Should Platform run on all nodes or should Platform run only on High Performance nodes ?

[Semarg]

I'm currently trying to work on something else, so i will wait to have more time to answer the real questions with proper look at numbers.

If you have work to do - then do it, stop wasting your time answering me. That's not a rhetorical or irony, I'm dead serious. English isn't my native, so I want to repeat myself - return to work. If I have any say in that - do your code, this whole forum including me can really wait.
The same relates to @QuantumExplorer obviously.

We came up with multiple choices and had no strong opinion. From there we could:

1. ask the community to voice their opinion <- you state we try to avoid responsability.

No, that's not true! You try to avoid resposibility not by asking the community but by saying that you do not decide. You do. Not alone, of course, we all do in much or less.

I am asking you for the future. In case of such scenario, how do you think we should proceed like? This is a real question, and i expect an answer: i wish to know how to do better next time, in your eyes.

Now when you said that, I thought again and now I think that's not the way you deal with the situation I don't like but your position. Both of you. If the whole team votes for raising the collateral - then I don't like the whole team's position. I would prefer if you all loudly leaned to decentralization while offering the same ways to go and the same calculations.
If it happened like so my views go against the dev team's and the network at whole will vote for it - well, then it's a very strong point to review my assets.

I invite you to watch the presentation by QE or read my comments, we have covered the why of this poll rather extensively. I repeated in this conversation also a few of the necessities. I hope that you, from the talk here i had with mostly qwizzie, can see that i infact don't especially lean toward a way or another, as long as some nodes do not support Platform. I think some parameters are better yes. Now you can trust the math or you don't, that's another story.

I am flattered though that you do think i seem to be so influencial.

So is it a matter of math or is it your opinion? "I think some parameters are better..." or "...trust the math!"
I thought we previously agree on that decentralization's value is a matter of opinion.

And you are welcome.
I am of a very high opinion about dev team, BTW. I think you, guys, did a great job and will do much more. That makes the situation bitter.

 

[virgile]

If you have work to do - then do it, stop wasting your time answering me. That's not a rhetorical or irony, I'm dead serious. English isn't my native, so I want to repeat myself - return to work. If I have any say in that - do your code, this whole forum including me can really wait.
The same relates to @QuantumExplorer obviously.



No, that's not true! You try to avoid resposibility not by asking the community but by saying that you do not decide. You do. Not alone, of course, we all do in much or less.



Now when you said that, I thought again and now I think that's not the way you deal with the situation I don't like but your position. Both of you. If the whole team votes for raising the collateral - then I don't like the whole team's position. I would prefer if you all loudly leaned to decentralization while offering the same ways to go and the same calculations.
If it happened like so my views go against the dev team's and the network at whole will vote for it - well, then it's a very strong point to review my assets.



So is it a matter of math or is it your opinion? "I think some parameters are better..." or "...trust the math!"
I thought we previously agree on that decentralization's value is a matter of opinion.

And you are welcome.
I am of a very high opinion about dev team, BTW. I think you, guys, did a great job and will do much more. That makes the situation bitter.

I am glad we agree on my priorities. I'm answering here so that QE can concentrate on proper tasks. I'll answer this one message then get back to it. (I do not code though, I do the more theoritical parts. Maybe you confused me with one of the devs?)

No, that's not true! You try to avoid resposibility not by asking the community but by saying that you do not decide. You do. Not alone, of course, we all do in much or less.

We all have a say in it of course. I decide, you decide, QE decide. Ultimately the internal coding order is through QE as CTO yes, and i have a higher say in it given i am very much into design. If there is a fuck up one day, do come and ask accounts from me and QE. I will never say otherwise. Then i'll accept my fuckups, quote me on it.

I would prefer if you all loudly leaned to decentralization while offering the same ways to go and the same calculations.

We did offer the same numbers for all the choice of nodes supporting Platform, Are you talking about that?

Yes, me and QE would lean toward either of HPM's solutions, even if it's like 2K or 1.5K, as said i don't have a strong opinion. I am glad you agree that we proceeded in a proper fashion even if you disagree with our two personal point of views (which according to our internal poll also happen to be the view of devs in DCG, for what it matters). We knew our point of views would not especially be the consensus in the community, so we made this poll. If people don't want HPM's, then be it, we won't force it on the network, that goes without saying. We will however stand behind the choice and if anything wrong do happen, we will not throw back the fault on someone else.

So is it a matter of math or is it your opinion? "I think some parameters are better..." or "...trust the math!"
I thought we previously agree on that decentralization's value is a matter of opinion.

My opinion is based on the math. I trust the math and it shows to me that the most optimized/secure choice without sacrifcing too much decentralization happens to be HPM's if you ask me. You can debate but we all have a view of what is better, i'm not here to convince you, I stated why i was for HPM's so you can look up in the discussion in the past 20 messages what i have been stating. If it changes your mind, great. If it doesn't, good too, you'll vote and the community decides. Although if i keep repeating myself it'll sound like i'm trying to throw my views at you. One thing i do want to state though is that i do not think it's a step toward censorship as the number of HPM's are still high enough for a starter. Keep in mind it's for a launch parameter. It's not a forever choice.

And you are welcome.
I am of a very high opinion about dev team, BTW. I think you, guys, did a great job and will do much more. That makes the situation bitter.

Thank you, I highly appreciate it. It means a lot given that In times like that it is like a wave of anger and negative emotions thrown at us and it often is disheartening.

 

[TheNetworkIsBiggerThanYou]

I'm telling about entities, not nodes.

200-400 seems like an appropriate guess for number of MNOs. You think it is 1000?

 

[Adding1kDash]

I am not going to shut off my brain thinking part, else you might get some poor security in the future :b

Oh wow, purposely attacking me, you much have been bullied in school, sorry to hear but keep it profesional, or have never heard about the left side and the right side of the brain, and how they work together and even sometimes fight eachother.

At anyrate than you for proving that you don't get anything other than numbers. Also assuming that I don't know what game theorie is incorrect assumption. But I am not here to proof myself. I am hear to have an honest discusion. You complety did not go into my arguments. They still stand as truth, some of it even on various blockchains. ETH's the DAO, ETH with tornado cash, EOS various, Steam, Lisk (101 delegates). Lots more story's to go around, of corruption, collusion and centralisation abuse.

As for using part of Satoshi's explaination, that does not work at all bitcoin is and was never a DAO. Mining bitcoins is a much much simpler system.
You can either mining on a current change, or go back and mine on older one, and or choose to include transactions or not. Also Satoshi's made a mistake, one that dash corrected with the first ever DAO. I am not sure you are aware but bitcoin had a hostile takeover by blockstream.

With Dash how ever you can vote for any number of things, game theory suggestes that if profit is to be made by colluding, it will at minium attempted.

Furthermore if an outsize force like a Govement want to attack, it becomes allot easier to attack big targets, than to play wacky mole with 10x or more targets, that each yield only 1/10 of the result.


Also I have a secret tell you:
The ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything is… 42

 

[TheNetworkIsBiggerThanYou]

Question for Sam. - Have you heard from any person's questions yet with concerns about the fees being too high on platform?

I think no. So worry about the fees later. You are over-engineering the solution. The non-concern about fees is the signal. It tells you what the network wants. It is up to you, as a technical lead, to package an offer to the MNOs that they will want to upgrade to.

Forget voting ordaining the correct choice.

With my reading here, I'm seeing a value for stability and gradual improvement over large structural changes. If you bring this to network vote you need to make clear the benefits and the draw backs of each option. Really hard. Borderline impossible to create an informed voting population on something this new and complicated. Just because the MNOs will vote does not mean they will get it right. Voting, being zero-sum game, also means there will be losers who disagree. It is not the panacea solution. It will not divine the correct path.

Please forget about high fees problem right now. Wait until it becomes a problem and then address it elegantly.

Platform looks half-baked. Is it? I don't know. Let's minimize its risks and let's not get locked into large structural changes.

 

[virgile]

Oh wow, purposely attacking me, you much have been bullied in school, sorry to hear but keep it profesional
At anyrate than you for proving that you don't get anything other than numbers. Also assuming that I don't know what game theorie is incorrect assumption. But I am not here to proof myself. I am hear to have an honest discusion. You complety did not go into my arguments. They still stand as truth, some of it even on the blockchain via voting.

Also I have a secret tell you:
The ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything is… 42

You said "Stop thinking with just your logical part of the brain", so this tongue in cheek answer was in answer to that. I apologize if it came off as insulting. I am glad to see that we agree though.

 

[qwizzie]

Since we are all so busy with Dash Platform these days anyways, we may as well view Dash Platform Team latest (live) development update
(maybe they secretly developed a PoSe scoring solution for Dash Platform after all, who knows )

Dash Platform Development Update - 2022 October 18

Live in 46 minutes.

 

[peter]

I would vote for:

• HPMNs, because of the mitigation of the risk, that a problem with Platform brings down all MNs.
• Keeping 1k as collateral for a simple MN, because it makes the transition smooth.
• 2k as collateral for a HPMN, because:
  • The barrier of entry to Platform shouldn't be too high.
  • Centralisation must be avoided (a big matter for most of us).
  • Hardware costs (and therefore the fees), get lower and lower, so there is no real need for a high collateral.

Some further thoughts:

1.) Issue with stopping quorum:
It seems, that the impact of a stopping quorum is not so dramatic, since the devs voted for the 4k-HPMN solution (highest chance to be able to stop a quorum). That means, that a high collateral is not a big requirement. 2k should be enough, and such a low barrier for participating in the Platform adventure would be good for the community.

2.) Issue with too many HPMNs:
Yes, there should be an equilibrium, with a lot of normal MNs, as today, and a somewhat lower number of HPMNs. IMO, such an equilibrium can be easily achieved with the right repartition of the block reward, for example: 60% for Core services, 20% for mining, 10% for Platform services and 10% for project funding.

With these IMO not too weird assumptions:

• Today 3700 MNs.
• Cost for hosting an MN = 1 Dash/year
• Cost for hosting an HPMN = 10 Dash/year
• Fees are insignificant in the very beginning.
• HPMNs provide also Core services and get therefore also the 60% part of the reward.
• The equilibrium is reached, when ROI for MNs and HPMNs are almost the same.
• Block reward is 2.3 Dash.
• 210240 blocks per year.

we would get the following repartition:

• Number of HPMNs: 491
• Number of MNs: 2718
• ROI: 8.94%

Sam, what do you think please?

 

[Adding1kDash]

You make it sound like I want less nodes because I want to have the consensus of Dash Platform in the hands of less people. This can not be further from the case.

First I need to make sure you realize that the chain used for payments stays with 1000s of nodes?

I am not against 1000s of nodes for Platform once we have sharding, but we will need to get there, and we won't have sharding for at LEAST another year most likely two under normal circumstances.

Well that at least somewhat positive to hear, but why than not provide HPnodes with just one vote just like masternodes, regardless of stack, that at least would a small stop gap.

Also once communicatio lines have been formed, the will not be undone, If I would be part of a HPnode I would certainly want to know how I am dealing with, and I will keep communication lines open, probably many more will open as well because new communication lines will connect to older ones already.

If it would come to voting, I would certainly put the squeze on masternodes, voting less rewards for them and more for Dashplatform if that would be profitable.
That is just smart business.

Also I just now realized, that Dashplatform would be Dash price hype nr1
Dash platform sharding because cost will be lowered 10x or more would be hype nr2
Sharding otherwise would certainly not be a hype.

 

[qwizzie]

@peter :

20% for mining will most likely form a problem. Promises were made during the mn-miner blockreward reallocation change discussion to mining pools, not to meddle with the miners part of the blockrewards anytime soon. I suspect DCG is currently very hesistant to change the miner part of the blockrewards. Who we by the way still need for v19 (hard fork). Dash revised mn-miner blockreward reallocation schedule runs till June 2025.

Just my thoughts (i know you addressed this to Sam). I think he actually addressed this in the High Performance Masternode presentation (Q & A).

 

[peter]

20% for mining will form a problem.

This is just an example. You could also say 45% / 40% / 5% / 10%, or whatever...

 

[TheNetworkIsBiggerThanYou]

Some further thoughts:

1.) Issue with stopping quorum:
It seems, that the impact of a stopping quorum is not so dramatic, since the devs voted for the 4k-HPMN solution (highest chance to be able to stop a quorum). That means, that a high collateral is not a big requirement. 2k should be enough, and such a low barrier for participating in the Platform adventure would be good for the community.

2.) Issue with too many HPMNs:
Yes, there should be an equilibrium, with a lot of normal MNs, as today, and a somewhat lower number of HPMNs. IMO, such an equilibrium can be easily achieved with the right repartition of the block reward, for example: 60% for Core services, 20% for mining, 10% for Platform services and 10% for project funding.

With these IMO not too weird assumptions:

• Today 3700 MNs.
• Cost for hosting an MN = 1 Dash/year
• Cost for hosting an HPMN = 10 Dash/year
• Fees are insignificant in the very beginning.
• HPMNs provide also Core services and get therefore also the 60% part of the reward.
• The equilibrium is reached, when ROI for MNs and HPMNs are almost the same.
• Block reward is 2.3 Dash.
• 210240 blocks per year.

we would get the following repartition:

• Number of HPMNs: 491
• Number of MNs: 2718
• ROI: 8.94%

Sam, what do you think please?

I like this idea rather than 50-50 block reward split between MNs and Platform nodes. This way the platform nodes will be compensated relative to the value it brings to the dash value proposition (relatively little at first). If you pay less for hpmn with a smallre block reward you'll get less hpnm which is the stated desire. Coherent. What's not clear is how collateral plays into this.

 

[ad87657]

This has been a great discussion, thanks to qwizzie for starting this and the DCG for providing their input. Great arguments already made against increasing collateral and have few opinions/suggestions that would like to share, please ignore if they do not make sense.

1. Platform disrupting core services: Not sure how complicated to implement this, but there were concerns about platform bugs bringing down the core. If the platform code is decoupled with core, is it possible to run an optional platform node on a different server using the same masternode key at least initially? This does require maintaining 2 servers but this will not disrupt core services until the platform is stabilized. And platform nodes should only be compensated with platform credits and can also implement time locks as someone suggested. Some other projects also implemented benchmarks for hardware requirements.

2. High fee concern: Fee should not be the reason to increase collateral. If high fee is indeed a concern, please reduce the charges/kb in the storage calculations, initially there might be quite a number of masternodes that are willing to run a platform node for loss for decentralization sake, (there are thousands of BTC nodes without any pay). As per calculations, ideal number for platform nodes is 250 to 400 and I think this number can be easily achieved with normal masternodes.

3. Collateral increase: Increasing collateral for platform nodes is breaking social contract. Let me explain, only income that a masternode receives currently is from block rewards and they go down as years pass by, I am sure number of people invested in the masternodes thinking that they will be able to earn platform fees and this change will deprive that. As history suggests, since the voter participation is really low, whales tend to sway the results. Increase in collateral definitely is advantageous to whales and is not a good proposal unless there is a greater voter participation and definitely not easy to reduce the collateral for platform nodes as suggested in the future as nobody wants to maintain more servers for the same reward.

 

[peter]

What's not clear is how collateral plays into this.

Without an additional collateral for the HPMNs, almost all MNs (because hardware is cheap and gets cheaper every day) would switch to HPMNs with the already mentioned downsides.

 

[TheNetworkIsBiggerThanYou]

switch or run both? if people want to run lighter hardware they may not want to run both.

small enough block reward will insure few people take up HPMN and if they do it is a bonus to the network.

 

[QuantumExplorer]

Question for Sam. - Have you heard from any person's questions yet with concerns about the fees being too high on platform?

I think no. So worry about the fees later. You are over-engineering the solution. The non-concern about fees is the signal. It tells you what the network wants. It is up to you, as a technical lead, to package an offer to the MNOs that they will want to upgrade to.

Forget voting ordaining the correct choice.

With my reading here, I'm seeing a value for stability and gradual improvement over large structural changes. If you bring this to network vote you need to make clear the benefits and the draw backs of each option. Really hard. Borderline impossible to create an informed voting population on something this new and complicated. Just because the MNOs will vote does not mean they will get it right. Voting, being zero-sum game, also means there will be losers who disagree. It is not the panacea solution. It will not divine the correct path.

Please forget about high fees problem right now. Wait until it becomes a problem and then address it elegantly.

Platform looks half-baked. Is it? I don't know. Let's minimize its risks and let's not get locked into large structural changes.

No, platform is not half baked. We will have many features that no other blockchain will have, so you need to dispel any notion that the work that we release will not be top notch.

High fees are an issue, but even if they weren't here are the problems with non HPMN solutions:

The everyone runs platform solution :

We would be forcing everyone to run platform causing ROI to go very much down as hardware requirements go up, a lot of people would probably skimp on their hardware requirements. If platform does manage to start, then a lot of people would start to complain because they weren't getting rewards, because their nodes would be too weak (eventually). Look, it might work, I just think it's a lot more risky than other scenarios. If the network decides to go this option, all I can say is that we will see and I'll pray to have been wrong. And then we have the downside that if something goes terribly wrong with platform it could stop the entire masternode network.

Any solution not forcing platform while maintaining 1k collateral :

This would lead to heavily centralization. All the math shows this. 1 entity could most likely stop the chain depending on how many initial rewards we send to platform. There is even risk with massive centralization of funds being able to be stolen if 1 entity could control over 2/3rds of the network. To me this is very scary. I am okay to code up solutions that would allow the chain to potentially stop if the network voted decided that was the solution they liked the best, but I would never be okay with a solution where funds could be stolen. People calling for these solutions in the name of decentralization are ill informed and might be unwilling to listen to reason.

When we see all the downsides from these solutions, and then HPMNs also just so happen to have really low fees, allow the whole network to have higher ROIs, take very little work to code up, obviously we will be pushing for these solutions, because they work better while the others at least to me are scary.

 

[QuantumExplorer]

3. Collateral increase: Increasing collateral for platform nodes is breaking social contract. Let me explain, only income that a masternode receives currently is from block rewards and they go down as years pass by, I am sure number of people invested in the masternodes thinking that they will be able to earn platform fees and this change will deprive that. As history suggests, since the voter participation is really low, whales tend to sway the results. Increase in collateral definitely is advantageous to whales and is not a good proposal unless there is a greater voter participation and definitely not easy to reduce the collateral for platform nodes as suggested in the future as nobody wants to maintain more servers for the same reward.

In the HPMN solutions money is not being taken from normal masternodes to be given to HPMNs.
If you earn 1.4 Dash 5 times a month, it's the same as if you were to earn 0.7 10 times a month.

With the HPMN solution, the HPMNs participate far less in core services for their collateral. This leads to non HPMNs being rewarded far more for Core services.

There is a natural market balance that occurs.

What's even more is that excess fees from platform would flow because of this balance to normal masternodes.

We calculated that if you want the highest return you should vote on the highest collateral solution, and provided those numbers somewhere in this thread.

 

[QuantumExplorer]

2. High fee concern: Fee should not be the reason to increase collateral. If high fee is indeed a concern, please reduce the charges/kb in the storage calculations, initially there might be quite a number of masternodes that are willing to run a platform node for loss for decentralization sake, (there are thousands of BTC nodes without any pay). As per calculations, ideal number for platform nodes is 250 to 400 and I think this number can be easily achieved with normal masternodes.

We have the opportunity to make platform into a business, where if successful fees would generate revenue for the entire network. Not just speculation, actual fees that pay out. I think that the high fees is not the greatest concern, but low fees while still making the masternode network a lot of extra money could be nice. This is why I think the 10k solution is very nice (though I still like the 4K solution because of the accessibility). We can put fees quite higher than they cost the network and STILL they would be very low compared to other chains.

 

[QuantumExplorer]

1. Platform disrupting core services: Not sure how complicated to implement this, but there were concerns about platform bugs bringing down the core. If the platform code is decoupled with core, is it possible to run an optional platform node on a different server using the same masternode key at least initially? This does require maintaining 2 servers but this will not disrupt core services until the platform is stabilized. And platform nodes should only be compensated with platform credits and can also implement time locks as someone suggested. Some other projects also implemented benchmarks for hardware requirements.

Platform uses core services, and needs them locally, so this is not an option.

 

[Semarg]

200-400 seems like an appropriate guess for number of MNOs. You think it is 1000?

That's my guess. Ryan did this estimation a few years ago, about 4 MNs in average, that seems like good estimate to me and things didn't change much since then.