Update 23 June, 2022

This week we’re going to look at our plans for how Safe Network Tokens will be distributed to MaidSafeCoin holders, MaidSafe shareholders, developers, resource providers, and others, how this will be managed through the Foundation and how tokens will circulate in the Network economy over time. This is a summary of the main points proposed by the Request For Comment (RFC) on the subject, which will be the basis for an official white paper. And if you’d like to make your own comments on the proposal, feel free to dive in to the dedicated forum thread.

General Progress

First, we’d like to express our appreciation and thanks to @Sotros25 who’s stepping back from voluntarily managing our main social media accounts, where she’s been tweeting the updates, answering punters and promoting our news on many channels. Soton has worked tirelessly and selflessly for the project for a long time, and we’re grateful for all her efforts. Cheers @Sotros25! (We’ll be managing the social media in house from now on.)

We’ve made some good inroads into the single threaded work, converting the sn_node bin, as a whole, to use only one local thread. This has allowed us to start clearing out a lot of locks in the codebase, which in turn lets us remove a heap of async code which was only that way due to those locks. Which is, all in all, looking like a great simplification. It was a pleasant surprise to see (locally) this new single-threaded code producing ~a 25% drop in client test runtime! We’re still actively working on PRs to clean things up, and hopefully we can get a good pattern where we can utilise all of Rust’s borrow-checking-lifetime goodness.

@oetyng has some PRs in doing some housekeeping and adding some work prioritisation to nodes, such that both messages coming in and the resulting work they engender are dealt with in order of importance at the node. This should help the network survive under more harsh conditions than it would otherwise.

@qi_ma is investigating an issue where write and read times for stored chunks appear not to be proportional to size.

@joshuef has made some improvements to the dysfunction checking algo, which has been generating false positives and killing off perfectly healthy nodes as a result.

Safe Network Token Distribution

On the inception of the Network, Safe Network Tokens (SNT) will be distributed to MaidSafeCoin holders and shareholders, with the largest portion held over to be earned by offering resources to the Network. Here’s how we plan to do that.

Let’s kick off with some big numbers. At launch a total supply of 4,525,524,120 whole SNT will be issued. Subject to practical testing, each SNT will be divisible 10^9 times, thus creating a total of 4,525,524,120,000,000,000 available subunits.

Payment to the Network in SNT is required to store or edit data, which is thereafter stored for the lifetime of the Network. These payments will be immediately redistributed by the Network, with 85% going as Resource Supply Rewards (previously called Farming Rewards) and 15% as Network Royalties.

Resource Supply Rewards are paid automatically to reliable nodes that have proved themselves over time (Node Age) automatically when their section receives payment for storing a chunk.

Network Royalties are a mechanism through which developers and other contributors can be sustainably funded, with the approval of the Foundation. Allocation is controlled through two programs: the Developer Program and the Data Commons Program. Recipients might include: core protocol developers, operators and developers of apps (compensated through the Developer Program), and data made freely available for the common good (via the Data Commons Program).

Network Royalties will also be used to cover the costs associated with the operation and work of the Foundation, and the distribution of royalties.

Network Royalty payments through the Developer and Data Commons Programs include grants to fund new areas of research, one-off and ongoing rewards, the value depending on the utility and value of services, software and data provided.

The Foundation may also make ad hoc payments to fulfil its objectives and remit. These payments will be made from a fund called the Network Royalties Pool, with any unspent or unclaimed funds in a given period returned to the Pool for further distribution.

Ultimately, we want to automate these payment processes, but this likely won’t be in place at launch.

Initial Token Distribution

Time for some more numbers.

10% of the total genesis supply (452,552,412 SNT) will be allocated to MaidSafeCoin holders in the form of an airdrop: 1 MaidSafeCoin == 1 SNT.
5% of the total genesis supply (226,276,206 SNT) will be allocated to MaidSafe shareholders, with each share entitling the bearer to 111.5 SNT.

Tokens will be paid out to shareholders in three instalments over the period of a year following launch. Any unclaimed shareholder funds will be held by the Foundation indefinitely.

15% of the total genesis supply (678,828,618 SNT) will be allocated to Network Royalties (see above).

70% of the total genesis supply (3,167,866,884 SNT)—aka the Remaining Tokens—will be distributed by the Network to contributors, such as those uploading data or resources. This will be done in an automated way, over an extended period, corresponding to the rate of Network growth as measured by the volume of data stored by its nodes.

It is assumed that this process, which is subject to further research and development, will be in place for the inception of the Network. If it is not, the Foundation will hold these funds until such time as it is complete.

An alternative mechanism would see the Remaining Tokens generated over time rather than at genesis.

There are one or two other details to be sorted out, so please take a look at the main thread and tell us what you think.


Useful Links

Feel free to reply below with links to translations of this dev update and moderators will add them here:

:russia: Russian ; :germany: German ; :spain: Spanish ; :france: French; :bulgaria: Bulgarian

As an open source project, we’re always looking for feedback, comments and community contributions - so don’t be shy, join in and let’s create the Safe Network together!

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Gold! On to reading.

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Ill take the silver when it’s up for grab

Edit after reading: I can’t remember in which topic I’ve seen the discussion regarding total distribution but I believe there was a point where the total supply would be in circulation from the start of the network by having 1 MaidSafeCoin equal 10 SNT. Looking at the proposal now the 1:1 kinda surprises me, especially since the SNT will be so dividable.

Could you explain why the network would function better with say 4,525,524,120,000,000,000 available subunits than with 4,525,524,120.

Additionally, is there a reason we’re opting in for 10^9 instead of say 10^8 that most exchanges use? I think we should try to stay uniform with what’s common in crypto if we’d like to have a bridge from the network to external exchange accessibility.

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Third, treasure chest and all that :smile: Update came early today! It’s great to see the emerging solidity on SNT distribution. All speed to the MaidSafe team as they push towards launch.
:sotros25:

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So this would be without the foundation?

Ps. Thanks for the hard work @Sotros25 !

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@Sotros25 Really really appreciate your great work. Thank you. We wont forget your hard work.

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Yes, the desire would be to have the remaining tokens distributed to users without the need for them to be in the custody of the Foundation. That’s what we are shooting for. Foundation custody would be a temporary backstop only in the circumstance where the automated solution is not complete prior to launch.

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I’m not sure if this has been addressed somewhere else, but some maidsafecoin’s are likely to be inaccessible or abandoned and so some SNTs won’t be claimed; if so, what happens to these unclaimed tokens?

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They are effectively burned.

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Thanks so much to the entire Maidsafe team for all of your hard work! :racehorse:

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@Sotros25 I don’t know you, but your disposition, work, and response here is amazing. More power to you.

I hate to be the grouchy one in the chamber, but I can’t help but notice that many of the most ardent supporters of the network end up taking a step back or leaving entirely. Just a note that I hope Maidsafe pays more attention and honestly try to do something about.

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I am very happy for the Safe Foundation and the Developer Program and the Data Commons Program. I have been promoting this option for years:


Privacy. Security. Freedom

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It’s not a surprise that people move on during such an extended period, I’ve been here since 2014, and the reason I’m still here is because of David and MaidSafe not in spite of them. They’ve remained true to the goals and ambitions of the project and always walked their talk IMO.

Some move on because they find other things more interesting, useful or no longer have the time, and for personal reasons. Life happens! Some because they want MaidSafe to do things that break with the vision or which aren’t closely aligned with it. Some have even gone from ardent supporters to actively trying to harm the project. That’s just people (in any community of size).

I’m sure there are other reasons too, but my experience has been that MaidSafe have always valued contributors from the community and supported them, including offering me encouragement and support on top of the acknowledgement and thanks given in places like this forum.

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I understand churn and normal turnover. This isn’t what I’m speaking of.

@happybeing Have you ever been critical of Maidsafe? Has there ever been something you didn’t like that you voiced?

In my experience, it’s hard to trust someone who is only ever 100% positive about something especially over a long time frame. Because in reality, nothing in life is perfect.

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If overwhelming global consensus determines that the data shouldn’t be available or shouldn’t be retained, does the poster get a refund?

Generally I don’t find the need, but I’ve certainly done so. Such instances have been exceptionally rare because I’m very aligned with their values and they have always been true to them IME. When people have jumped in to criticise I can usually see that it’s a misunderstanding, and that is often because of the critic having a tendency to distrust leading to incorrect interpretations or assumptions. If something seems off to me I don’t tend to jump in but first make sure I’ve understood before commenting.

If you see that as a reason to distrust me :man_shrugging:t2:

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No as that would require us to identify the uploader more than we should I think.

I am not concerned here though as if it were to happen it would be at the edge, so refusal to sign an upload and therefor no payment should be made. In saying this I am not 100% sure, but I am 100% sure that if global consensus was reached it would be on some truly hideous thing and rarer than an alien invasion. I think trying to refund a chunk or 2 would be no use and almost unmeterable (I hope anyway)

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MaidSafe are critical of maidsafe :slight_smile: We encourage free speech and would not ask any staff to toe the line or go with the company message. I feel everyone can and would disagree on some points, I know internally we do. Even the consensus/censorship/banning is an area where there are many disagreements and these should be welcomed.

As long as there is respect then there is no division, only debate and learning, well at least I hope so.

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We haven’t managed to read anything of the update but we are toasting the progrees by the team!
From @neik & @Southside

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