There will be some interesting changes coming for the NobleCoin community. I would even go as far as saying now is the prime time to invest in NOBL, because the price is still relatively low (around the 58 Satoshi mark per coin).
In fact, there are multiple changes coming, which will be beneficial for people holding and/or mining NobleCoin. Changes usually have a chance to bring negative effects with them as well, but it doesn’t appear to be the case this time.
The changes coming to NobleCoin will require a hard fork, and are set to take place somewhere in June or July, requiring a mandatory client update. Once the official date has been announced, we will let you know in a future article.
For now, there will be no change in regards to the NobleCoin mining algorithm, despite Scrypt ASIC’s being released. Rofo, the NobleCoin developer, said however, and I quote : “I will be more than willing to publicly state I was wrong about them the second we can be 100% certain that they are destroying the Scrypt scene.”
“In that case we will act swiftly to switch to whichever algorithm has proven itself by that time. In some ways it actually feels that the longer we stay a Scrypt PoW coin, the more unique we become as half a dozen a day become x11 or PoS.”
In order to combat the NobleCoin inflationary pressure, there will be a change to the block rewards. The following change has been proposed, and the development team is currently looking for feedback from the NobleCoin community :
“For the first 6 months, 5,000 coins per block are mined. From 6 months, every day a reduction of 1% is applied until we reach the point of 2,500 coins per block mined. This is in effect a halving only done gradually (a ‘smooth halving’), taking approximately 70 days to be done and addresses the problem of a dramatic and sudden drop in coin supply, hashrate and # of miners.”
“From that point 2,500 coins per block are mined for six months, at which point we do the 1% reduction per day again down to 1,250 coins. This happens again for the 625 coin point, and the 312 coin point.”
I like the idea of having block rewards decrease for a certain amount of days, then keep that reward for an extended period, before decreasing the block rewards again. This does not harm miners in any way, and it reduces the inflation.
The major change will be in the form of a reduced coin supply cap. NobleCoin’s code shows us that there will be 15,000,000,000 NOBL in existence at it’s peak. However, by decreasing the block rewards, that initial coin supply cap will be unnecessary.
The total amount of NobleCoin in circulation will be reduced from 15 billion to 5 billion, or a 66% decrease. Despite this massive reduction, the new coin supply cap won’t be reached for many years to come, so there is no reason not to do it.
“One of our biggest concerns with reducing miner rewards and having a final cap on total coins is the issue of ‘cost versus reward’ some worry coins like BTC will face in the future. As block rewards reduce in size, will the transaction fees and smaller coin rewards be enough to make up for the mining cost of increased security?”
“Will a perpetual block reward be required in the future to ensure those securing the system are getting compensated properly? We can’t answer that right now, but this change in specifications gives us a few years to follow more case studies and see where this scene is going.”
As you can see from everything I’ve mentioned so far, a lot of thought has gone into these changes, and the fact the community can give their feedback on these ideas, goes to show how big of a role the NobleCoin community plays.
One thing to keep in mind after reading all of the above, is that NobleCoin focused on creating services first, and is looking at coin changes after these services have been properly established. Plus they spread the information 2 months in advance, and let the community have a say in all of it.
What do you think of the NobleCoin changes? Do you like them, or are you opposed to them? Leave a comment below!
NobleCoin donations can be sent to : 9T9NKADYBFsZ71q4Ha89ASrCcneZ32Lu9a
I had high hopes for Noble and I still do.I must admit that Scrypt ASICS are definitely a hard blow – but wouldn’t it be wiser to start addressing it now rather than waiting to see if Scrypt ASICS turn things upside down and then "act swiftly" ? I mean there are many other altcoins (Vert,Dark, Myriad,Etc.) out there that are better posed than Noble to take over if its gets to that. Why would people turn to Noble then?