# Obyte value
Last days I was thinking about obyte fundamental value, and I came to the following conclusion:
bytes are NOT a store of value.
However it has utility: “decentralized” and immutable storage of arbitrary data.
I say “decentralized” because nobody outside here will agree on having twelve honest nodes chosen (no matter if chosen by users or obyte foundation, both want to have the op nodes in honest hands which will keep posting forever, but that is not enough).

## OP nodes
I chose OP deliberately, because these nodes are the over-powered nodes of obyte network. They are the only ones capable of advance stability point by posting empty units (transactions to themselves with app:payment only). Of course we use them to be order providers and esthablish a final order between units, but the stability point (last unit confirmed) never stops on a user which is out of op list of the last stability point, so effectively all op nodes as a group has the power to change the op list if they collude, forcing users to switch theirs if they want to use the ledger.

However, even on this case, their fundamental value (usage of their features) remains intact: you could always use your bytes to use all functions if your op list does not differ by more than one mutation of the last stabilized unit one.

And when the unit is confirmed by enough op posting, any user is sure enough that they data are not  tampered even if all op colludes by any way.

## Decentralized storage
In the future, the full node database will be very big. They will be the op nodes (which will receive payload bytes to fund storage) and few nodes which for their own convenience, will sync the entire database. In fact, I seriously think all op will turn into hubs when all bytes were distributed.

All users will be light nodes. All users will only use obyte to pay network fees, and still they will have only the enough bytes to their needs. Database open to anyone, with clear rules and twelve nodes around the globe storing all sort of data while byte price remains practically the same, tied to the dominant ledger, which is something we starting to see.

Check the markets, at time of writing we are almost 8 months with byte price between 200.000 – 300.000 satoshis, which is the unit of the dominant ledger. 

It is happening. This means we are not a shitcoin, if I am wrong the price will plunge when bitcoin breaks $20k, like it is happening right now with almost all coins on top 100. 

## Introducing the concept of dominant ledger
The dominant ledger is the one which is, by design, a store of value recognised by most people.
A store of value must not have their supply recirculated to the people which has the power to confirm transactions, as stated before. Instead, it must have a proof of work to allow anyone to advance the ledger. That and finite suply are needed (right now) to be a store of value. 

## Bitcoin link
It is simple: each order provider must commit the database state into bitcoin. So, in the same order as op list, each day (lets say around 00:00 UTC, don`t have to be exact) a op must do a OP_RETURN transaction in bitcoin with the first 40 bytes of their last unit posted. Afterwards, it must post the entire raw transaction and the block number to obyte network to finish the commit.

## But why, come on, why doing this if it is not needed to confirm transactions?
There are people which want to add lot of features to bitcoin (and store data). That is, by design, hard to make it possible. Also it is a currency with variable fees, which it is not suitable to store data and for other applications rather than currency transactions.
So, the point is to attract people which want decentralized reliable storage knowing the cost beforehand. But that people will never count our design as decentralized. Check for example: https://github.com/triasteam/StreamNet/blob/dev/document/yellow_paper/StreamNet/StreamNet.pdf
I quote:
Byteball is the system that construct a main chain, and leverage this main chain to help infer the total order, nontheless, the selection of main chain is dependent on a role called witness, which is purely centralized.

**I could ask every single bitcoiner, and everyone will tell me the same, more or less.**

Right now, in exchange for 1 satoshi you obtain 4kb aprox. If the above happens, by exchanging satoshis for bytes, all the people (even maximalist bitcoiners) knows exactly how much they can write (or how much token transactions can make, or...) to ledger, and knows that the network is, in some kind, commited into bitcoin. And of course, it could write a lot more bytes to the ledger than in bitcoin.

Instead of having to pledge to mempool to write to ledger, I simply exchange some of my satoshis for bytes and write whatever I want to obyte ledger.

Instead of having to wait for next commit transaction, the order providers posts frequent enough to pre-commit the database, and by design I know that this precommit is enough to trust that the data won`t be changed until the next op commits to bitcoin ledger.

Instead of modifying the software, it is simply an agreement which does not need to change a single line of code.

Instead of panicking if some op does not post at the moment he should, everything still runing fine, it could be posted out of that time or not posted at all (but he should give an explanation).

As I see the future, the op will be rich, each mb of payload stored on the dag will give them 250 satoshis (20 for each one), which will be enough to cover the costs and stack sats in the future.

**Obyte is a tool, and bytes are what users have to buy in order to use this tool and all of their features. They will buy according to their usage of features requires.** Right now it is not required to buy to post on the ledger, simply contributing to world community grid is enough to use it.

In fact you are reading this text because I have world community grid running on my computer.
I will use my stack to provide services on top of obyte.
This text could be an html/js and served through obyte.js, for example.

Shitcoins are for speculation, what obyte offers is features. That is the reason behind the 200k – 300k sat price.