project, with a great story to tell your grandchildren (if theyāll listen to a boring old geek 
).
Next to no-one expected bitcoin to reach even the valuations it has today, which is why so many sold early or threw away computers with bitcoin keys on them. I personally gave up trying to mine ($1), buy at $5 and $19 (too hard) and when it reached $50 I thought no way, and sat by and watched it bounce up to $200 or so and then back down to $70ā¦ Oh dear!
Well, with Safecoin Iāve booked my ticket early and am going to farm too. What have you to lose?
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I thought one member of the core staff at least finished the training as an economist, but maybe always worked as a programmer.
In regards to the economic model, I think the more ways Safecoin is valued the better.
Right now we have Farmers and Builders as stake holders with a vested interest. My hope is that the Safe Network can be used for making services such as BaSS (Backend as a Service) and SaSS (Software as a Service), which will attract mobile app developers and users willing to pay for these services and become stake holders themselves.
If the Safe Network could be used as a backend for mobile apps, that would really increase the value of the network.
If MaidSafe or third-party developers could increase the financial utility of Safecoins, such as smart contracts, this would also increase Safecoins value.
Distributed computing would also add value to the network.
One concern I have is how restrictive the security will make the network in regards to its utility.
Iām curious from an economist perspective what suggestions he/she would make in regards to the value of Safecoin.
What other ways do you guys see as adding value to the Safe Network and Safecoin?
Iām usually not really impressed by Economy degreesā¦ Sure, there are smart economists out there who do a lot of research that is useful. There are also tons of economists who really talk, if you excuse my language, a load of bullshit.
Not long ago I saw one on (Dutch) national television stating that companies having hard times is good for the economy and progress because then theyāre forced to innovate. I didnāt know whether to laugh or to cry. Companies innovate best when they have 1) competition, 2) the right organisational culture, and 3) (very important!) plenty of resource to spare to invest in R&D. If a company can barely survive itāll go for short term cost reductions (like firing employees or reducing the quality of their products), itās less likely to invest in expensive R&D that may not pay off and thus finish off the company.
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Economics is going to change drastically as we move from a debt based system (Fiat from the central banks) to a Scarce asset model (Limited amount of cryptocurrency to trade)
I am not sure the models from the old system will translate to the new system quit handilyā¦
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I really hope this will indeed happen.
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@Seneca The economists Iāve met face to face left a deep impression on me, but I canāt stand what has been their main model for the last 45 years. Their actual training if its done right does include developing a powerful skill set that combines numeracy with good exposure to the core of so many other disciplines. But I am afraid theyāve been in the excuse making business for the last 45 years.
Itād be great to have Ben Bernankeās advice.
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