Concern
The most significant criticism given for the whitepaper relates to the specifics of the bootstrap period (section 9 in page 7).
There are two main problems with the proposal as written in the original text:
-
The bootstrap period is too short. It cannot last at most one year, this is much too aggressive. The number of community members exposed to the project in one year will be too low. The period needs to be longer.
-
The drop in reward at the end of the bootsrap period is too sharp. If block rewards drop by over 90% at once, the effect on miners will be extreme. This may result in a sharp drop in hash power at the end of the bootstrap period which is undesirable. The drop should be gradual over time.
Solution
An alternative proposal is as follows:
Set the bootstrap period to 4.5 years. During this time, the protocol will catch up to 16 years of Bitcoin. This means both protocols will converge to same reward schedule on the beginning of the 4th Bitcoin halving (when block reward becomes 3.125 BTC).
Instead of having a fixed block reward during the entire bootstrap period, decrease block reward over time. The 4.5 year period can be divided to 9 shorter sub-periods of about 6 months each. During the first sub-period, block reward will be 175. The block reward will decrease by 25 on every sub-period. After it reaches 25, it will become 12.5, and then 6.25.
Detailed Bootstrap Schedule
| Sub-Period Number |
Block Reward |
Sub-Period Time |
Sub-Period Blocks |
| 1 |
175 |
~6 months |
29850 |
| 2 |
150 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 3 |
125 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 4 |
100 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 5 |
75 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 6 |
50 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 7 |
25 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 8 |
12.5 |
6 months |
26600 |
| 9 |
6.25 |
6 months |
26600 |
The total bootstrap period is approx 4.5 years. The total reward during this period is 19,687,500 (identical to the total reward in the first 16 years of Bitcoin).
The next period after the bootstrap is a 210,000 blocks period (4 years) where block reward is 3.125 - this should match up nicely with Bitcoin's regular schedule after the 4th halving.
Concern
The most significant criticism given for the whitepaper relates to the specifics of the bootstrap period (section 9 in page 7).
There are two main problems with the proposal as written in the original text:
The bootstrap period is too short. It cannot last at most one year, this is much too aggressive. The number of community members exposed to the project in one year will be too low. The period needs to be longer.
The drop in reward at the end of the bootsrap period is too sharp. If block rewards drop by over 90% at once, the effect on miners will be extreme. This may result in a sharp drop in hash power at the end of the bootstrap period which is undesirable. The drop should be gradual over time.
Solution
An alternative proposal is as follows:
Set the bootstrap period to 4.5 years. During this time, the protocol will catch up to 16 years of Bitcoin. This means both protocols will converge to same reward schedule on the beginning of the 4th Bitcoin halving (when block reward becomes 3.125 BTC).
Instead of having a fixed block reward during the entire bootstrap period, decrease block reward over time. The 4.5 year period can be divided to 9 shorter sub-periods of about 6 months each. During the first sub-period, block reward will be 175. The block reward will decrease by 25 on every sub-period. After it reaches 25, it will become 12.5, and then 6.25.
Detailed Bootstrap Schedule
The total bootstrap period is approx 4.5 years. The total reward during this period is 19,687,500 (identical to the total reward in the first 16 years of Bitcoin).
The next period after the bootstrap is a 210,000 blocks period (4 years) where block reward is 3.125 - this should match up nicely with Bitcoin's regular schedule after the 4th halving.