I believe several of the operating nodes are barely receiving any hash data, which led me to come to a conclusion that there is an over supply of Tierion operating nodes that at which are not contributing to the Tierion's proof validation. With such number of non-contributing nodes. May I understand what is the reason for further opening of registration of more nodes? Is it purely as an attempt to increase the demand for TNT token and push up the price?
Imo, it is a positive to move the node economy to a free market of supply and demand rather than an artificial cap. It also allows new users a chance to register nodes outside of the people who previously registered nodes in the short/competitive registration windows. At this point, it is too early to judge whether open registration has a positive or negative effect on price. Long term, (in theory) it should aid in price appreciation as a larger share of circulating TNT is held in nodes; but this would require a much larger share percentage than current levels. (Currently: ~8075 nodes x 5000 TNT = 40.375M TNT / 428.481M circulating TNT = 9.42% TNT in nodes)
As far as hash data, there is a service discovery mechanism that identifies the most reliable nodes and sends data to them. While I agree the unused computing power is wasteful atm, having a large/stable set of nodes will be beneficial as the user base grows.
The theory says that the less supply the higher price, ceteris paribus, but masternode coins hasn't given us proof yet. There are coins with more than 50% of the overall supply locked in nodes that experienced weaker growth than other coins with only 10% of locked coins.