Maybe bringing in the first suggested merit decay will be a nice idea. Let's say, for instance, if a member receives merit and tries to stack their Smerit for X period of time, it will decay in their profile if it's not spent. Maybe it will push and motivate members to be spending their Smerit regularly.
And that's a brilliant idea, most especially if the merits received are been given a time interval of like 30days from the very moment it was received to decay if the user refuses to resend it out others. Because I'm pretty sure such policy will force people to resend release their merits.
The thing is since nobody is rewarded in sending merit some wouldn't care even if it decays.
So rather than increasing Merit distribution it could decrease the total merit in circulation.
Let's take a scenario that people chooses to follow up with this and change in sharing before decay
This would work if there's an assurance they the individual can earn merit the following month
But if not, it means they used up all their merit in a month even on post they might overlook
And when they come across ones that they really consider worthy, they lack the merit to share.