Appreciation and Feedback on Spacemesh's Progress

[bugxzhu]

Dear Spacemesh Team,

I hope this message finds you well. I would like to start by expressing my sincere appreciation for the incredible contributions you have made to the Spacemesh project. The effort and dedication you have shown in the development of SMH are truly commendable.

Today, I had the opportunity to read your latest blog post, and I was deeply moved by the passion and idealism that permeates your work. It's inspiring to see such dedication to the long-term vision of Spacemesh, and I truly admire the ideals that drive your team.

Since the project's inception, however, many miners have become increasingly concerned about the project's return on investment, which now seems to be on the brink of being abandoned. Of course, I am not suggesting that the team should shift its focus to short-term price concerns, as the price is only one factor that attracts miners. However, as I have mentioned before, the current issue with Spacemesh is that miners are overly reliant on individual mining pools, which runs contrary to the team’s original vision. The current design has not succeeded in getting miners to abandon pools, and I believe there are two key reasons for this:

First, there is a significant difference in maintenance costs between joining a pool and solo mining. Solo mining requires extensive work, especially during software upgrades and when updating the POST service. Why not design the system to support multi-directory configurations so that a single machine could possibly operate with only one POST endpoint? This could make solo mining more manageable and appealing.

Second, the excessively long POST times in mining pools do not cause significant losses when using large-capacity hard drives. This, however, is extremely unfair to solo miners. For solo miners to achieve fast POETs is not an easy task. The strength of mining pools has been significantly underestimated by the Spacemesh team, and I believe this is an area that needs further attention.

On another note, while the team is currently focused on how to generate SMH tokens, I would like to know if there are any plans for how the tokens will be consumed and circulated. A slower token emission schedule, with mining rewards extending for hundreds of years, is not favorable for the price. People do not want their tokens to face rapid inflation each month. A mechanism for token consumption and locking is necessary to maintain a balance between supply and demand. With so many blockchain projects on the market, miners will naturally gravitate toward those offering higher rewards. The circulation and use of the token are crucial to the success of any project, as it is through circulation that tokens can become more decentralized. While the price of SMH is not the team’s primary goal, it will be an essential factor in achieving the broader objectives of the project.

I sincerely hope the team will be able to achieve its dream and continue pushing forward with the remarkable vision behind Spacemesh.

Best regards

[pigmej]

Hey,

Answering the tech-related stuff only for now.

First, there is a significant difference in maintenance costs between joining a pool and solo mining. Solo mining requires extensive work, especially during software upgrades and when updating the POST service. Why not design the system to support multi-directory configurations so that a single machine could possibly operate with only one POST endpoint? This could make solo mining more manageable and appealing.

It's already possible, post-service allows precisely to do that. So you have one node and multiple post-services running for multiple directories/drives etc. It is up to the user to define what / how exactly.

Furthermore, with node-split, it will become even easier as, for example, one node per all different poet phases should be doable. Additionally the whole "smashing part" will be very lean and super lightweight so we expect that to be a huge help for all miners.

We're already working super hard on getting the ATX merge, and especially POST merge that will further remove the advantages of "splitting identities". You can read more about it here: https://spacemesh.io/blog/reducing-network-load/

Please let me know if it makes the situation a bit clearer.

[noamnelke]

Hey @bugxzhu, thanks for the very detailed and thought out feedback! And thanks for delivering it in such a friendly, pleasant way - it's not taken for granted. We really appreciate it and in addition to me answering this here, I promise to re-read it and keep it in mind as we make further plans and decisions.

Let me first acknowledge that I agree with everything you wrote. We're aware of these issues. We have solutions in the works for most of them. As @pigmej wrote, we already have technical solutions for some, but we need to do a better job of making them accessible to users - we have plans for that, as well.

Regarding "token consumption and locking" as a way to fuel price action: we have Athena coming. We're currently having discussions on how to reduce scope so that we can bring it to market faster. Apps built on top of Athena will create the first real economy on top of Spacemesh and the first use-case for SMH, other than moving value created by smeshing and pure speculation. Will releasing Athena be enough? It's hard to predict, but I can't think of anything we can implement now, quickly, before Athena, to achieve this goal that will actually be useful. Once Athena is out, it will make more sense to build mechanisms on top of it.

Have I missed any of your major points? Do you have more concrete proposals for what we should do differently in the short term? Do you have any questions about our plans and solutions that I can help answer?

I'd be happy to continue this conversation here, or in a zoom call or something, if you prefer. I'm no_umm on discord.

[bugxzhu]

@noamnelke
Thank you for taking the time to carefully read my feedback and respond thoughtfully. I truly appreciate the open-mindedness and dedication your team demonstrates.

Athena, as a contract mechanism, is indeed a highly anticipated development and marks a significant step forward in building the Spacemesh ecosystem. However, as we move forward, I believe there is still more to be done.

Looking at Filecoin’s trajectory offers valuable lessons. Despite the technical strength and perseverance of their team, Filecoin has faced significant challenges. The introduction of FVM was indeed a major achievement, but their lack of receptiveness to community feedback and the over-complication of storage processes have hindered their success. What should have been an effort to simplify storage has instead become unnecessarily complex. I hope Spacemesh can learn from these experiences and take a simpler and more user-focused approach.

For example, the differentiated rewards for different POST times in Spacemesh have not achieved the desired outcomes and have added unnecessary complexity. I believe we should return to fundamental simplicity in the design. POET servers should operate consistently, regardless of hard drive size. Considering the increasing capacity of hard drives in the future, we could gradually extend POET time as the project evolves.

To alleviate pressure on official servers, I suggest encouraging miners to set up public POET nodes. This could be incentivized by allowing POET servers to stake SMH tokens to ensure their smooth operation. Additionally, POET servers could earn corresponding rewards for each task executed, creating a more balanced and decentralized system.

Another critical aspect of Spacemesh’s future lies in what applications will be built on Athena once it is launched. Based on my observations, the blockchain industry has faced significant challenges in recent years. Applications like Mint and NFTs have often been used for speculative purposes, and DeFi has become a default, highly homogenized feature of blockchain projects.

In the realm of decentralized storage, many projects have fallen into a similar trap—asking users to spend tokens to purchase storage space. This approach has severely hindered adoption and growth. I believe successful applications should not only cater to blockchain enthusiasts but also be open, simple, and accessible to all users. Only then can they achieve widespread acceptance.

I’m truly excited about these discussions and the opportunity to exchange ideas with your team. I’ve already reached out to you on Discord to facilitate more timely communication and collaboration in the future. It is my earnest hope that this project will achieve great success.

Looking forward to continued dialogue.