New BSIP: Increase maximum total bitshares supply to boost reserve pool funds

[grctest]

BSIP: 0088
Title: Increase maximum total Bitshares supply to grow the reserve pool fund
Authors: R
Status: Draft
Type: Protocol
Created: 2024-04-18

Abstract

Currently the Bitshares reserve pool grows through the collection of BTS fees for broadcast operations.

This BSIP proposes to substantially raise the amount of BTS tokens held in the reserve pool through a possible future core mandatory upgrade.

Motivation

With a larger amount of BTS in the reserve pool, we can afford to pay witnesses at a higher rate, encouraging greater witness election campaigning & improving competition for these roles, strengthening the DPOS consensus mechanism.

With a larger reserve pool the development of core code and next-gen user interfaces can be funded for full-time development, as opposed to on a voluntary basis.

Rational

The current circulating supply of BTS is: 2,995,301,686 BTS
The max circulating supply of BTS is: 3,600,570,502 BTS

Meaning there's 605m BTS in reserves (16.82% of total supply).

Considering the market cap on coinmarketcap is calculated from the circulating supply, issuing additional BTS supply to the reserves does not directly affect the market cap calculation, so even a large increase in max total supply will not directly alter the market cap calculation.

Competitor cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin have no maximum total supply limit; there is real market tolerance for a growing core token supply.

Initial crypto whitepaper economics can change, the fees are regularly changed by committee decision as the price of BTS fluctuates for example.

Fundraising through any other means introduces various forms of risks, whether that's regulatory risk, centralized counterparty risks or can suffer from lack of sufficient participation.

There's a great deal of historical precedent for traditional publicly traded companies to issue additional shares for open market purchase, in order to fund their continued operations, this proposal is somewhat similar except the increased reserve pool isn't immediately liquid - approved worker proposals would be required to make the reserve funds liquid.

By democratically distributing these newly raised funds through the worker proposal system we will be improving the decentralization of the network. At the moment there are several centralized exchange accounts with a substantial amount of BTS in their balances, by distributing worker funds to key stakeholders these whale accounts power is reduced substantially.

Specifications

Create a worker proposal to evaluate whether people are for or against such an increase in core token supply for reserve pool purposes.

If it passes, create secondary worker proposals to vote on the amount to increase the total supply by.

Considering the core token is not owned by the committee-account, but rather owned by the null-account, the asset settings cannot be easily changed; the increase in BTS total supply (not circulating supply) would need to be introduced by a core code change and supported by the witnesses.

Discussion

How frequently would you consider such an increase in total core token supply?

How much would you tolerate the token supply increasing by?

Would you prefer a large increase in total supply every 10 years (or so), or a smaller amount every year instead? What kind of increase schedule is optimal?

You could argue that a large increase in max total supply could influence the price of BTS to decrease, however we have already sustained such downwards price action over the years without spending these reserve funds; risking going a bit lower in order to sustain years of continuous development and network operation is a worthwhile risk.

If you're someone who has put off approving worker proposals out of fear of the reserve pool running out, would a larger reserve pool settle your worries?

If you're someone who is afraid of large CEX whale accounts and the potential power they could weild, would the distribution of additional funds to key stakeholders in an attempt to even the DPOS playing field reduce your fear of these CEX?

Rather than manually intervening in the reserve pool, should the committee instead substantially increase fees (such as transfers) to grow the reserve pool at these low prices? Transfer fees between CEX for example could be made more costly.

If you're not participating in the DPOS voting system, would this encourage you to participate more? BTS held on CEX have no BSIP vote weight, thus have no say in this matter.

Bitsharestalk thread: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,34038.new.html#new

Summary for Shareholders

Potential increase in the total supply of core BTS tokens; this would pose a change to the original whitepaper economics.

New supply would not be immediately liquid.

New supply would become liquid through voted upon worker proposal payouts over time and potentially increased witness pay rates by the committee.

Greater competition for witness spots will improve DPOS reliability and resiliency.

Greater funding of core and UI development from the reserve pool through worker proposals will benefit the Bitshares blockchain and yourself. Full time dedicated development will lead to compounding improvements for open source project deliverables.

May set a precedent for future total supply increases if/when a similar situation arises in the future.

BSIP proposes multiple on-chain votes before any action is taken, to maximize transparency.

A future greater balance held by developers and witnesses through witness pay and worker proposal payout will improve decentralization of the network, and will lower the potential influence which large centralized exchange accounts could have over the chain.

Motivational music: https://app.suno.ai/song/be25a104-5131-4e80-846a-4592b0fe26a3/