Extension of redemption
The redemption period for NEM stakes was extended for another week until the 29th of November, 2014, to allow for those who may not be informed or have missed the earlier deadline. There shall be no penalty for being “late.” The redemption guide can be found here: https://medium.com/@xtester/updated-phase-2-redemption-guide-401e63b43344
Community Fund
It is estimated that about 500 NEM Stakes have not been claimed so far. In the initial development contract it was not clearly stated what should be done with these stakes.
A suggestion was put forth to use the unclaimed stakes to further fuel the NEM ecosystem by way of setting up a venture fund which was discussed at length. Although the idea was good, a large number of users felt uncomfortable that the stakes should be handled by a single entity as it reflects centralized control of the fund.
Makoto came up with the idea that we should look for a decentralized way to control the fund. Conveniently, NEM as a platform has all that is required for the funds to be controlled in a decentralized manner. In fact, NEM has a very unique key feature that no other coin initiative has, which is the key to the mother of all DACs! The idea is to have the entire community control the fund through a proposal and voting system, thus creating an emergent decision-making entity comprising all nemsters.
We do not believe any coin initiative at the moment other than NEM can do this more efficiently. We can now show the world the first true decentralized autonomous corporation that makes use of community funds in the most egalitarian way possible. The key feature is NEM’s Proof of Importance. However, this solution will not be fully decentralized until the business rules feature is implemented by V1. Hence, the funds will be held under multisig control until the business rules feature is deployed.
PoI eliminates the risk of sock voting as well as Sybil-style attacks on the system. With these risks removed from the equation, it solves issues that all other coin initiatives have so far struggled to solve. More on the proposal can be found here:
Sock Puppet Fund
The first round of taint analysis confiscated 155 NEM stakes from sock puppets. In the second and final round, which came as a huge surprise, we managed to catch roughly another 250 Stakes held by sock puppets (this figure is an estimate only; the final figure has yet to be established). In accordance with the original draft development contract, these stakes are supposed to go into the development fund and/or development bonus to be solely managed at the discretion of the core development team.
However, having so many stakes under the control of the dev team would cause too much centralization, so it was proposed that the second round of confiscated NEM stakes be used to fund rewards for running nodes to support the network and to purchase 1oz 999 silver bullion NEM coins for each stakeholder (excluding dev/marketing/ecosystem stakes).
A total of 56 users have voted at time of press, the majority (41; 73%) of which seem to support the idea of the silver round distribution. 56 votes is representative of the community because this is roughly about the same as those who voted for the increase in the number of coins (see next topic) as well as the vote for the selection of the logo. Those who have not voted will be seen as being compliant with all options as that is what happens in real life, for example, in political elections or referendums. What is more important is that the thread has so far been viewed more than 1550 times. This is a very high number of views considering the short period of time that it was published.
For those who cannot receive the silver rounds because of import prohibitions, etc., they can optionally trade silver round “assets” in the NEM AE when it is released in V1. It was suggested that the silver rounds be traded at 0.1 denomination. However if anyone were to claim, the person must acquire the requisite whole number of the silver asset in order to claim. Fractions therefore must be sold or otherwise acquired to make the whole numbers.
Each NEM stake a person owns entitles that person to one silver round. In a way, this is creating a silver-backed digital currency that is distributed in parallel to NEM, giving each stakeholder a stake in two currencies (NEM + NEM silver asset)!
Raising the total number of coins to be distributed
There were suggestions that 4 billion NEM could bring bad luck according to Chinese superstition. Subsequently, there was a protracted debate on the subject and, as the subject matter evolved over time, it eventually lead to a discussion on whether an increase in the total number of coins would actually benefit NEM.
There were many suggestions between 8 billion NEM and 8 trillion NEM. Understandably, there was a call to justify these proposed numbers. Rockethead came out with the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient analysis of the market place and concluded that there was a very high correlation between the supply of the currency and the market capitalization. This is very much an academic exercise, but the correlation coefficient of 0.87 cannot just be ignored. It is too high a value to push aside. The result definitely indicates that a high number of coins will more than likely result in a higher market capitalization, compared to a lower supply.
The limitation of JavaScript only allows for less than around 9 Billion coins. After some deliberation it was then suggested that the total supply be 8,999,999,999 NEM coins and distributed in the same ratio as before (each stake being worth 1/4000 of the total supply). Therefore, each stake will be entitled to 2,249,999.99975 NEM coins.
More on the analysis can be found here:
https://forum.nemcoin.com/index.php?topic=2661.msg9164#msg9164
Proof-of-Importance Competition
A Proof-of-Importance competition was launched in the week of 17th. November, 2014. This competition was initiated to encourage users to test the system and see if they can and increase their importance score.
A grand prize of 0.6 NEM stake shall be given to the winner, with the first and second runners up getting 0.3 NEM stake and 0.1 NEM stake respectively.
More information can be found here:
https://forum.nemcoin.com/index.php?topic=2687.0
Proof-of-Honor
A competition for Proof-of-Honor was launched by Coins Source (nomination announced and opened on 11th. November, 2014, for two weeks and thereafter a 4 week voting period) to find the most “honorable” person, presumably from the Bitcoin Forum. Patmast3r was nominated for this award. A minimum of 15 nominations is required to stand a chance for the final vote. Although NEM is relatively new, we hope Patmast3r will perform well and get nominated and voted in.
To be eligible to nominate and vote, one must be at least a junior member in the BTT. Please follow the URL below to make your nomination and vote later: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855130.500
Launch
The launch is expected to happen in December now because of a few reasons. These include some major bug fixes to the Beta as a result of more thorough testing and use by every stakeholder. Also, the redemption procedure has been slightly extended, as we want to be fair to late redeemers and reduce the number of unclaimed stakes.
Finally, to prevent thefts that have tarnished the reputations of other crypto currencies, NEM will not launch without multi-sig. Thus the implementation and testing of multi-sig is currently in progress.
Rest assured, the launch is going to be hugely successful, as we will have ironed out a lot of issues in the extended beta and the redemption period.
Please note that despite best intentions none of the above information is set in stone and could most likely be subject to change as we make progress due to independent and objective reasons.
P.S. Starting as of Sunday we will make a series of important announcements about some great stuff we have been preparing for NEM.
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