New to NEM, some questions

[semaforo]

I have just started reading about NEM and it seems to me to be the most exciting thing since Bitcoin. I’ve been involved with bitcoin forover four years, and every altcoin up to this point seemed to offer little improvement over bitcoin- not enough, to me, to justify switching over in terms of building infrastructure.

NEM seems unlikely to have the scalability issues that are bound to come up with bitcoin again at some point, and it seems that POI would discourage the hoarding that is an asset to bitcoin price but a detriment to Bitcoins growth as currency with widespread circulation.

I have a couple of misgivings, however, that I need to clear up before I throw my weight behind NEM.  

One is the supernode policy. If it is performance and hardware that qualifies one as a super node, why the need to have a balance of three million XEM?

   Also, I saw that a quantity of XEM was set aside for supernode rewards. It looks like with the doubled reward at 140,000, the amount set aside will last for four years. How will this be replenished?

In regards to smart contract coding, I’ve been avoiding Ethereum, one, because of the types of people involved in it, but also because I think it is going to result in an extremely bloated blockchain. What is the difference between ETH and NEM with regards to the coding of smart contracts?

Does NEM have any advantages over bitcoin with regards to colored coins?

I apologize if these questions are too noobish, any links to existing threads or full responses much appreciated.

[memario]

One is the supernode policy. If it is performance and hardware that qualifies one as a super node, why the need to have a balance of three million XEM?

Besides the hardware requirements a supernode should also be run by a trusted individual. If someone has 3 million XEM it’s pretty safe to assume they’re trustworthy in the sense that they won’t try to harm NEM since it would be to his own financial detriment. Now, it’s not like an “evil” supernode could steal funds or anything but it’s still an imho fair requirement. I’m actually not sure if this was the rational for the foundation but to me this would certainly make sense.

140,000, the amount set aside will last for four years. How will this be replenished?

At some point the ecosystem will hopefully be utilized enough so that transaction fees will be enough to sustain the network. All supernodes are also harvesting so that’s how they could continue to see substantial gains.

In regards to smart contract coding, I’ve been avoiding Ethereum, one, because of the types of people involved in it, but also because I think it is going to result in an extremely bloated blockchain. What is the difference between ETH and NEM with regards to the coding of smart contracts?

NEM as of right now does not have smart contracts. You could argue that multi-sig is a form of a smart contract but nem doesn’t have smart contracts in the sense of puting a custom piece of code on the blockchain and have it be executed and enforced by the entire network. A form of smart contracts is afaik part of the roadmap but there are basically no details on that. You might have heard about catapult - that’s probably where this sort of thing will come in but I’d guess not in the first iteration.

Does NEM have any advantages over bitcoin with regards to colored coins?

Yes it does. It REALLY does. You can read up on what is now being called smart assets here https://blog.nem.io/mosaics-and-namespaces-2/ , here How to make your first namespace and mosaic! and probably a few other places. If you have any questions about it feel free to ask here.

I apologize if these questions are too noobish, any links to existing threads or full responses much appreciated.

Have you looked around this forum ? Thesre are probably the least noobish questions there are