Re: MasterCoin: New Protocol Layer Starting From “The Exodus Address”
In a perfect world, I would happily devote more time to Mastercoin, I've lived and breathed it pretty much whenever I'm not working my day job & am of course 100% behind it - there is however an issue I haven't seen discussed which for me at least is significant.
There are real-world financial burdens (mortgage, bills etc) that have to be paid. My full time earnings are in fiat - and that's a critical factor. Cryptocurrencies are still a very new and volatile way of transferring monetary value (for example I had a fairly substantial bitcoin transaction earlier this week that was worth significantly less to the recipient in the time it took to confirm it in 6 blocks). Consider if you will, being paid in bitcoin & mastercoin only for the next {x months/years}. The ups and downs of these values will determine the amount of fiat you would have that month to pay the bills. It could be fantastic and you become very wealthy. It could also end in tears if a crash in value restricts your ability to pay said bills. My number one priority over anything else will always be providing for my family (and stably).
The foundation I'm sure would look at adjusting payments along with market values but just as volatility affects conversion to fiat, so does it affect the resources of the foundation. A crash in bitcoin value is also a crash in foundation resources. For the sake of debate, what happens if bitcoin for example crashes to $50? How would the foundation cover it's payments to its hires? I think that's an unlikely scenario, but unlikely enough to put 100% of your income on is the question. My apologies if this comes across as negativity that's not my intention at all - I'm simply considering (out loud) the potential risks.
Mastercoin is a project I thoroughly support and believe is going to be something that really starts to attract 'big money' (corporate) to cryptocurrencies. I currently spend as much time developing as I can, but I have a full time job which takes up the lion's share of my time. I still do endeavor to be responsive to any issues with any of my Masterchest software.
As they say 'never close a door' & I'm not ruling anything out, but as nice (I'm guilty too) as it is to get swept up in the incredible growth in just our first few short months when it comes to things like employment and where your income comes from (and how reliable that income is) a longer term perspective is needed.
Thanks
Note, I'd be happy to read any info anyone can provide on a precedent for full-time work paid in cryptocurrencies.
EDIT: for clarity
There are real-world financial burdens (mortgage, bills etc) that have to be paid. My full time earnings are in fiat - and that's a critical factor. Cryptocurrencies are still a very new and volatile way of transferring monetary value (for example I had a fairly substantial bitcoin transaction earlier this week that was worth significantly less to the recipient in the time it took to confirm it in 6 blocks). Consider if you will, being paid in bitcoin & mastercoin only for the next {x months/years}. The ups and downs of these values will determine the amount of fiat you would have that month to pay the bills. It could be fantastic and you become very wealthy. It could also end in tears if a crash in value restricts your ability to pay said bills. My number one priority over anything else will always be providing for my family (and stably).
The foundation I'm sure would look at adjusting payments along with market values but just as volatility affects conversion to fiat, so does it affect the resources of the foundation. A crash in bitcoin value is also a crash in foundation resources. For the sake of debate, what happens if bitcoin for example crashes to $50? How would the foundation cover it's payments to its hires? I think that's an unlikely scenario, but unlikely enough to put 100% of your income on is the question. My apologies if this comes across as negativity that's not my intention at all - I'm simply considering (out loud) the potential risks.
Mastercoin is a project I thoroughly support and believe is going to be something that really starts to attract 'big money' (corporate) to cryptocurrencies. I currently spend as much time developing as I can, but I have a full time job which takes up the lion's share of my time. I still do endeavor to be responsive to any issues with any of my Masterchest software.
As they say 'never close a door' & I'm not ruling anything out, but as nice (I'm guilty too) as it is to get swept up in the incredible growth in just our first few short months when it comes to things like employment and where your income comes from (and how reliable that income is) a longer term perspective is needed.
Thanks
Note, I'd be happy to read any info anyone can provide on a precedent for full-time work paid in cryptocurrencies.
EDIT: for clarity
Your concern is reasonable and valid especially considering fluctuations in btc prices which equates to real life consequences...However I do feel that this risk could be offset by the foundation, by paying developers or "long term contractors" (because there might be additional implications for classifying devs as employees) in fiat. I heard over trello that the foundation now has a bank account. I see no reason why long term fiat payments payments couldn't be structured for long term contractors "Devs" without addition legal burdens of "full time employee" classification. "long term contractor" is also a convenient title or classification because you would be working from your own space and you will not be sharing any physical resources.
With all due respect Bounty's work very well, but it comes as an afterthought to full time employment. Bounties foster competition and it is good for getting to see what potential candidates for a project are made of. How how about in a situation where we already know the skill and ability of said developers? Bounties in these cases become counter-intuitive because the ability of the skilled developer to produce quality work is not based on actual skill, but on actual time he can afford to give after his first priority which is the other job that puts food on the table. We seen several instances when tachikoma had to sleep and go to work.
The long term hiring works way way better for developers who we already know have the desired skill, competence and drive from a track record. It would mean that Mastercoin is priority for developers and they already love working on mastercoin why not enable them to give their all to mastercoin? We have several of these guys from the previous bounties and I think it best to do everything to "poach" them while we can. Don't forget there are competitors and this is also a race to the top of who can achieve a network effect for success. Not only do we want to achieve a network effect, but increase the switching costs by having such rich and intuitive system that makes it hard for users of mastercoin to find any other comparable platform. And what we need right now is to get the devs to focus full time on developing essential mastercoin features than to worry about two things at once. : "Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
what does everybody else think?