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[Mod] BitChange (money) [bitchange]

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:02
by Krock
BitChange - Money items for your world

Based on Bitcoins and Currency and Economy.

Image

Included items and nodes: (from top left to bottom right)
  • MineCoin Block, MineCoin, MineNinth: The actual money
  • Warehouse: Extended locked chest, disabled by default
  • Money changer: Converts MineNinths <-> MineCoins <-> MineCoin Blocks
  • Donation box: A few slots for donations for the owner
  • Exchange shop: Improved exchange shop from Currency and Economy with more space and custom titles
  • Tool repair: Consumes money to repair any tool
Image

More Features:
  • Per-world configuration: Edit worlds/[your_world]/bitchange_config.txt
  • Pipeworks support: Disabled by default
  • Gold to MineCoin Block crafting
  • Moreores: zinc & tin to MineCoin crafting
Crafting recipes: Dependencies: default
Optional dependencies: License: CC0
Links: Master *.zip | Browse code

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 13:12
by Inocudom
You should come up with another name for the coins.

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 15:07
by CraigyDavi
Wow. Nice mod. Those two concepts work well together.

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 16:58
by Dan Duncombe
btw, update your currency version.

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 17:28
by hoodedice
Minecoins is just... Perfect.

Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2013 22:07
by fairiestoy
Maybe a suggestion ( just a thought, so nothing to take serious ). Tin and Zinc lack in usage ( from the moreores mod ). Maybe instead of introducing a new set of minecoin ores, why not using Tin and Zinc ( IF moreores is installed ) as recipe for the coins? If moreores is missing, generate ores. This way you have a optional dependency, but nothing that is a must-have.

If you consider implementing this, do not forget to put moreores? into your depends.txt ;)

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 12:13
by Krock
fairiestoy wrote:Maybe a suggestion ( just a thought, so nothing to take serious ). Tin and Zinc lack in usage ( from the moreores mod ). Maybe instead of introducing a new set of minecoin ores, why not using Tin and Zinc ( IF moreores is installed ) as recipe for the coins? If moreores is missing, generate ores. This way you have a optional dependency, but nothing that is a must-have.

If you consider implementing this, do not forget to put moreores? into your depends.txt ;)
Good idea! I'll try to add them as fast as possible to convert them into MineCoins :)

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 13:43
by Evergreen

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 14:06
by Krock
Evergreen wrote:Ahem: viewtopic.php?pid=119491#p119491
Oh :3 Thanks alot, gonna fix this.

Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 14:37
by jojoa1997
Lol I just realized that with this mod you would be Bitcoin Mining with this mod literally.

Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013 20:01
by Krock
Small update to 1.5.5
- Fixed crash with "PseudoRandom"
- Some adjusts with the generation (MineNinths generate now rarely under -64m)
- Gold converting added
- "config.txt" for easier settings

EDIT: Same link, updated version, please notify me if there is a fail.
EDIT2: An example image of pipeworks...
Image

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 17:59
by Krock
Bank was added at the point when this was posted. Irrelevant.

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 18:41
by aldobr
i've already done a mod like that, but people cant understand anything besides the fiat currency concept:

viewtopic.php?id=4111

lost everything when omploadr went kaboom...

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 18:44
by Krock
aldobr wrote:i've already done a mod like that, but people cant understand anything besides the fiat currency concept:

viewtopic.php?id=4111

lost everything when omploadr went kaboom...
Oh, sorry didn't see this one :/
Well, there was enough time to nodify me earlier.
Alright, there's now one more. Nothing bad to have a choice.

EDITed.

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 18:52
by aldobr
dont worry, like i said, i lost my mod on omldr shutdown.

btw dont set the dificulty ofgetting the coins too high, else your coins will be unable lower value things like coal reasonably.

and freely minted currencies mut be back convertible

Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2014 21:12
by Krock
aldobr wrote:else your coins will be unable lower value things like coal reasonably.
Don't worry, I've already added 2 other supports for other currencies.
There's also a converting of gold, zinc and tin.
1.6.5u1 contains newly support for:
bitchange/config.txt wrote:money (by kotolegokot)
money2 (by Bad Command)
currency (by Dan Duncombe)
I think the MineCoins have a high value at start, therefore I've added a start-value of some less "MineNinths".
I've no idea if that all work fine, therefore I would be thankful if someone could test its compatibility with other money.

Please report found bugs/crashes/problems, else I'll never be able to fix them :)

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 01:30
by falsegrayburger
Good economics

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:18
by Krock
jenova99sephiros wrote:Good economics
Not really, I noticed in large servers this money would never be used because none would use it. (Worth? Help? What can I do with them?)

Well, I made it now easier to get the coins, but it's also more work needed.
Crafting list has been updated, there's now a new item in version 1.6.6 to burn MineNinths.
Now it should be possible to pay things with the money.

A little addition: Banks are not craftable, this means the/an admin needs to use:

Code: Select all

/giveme bitchange:bank

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:29
by aldobr
now i can talk.

currency must be back convertible, ie : if your currency is made out of gold pickaxes, it must be possible to convert back from currency to golden pickaxes, why ?

because this allows one to remove currency from circulation in the event of inflation.

if the currency is devalued, people will thing that golden pickaxes are more valuable than the currency, and then use the currency as a way to get pickaxes back, removing currency from circulation.

metal backed currencies can be minted by anyone, because their value is stored in the metal that they are made of. so you dont need to make they too hard to get.

their value will settle at the natural position : their rarity in relation to other materials.

if you make them too hard, they wont be able to nominate too cheap things.

the smallest subdivision of the currency should be able to nominate the cheapest thing in game.

thats why in real life we have cents.

imagine how could be the economy if there was no cents and everything was nominated in full dollars ?

in our current real world economic model we use a kind of currency named "fiat currency". their value is arbitrary. they are not backed by anything.

a US$ 100 note has no real intrinsic value : the paper that the note is made of is not worth 100 dollars.

this means that a fiat currency must be minted only by the state, else there would be a huge inflation.

but a metal backed currency does not suffer from that problem.

on the other side, while in a fiat currency the value of the currency is arbitrary, meaning you can nominate anything with anything (if you dont have cents, you can still do commerce by increasing the price of everything until all goods can be bought by the smallest value at least) a metal backed currency has an intrinsic value (the relative rarity of the metal that it is made of).

this means that you cannot set arbitrary prices. so you end up excluding from commerce anything whose intrinsic value is smaller than the value of the less valuable coin in your economic system.

tl;dr

make coins less valuable by decreasing the ammount of items you spent to get a coin.

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:40
by Krock
aldobr wrote:now i can talk.

<too long to post here again>

make coins less valuable by decreasing the ammount of items you spent to get a coin.
Yes, the inflation (when players mine alot) and deflation (at beginning) is a big problem to find a soulation. I could lower the value of coins again..and I'll do it now. Another problem is the converting from other ores, this has an effect to the speed of inflation.
/me is working on it
Another thought was it make it like your mod (R.I.P), using gold except of generating new ores.
There's a small way to go on to get the correct balance between the worth and inflation.

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 11:27
by aldobr
dont worry too much...

the other mods are realized around the concept of a mod issued money, in other words is a fiat currency.

while in real life governments keep an eye on the economic activity and the amount of circulating currency, to avoid inflation (creating or removing currency from the market), i doubt minetest server moderators will be able to do anything similar to this.

the end result will be a much more severe inflation.

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 19:58
by Sokomine
aldobr wrote: the smallest subdivision of the currency should be able to nominate the cheapest thing in game.
That's usually the problem with money mods that are based on "real" items in the game. Plus those items can get lost at death and are inconvenient to handle (stack of 1000 coins? Good luck paying 20 for something). The diffrent coins here don't help that much as you have to keep inventory slots free for them. Perhaps an extra bag for them could help.
aldobr wrote: this means that a fiat currency must be minted only by the state, else there would be a huge inflation.
Inflation is always a problem - but is it really a problem? Players dig up more and more stuff, so more and more gets available - while some of it is turned into buildings or stored for later use. The effort needed to get something stays mostly the same once you've got the best tools, so that seems to be a good base for prices.

Money mods and their exchange shops are usually some fun on their own (especially if they come - as in this case - with piepwork support), so that's ok. For any "real" economy/trade, purely "electronical" payment systems (where the server stores a number value for each account) are much more practical. The drawbacks those systems have in real life do not apply here.
aldobr wrote: i doubt minetest server moderators will be able to do anything similar to this.
The economy on a Minetest server works only to a very limited degree. That's usually enough. I like the one on linuxgaming.us most: You sell cobble for 100 credits per stack to the server and buy plots in the city center or building material otherwise not obtainable with it.

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 22:45
by aldobr
i find interesting when you claim "The drawbacks those systems have in real life do not apply here." without providing not even an explanation...

How inflation develops in a "fiat" (ie.: moderator issued) currency ?

lets suppose everytime a new player enters a server and the moderator "generates" 100 credits for him to start.

he buys a pickaxe with 100 credits and starts to dig.

the pickaxe is consumed in the process of digging.

The seller (who sold the pickaxe) has 100 credits more.

Another player enters and the same process repeats.

Now those novice players stop playing the server.

Pickaxe seller now has like 100000000000 credits in the bank account, but he is not unique, there are other sellers that have 1020003120312 too.

so what ?

the huge ammount of money accumulated in the server means that any old player can now buy everything, consuming all resources that are being sold.

the "easiness" at which someone can buy something increases.

the normal answer is : increase the prices to compensate the increase in demand.

there you have, inflation.

whats different with gold or mineral based economy ?

you have EFFORT to make coins out of recovered minerals, money cannot be created out of nowhere (by script, or by mod command).

and if even then inflation strikes, you can convert your coins back to metal and use the metal somewhere else.

keeping track of all transactions is pretty much impossible.

a "gold standard" for minetest can auto-adjust.

Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 23:36
by Sokomine
aldobr wrote: i find interesting when you claim "The drawbacks those systems have in real life do not apply here." without providing not even an explanation...
I was thinking mostly of electronic payment systems like money cards or credit cards. These systems do not give you direct feedback of how much money you still have. Weather a payment with those is accepted or not depends on several further circumstances, and privacy ultimately cannot be guaranteed. All this does not apply to the monetary systems in MT - be they based on an electronic account or items in the player's inventory - because it's no difference either way.
aldobr wrote: the huge ammount of money accumulated in the server means that any old player can now buy everything, consuming all resources that are being sold.
But that is not what we see happen on servers. What happens is that the rich old players have pretty much of everything. Not only money. If those players would start buying in large quantities, they'd motivate players with less money to produce more for selling. But why would they? Their own chests are overflowing.
aldobr wrote: the normal answer is : increase the prices to compensate the increase in demand.
Where's that increase in demand coming from? A new player may need a few items here and there, but that's it. Hard to get rich on that.
aldobr wrote: you have EFFORT to make coins out of recovered minerals, money cannot be created out of nowhere (by script, or by mod command).
There's some effort involved in building nice shops and getting players to buy anything at all. After all they could dig the stuff themshelves. Money is just another type of ressource, like gold or mese. It has the advantage of making trading easier (same as with real money there).

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 00:06
by aldobr
You clearly did not understand a dimme....

1 - Credit cards etc are not currency, they are - i dont know the correct word - a kind of courrier. The currency in a gold standard, even in the presence of credit cards and eletronic systems, even in the case of a paper currency, is backed by gold reserves (etc).

2 - Economic especialization : First players have to dig for everything. As soon as shops are set and there are enough resources accumulated, players will start to especialize in certain niches. Thats the problem. Due to confort, builder players will rely more and more on buying instead of digging/making.

Thats where the huge amoun of money in circulation comes into play. When the total amount of money reachs the rooftop, it would be the same thing as if there was infinite amount of money in the system (ie.: you exchange something that took time to dig for something that has no value of itself).

Thats why the prices will go up.

3 - You dont see this hapening on the servers because theres no server with long enough run time to perceive this. You are thinking in too short terms.

4 - The effort of building the shop etc is a one time fee. Honestly your example has no relationship whatsoever with the economical concept.

The effort to put more currency on the game (using the gold standard) is the effort to FIND gold, which is completely dependent on gold (or the metal chosen) rarity, its a one time fee per coin (instead of a one time fee per shop forever). Its a fee paid every time a gold coin is minted and this value is transported through the coin existence itself.