**** ***One day, the King went to his Bishop to ask for advise on how to design a deflationary cryptocurrency transaction computer network for the people of the land to use forever.*** ***They both agreed that sha-256 was the best hash function and that the computer miners who ran the transaction network deserved to receive all 21 million coins over many years while the people of the land received none. “But then who will pay the miners to keep the transaction network up and running 24/7 after all the coins are distributed?” asked the Bishop.*** ***“We will make the people of the land pay the miners to maintain the payment network by requiring them to pay a tax each and every time they make a transaction on it,” the King replied. “The people of the land are used to paying me income tax, and so they will not revolt if I make them pay the miners a sales tax every time they buy something.”*** ***“But how is that fair to the people of the land?” asked the Bishop, “First you give every single dollar of new currency to the miners, and then you force a sales tax on upon them?*** ***“It is fair because the people who use the network the most, will pay the most tax, just like my sliding income tax scale that I invented” the king replied proudly. “And besides, it is the miners who are doing all the work to run the network, and therefore they deserve all the rewards.”*** ***“I understand the general idea that those miners who work hard should get rewarded,” the Bishop replied, “but don’t you think that they can provide the same service for less compensation?*** ***“Don’t be such a hypocrite,” the King said to his Bishop, “you collect a paycheck and then some!” the King reminded his Bishop, “How else are we going to convince the miners to use their computers to run a transaction network 24/7 for absolutely zero financial incentive? I know these miners, and they would much rather play video games than to spend all their time run a boring currency transaction network program solely for the benefit of all people. It might sound like they are cheap greedy bastards to you but would you rather have me enslave them like you used to do when you were in charge? We are not returning to the old days of slavery while I am still in power!”*** ***“You’re right,” said the Bishop, “The miners are not the charitable type. They will need an eternal financial incentive to voluntarily run only one boring currency transaction network program on their computer forever.*** ***But I still believe that we can create a cryptocurrency without a transaction fee sales tax because I think that the people of the land will be a little upset during the initial transition from the old currency into bitcoins as it may appear that the incentive structure is obscenely unbalanced in favor of the early adopting miners, and could be a little more balanced in favor of those who are late to the volatile initial currency transition party. Giving 100% of every future transaction fee to the people of the land would tell the public that we are sorry that you got rekt because you got in late, but the life long community benefit is as eternal as Adam’s apple. I will return to my quarters and pray for divine inspiration my King.”*** ***That evening, the Bishop prayed for hours on bended knee begging god to save the people of the land from what he intuitively believed was a bad implementation of a good idea. Suddenly, a smile appeared on his face.*** ***The next morning, the Bishop again met with the King, but this time, he held the power of divine inspiration. “Remember when God told Adam not to eat the apple because it offed everlasting life” the Bishop asked the King?*** ***“Sure do,” said the king, “but Eve was so damn fly, that she became more than just the apple of his eye,” he said, unzipping his fly jokingly. “But what do apples have to do with deflationary cryptocurrencies?”*** ***“Because they are eternal,” said the Bishop. “The apples are the transaction fees, and a cryptocurrency should, in theory, last forever. The forbidden fruit is the most powerfully nourishing food given to us, and therefore should not be eaten exclusively by a few wealthy miners while the rest of the world starves” he went on, “The gift of eternal life should be shared equally by us all. In the bible, the apple symbolizes knowledge and immortality. We are designing an immortal cryptocurrency that is supposed to last forever, so how can we just sit back and watch all the eternal benefits of the apple (the transaction fees) continuously being funneled from the hands of the people who are using it into the hands of the few wealthy elite transaction network operators? This creates wealth disparity between currency users (the people) and the currency facilitators (the miners). And since you have a deflationary currency, the people, who are slowly being taxed to death with transaction fees must work harder to get new units of currency unless the miners release these fees back to the people. The law of supply and demand dictates that if the miners hoard the coins then the tax on the people increases due to decreased coin supply at constant demand. Since only miners collect all fees, then they control the amount of currency in circulation. So, I ask you, my King, does your bitcoin currency indeed belong to the people?”*** ***The King asked him to re-read that last paragraph to him several times until he completely understood the Bishop’s propaganda slant of referring to “transaction costs” as a “tax” on the people of the land. “Personally, I believe that it is a matter of your point of view,” said the King, “The apple can represent an eternal tax on the people or an eternal reward for the hard working miners. You say that the people deserve to taste the forbidden fruit but offer no reason as to why you think that they deserve it. I feel like the miners deserve to eat it as a reward for their hard work. You god men always want people to do something for nothing. Give freely your time, give all your money, work hard for nothing like the slaves of yore. Give 100% of all your money to set Steemjet free while you starve to death or else you are an asshole. Next you will be saying that you think that the church deserves to receive the transaction fees forever.”*** ***“Guards, remove this ex-slave master from my sight, I will not force anyone to do anything because my bitcoin payment network is 100% Darwinian where anyone who is smart enough to figure out how to re-boot the pyramids will deservingly receive 100% of all their cheap energy minted coins and all the apple flavored fees forever.*** ***Old habits die hard. I know that I promised not to work on any new teaching materials, but in addition to being a flaming asshole, I am also liar too! Just kidding, the Steemjet Crypto Chessboard is old news (and boring too).*** ***TBC*** ***

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