FIP-0065: Ignore built-in market balances in circulating supply (first draft)

[anorth]

Summary

Declare that future protocol changes may commit non-zero data into sectors without requiring a corresponding deal in the built-in market actor.
Remove the built-in market actor's locked balances from the network circulating supply calculation.

Discussion: #719

[arajasek]

Looks good to me.

AFAIK, this is the first time we've FIP-ped something that is mostly a declaration of intent for future changes. While I don't oppose such a FIP, it's something we should discuss as part of the deliberation process -- if this FIP passes with little contention, but there's opposition to the future FIP that actually introduces direct commitment of data into sectors (on the grounds that the centrality of the built-in market actor shouldn't be eroded), would we entertain that discussion? Or shut it down saying "sorry, this previous FIP already announced a decision on this"?

Regardless, that doesn't affect landing this PR.

[anorth]

if this FIP passes with little contention, but there's opposition to the future FIP that actually introduces direct commitment of data into sectors [...] would we entertain that discussion?

Thanks for raising. Yes, I think we would. I don't think there's anything that reasonable people could do now that should prevent other reasonable people in the future from debating a change.

With that in mind, I think I will rework this FIP to focus on the technical change, with clear pointers to the rationale being expectation of direct commitment of data. The content will mostly remain, just re-arranged.

[jennijuju]

Does this mean we are excluding it from both regular and vm circulating supply or only the VM one?

[anorth]

I only know of one protocol-defined circulating supply, which is the value that is input to calculations of things like sector initial pledge. Are any other definitions of circulating supply relevant to consensus rules?

[jennijuju]

First editorial pass ✔️ with some nits.

re: @arajasek's good flag: This FIP's motivation and impact depends on many hypothetical future protocol changes, that may or may not be accepted by the Filecoin community. The idea of this proposal is reasonable and concrete enough to be landed as a draft, however, when this FIP can be moved to Last Call/Acceptance is worth discussing. some quick options:

1. treat this FIP as an independent FIP.
2. treat this FIP as a dependency of future "directly commit data to sector" proposals and bound the FIPs acceptance. (stay Draft until then).
3. treat this FIP as an independent FIP now for acceptance(not finalization) & and allow revision to Deferred or Reverted when contentions raised in then future.

@kaitlin-beegle I think this is gap in the current governance process and would love to hear our feedback.

[hannahhoward]

comments left per @jennijuju

[hannahhoward]

Recommend a slightly different phrasing than include/exclude

The built-in markets locked balances are currently included in the total locked amount, which is then subtracted from the total circulating supply. Another way to plausible way to say this is "the total Filecoin circulating supply EXCLUDES the balances locked in the built in actor".

I realize now the proposal is to exclude them from the calculation, but I read this several times as excluding them from the total circulating supply number itself, which I found very confusing because I know that's what already happens.

Maybe "remove the built-in market actors locked balanced from the pool of locked filecoin on the network" is a better way to say it?

[anorth]

Thanks, it's tricky to find something concise (FIP title is supposed to be <80 chars, though I find this restriction silly). I changed it to "ignore the built-in market locked balance..."

[hannahhoward]

Even if there's no underlying change, I assume crypto exchanges report the number the chain reports. I wonder if a sudden bump in the number affects token price?

[anorth]

I have some reason to believe they chose their own definition (see @jennijuju comment about about which definition I'm talking about), and I don't know which if any include tokens in deal collateral or payment escrow as "circulating".

[jennijuju]

(I’m happy to land this DRAFT when we find a venue to discuss the raised governance process questions)

[dirkmc]

Overall this looks great, thanks for putting it together @anorth 👍

My only suggestions are to change a couple of things to improve the readability and understandability (particularly for non-native speakers):

• I'd suggest massaging the language to be as concise as possible
  • eg minimize repetition of the same point in different sections
• I'd suggest using bullet points instead of paragraphs where possible
• I'd suggest using graphics where possible (better for non-native speakers) eg a pie graph of locked balances vs total locked amount vs circulating supply

[anorth]

Thanks @dirkmc , someone should make you a FIP editor. The template structure makes it hard to avoid repetition, but I will attempt to compress and tabulate a bit.

A pie chart isn't going to work well to show a 0.21% slice.

[anorth]

I have addressed the editorial comments. @jennijuju please approve given your ✔️ so I can merge this draft for community consideration . We can discuss any governance issues in the the discussion #719.