I'm glad someone is talking about this and taking it seriously. This is a BIG change and most people don't even know about it.
This is another good reason for implementing a BOINC-style notification system; get the word out, because guess what.... People are gonna be super pissed if they aren't getting their reward at the same rate, and possibly not at all.
This should've been discussed days or weeks ago rather than a week or so before it's implemented. People need to use the info to make their decisions.. Some may want to quit. Some may want to buy. Everyone needs to know that they'll have to hold a much higher balance.
The price has already increased. Had this information been out days ago, people could've theoretically bought in cheaper. It's not really fair if only some people really know what's going to happen...
Feels worse than being on the short-end of an insider trading racket doesn't it?
That's a bit of an exaggeration.. everything is open source and quite well documented on github. This isn't a permanent change, rather a necessary change for the immediate security of the Gridcoin network & its planned release had to be rushed due to an increased risk of exploitation.
I'm not sure adding notifications is a good idea. This used to be in Bitcoin and it was removed because who should have the rights to send the messages? What happens when a developer leaves and spams the message system?
We could potentially create a github repo from which the gridcoin client scrapes news, but as you say it's a centralized solution which could be exploited if the responsible accounts were hacked. Nobody wants malware attempts directly within the gridcoin client, it's far safer to subscribe to traditional Gridcoin channels such as Twitter, Steemit, Cryptocointalk, Slack, etc.
Very good point @bullshark, blast it. Look at what recently happened, ugh.
Hmm, only way to correct for that then would be to have a rotating body of three, each one of the three can initiate a message, but the other two must also approve it before it is sent. Limit them to sitting in that triad for a period of time before they must be replaced and may not sit again for a period of three times as long.
What happened recently?
If you wish me to go thru that again, you should know I'm not shy about it. An exploit was utilized by Tomas Brod to inject superblocks during the one millionth block celebration, turning it into "The One Million Block Exploit".
The removal of magnitude from the stake weight calculation was for highly critical security fixes, of which we are currently anticipating the mandatory upgrade switch-over for (upgrades are out).
The reintroduction of magnitude stake weight (or stake weight boosts close to the max payout window, or a greater payout window) could be possible in the future when other higher priority development items are completed, if you want to see this change accelerated you should aid in such developments.
The price jumped because of the mandatory upgrade period, this has historically always been the case for an unknown reason. Gridcoin are not above the ATH peak & the information has been out for days and in fact documented for months in github.
The price jump after a mandatory upgrade isn't a big mystery in my mind. The exchanges take their wallets offline, but because they are obviously not moving the actual crypto each time a transaction takes place trades continue, but supply is frozen, the natural reaction is a price increase. If you desire to dump, then plan to do it right after a scheduled mando.