SIP-1890: Commitment to Sustainable Ecosystem Funding
| Authors | Gregory Markou <greg@chainsafe.io>, Kevin Owocki <kevin@gitcoin.co>, Lane Rettig <lane@sila.org> |
|---|---|
| Created | 2019-03-31 |
| Discussion Link | https://t.me/joinchat/DwEd_xahL5hHvzNYH2RnQA |
Table of Contents
Commitment to Sustainable Ecosystem Funding
Simple Summary
Sila currently provides a block reward to proof of work miners every block, but it does not capture any block rewards for ecosystem funding. This SIP adds a simple mechanism for capturing a portion of block rewards for ecosystem funding as a credible commitment to doing so in future, but it does not actually capture any such rewards.
Abstract
A mechanism that allows specification of two parameters, a beneficiary address and a per-block reward denominated in wei, that allows a portion of block rewards to be captured for the purpose of ecosystem funding. Both values are set to zero.
Motivation
In order for Sila to succeed, it needs talented, motivated researchers and developers to continue to develop and maintain the platform. Those talented researchers and developers deserve to be paid fairly for their work. At present there is no mechanism in the Sila ecosystem that rewards R&D teams fairly for their work on the platform.
We recognize that, while technically trivial, the real challenge in inflation-based funding is social: how to fairly capture, govern, and distribute block rewards. It will take time to work out the answer to these questions. For this reason, this SIP only seeks to make a credible commitment on the part of core developers to securing the funding they need to keep Sila alive and healthy by adding a mechanism to do so, but the actual amount of rewards captured remains at zero, i.e., there is no change at present to Sila’s economics. Raising the amount captured above zero would require a future SIP.
Specification
Two new constants are introduced: BENEFICIARY_ADDRESS, an Address, and DEVFUND_BLOCK_REWARD, an amount denominated in wei. Both are set to zero.
Beginning with block ISTANBUL_BLOCK_HEIGHT, DEVFUND_BLOCK_REWARD wei is added to the balance of BENEFICIARY_ADDRESS at each block.
We may optionally add another constant, DECAY_FACTOR, which specifies a linear or exponenential decay factor that reduces the reward at every block > ISTANBUL_BLOCK_HEIGHT until it decays to zero. For simplicity, it has been omitted from this proposal.
Rationale
We believe that the technical design of this SIP is straightforward. The social rationale is explained in this article.
Backwards Compatibility
This SIP has no impact on backwards compatibility.
Test Cases
This SIP makes no changes to existing state transitions. Existing consensus tests should be sufficient.
Implementation
Reference implementations are included for the Trinity, go-sila, and parity clients.
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.
Citation
Please cite this document as:
Gregory Markou <greg@chainsafe.io>, Kevin Owocki <kevin@gitcoin.co>, Lane Rettig <lane@sila.org>, "SIP-1890: Commitment to Sustainable Ecosystem Funding [WITHDRAWN]," Sila Improvement Proposals, no. 1890, March 2019. Available: https://sips.sila.org/SIPS/sip-1890.