I'm working on decentralized (no reference nodes) masternodes and instant transactions. I hope that by the end of this month or sooner we will have public testnet with working masternodes and instant transactions, all code will be open sourced by that moment. DarkSend is much more complicated subject, don't expect it soon.
Amount for running masternode hasn't been set yet. It depends on how many masternodes we want which is not yet clear. The more is better for decentralization, on the other hand we need not to bloat the network with masternode related messages. Instead of setting the required amount it may be better to set the maximum number of masternodes and minimum required amount. Once the number of masternodes will reach the maximum only masternodes with maximum deposits will remain and others will be automatically delisted.
So the next questions to ask are:
1) What is the perfect amount of max DM (Decentralized Masternode)?
2) Do we even need a minimum required amount of SPR to run a DM (Decentralized Masternode)?
My noob answers:
1) I have no idea. I understand that data bloat is a problem, but I suppose if we implement something like Darksend then the bloat will obviously be very high. But what if we forget about DarkSend for the moment, and concentrate on InstantX?
So the sole purpose of decentralized masternodes will first only be to serve as instantx facilitators? So those Decentralized Masternodes will earn SPR for enabling instant transcations, right?
That's enough incentive for many investors to buy SPR and setup masternodes (DM), I am sure about that.
2) I don't think so, once people start outbidding each other to catch a valuable DM, you don't need a minimum price. It's like when in ebay you see valuable things with a starting price of 1$. The seller is not stupid, it's not like he will lose out here. In the contrary, the cheap price encourages MANY MANY bidders to bid, MORE than what an initial HIGH price (like 1000 DRK) would ever be able to attract.
So that's the other difference between SPR and DRK, if we leave the min price out, we will attract so many investors it will blow us out of our socks!