| sip | title | description | author | status | Last Call | type | category | created |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
36 |
Distribution of node-related fees (smart contract and similar) |
Indirect distribution of smart contract and subscription fees to all Signa owners by burning |
frank_the_tank, jjos |
Final |
2022-02-21 |
Standard |
Core |
2022-02-05 |
This SIP will introduce a burning of fees to the zero address for smart contracts and subscription interval payments.
Signum introduced with SIP-29 a minimum block reward of 100 SIGNA. This minimum reward is a solid incentive for miners to keep the network running and secure. In addition to this basic reward, the fees of every transaction included in the block by the miners as well as smart contract execution fees and subscription payment fees are also rewarded to the block forger (miner).
However, there is a conceptual difference between: i) the basic block reward and transaction fees and; ii) the fees generated by smart contracts running or subscription payments being made. The first set is where the miner’s work is relevant, they secure the network, put new coins in circulation, and effectively help the network by selecting valid transactions to be included in the blocks. The second set is independent of any transaction selection of a miner, smart contracts and subscriptions interval payments will be executed by their logic within the nodes. These are not by the merit of a particular miner but a distributed effort among all the nodes (the network as a whole).
Every Signum-Node has to calculate the logic of smart contracts and subscription interval payments on their own, regardless if the node is used for mining or not. Further, they are not bound to a transaction currently being processed, but to a past transaction which already paid a fee to the miners for the privilege to be included in a block. Then, we can conclude that those fees are not rightful to the miner that is forging that particular block, rather it is a general blockchain service provided by all nodes of the Signum protocol.
Thus, instead of paying those fees to a specific miner we propose to burn those fees to the zero address of the Signum chain.
This has two main advantages:
- First the fees from smart contract executions and subscription interval payments will no longer be paid to a single miner since the whole network has to do the same calculations.
- Second, by burning those fees we end up giving the reward indirectly to all Signa coin holders, as we reduce the total-circulating by those fees.
When a block-reward is calculated, the costs for smart-contract execution and the minimum fee for subscription interval payments will not be added to the miner who forged the block; instead they will be sent to the zero address taking those coins out of circulation.
This is a hard forking change, thus breaking compatibility with old fully-validating nodes.
It should not be deployed without widespread consensus.
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