Proposals to improve network resources model

[sean-liu55]

Simple Summary

This issue proposes several new schemes to try to solve the problem of the low utilization rate of network frozen resources, reduce user usage costs, and improve resource models. Including the following two ideas, these two ideas are independent of each other.

1. Freezing TRX should only get bandwidth, energy, or voting rights;
2. Freezing does not obtain bandwidth or energy, but it can be used to vote and share network transaction fees.

Background

Executing transactions on the TRON network requires resources, including bandwidth and energy. Bandwidth consumption is the number of bytes of the transaction, and energy is the consumption of the virtual machine TVM execution.

At present, there are two ways to obtain resources. One is to directly consume TRX. In each transaction, resources are purchased from the network at a fixed price, such as 1 energy 40 SUN. Another way is to freeze TRX to obtain resources, and the amount of resources obtained is calculated based on the total frozen amount of the entire network.

Motivation

Currently, freezing TRX can obtain bandwidth or energy, while obtaining voting rights. Many accounts freeze a large amount of TRX for voting only but do not use resources. This results in accounts that really need resources only get a small part of resources and network resources are wasted.

Resource usage data

At present, the total daily free energy is 90,000,000,000,and the total daily free bandwidth is 43,200,000,000.
Take the data of January 2, 2021, as an example, the total energy consumption of the whole network: 70,689,454,314 ENERGY, Top100 contracts energy consumption: 63,876,706,454 ENERGY (where the energy obtained by the user freezing TRX is 3,279,215,389 ENERGY, The energy of users burning TRX is 53,770,824,593 ENERGY). Only about 5.1% of the energy is obtained by freezing, and about 6.9% of free energy is used.

The bandwidth situation is similar. The total bandwidth consumption of the whole network: 491,172,880 BANDWIDTH, Top10 contracts bandwidth consumption: 244,162,039 BANDWIDTH (where the bandwidth obtained by the user freezing TRX is 3,982,607 BANDWIDTH, The bandwidth of users burning TRX is 240,179,432 BANDWIDTH). Only about 1.6% of the bandwidth is obtained by freezing.

The current price of energy is 0.00004 TRX. If the network can double the usage of free energy,
it can save 1,950,878,306 * 0.00004 * 0.03 = 2341 USD fee in one day. If it can convert half of the burned energy into Free energy, it can save 32,524,509,065/2 * 0.00004 * 0.03 = 19514 USD fee.

Profit present condition:

Here is a brief calculation of the profit that users can obtain by freezing TRX. Users can choose to freeze to obtain bandwidth or energy, these can be converted into actual value based on price. In addition, both of which can obtain voting rights, and voting for SR will obtain voting income.

Bandwidth profit
Assuming to freeze 10,000 TRX, the entire network freezes 30 billion TRX, of which bandwidth accounts for 90%,
30 billion * 0.9 = 27 billion.
Obtained bandwidth 10000 * 43,200,000,000 / 27,000,000,000=16000 BANDWIDTH.
1 Bandwidth cost 0.00004 TRX, 1trx = 0.03 USD.
The corresponding profit is 16000 * 0.00004 * 0.03=0.0192 USD.

Energy profit
The energy calculation process is similar.
Assuming that 10,000 TRX is frozen, 30 billion TRX is frozen in total, of which energy accounts for 10%, 30billion*0.1=3 billion,
Energy gained 10000 * 90,000,000,000 / 3,000,000,000 = 300000 ENERGY.
1 Energy cost 0.00004 TRX, 1trx = 0.03 USD.
The corresponding profit is 300000 * 0.00004 * 0.03 = 0.36 USD.

Vote profit
Currently, the total voting reward for each block is 160 TRX, the total number of votes is approximately 30 billion TRX, and the default reward distribution ratio, 80% is given to voters, and 20% is given to SR.
Assuming that the user freezes 10,000 TRX and votes, the profit obtained in one day is approximate:
10000/30,000,000,000 * 160 * 80% * 24 * 3600/3=1.2288TRX.
The current price of TRX is about $0.03.
So, the corresponding profit is 1.2288 * 0.03 = 0.0368USD.

To summarize, if the user freezes 10,000 TRX to obtain bandwidth, then the total revenue for a day includes bandwidth revenue and voting revenue. The income is approximately 0.0192 +0.0368 = 0.056USD. If the user freezes to obtain energy, the income is approximately 0.36 + 0.0368= 0.3968USD.

Freezing TRX get only bandwidth, energy, or voting rights

At present, the total amount of network freezing is 30 billion, of which about 90% are frozen for bandwidth and 10% for energy. If the network uses this solution, voting accounts will no longer occupy the frozen resources of the network, and ordinary users will get more resources. The main difficulty in adopting this scheme is how to deal with accounts that have been frozen to obtain resources and have voted.

Optional solutions

For the stability of the network, the vote for SR should not be changed, so the question is whether the resources obtained by the account should be retained.

1. Reserve resources, reserve SR's vote, not reserve voting rights
   The resources that the user has obtained can continue to be used, and the vote for the SR will not change, but the vote that has already occurred cannot be modified. In addition, a new system contract that freezes voting rights is added. If the account initiates a vote, the new voting value must be larger than the size of the voting rights that are frozen.
   This solution has good compatibility, and neither ordinary users nor developers need to make major changes.

2. Not reserve resources, reserve SR's vote, not reserve voting rights
   The resources obtained by freezing in the past can no longer be used. In terms of the specific implementation, new fields will need to be added to the account data to distinguish the resources obtained by freezing in the past. This solution can solve the problem of obtaining voting rights but not releasing resources in solution 1.

Profit calculation

For newly frozen accounts, only bandwidth, energy, or voting rights will be available at this time. From the profit calculation process in the previous section, it can be known that by freezing 10,000 TRX and obtaining bandwidth, the profit for one day is about 0.0192 USD. Freezing to obtain energy, the income is about 0.36 USD. And freezing to get votes, the income is about 0.0368USD.

Freezing TRX to get transaction fees and voting rights

At present, the utilization rate of the resources obtained by the current freezing is low. If the freezing TRX no longer obtains the resources, all transactions will directly consume TRX, and the consumed TRX will be stored in the public fee pool and shared by all frozen accounts and the SR.

For accounts that consume TRX to initiate transactions, there is no difference in this scheme. For voting-only accounts, these accounts will receive an additional benefit. As for the accounts freezing the resources, there are some changes. The accounts can still freeze TRX, obtain the network's transaction fees, and use the profit to execute transactions.
Here is a brief calculation.

Profit calculation

Assuming that 10,000 TRX is frozen, the total frozen amount is the same as the current 30 billion,
the daily transaction fee is about 75000 USD(January 4, 2021), and according to the allocation ratio of 80% to voters and 20% to SR.
The cost obtained is 10000 / 30000000000 * 75000 * 80% = 0.02 USD.
In addition to the voting rewards of 0.0368USD that users can obtain as mentioned in the previous section,
The total profit is 0.0368+0.02=0.0568 USD.

Comparison

Both of these two new schemes can solve the problem of low usage of frozen resources and improve resource models. In the first scheme, only accounts that need to use resources will freeze TRX for resources. In the second scheme, the freezing of the acquired resources is directly canceled.

Compare the profit of these two schemes. In the first scheme, freezing 10,000 TRX and obtaining bandwidth, the profit for one day is about 0.0192 USD. Freezing to obtain energy, the income is about 0.36 USD. And freezing to get votes, the income is about 0.0368USD. In the second scheme, users can obtain 0.0568 USD by freezing to get votes and the transaction fee. It seems that the profit obtained by freezing the obtained energy is higher, but other factors also need to consider, including the actual utilization of resources is only 5%, the increase in transaction fees caused by the increase in future transaction volume, and the stability of transaction fee income.

[joker-gdb]

Wow, I hope to see such a change～

[Omo-Coc]

This is very necessary. The two main voters of binance accounted for 90%, they obtained 29,220,187,313 energy and 15848341492 bandwidth, but they never saw the use,that is too wasteful.

[a49688448]

Totally agree!
It costs less when develop dapps on TRON.

[Vita-Diva]

good job. Tron has increased energy cost 3 times more than before. As dapp devs have to freeze trx for resources, I should this is a good move to reduce our cost.

[dkealervdsf]

I can not agree with this change more！

[Omo-Coc]

How to deal with people who have already voted， obtained BP and voting rights?

[kunlunxuejue11]

How to deal with people who have already voted， obtained BP and voting rights?

I think should reserve the right to vote by default and cancel other resources to ensure the stability of the SR ranking, otherwise it will cause network instability

[sean-liu55]

How to deal with people who have already voted， obtained BP and voting rights?

I think we should reserve the right to vote by default and cancel other resources to ensure the stability of the SR ranking, otherwise it will cause network instability

Agree with your idea about voting rights. Voting rights should be retained to ensure network stability.
The resources that have been obtained should be canceled, but it is very difficult to implement, which requires modifying the data of all accounts. Currently, there are about 20 million accounts.
A compromise solution can be adopted. The resources and voting rights that have been frozen are retained at the same time, but the voting cannot be modified unless the voting rights are obtained by a new freeze.

[liankuaiZyumingfit]

It is indeed a good thing. In this way, there are relatively few people who vote, and those who focus on voting can get a higher rate of return. For them, putting energy there is also a loss

[joker-gdb]

As a developer, I hope this can be achieved sooner

[otakuinny]

Putting aside the enormous amount of changes that'll have to be made both in Java tron and in a lot dapps, I'm not sure making people choose between obtaining resources and getting voting rights is such a great idea. This'll take votes away from community SRs as a lot of their current voters might opt for resources. There are very few community SRs in the top 27 and they need all the help/funding they can get.

If the issue is that people are not using the resources they obtained from freezing, an easier solution would be to make it possible to vote without freezing. Currently, we can change who we vote for any number of times and at any time. I'm not sure why freezing is even a requirement to vote in the first place. If there is no freeze requirement to vote, people will not bother to freeze unless it's absolutely necessary.

Problem solved!

[sean-liu55]

@otakuinny, Unlocking, and allowing arbitrary voting may lead to network insecurity. Consider a scenario. Before the network counts vote and selects the first 27 SRs, users obtain a large amount of TRX from the exchange and vote, and then after counting, Immediately cancel voting and sell TRX.

[otakuinny]

@sean-liu55, that can easily be solved by a shorter freeze duration, like a minimum of 1 day freeze duration for voting. So, if you want to just vote, you gotta freeze for atleast 1 day and if you want to vote and get resources, you freeze for atleast 3 days (just like now).

Ideally, we want to strike a compromise that everybody is happy with and that doesn't radically change the eco-system that everybody is so used to.

[renchenchang]

@sean-liu55, that can easily be solved by a shorter freeze duration, like a minimum of 1 day freeze duration for voting. So, if you want to just vote, you gotta freeze for atleast 1 day and if you want to vote and get resources, you freeze for atleast 3 days (just like now).

Ideally, we want to strike a compromise that everybody is happy with and that doesn't radically change the eco-system that everybody is so used to.

This solution can not overcome waste of energy