Metronome – a Cryptocurrency Built to Last 1,000 Years Date: 2 Views
Metronome (MTN) is claiming to be the first self-governing, “cross-blockchain” cryptocurrency.
Its main goal is to be the primary currency used for spending across multiple Blockchains, offering a more reliable store of value and foundation for distributed applications. Sponsored Links
Most cryptocurrencies are volatile and largely dependent on the success of their Blockchains. The Metronome team believes that institutional and mass adoption in the crypto space requires building a currency that isn’t tied to any specific blockchain but can be used as a “boxcar” that could ride on top of any compatible blockchain.
“You can run it on etheruem, ethereum classic, rootstack on Bitcoin and quantum. That’s one of the key ways that this is self-governing, for the first time, you’re not tied to a single blockchain, you can run metronome contracts on any EVM compatible blockchain.”
– Bloq CEO Jeff Garzik
Metronome was launched by enterprise Blockchain Company Bloq in October 2017; the company has pushed back its token sale a few times but is now ready to launch on the 18 th of June.
When surveying the landscape of cryptocurrencies, Jeff and his team recognized some vital problems with their token supply allocation, issuance schedule, economic resilience and mutability resistance.
The primary problem came down to the hard cap set by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, and what they would mean for minors of the future when the final 21 millionth Coin was mined, and there would no longer be any new Bitcoin produced to pay minors to secure the network.
This problem is an example of the negative side effects of zero inflation.
A currency that has a finite supply will only get more valuable as its usage becomes more ubiquitous. Therefore, once all 21million Bitcoins are in circulation, we would likely see people choosing to hoard their Bitcoin rather than spend it, as they see nothing else that is of equal or greater value to trade for the finite digital resource.
Metronome possesses the question of what would happen if a new system were created that encouraged mild inflation as a way to incentivize minors to secure the network indefinitely.
MTN tokens would be minted daily at a fixed rate to ensure predictable pricing.
This system would preserve the existing incentive structures between minors and the network, which would encourage further investment in a predictably reliable network.
Some might argue that this system closely resembles the current state of fiat money and that inevitably, certain founders may elect to increase the supply of MTN faster than its set rate as a way to fast track growth in the network (at the expense of more severe inflation down the road).
Metronome instills a unique system of governance and immutability to prevent such an outcome from occurring.
Today, all cryptocurrencies are minted on a predictable and immutable schedule that enables its users to plan many years ahead. However, various groups interested in influencing network governance and creating new forks can challenge this immutability.
Bitcoin and Ethereum have both been subject to forking incidents, and as each of these systems make the transition to proof of stake and other consensus protocols, their coin issuance rates could become mutable.
Metronome takes lessons from these cryptocurrencies, and creates its currency based on 3 core design principles: Self-Governance, Reliability and Portability. Self-Governance
○ Founders will have no control over the system after launch.
Instead, a community of users will manage Metronomes ecosystem, with that community managed by autonomous smart contracts. Network rules are resistant to individual or community discord, disagreement or misinterpretation Public access to all sale opportunities Decisions made are 100% on-chain, decentralized, and auditable Pricing is set via descending price auction Reliability
○ Metronome offers a predictable token supply by minting new tokens at a daily fixed rate (about 2,880 MTN per day, or an annual rate equal to 2% of the then-outstanding MTN supply per year). This is done in order to provide predictable pricing.
Portability
○ this feature allows users to easily navigate from one to the next using a single cryptocurrency. Using a ‘proof of exit’ receipt, users can move their MTN from one blockchain to another for any reason.
The user first has to commit to a target blockchain that will receive the MTN tokens. Once they remove their MTN tokens from the coin supply of Blockchain A, they will receive a ‘proof of exit’ receipt, which is provided to the Metronome contract on Blockchain B.
The token supply of Blockchain A is reduced, while the supply of Blockchain B increases.
In order to maintain stability, this transfer is reflected in how the daily money supply is produced:
For example: a total of 2,880 MTN are minted each day. If 50% of all MTN were to exist on blockchain A and 50% of all MTN existed on blockchain B, then chain A will mint 1,440 tokens/day, and chain B will mint 1,440 tokens/day.
Descending Price Auction (DPA)
On June 18 th , Metronome will be launching an initial supply auction (also know as the descending price auction). This will run in 2 phases:
Phase 1: The initial liquidity auction :
In a descending price auction, the price per token starts at its maximum price. It then slowly decreases until all offered supply is purchased or until the auction time limit is reached and the auction ends.
The starting price in the Initial Supply Auction will be 2 ETH per MTN.
As long as the auction is open and there are still MTN available for purchase, the price descends by 0.0001984320568 ETH every 60 seconds, toward its floor price of 0. 33 ETH.
The descending token supply will last for 7 days.
Metronome uses DPA so that investors can purchase their tokens at a price that they believe is fair based on supply and demand.
The team also believes that a descending price auction will provide a more accurate market price discovery than one where everyone buys at the same fixed price.
The tokens sold during the descending supply auction are ERC20 and ERC223-compliant tokens.
100% of proceeds from the initial auction will go to the MTN smart contract.
The Metronome token supply:
○ 8,000,000 distributed via public descending price auction
○ 2,000,000 distributed to founders (for retention) will be minted to special TokenLocker contract: 25% available for use by authors at end of Initial Supply Auction The remaining 75% becomes available in 12 equal amounts over 12 calendar quarters Only Metronome Authors can withdraw from their TokenLocker contract
Phase 2: T he Daily Liquidity Auction:
Here, new tokens will be added to the auction continuously, at a rate of 2,880 MTN per day, or an annual rate equal to 2.0000% of the outstanding supply each year.
TEAM
Metronome brings together a talented and highly experienced team:
Jeff Garzik – CEO and cofounder of Metronome
Jeff is also the co-founder of Bloq, and his previous experiences include founding Dunvegan Space Systems in 2012. Dunvegan builds physical, virtual and financial infrastructure enabling space exploration and space settlement.
He was also a Bitcoin Core developer from 2013 to 2014, and principal software engineer at Redhat from 2002 to 2013
Matthew Rozsak – Chairman and Co-founder
Matthew is also another co-founder at Bloq.
His previous experience includes being a founding partner at Tally Capital – a private investment firm focused on blockchain-enabled technology. Prior to Tally Capital, Matthew was the Chairman of Digital Commerce and founder of Chicago Blockchain Center and Blockchain capital limited.
Peter Vessenes – Chief Cryptographer
Peter is the Former CEO of CoinLab, Inc and Co-Founder / Chairman Emeritus of the Bitcoin Foundation.
He is also the holder of a patent for analyzing Bitcoin transactions in a distributed ledger.
Other team members
Metronome has 12 other core team members – 6 engineers and data scientists, 3 marketing, community and partnership heads, and a person in charge of infrastructure, blockchain strategy and administration.
Advisors
The team has also brought on key advisors:
Vinny Lingham, founder of Civic
Don Tapscott from the Blockchain research institute
Gustav Simonsson – former core developer of Ethereum
William Mougayar, author of the business blockchain..
