As a Clam holder I would appreciate ending the digging process. Especially since it has been a while. People who are interested in Alt-coins probably have heard of clams by now. The end of digging could bring more interest and money into the coin.
Is it possible to prevent further digging though? Isn't digging just using a previously unused private key to move coins. So to prevent that we would have to remove the ability to send coins which were initially distributed but have yet to be moved?
Yes, and as a bitcoin holder I would like it if they stopped block rewards. We can stop staking for clams too.
The whole point of clams is that they were fairly distributed, just because some have taken longer than others to dig theirs, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to.
Basically, changing the rules now seems unfair. Even if your intentions are to act in the best interest of the coin, your actions will artificially benefit a group, and this cannot be avoided and it is not fair. On top of that, by changing the rules of operation, you're violating the trust of the coin on the most fundamental level. The founding rules of the coin should be treated as sacrosanct. I understand the difficulty of this position because a great asset of the coin was the "fair" distribution model, and clearly an unintended consequence of the way it was implemented is this digging currently going on. It is regrettable, but still, the total potential diggable addresses has always been known.
The total potential diggable CLAMs has always been known. Anyone who bought CLAMs without taking into account the risk that one day the undug CLAMs would be dug has no one to blame but themselves. The price never fully reflected the inflationary risk of the coin, and now that it is, some people want to change the rules. But everyone knew or had the ability to know this was a possibility. And if you didn't know, you had no businesses investing in a coin you didn't understand.