But, it feels like a quasi-covert utility-esque token in disguise and I’m just not a fan of trying to defend the platform against some nuanced point that may or may not be perceived as disingenuous. While it’s innocent, I don’t want to play these games.
I understand the worry, but I have pretty much exactly the opposite view. What can be perceived as playing a game and what requires defending a nuanced point is precisely this promise of offering a pure governance token that allows you to do everything with Bitcoin. Given the aim to draw people in with lucrative staking, and an AMM pool, and Origins sales, its the Bitcoin-only promise that is pulling wool over people’s eyes. I see the games and tortured nuance exactly with the governance-only Bitcoin-only promise.
For the same reason, I think it’s a serious mistake to try to pitch SOV to Bitcoin maxi’s, they are not going to like what they will find. Let SOV be the enabler of DeFi, and have value because of what it enables. Appeal to DeFi investors that want security and see Bitcoin’s as the baselayer of value.
Do we have any data to back this up? I wrote a piece here that I think indicates fees can already be impactful with a few small changes and it doesn’t even include the slew of other revenue generating activities we can add. Let’s see some statistics - Any support for SIP? - #5 by dseroy.
I think your data proves my point in fact. All you need to do is recognize that the DeFi space is now a highly competitive market, and compare the APRs in your final three columns to those of other platforms. The APR generated by fees in August in your 1y stakers column is 3.2%. I think that’s a terrible number, and in general the APRs in the sheet don’t look good at all. 1 year is an eternity, the returns are not even close to covering the risks that one takes in vesting for a year. I’m not going to cite the numbers of competitors, but the fee-based numbers are just not even nearly good enough when taking a comparative perspective.
Any other platform is able to generate those numbers on the basis of fees, which is unsurprising, because the fees you pay in doing transactions is roughly similar across platforms. Just think about it, it would be a bit of magic if Sovryn fees creates more revenue from the fees paid at other platforms (without having traders pay a ton for transactions). Fee structures are roughly similar across platforms; honestly, it will do 0 to draw in people away from other platforms or to have SOV’s value increase against the competition.
Competitive advantages need to come solely from clever token issuance, and, more important, from what is built and from this translating into SOVs value. Currently what is built is great but doesn’t flow into SOV nearly enough.