Greetings!
One unique aspect of the Blurt blockchain is its continuous evolution. Since its inception, numerous forks and improvements have been implemented to enhance the blockchain's functionality and user experience. Despite the challenges posed by BLURT's price in comparison to other well-known chains, the rate of improvements has been truly impressive. As a general rule, individuals who invest in a blockchain or hold a significant stake tend to be business-minded. Their vested interest lies in the success of the chain, as it directly impacts the value of their assets. While not everyone may comprehend the intricacies of the changes that occurred in the past, investors and witnesses are entrusted with the crucial role of disseminating knowledge and informing the community about these developments.
However, change is not always beneficial. A change that fails to add value to the blockchain is inherently detrimental. This underscores the importance of establishing a mechanism to achieve consensus on which changes should be implemented. The community, along with large stakeholders and witnesses, must act as guardians, filtering out unnecessary changes that only serve to divert essential resources that could be better invested elsewhere.
Although the consensus mechanism is fully transparent, it is however not democratic on all blockchains, at least in its traditional political definition. A blockchain is like a large company with constantly growing shareholders. Each shareholder can influence the decision-making process in the company based on how many shares he owns from it. While this feels gloomy and discouraging for small users and shareholders, this is not. Without consumers, a company's value would plummet. Therefore, it is in the shareholders' best interest to continually cater to their community, and implement changes that enhance the experience of users. Failure to do so could lead to substantial losses, emphasizing the vital symbiotic relationship between the shareholders and the community is the only thing that will make things improve.
We are here to continue this tradition of change, driven by extensive discussions within the community over several months. We have now reached a new plateau, one that we cannot surpass without a few additional modifications. Discussions were not always easy, and this is normal, given that everyone possesses different dreams, ideals, convictions, and beliefs. Achieving a unanimous consensus is not always simple, but we firmly believe that everyone comprehends the importance of evolving and adapting to new challenges.
Things to consider while reading the suggested changes
While numerous advanced technical solutions are definitely doable and are not unreachable, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Finding developers well-versed in the intricate nuances of the graphene architecture, capable of making substantial modifications, is a rare commodity. The lure of more lucrative opportunities elsewhere often diverts these skilled professionals. Hence, it's crucial to factor in development costs when deliberating and greenlighting the community's desired changes in the near future
- The allocation of development resources should be influenced by cost considerations, especially when deciding which features to implement first. Profound changes demand extensive working hours. Thus, the community, with its collective wisdom, must find the right balance by prioritizing features that add value without necessitating an exorbitant amount of time to be completed.
- Due to its importance and need for data analysis, only one aspect of an economic change is considered per fork.
- Back testing does not really work for all changes where user behavior, both intentional and in practice, responds to the incentives offered by the rule set. Looking at past behavior under a different proposed rule set just produces misleading results if only relaying on hypothetical inputs. The only way to get meaningful results is to put it into practice and see how users respond to the changes. This underscores the importance of introducing incremental changes to the blockchain, as this approach allows for a nuanced understanding of user reactions. In addition to a more profound understanding of the results exposed by active data feedback.
- The execution of the HF/BIP is subject to dev procurement and availability.
- All proposed changes are up for discussion on this post and once refined, additional posts will be put up for discussion and voting on each hard fork (HF) before development is commissioned.
- The ranking of changes below is not definitive. Specific changes could be moved up or down or compressed together based on the feedback and suggestions from the community.
- The suggested changes only deal with the technical aspects of the Blurt blockchain. More efforts such as outreach and other onboarding initiatives also play a major role in improving Blurt.
List of proposed changes (BIP = Blurt Improvement Proposal)
Potential changes for HF09
BIP 0001
Changing the reward curve to follow a linear curve. Which means that the field will be levelled between bots and people who engage in manual curation, considering that front running will no longer be as lucrative as before. People will not see a huge difference in the rewards that they are getting, but everyone will have a say directly proportional to their stake.
BIP 0002
Removing the five-minute curation window, which will complement the new curation curve. People will no longer be penalized if they vote before five-minute or did not vote early.
BIP 0003
Removing the last twelve hours curation penalty because it is a system inherited from the chain we forked from that no longer plays any role on Blurt considering that there is no rewards regulation on Blurt.
BIP 0004
Fixing the proposal system that caused the vote weight to be maintained even after the proposal is removed or deleted.
Potential changes for HF10
BIP 0005
Divert all the inflation that was dedicated to fund the DAO before to witnesses instead. This means that witnesses will see a rise in their witness pay. Witnesses should use this chance to improve services and provide more infrastructure to the community.
BIP 0006
Ranking low as a witness was always an issue for community members who were willing to start a node to secure the network. This was due to the price of BLURT, in addition to the impossibility to cover the expenses of running a witness node or any additional infrastructure solely based on the witness pay. Fortunately, with the new diversion from the DAO, general witnesses pay will increase; which is going to make it more attractive for new nodes to enter the ecosystem. This BIP seeks to flatten the witness reward curve through minor witness rewards distribution changes. Overall, witnesses across all ranks will see a decent bump in their pay.
Potential changes for HF11
BIP 0007
Disable a witness automatically after missing x blocks in x day(s).
BIP 0008
Remove all witness votes from a witness after being disabled for x day(s).
BIP 0009
Deletion of disabled witnesses after being disabled for x day(s).
Potential changes for HF12
BIP 0010
Automatic removal of delegation after a period of 1 year. The goal is to avoid severe cases of abuse that are existing on other chains in situations where the original user is no longer active or deceased.
BIP 0011
Newly powered BLURT will have no effect on consensus decisions until the thirty-day cooldown period has passed. This is for security to prevent large amounts of stake entering the system with the intent of disrupting consensus.
Potential changes for HF13
BIP 0012
Instant blocks irreversibility. Currently, the last irreversible block can be as much as a minute behind the head block. This BIP allows for block settlement in milliseconds once enough witness delegated stake has signed the block. This results in faster in-app notifications, expedited finalization of commerce transactions and even some performance benefits for Nexus, reducing the need to reconcile block finality status.
BIP 0013
Allow users to broadcast three comments per block.
BIP 0014
Allow users to broadcast three votes per block.
Potential changes for HF14
BIP 0015
Burning the assets of exchanges that did not honor the BLURT airdrop.
BIP 0016
Burning assets of dormant accounts.
Potential changes for HF15
BIP 0017
Add beneficiaries to delegations.
BIP 0018
Changing the canonical signatures for transaction signing.
BIP 0019
Reduce the general inflation of the Blurt blockchain.
Potential changes for HF16
BIP 0020
Give the top x witnesses the ability to recovery account for users who did not set an account recovery.
BIP 0021
Moving x parameters to become witness parameters.
The role of the community
The Blurt community is highly encouraged to provide suggestions for future changes or discuss the current suggestions. We hope for a cordial and enjoyable interactions between members of the community because we are all here because we share a common goal, which is the betterment of Blurt.
If there is a general consensus on changes suggested for HF9, another post will be created after seven to fifteen days to allow a stake-based vote on the changes. The changes will be earmarked for active development if the outcome is positive, if not, the cycle will repeat itself until a consensus is reached. So do not hesitate to voice your concerns if you have any.
Thank you,
The Symbionts Team,