Proposal to Sunset Vouchers into DEC-B (FINAL EDIT DONE - PLEASE READ)
6566cd8306dbc9c55836a73dd83db3e931f04b3b
Hi everyone, welcome to the long awaited vouchers proposal!
EDITS
- Changed from auto convert voucher into DEC-B to letting users choose when to convert
- Allows users to continue using existing vouchers for energy/season passes in the interim
- Open to ideas about adding compensation to License holders and SPS stakers for loss of short term rewards
FINAL EDIT - Licenses
Firstly, I would like to sincerely apologize for not answering a single comment in the PeakD post. I truly appreciate everyone who have been discussing and answering questions on my behalf based on my replies on Discord, DAO Hall and other podcasts, it means a lot to see so much activity and passion still remaining in the ecosystem despite SPS being down bad...
Secondly, I have added my personal suggestions to proposal #148, an alternative solution that aims to revamp vouchers rather than sunset them. In an ideal world, I would like to see #147 pass, but I know it will be an uphill battle and I can personally settle for a compromise. Therefore, I will personally be supporting both #147 and #148, and let the greater community decide which one they prefer.
Now, regarding Licenses, I have spoken to a lot of people regarding a solid compensation for this and although there have been a huge range of suggestions, nothing has jumped out to me as the best solution. Since there are just a few days remaining until the end of the pre-proposal period, I have decided to simply state if this proposal were to pass AND beat out the alternative proposal #148, it will not go into effect until a suitable compromise for License holders can be reached. This will require a secondary DAO vote.
This could include:
- Proxy for staked SPS
- Bonus Glint
- Land bonuses (similar to a title)
- Anything else...
Now, all of these use cases will have trickle down effects diluting some other asset class, so I believe it will be another very controversial topic that will ultimately come down to a war.
Due to all the aforementioned thoughts, I have concluded that I may actually recommend #148 as a good compromise to keep the community together. Although I believe from an economic perspective, #147 makes more sense, I have also learned community harmony is arguably more important than any economic decisions, since if we had no community left what would all of it have been for?
Finally, if #148 does not pan out well, we can revisit #147 or another iteration of it another day. Thanks for reading!
Note
Originally, I had planned to release two proposals, one to sunset vouchers by stopping emissions and converting them to DEC-B, and another one to make them soulbound. After careful consideration, I believe the net cost to the team to implement a soulbound solution may be greater than the economic benefit such a strategy can bring to the ecosystem, thus I have decided to NOT post the soulbound proposal and simply try for this one to pass. I have a brief explanation below as to why I believe this is superior to soulbound vouchers.
I know this will be a very controversial proposal with a lot of discussion to be had, but I am confident this is the only way we can see DECs back at peg in the near future and the best way to go for the entire ecosystem.
Context
From the inception of vouchers, its purpose was always meant to be a "proof of time staked". However, due to its transferable nature, vouchers do not live up to this narrative. Someone without any staked SPS can still buy it, allowing them to bypass the staking requirement of having vouchers, which breaks the "proof of time staked" concept entirely.
Another issue is the difficulty of obtaining vouchers, especially for non-crypto users, or even non-hive-native crypto users. This creates a terrible experience for onboarding new players who may want to buy packs directly from the store, or any other feature that uses vouchers, such as buying energy. This discourages new players by making them feel that they pay extra, or learning an entirely new system just to play a game.
Lastly, all the current utility of vouchers compete directly with DEC utility, and with 40,000 vouchers minted daily, that is essentially 2mil DECs minted per day using the rough estimate of 1 voucher = 50 DEC (which is the conversion used for energy + wild pass). Any new utility for vouchers, such as promo cards, exclusive presales and any other cool events in the future can directly be replaced with burning DECs instead of burning vouchers, as both solutions do NOT earn the company any revenue either way.
The purpose of this proposal is to simply remove vouchers by stopping all emissions and converting vouchers to DEC-B at a rate of 1 voucher to 36 DEC-B.
Proposal
- Stop the emission of all vouchers
- All vouchers in game will have the option to be converted to DEC-B at a rate of 1 voucher = 36 DEC-B.
Note 1: this will generate roughly 443,263,788 DEC-B using data from SplinterCards
Note 2: This allows vouchers to be converted at a rate of $0.0234 worth of DECs, which is a compromise between the 50 DEC-B that vouchers are currently worth for energy and season passes, and the current market price of roughly 21 DECs per voucher - Remove the pack discount with vouchers and reprice packs to a base cost of 4000 DECs
(remaining vouchers can still be used for energy/season passes) - Remove the SPS incentive for the vouchers LP (vouchers can still be traded on hive engine if no liquidity exists in the Diesel Pools)
- Prior to implementation, as a DAO we must decide on a suitable compromise for License holders in terms of compensating rewards
Pros
- No longer need SPS inflation for Voucher/SPS LP
- Bots will no longer have access to as much cheap energy to cycle through, which means players will earn more SPS per win in wild
- Move all voucher utility to DECs
- By shifting the utility to DECs, this will gradually move the DEC price to peg, which directly gets us closer to burning SPS. Once SPS starts getting burned, SPS price should start increasing in the long term thus increasing the value of SPS rewards for both SPS stakers, node holders and the whole ecosystem
- Makes pricing and development much simpler for all future sales and in-game features
- Significantly improve new player experience through simplicity
- Improves simplicity for validator nodes, thus reducing the cost involved in their development and maintenance
Cons
- A reduction in rewards for SPS stakers and license holders in the short term (which may be offset in the long term by appreciating SPS price)
- An influx of DEC-B may negatively impact DEC prices in the short term (this should be dealt with within 1-2 promo card sales)
Future Promo Card Sales
@yabapmatt has confirmed that the team plans to do a series of promo card sales in the coming months which will require burning DEC or DEC-B (the first of which is planned to be the Yabapmatt card). This will give immediate utility to DEC-B that VOUCHER holders will receive if this proposal passes, and will begin to help give significant value back to the DEC token to help move it back to towards the level where SPS starts to be burned.
Personal Thoughts About Vouchers
I believe that vouchers are a sunk cost at this point, the sooner we remove them the better. It was an experiment that ultimately failed so let's just accept it and move on.
FAQs
I will edit the proposal and post answers to FAQs here once we go live!
To start, here's a DAO Hall that should answer a lot of questions
Soulbound vs Removal
Compared to removing vouchers, making them soulbound will still mean we are losing DEC burn. No matter what utility we give to vouchers, it can always be replaced with burning DEC, since both of these methods do not directly fund the team. If vouchers were removed completely, anything that is priced in vouchers such as promo card revenue can go directly to burning DEC instead, thus even if vouchers were soulbound, it will continue to take up one of the largest sources of DEC burn in the near future. A healthier DEC price is paramount to both the survival of the company and the marketability of the game (assuming DEC at peg will trigger SPS burns, causing positive price movements on SPS).
Repurpose vs Removal
Over the course of writing this proposal up, I have received a lot of suggestions to simply repurpose vouchers instead of removing them. However, the same problem of losing DEC burn still remains. Any utility we give to vouchers such as new skins, or new cards, or even new items can simply be sold as DEC instead, with the DEC used to burn, fund the DAO or fund the team. Everywhere you can spend vouchers simply burns them, which does not give any value to the DAO or the team.
KPIs for Removal of Vouchers
Some people have asked me: how will we know this proposal has worked if it were to pass? Below are some ways we can measure the success of this proposal:
- Increase in DECs burned: there should be a major increase in DECs burned compared to the current ~10million DECs over the past 2 months, especially coming from sources such as new promo cards such as the Yabapmatt promo card in the works, which would have to be sold for vouchers otherwise
- Increase in DEC price: due to the reduction in circulating supply, we expect to see an appreciation of the DEC price over time
- SPS burn: as DEC returns to peg, we expect to see SPS being burned for DECs again
Without vouchers, it will also create a more welcoming ecosystem for new players to join. Although this will be harder to measure, I believe we can also attain a higher retention rate once NPE is improved and marketing starts.
Although the time frame to peg will depend dramatically on market conditions, how well promo cards do and how many new players there are, I believe we can reach a significant way to peg within just a matter of a couple months.
Personal Remarks (Optional to Read)
This proposal has been written up over the course of weeks, with the help of many community members, including Yabapmatt.
I would like to add that from both me and Matt's perspective, the best way for the game to move forward is to simply remove vouchers and enact the plan to sunset them. For me, it's mainly regarding tokenomics but for Matt, it is part of the NPE overhaul.
Below, I would like to add a bit of context why I personally believe vouchers are the single biggest roadblock to creating a better SPS/DEC economy. This is no longer directly relevant to the proposal and more of a personal rant.
I believe the only way for the game to succeed is to get new players, and the best way to get new players is through marketing. However, marketing is not as simple as just spending money and new players will magically appear, we need to ensure the foundations are set up correctly for new players to actually want to join, and retain them once they do join.
At the end of the day, this is web3 where optics and momentum matter. Therefore, I believe before we start marketing we need to ensure:
- Our token looks "healthy"
- Our community is welcoming and positive
- There is a catalyst for people to want to join
- Great onboarding experience to retain players who do decide to try the game out
In order to achieve the first goal, I believe vouchers must go. Right now, vouchers are taking up a significant amount of value out of the DEC/SPS dual token system, and in doing so it does not reflect well on the charts. If all the value that vouchers are soaking up is redirected to DEC/SPS, I genuinely believe it could make a tangible positive impact in the game's economy.
Furthermore, with a more efficient economy I believe the community will be in better spirits overall, and thus more welcoming to new players. Let's be honest, if you joined a new project and saw the existing community upset and complaining every day, would you want to keep exploring? Likely not...
The third point may be the hardest to achieve, but I personally believe simply a whitepaper plus some teases of lands 2.0 is enough to gain significant attention. There were many projects out there with just a whitepaper that had a higher valuation than SPS, and I believe if we get enough traction on lands 2.0, it will actually help make lands 2.0 into a reality.
Lastly, vouchers is a huge complication and learning curve for new players to wrap their heads around. We do not want to create barriers for players to buy things, we want to make it as easy as humanly possible for a new player to join the community and buy whatever they want, without jumping through hoops learning Hive Engine, or staking SPS to get the best price. With vouchers gone, I believe it can streamline the new player experience tremendously
Once we can hit all those targets, I believe marketing will actually be effective in getting new players to join, but retaining them is another story. Vouchers has been a huge headache for me as someone who has onboarded many non-crypto friends into the game. Imagine explaining Hive Engine to someone who has never used Binance, it's a pain! With the alternative of using Hive Engine being simply overpaying for packs, it creates a mental barrier for people who may want packs, but don't know how to use Hive Engine and don't want to overpay for them. This is not a good way to welcome new players.
Overall, I just wanted to explain why I think it's so important vouchers are out of the ecosystem. It's a short term hit for SPS stakers and License holders, but I believe it will have tangible positive impacts on the whole ecosystem in the long term.
As someone with a lot of stake in the ecosystem, I sincerely want Splinterlands to succeed. Personally, I see this as the only path.
Maybe include a daily DEC-B airdrop to license holders for ~1 year to offset the loss of the vouchers. People make these financial decisions and the loss of vouchers takes a huge chunk of the ROI away and licenses are another failed promise by the team.
I think a new PVE game mode like soulkeep would bring in new players and also give a reason to burn DEC. Just copy the code and make it with splinterlands assets that are already in the game. I'm really enjoying the soulkeep and since it's launched you can see the DEC supply dropping far faster than anything else that the team has done.
I think the best part about soulkeep is that you can play the game a couple of times a day without even investing and then when you decide to buy a card or 2, because of how they set up the levels of cards, it's easy to buy a couple of cards at a time while you're working your way through the ranks. It's much easier to get someone to spend a couple of dollars every week or 2 than it is to have them spend $2000 once which is why things like battle passes exist.
I'm a license holder and I would prefer to get glint over dec-b. Dec-b will slow down the fly wheel just like vouchers do. In my specific case, I'm behind my peers in terms of soul bound reward cards and the extra glint would help.
And when this proposals Will miserably fail to bring up dec value we would have Lost more income for players
Good job!
I disagree that Vouchers have any significative impact in DEC not reaching peg.
When you say that the 40,000 vouchers minted daily, are "essentially 2mil DECs minted per day using the rough estimate of 1 voucher = 50 DEC (which is the conversion used for energy + wild pass)" that does not take into account several factors. Many people might not buy energy with DEC and do it with Vouchers, because it's cheaper with Vouchers and maybe it is not worth it with DEC. I'm pretty sure that more than half the energy bought (excluding bought using glint) is bought in Vouchers and it wouldn't be bought in DEC. For the Wild pass it shouldn't be as high but there might still be some people that are only willing to buy it for Vouchers. I would put this % much lower, at 5% or maybe 10%. With this in mind, it is very wrong to say that we are "printing" 2mil DEC per day with Vouchers. I obviously don't have the data, but I would bet that, on average, we are "printing" between 25% to 50% of those 2mil per day, with Vouchers.
On top of that, there's about 2B DEC that can be minted by burning CL core set and CL reward RF cards. Sure, we're not going to be burning all of them. I can still see half of them being burned, when they rotate out of Modern. Most of those cards, when you include listing fees, market fees, waiting to sell time, and potential price cutters, will give you more DEC when burned than when sold. It's already happening on a smaller scale, but it will get worse after CL is not in modern anymore. Even if you consider Vouchers those "2mil DEC printed every day", that's less "DEC" in one year than burning half of those cards. If you consider a more realistic value for those Vouchers, that's less DEC printed during the whole time Vouchers have been given out than half of those cards.
And, let's not forget that the DEC from these burned cards is truly DEC. You can buy packs and promo cards with them. You have never been able to buy those with just Vouchers.
Also, what will happen with GF chances from airdrops? Will they cost 20x36 DEC (or DEC-B), so that they can be used at the same rate?
With that said, I'm not saying that getting rid of Vouchers is a bad thing. But I'm not sure it is good either. What I am sure is that people are talking about Vouchers as if they are what is dragging Splinterlands down and getting rid of them will make everything better. That's not true at all. At most, Vouchers are hurting the economy a little bit, but getting rid of them will not solve anything. It just makes things a bit more simple and removes a bit of inflation.
I’m all for it with one caveat.
I think figuring out something to replace the loss of Vouchers for license holders is the glaring weak spot of this proposal. Telling license holders to basically suck it up and take one for the team, is what’s holding me back from being all in on this.
I don’t know what that solution should be. It could be a special perk in game or on land. I dunno…I’ve seen a handful of suggestions thus far. But just ignoring that group completely leaves yet another bad taste in my mouth…
But I agree that Vouchers probably should be 86’d. I just think it’s (rightly) not going to get the support of major license holders as is.
I think the best thing to replace vouchers for license holders would be glint. It doesn't have monetary value so inflation wouldn't be a concern.
It could literally be anything. Access to a certain skin, maybe licenses can find totem or title fragments, or a bonus on land, glint...I'm just astonished that we are acting like there can't be a way to make license holders still feel rewarded to some degree.
1-2% bonus to glint per node?
This is a good concern that some License holders will definitely feel.
I don't own any Licenses.... but in my opinion what makes the most sense is that SPS validators earn SPS as their reward for operating the validator network.
If the current pool for validator holders isn't sufficient to incentivize the validator network, the DAO could increase the Validator pool from SPS holdings instead of offering some other gameplay token unrelated to validators?
For example, @nateaguila has repeatedly said "glint is a reward specifically for participating in the ranked battles mode" which makes sense to me... as such I don't really think it fits my understanding to earn glint or DEC for running a node, but more SPS seems to make sense, assuming the DAO agrees....
We definitely disagree completely on this one. We have completely different views on what this proposal will do. You think it will help with the tokenomics, I think your solution will irrevocably break trust between the players and the SPL Team/DAO.
There are better ways to accomplish your goals while still not breaking trust and keeping our long term commitments.
Value in any currency is built over the long run by trust. Loss of trust = loss of value.
This proposal destroys trust because we are removing an entire asset class on a whim because it is convenient. What is to stop us from removing other asset classes in the future with this precedent? Assets like Grain, Research, Glad Cards, or even tokens themselves like DEC... they all could be done away with in the future if its decided to do away with them. How could we have any confidence that in the future it won't happen to any asset?
So while your intentions are trying to help shore up the token values, in reality what this proposal will do is destroy token values. As you said this is a controversial proposal, and it is so for a valid reason.
Trust is the main reason why this proposal is lacking, but there are many other flaws in this proposal too.
We remove permanent value from the system, so Nodes become the sum of the SPS they will earn and then they are rendered literally worthless. They each have about $97 worth of SPS to give out over the next 2 years, and then they will have NO rewards. So we are about to spend $500k on developing our Validator system and at the same time we are destroying the value of the investment in those same nodes to run the system? The consequences are not well thought out.
This proposal seeks to solve the problem of DEC going down by not addressing the real problem - creation of demand. We have had DEC to peg and it did burn SPS, that's how this works. But we have to create more demand if we want DEC to continue to stay at peg, otherwise it will just drop down again. Artificially pumping DEC back to peg will do the exact same thing in the future as it did in the past IF WE DON'T SOLVE THE DEMAND SIDE OF THE EQUATION. Our token drops in value are due to the fact that we have lost many players and not replaced them. This proposal, like others, codifies the narrative that we can escape doing what is necessary by tweaking our tokenomics - which I strongly disagree with.
Finally, the community passed a proposal more than 9 months ago to replace the DEC given out to leaderboards with Rebellion packs - it was 80% for. But the team did not implement it because it wasn't a big factor to the overall economy. To this day it still hasn't been implemented. And the $ amount of DEC given out each season in leaderboards is far higher than the amount of DEC replacement in this proposal.
I hope you take your "concern" about DEC getting to peg seriously and ask the team to implement the actual passed proposals that give out FAR more DEC than we are talking about here.
One thing I won't argue is your right to make this proposal and your intentions. I think you have good intentions and believe what you are proposing, but I simply disagree with your analysis. I also believe that you have bought the SPS and can influence this decision, and that is certainly your right. I wish everyone would understand that owning SPS gives them the power to influence the votes, and even though I really really don't like this proposal, I am appreciative of the fact that we can vote on it and decide.
I'm voting against this.
Totally agree with this one, too. Especially that the focus is wrong, due to many bad decisions. This proposal stands for what is seemingly the way here - always forward, never backwards, meaning no critics of past decisions and revoking those. Every update to fix a bug creates more bugs, but going back on an update to fix the bugs? Never, not even thinkable.
You are, without a doubt, 100% backwards on everything you said.
This proposal is all about criticizing and revoking a past decision-
Creating and Issuing Vouchers.
Vouchers ARE a bug. Removing them is a very efficient way to fix the bug.
Sure, but that case could be made for everything since the creation of Splinterlands - everything was created once... Vouchers are part of SL for at least 4 years when I started. Based on that - no, it's not revoking a past decision. It's a distraction, leading away from the real problems that are not targeted. If the whole situation wasn't as dire as it is - sure, fix a minor issue that comes up with Vouchers by deleting them. But right now, the proposal just a waste of ressources that should be spent on fixing real issues.
Wow... so wrong on so many levels.
Vouchers aren't even 4 years old. Vouchers were created around the time CL was in pre-release. So, yes- it's revoking a past (bad) decision.
It's not a distraction- it's a trust building move that shows the team can look beyond personal gain to rebuild the foundation of the game.
Vouchers ARE one of the 'real' issues right now- they are worthless and they are being issued at the rate of 40K/day. Every Voucher burned is 50 DEC that isn't burned- screwing up the almighty 'wheel'.
TBH- I don't think there's any appetite for fixing any of the 'real' issues. Too many people are too invested in keeping things broken @davemccoy
Thanks for clarifying that 40k thing - I didn't know that vouchers came out of thin air. Still, if I do the math - that's around $1300 a day (in a 10Mio+ total marketcap), even if you can get 50 DEC per Voucher (market price is around 21 DEC, as stated in the post) - that's around 3,6% dilution per year. Not great, I agree, but considerung the dilution and market price drop in SPS and DEC, that just doesn't seem a "real" issue to me. But I might be wrong on that, too, maybe some comma went the wrong way in my calculations :-)
I can't see why this is rebuilding the foundation of the game. Maybe it is, but if so - the proposal and your argumentation really aren't making the case for that. And hence, it seems like a distraction to me. Instead of focussing on why nobody wants to play anymore, they focus on a minor thing. It's not like a newbie comes into the game, sees the voucher system and says "boy, that's too complicated and too much dilution, I'm outta here."
You're right about the time - it's 3 years. Still, since I started playing :-D
I hope you can think into that, even though I have the feeling that you're kind of stuck on being right about everything... So, even if not, I do hope you're right and that it's a great move :-D Have a good night :-)
There are a lot of different ways you could calculate this. Some seem less important and some seem more impactful. Here's one of many that shows it more impactful.
1 voucher = 50 DEC in game. 40k vouchers pre day coming out of thin air * 50 is 2 million DEC created every day. Let's ignore that we typically burn less than 2 million DEC per day across the entire platform and figure how it compares to SPS inflation.
If you look at how much SPS you need to burn right now to create 2 million DEC, its 326,000 SPS. Currenly, our daily SPS emissions are between 600-700k SPS. That means daily voucher print adds the equivalent of 50% more SPS inflation every day to our ecosystem.
So between that and the fact vouchers have complicated pricing, confused players, have been a sore point in the community and our narrative for 3 years as they go down, and they've been burned in place of what is likely billions of DEC over the years, Vouchers are a major issue imo. Just last week I sent vouchers to a player because he couldn't figure out how to get money onto hive engine to buy vouchers and was ready to quit because he wanted to buy more energy but couldn't.
What if we reduce VOUCHER emissions and see what the results will be. It will barely take any time to implement and if we cut down emissions drastically, it will achieve a considerable portion of what this Proposal tries to achieve while taking very little efforts.
Thank you for a comprehensive, not condescending reply! :-)
You are right about one thing: I misspoke when I said "Rebuild the Foundation of the game". Vouchers have nothing to do with "the game".
Getting rid of Vouchers would rebuild the foundation of the economy of Splinterlands, which is completely different. As @imno so eloquently stated- Vouchers have been an issue since they were first created and they continue to play havoc with the economics of the game.
The validator pool expiring in 2 years definitely needs to be addressed....
To me, it seems very obvious that any validator network NEEDS a permanent reward pool to incentivize the stability of the network.
However, validators usually pay in their own token - so I'm not sure why vouchers are needed instead of just "right-sizing" the SPS reward pool for validators going forward?
I DO agree with Cryptoeater that the current use-cases of vouchers are essentially just a reduction of DEC demand, while simultaneously complicating the experience for players that just want to buy things.
Your concern about Trust in the project and tokens is important. But Trust is a strange beast, when the very existence of a DAO that, on a supermajority SPS vote, can change ANY aspect of it's own white paper and any token of the related game, - this means that we must be prepared to accept some flexibility on what we are putting that Trust in.
(And I do feel your concern - I can sense that this type of change would shake the trust of validator owners in much the same way that the changes to ranked leagues shook the trust of players that committed resources in expectation of no fundamental changes to the Ranked status quo.)
What I'm finally coming to realize is that ultimately the real Trust we should realistically expect is that:
I look forward to having a new DAO structure and trust your ability to steward it.
This point is easily fixable and not something we have had control of. But I'm positive there are solutions to solve this issue that don't require getting rid of vouchers. (see linked Alternative Proposal below for an example)
So I really dislike this argument: "we have to get rid of vouchers because the team elects to use them as a DEC replacement vehicle". I'm perfectly fine with getting rid of any case where vouchers replace DEC, but that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to provide value to the people that stake their SPS or own Nodes.
Regarding the trust point, I agree that every decision can be passed by a super majority, thus everything in theory is subject to change/elimination. And for this reason I find it super important that we consider the implications of removing an asset entirely.
For me, I understand it is possible to do so, but it will cause me concern about what else could happen in the future. For instance, I have over 100m grain, will that get nerfed one day - is the meta play to sell it before it loses all value and utility in the future? How about research, I am in the top 10, will that be subject to removal if we decide in the future that it took us so long to make a usecase for it and thus it became overproduced? These are concerns that will continue to grow with each decision to remove/alter assets.
In my opinion, we should ALWAYS go out of our way to NOT remove or alter assets if it is at all possible. And if we must do so, then I think it should be done in a way that mitigates the damage in a thoughtful and reasonable manner.
In this case, there are alternative solutions that are far less negative and still achieve the objective stated (to remove the Vouchers replacing DEC). Here's an example of one from @bjangles that has also been floating around: Alternative Proposal
There are many different possibilities to solving the objectives in this prop (ie...stopping the Vouchers from replacing DEC), but I feel that removing/changing an asset should be a last resort. We can and should do better in my opinion, otherwise we are destroying an asset on a whim and that to me will be a breach of trust for all future decisions because how can we tell what will be next to get destroyed. I know I won't be able to figure it out, and that makes me very nervous when it comes to making decisions.
Thanks Dave for the reply.
Agree that alternatives exist - and bjangle's alternative proposal to discontinue voucher discounts could also achieve a similar end through creating voucher-specific sales.
But I guess the next question is:
If each voucher was valued at a mere fraction of an SPS, instead of multiple SPS, I expect there would be less resistance to sunsetting.
I guess the challenge is balancing the incentive to make "desirable assets" that would give vouchers the value you are seeking to preserve. Perhaps it's possible. But a reasonable plan to sunsetting would take away some "mental overhead" for the team in trying to give value to a token that was an interesting idea (proof of time staked) but ultimately hasn't worked out. How long should the team anchor to a concept if it's not successful?
To me it's prudent to offer an exchange to consolidate two underused tokens (vouchers and DEC-B)
I'm more onboard with the @bjangles Proposal and I think it could be a good idea to reduce the emission of VOUCHERs. During the early days VOUCHERs acted as a way to guarantee yourself a spot in Presale events because VOUCHERs were very scarce. That should be the utility for VOUCHERs. It was almost like a decentralized version of a whitelist. We need to go back to that and reducing emissions and having exclusive use cases is the best way forward IMHO.
Correct me if I'm wrong BUT
I didn't see anything in the proposal regarding "Validators"- just lessening payouts to License holders. Wouldn't nodes/validators continue to be paid in the same way that they have always been?
Hey axrho - I think we are talking the same thing - I see they are called "Validator Node Licenses" on the shop page but all those names get used pretty interchangeably
Yes, they do get used interchangeably and it's very frustrating.
When Licenses originally came out- they were a way to allow people to run Validator Nodes, which would be a way to earn Tokens.
Now, if I understand correctly, License holders get Distributions- whether or not they run a Node. Which is, of course, NOT the way it was supposed to be and totally not fair to those who run Nodes.
IF I understand the economics of running Nodes correctly- they should be paid in relation to the amount of traffic they handle?
No Node= No Traffic= No Payment
Validator Nodes should, IMHO, be paid in this manner and there should be some mechanism built to provide for Node operators- whether through LPs, tolls, fees, SPL, DAO, or some other mechanism.
I totally agree with you: Validator Nodes need some ongoing funding mechanism- the 'pool' paying out to all License holders is inherently wrong and destructive. How can it be 'decent' when a central authority determines your earnings?
keep in mind that us as a dao can only vote on the changes of tokens of the dao such as SPS and Vouchers. I dont think we can make the decision of removing tokens such as grain, research or dec because they are not part of the dao.
Same, I'd prefer a like-for-like situation if at all. Set a price for glint and peg vouchers to that, continue to pay out what you did before in glint instead of vouchers. Glint takes over the utility of vouchers but is soulbound. DEC-B can be sunset as well as far as I'm concerned once it is all spent.
Great points, well presented. Upvoted for visibility.
I'm for this proposal overall, as complexity is such a blocker.
Doing both (replacing leaderboard DEC with Rebellion packs AND converting to vouchers to DEC-B) would really drive value to DEC, and therefore to SPS.
I'd also like to see DEC-B grandfathered too, eventually.
With the exception of the last paragraph, I strongly disagree with every point you've made here. If the DAO votes to end an asset class and the team agrees, that does doesn't damage trust between the team and DAO.
The thought that we introduced something so now we have to stick with it forever sets a far scarier precedent than getting rid of a token after 3 years of discussion, a supermajority vote on it, and the team agreeing. Calling that "on a whim" seems disingenuous to me.
Voucher were created on a whim by a team that was overworked and looking for a solution to a specific problem. People thought CL packs would all be bought up by whales in the first hour and vouchers gave everyone willing to overspend on one a chance to get at least one pack. They were precautionary and they didn't even fulfill their original purpose because CL packs never sold out at all. And now if we don't keep them forever, no one will trust the economy anymore? eh
And I don't mean to be insulting but the whole thing about artificially boosting the economy through tokenomics when we really need new players is the same lazy thinking that has kept us in this mess for years. If you were running a company that lost a lot of customers and found yourself too big and unwieldy, you of course want to get your customer base back. Everything would be fixed if you could just get a bunch of new customers again but in the mean time you'd streamline and cut costs.
If you had a ton of debt you'd reorganize that debt. When there's too much liquidity in a local economy and inflation gets crazy, they pull some back and even destroy assets. If you had a farm that created 100k eggs per day but everyone in town moved and there's only demand for 10k eggs now, it would be great to have everyone move back but until they do, it's fried chicken for dinner.
These things happen because we need to get everything back to a manageable place before we can grow again. A place where supply matches demand. Splinterlands is no different. It's not just the steemmonsters company that needed to downsize before they can grow again. The amount of assets we have needs to go down to match our player base so it becomes more manageable and we can get back to green candles that attract new players.
Everything would be great if we got a bunch of new players. But no one has come to this game in 3 years for the most part and its not because we don't have a new player experience or marketing. We all got here just fine when the economy was in order. This economy needs to to be simplified and streamlined. Its too complicated and its sprawling. There is too much of everything and nothing does anything but go down because of it. Vouchers are a prime example of having too much. If vouchers didn't exist, there is not a single thing in this game that would function any differently. If we have to invent reasons uses for them then they are the perfect place to start rightsizing our economy. Cutting the fat isn't a tokenomics trick.
Leaderboards?
And I know you said leaderboard rewards are far bigger than vouchers but that's just not even close to being true.
Leaderboard rewards print 1,970,000 DEC per league per season. That equates to 7,880,000 DEC PER MONTH total. Vouchers have in game (not speculative) value of 50 DEC each. 40,000 * 50 is = 2 million DEC PER DAY or over 60 million per month on average.
Voucher print is the DEC equivalent of almost 10x the leaderboard rewards. In fact, if you wanted to create 2 million DEC by burning SPS, you would need to burn 330k SPS at today's price. That means one day of voucher print is currently the DEC equivalent of about half a day of SPS print. And that percentage goes up the further SPS drops down (which is all its done for 3 years and likely isn't stopping soon). I've always wanted to get rid of leaderboard DEC payouts but you can't compare those to how massive the voucher print is.
We aren't digging our way out of this hole by inviting new people into this disaster and hoping they stay. Matt says he wants to get someone who is "really good at web 3 marketing" to come in and find new players. That tells us the customer base we're looking for. Those people are going to come in and look at the economy first. And ours looks like a bomb went off and no one bothered to clean it up. And in the corner theres a sparking, smoking, malfunctioning machine spitting out vouchers like monopoly money.
As for the validators running out of rewards 3 years from now, that's the only valid concern I see. But, the whole game is going to run out of rewards 3 years from now and we have no answer for it. If we don't come up with a solution that works across the entire economy, there won't be anything to validate. Right now it seems like the hopeful solution is that SPS goes to the moon so the DAO can give out dust and players will still be happy. SPS going up isn't helped by 40k vouchers being printed every day, stealing its utility.
Honestly, the right answer for validators will probably be to give out DEC (printed out of thin air) once SPS emissions stop. It's better than vouchers because we don't have to invent a reason for it to exist. And if we get the SPS increase we basically need in order to keep the game running so the DAO can handle rewards without going broke, the effect of the DEC print on SPS will be minimal. Let's say SPS is 50 cents and we need to print $1000 in DEC to replace the (20k vouchers * 5 cents peg = $1000) in vouchers each day. That's only 500 SPS worth of DEC at that price. If we get SPS to where we need it, 500 SPS worth of DEC would be a rounding error. But in this economy that's far from a rounding error. In this economy we need to be very careful about how much we print. And vouchers aren't needed.
The very fact that Dave opposes this makes m 100% support the proposal. Dave is just a cheerleader for SPL and really his ideas have always been terrible. Vote for this. I would but I've already unstaked my SPS because of all of the originally horrible decisions by the SPL team. The game is dead. Kudos to whoever proposed it to try and revive a dead corpse. Your belief and commitment to a horrible game and leadership is admirable. I salute you.
lol yes SPL is over. You should all go home. Shut it down. Only a delusional person would hold on to such a ridiculous idea that there is a path forward. 😆 just look at the score board. Sps down, dec down. Card values down. Active players. I would even say new players down lol but can go lower than zero 😂 keep hanging in there Matty boy.
If you open the precedent to repurpose/remove vouchers player could expect it to happen to any other asset of the game...
This is a no from me as well.
Good morning! This would have been a very long comment, and to make it easier for the headline-generation, I broke it up into a few comments. Hope that’s okay. I’ll comment on my on comment, of course.
First, a question for the FAQ that might come up – what happens to he vouchers in the LPs? Answer: They can still be removed and traded on Hive. When transferred into the game, they will be automatically converted into DEC-B.
Now, the arguments:
How about a comprehensive guide, targeting exactly those people - even though I doubt that anyone who doesn't know a thing about crypto will come accross SL. You know what would really help new players? Not being beat up by max level players in bronze league. Also, needing around 5min for every game – not everybody has that kind of time.
"However, due to its transferable nature, vouchers do not live up to this narrative." - Totally agree. So, there was a mistake made in the process - is the solution really to just destroy the whole idea? Because the idea is right - have a little bonus for those who actually stake a ton of SPS and are losing a ton of value (what was it, 80% in the last 5 months?).
"This discourages new players by making them feel that they pay extra, or learning an entirely new system just to play a game." Well, yes, that's the nature of any game. If you just want to play, you can always use the starter cards. If you want to have more success or earn, you have to learn the way. I'm still figuring out Land, step by step. Why? Because learning is a process. If you really want a great game, it's profound and has some complicated things in it. If you want a successful game, make it as superficial as possibly, like candy crush. SL is not Candy Crush. Please stop making it Candy Crush. It is well balanced, you can play it on a low level and have fun (until you get beat up by max lvl in bronce league), and you can dive in really deep and enjoy all of it's features. Again, the problem is not the Voucher system.
Now, the Proposal:
fair, good compromise
Makes sense within the proposal – if there are now vouchers, you can’t pay with them. Kind of obvious.
Takes away a bonus for staking SPS, and will drive away long term players – the ones that SL was built on. Making it easier and cheaper for them to access new packages is a symbol of gratitude towards those that actually built it.
Same as 2 – if there are no vouchers, how would you transfer them? Again, doesn’t make any sense.
That’s actually not the worst idea, since it will make vouchers go up in price until they reach the value of 36 DEC in comparison.
Also good.
Pros:
Yes, very nice.
Not every bot is a bad bot. I use a bot because I don’t have enough time to play the game all day long, and I’m getting beat up in modern silver league all the time since there’s no level cap – and given your latest decisions that in my opinion crippled the game more than it helped, I’m not feeling comfortable at all spending more money to buy cards. Instead of doubling down on the Wild Pass approach, please consider other interesting ideas like upping the minimum rent (which would also help DEC price increase).
Will we get DEC for our staked SPS then? Might be a good idea to even things out.
Yeah, I can see that.
Agree.
Significantly? By removing 1 of how many tokens in the universe? Everything in SL is tokenized. It’s not becoming “significantly” simpler by removing vouchers. The entry barrier is still the same, since you first have to get DEC. You just introduced a new currency with glint, but suddenly to many tokens (even if soulbound) are making the game too complicated? Pick a lane here, please.
Not my expertise, trust you on this one.
Cons:
“Might” is the key word. You’re basically screwing over all of us who stake SPS, after having lost a huge amount of value over the last months, on a “might” – again, Voucher is not the problem. The problems are elsewhere, as mentioned before, especially in that no one wants to play SL anymore – not because vouchers are making it too complicated, but because most of the latest changes made on the economy level are pushing the game into a pay to win. The focus is not on the gameplay anymore, but to squeeze out more money. You have to spend a lot of money (not investing) to buy the overpowered cards that decide the game – it’s not tactics anymore, it’s money.
“may”? It will, according to your own arguments. At least be honest and say it how it is. As you explain, it’s short term, so don’t discredit your own arguments by using conditional tense.
Conclusion: Taking away vouchers is not a bad idea. But your arguments are shaky and not well thought out. And again: Vouchers are not the problem. If you used all the time, energy and MONEY you spent on thinking this up to find a solution for the real problems in SL – or at least to identify them! – we’d all be better off.
I am not agains this, but why dec-b? Indeed, why dec-b? let's get rid fo that as well.
I don't want dec-b, i want dec. or glint, or sps!
#pimp
I'll make this short as others already stated a lot of my issues with the proposal.
I'm general in favor of removing vouchers eventually, but we can't just sunset them without thinking through all the implications this has.
As @davemccoy pointed out, without vouchers, there are no rewards to licenses other than the SPS that's going to be paid out in the next two years. As long as we don't find a solution to that issue, I can't support this proposal.
Burn them all!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
When I first heard about this a few weeks ago on TPG I thought this might be a good idea. But after serious consideration and hearing arguments from both sides, I agree with Dave above and think the damage this will do regarding trust will be irreparable, causing more harm to the ecosystem and token values than benefit.
Vouchers have failed because the team has NOT put the time into making vouchers what they are supposed to be. They are NOT supposed to be a 'coupon' but give special access to exclusive things in the ecosystem. We can remove ALL 'competition' vouchers have been given to DEC, keep vouchers, and give them their own unique utility. This would be EASY if the team just DOES IT. Like the unfulfilled promise of RUNI, they need only to take it into consideration instead of blowing it off in ordder to easily fulfill their promise.
Exclusive promo cards, land benefits, guild benefits... seriously, just TRY instead of accepting failure without TRYING. It's not as hard as this proposal making it out to be.
And the kick in the nuts to node license holders... more trust down the tubes. I have also heard this will be the last straw for some players, and if this passes, it WILL push even more people out of the game.
The team has told us more times than I can count over the years that 'this will be the magic bullet to bring DEC to peg' and EVERY time that has proven false.
The ONLY thing that will bring DEC to peg is an EXPANDING players base driving DEMAND for DEC. Everything else is a short term band-aid attempt and incorrect way to fix the problem.
I also feel that printing THIS MUCH DECB will work against the current DEC situation, pushing DEC even further from peg, not bringing it closer.
I agree with this. I'm pretty sure vouchers weren't stopping people from joining during the last bull run. We need players , better NPE and marketing.
If this passes It breaks a lot of trust and I'm not ok with that. Remove vouchers from pack discounts and energy, that's fine. Give us something else to spend them on, maybe skins? Either way it's a promise that if taken away leaves a permanent distaste to many and especially those that factored in a purchases of node licenses based on receiving vouchers because the team said "You will never have enough".
Not to nitpick BUT
Vouchers didn't exist during the last bull run. Vouchers were only introduced as part of the package that killed the last bull run.
I was paying upwards of $6 for vouchers to buy CL packs, I was fairly new and it didn't stop me from playing. I'd definitely call that part of the Splinterlands bull run.
I mean, maybe?
Do you call the thing that ENDED the bull run 'part' of the bull run?
I don't like the idea of vouchers either. It would be a terrible idea to add them now if we didn't have them but we do and so many promises were made using them. So I think there are better ways to address this.
Vouchers did not end the bull run. The general market conditions in addition to a massive overprinting of CL packs combined with misuse of funds from that sale is what ended the Splinterlands bull run.
I do think we remove vouchers from pack discounts, energy or anything else that competes with dec but i think we need a new utility for them.
I agree with the overall direction, however I think that maybe we're using a sledgehammer where the solution may require a greater degree of finesse.
Firstly, I think that DEC-B was one of the worst decisions we ever made. That option never should have been introduced to begin with in my opinion. Unfortunately, just saying or including the word "DEC-B" is enough for me to vote "no" on this, haha.
Secondly, I can appreciate wanting to solve the "voucher issue" as quickly as possible, but we really should take a breath to see if we can replace vouchers with a different incentive before removing them entirely. I understand the reasoning that anything we replace it with could theoretically compete with DEC no matter what we do...but I dunno. I think there ARE viable alternatives. It's something worth considering, since we are talking about incentives for two very critical aspects of our ecosystem: Staking SPS and owning Node Licenses. Playing fast and loose with those two fundamental building blocks is risky to say the least.
Short-term and Long-term considerations must be balanced equally. We can't sacrifice one for the other without shooting ourselves in the foot.
I see no reason we couldn't conceptualize a gamification of our DeFi products. That gamification could be based on "points" or "achievements" or whatever the heck we want. We don't have to limit ourselves to "tokens" and "digital assets". We can just as easily say "the more SPS you have Staked, the better your Liquidity Pool APRs". Unlock higher tier APRs by participating in Splinterlands DeFi. You can also say "buy more Node Licenses to unlock higher discounts on DAO proposals" or introduce discount tiers for transaction fees for bridging/buying...or whatever the heck DeFi benefits we can think of.
Bottom line: I think we COULD come up with cool DeFi incentives for those who are participating in the DeFi aspects of our ecosystem. And those incentives do NOT have to compete with DEC.
Once those new incentives are fleshed out, it will be a lot easier to transition away from Vouchers. Plus we don't have to mess with DEC-B! Just stop Voucher distribution, then let players spend the Vouchers like they normally do (until they run out of circulation), or perhaps jump-start the "voucher extinction" by offering players the option to somehow convert them into benefits within this new DeFi gamification system.
Glad to see your thoughts here Nate! Thanks
I agree that DEC-B was a tragedy. I fought hard against it. I fought hard against most of the stuff everyone came out later and agreed was a mistake lol. I also agree we should just let vouchers burn out instead of mandating that they all become DEC-B.
But, none of this is a new discussion. People have been talking about the trouble with vouchers since they were introduced. So to see someone like cryptoeater finally put a possible solution to a vote and then hearing, "wait! we should think about this first!" is kind of shitty. Sorry. If it was so easy to come up with these solutions to a problem we've been begging for a solution for, why is it only now that we're hearing about all the creative ways we could fix it?
The community has been begging for a solution to this and all the asset problems for years and its fallen on deaf ears. All we've heard (and are still hearing) about vouchers, SPS, cards, DEC, and everything else is that that we just need lots more people. But that's a slap in the face when for 32 months straight of being told the solution is more players, the player base has shrunk without a single exception. It's shrunk as the flood of assets, including vouchers, that we've begged you to do something about crushed the value of player holdings and made this project a money pit that even passionate supporters had to walk away from.
The answer has always been, cut the fat. Make the economy healthy again by cutting the fat and then we can grow again. Not the other way around. Create an environment that supports player investment of their time, passion, and money by having an asset base that matches your player base, instead of 20x more game assets than we need. It's really not that complicated. Making a great game is complicated and you did that. Incentivizing passionate players to burn a bunch of what they have too much of by getting a little less of something they really want is not complicated. Sunsetting a token we have to invent reasons for it to exist is not complicated. This should have been done years ago. It shouldn't be just entering the planning phases.
Thank you for acknowledging how terrible Dec-B is. This is literally why I gave this a no right away.
Im in favor of removing vouchers. But Im against this proposal.
It would be much simpler to just remove vouchers and let the team keep doing what they are doing until eventually vouchers dry up. No need to mess with decb or any other token.-
Also license holders should have some sort of compensation. For example having a license should be equal to having 50k staked sps or whatever. I dont know exactly what, but something.
EDIT: changed my vote to yes because of this
100% for it.
So many things have changed when required, I don't get the "it will destroy 100000% of trust" argument at all.
What is best should be done and vouchers are doing more harm than good (if they ever were a "good")
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STOPDefinitely agree to remove vouchers. Vouchers only harmed DEC and SPS. all the voucher utilities should have been for DEC to maintain demand for DEC. Just look how far DEC from its peg, it clearly showed how messed up our tokenomics. This is the same reason why SPS keeps on tanking making all time low because there no point burning sps with dec so far from peg. And because of all these, the earnings of existing players who invested THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS just to play the game also tanked like literally no value anymore, this is the main reason why many players left the game. And because many players are leaving, assets price also tanked severely. For sure many players also realized this. So I definitely hope vouchers are completely removed.
As for me, I think it' s much better to just stop the minting of new vouchers and just let the remaining vouchers be used as usual until all vouchers are gone
Thank you for participating in SPS DAO Governance @cryptoeater!
You can place or monitor SPS Stake Weighted votes for and against this proposal at the link below:
Link to this Pre-Proposal
Updated At: 2024-07-16 00:45 UTC
This seems like a dramatic and sudden way to end vouchers. It appears you and Matt are making two main arguments.
I agree with both of these valid arguments but instead of gutting the voucher system entirely would like to suggest:
Removing vouchers from pack purchases, energy purchases, or anywhere DEC is required for payment.
This will remove any obstacles new players may encounter when first looking to make purchases. It will also reduce the strain vouchers place upon the SPL economy.
Now, it also seems clear vouchers need more usecases. Let's move them away from being discount coupons (which is boring) and towards providing excitement and interest. Here are some usecases I would gladly burn vouchers for:
These are just a few ideas. I'm sure the community can come with 10x better ones.
Vouchers don't need to be an economic sink or an added complexity for newcomers. They just need to be fun and provide interesting and at times wacky bonuses. This along with attaching some RNG for potential jackpot outcomes to their new usecases and I believe people will be happy.
Love the comment and thanks for providing some cool ideas too @theukm !!!
nice ideas!
Nice to see you back in HIVE again.
Haha, yes, i staked a lot for the Splinterlands vote, better do something with it :-). I am looking at HiveFest too, would be nice to see some faces back after all these years
Would be good to chat again, but I won't be attending this one. Nice venue though, should be good.
This is a big HELL NO from me. We need to stop taking away from people. Vouchers is a core function and has purpose but the team needs to build that into the game more just like they need to build SPS into the game more. That's the real issue here. None of this is going to help the ecosystem and instead hurt it more. The only thing I would be in favor for that has to do with vouchers would be to cut the emissions down a bit. 25% at first see how that goes for a few months and then maybe 50% if things are still in the toilet. But to remove a whole feature seems dumb. So what if someone can swap and trade them on the market. That's what they are for. You still get them as a reward for staking SPS and honestly it was a core reason I staked SPS was to be able to get special rewards such as the voucher only card. Things like that need to happen MORE.
I will be voting YES for both this proposal & alternative one from TPG in case this doesn't pass. I very much enjoy being part of an evolving ecosystem & consider part of the game adapting to changes for one. I have a node, it will affect some daily pennies. Happy to sunset vouchers for the health of the SPS-DEC relationship, having a 3rd wheel makes things awkward & convoluted. Overall, I personally feel we've been on the right trajectory for some time now. ALTHOUGH, I'd rather just get rid of them, I don't ever want to see DEC-B again, SUNSET DEC-B at the same time. Simplifying the ecosystem for UX & implementing tutorial/guidance/carrot on a stick system is needed. Also, maybe if we get rid of vouchers we could just bring back $2 packs (which I never got to experience - class CL) for future sets since they wont need a $2 cushion for voucher utility (;
Fully agree. I have a node and think vouchers need to be sunset. Lots of great points raised by many about implications to consider, but make the end target sunset.
And 100% sunset Dec-B as well.
And 100% for new player experience bring back 2$ packs. I never would have got into the game at $5 packs, that's too much initial investment before getting hooked.
It's fun to buy and open more packs.The game will sell more overall with lower costs.
100% agree with the fact that vouchers need to go.
The big problem with the economy is that the 'solution' for years has been to create assets to 'give value' in the short term often with the promise of future utility. DEC, DEC-B, SPS, SPT, Vouchers, Validators, Grain, Cards, Land, Totems, GLX, COLONY, .... This while in the end each one just eats value of the other with everything crashing and becoming overly complicated and inflated. It's time to reverse some of this damage taking a short term hit with the hope to come out better in the long run.
I fear however that it's never going to pass since most people with just see it as something being taken away from them.
https://x.com/elon_docs/status/1810974582053933266 Saw this and it made me think of the people who are looking to fix vouchers instead of getting rid of them
I think this finally feels like we are solving a problem. Which I like much better than the constant slapping bandaides on everything.
I am really torn on this one. I don't like vouchers, but I don't think getting rid of them will do any good either. They served a purpose when there was a demand for packs from speculators, but we don't have that issue anymore. Especially since we've changed the way airdrops work. So, I don't know, I voted no originally, but I switched my vote to yes for this pre-proposal stage. When and if it becomes a full proposal, I'll give it more thought.