SIP-30: Concentrating staking revenues

Update 2021-10-18: This SIP has been approved by voters: https://bitocracy.sovryn.app/proposals/10/governorOwner

I have just published a draft SIP on GitHub for review:

SIP-30: Concentrating staking revenues

I welcome comments/questions either here or on GitHub!

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Short and sweet. Looks like what was discussed in the forums and on the community call

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Sorry if my understanding is wrong but I couldn’t find the relevant discussion on discord but what it seems is that this SIP proposes that if I staked only for 1 month and after contract expired kept the stake I get part of fees but I get nothing if I staked money in SOV for 3 years (hence still under vesting contract)?

No, that’s not right Judicandus.

Through this SIP, all the staking rewards will from now on be divided only among VOLUNTARY stakers who have CHOSEN to lock up their PREVIOUSLY UNLOCKED (vested) SOV in the staking contract.

Rather than still locked (unvested) SOV from seed/founders/partners also receiving staking rewards, as is currently accidentally the case.

This is a very important correction, and way overdue. Get it done ASAP.

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Yes. To be crystal clear here, this SIP is saying that today, protocol revenues are divided among two categories of stakers: those with SOV locked in a vesting contract, and those with SOV not locked in a vesting contract.

  1. Stakers who likely do have some portion of staked SOV locked in a vesting contract:
  • Genesis participants
  • Other early purchasers
  • Team members
  • Liquidity mining LPs
  1. Stakers who do not have some or all of their staked SOV locked in a vesting contract:
  • Origins participants
  • Any staked SOV that was bought on the open market
  • Any staked SOV that was subject to vesting but the vesting period has passed

If this SIP is passed, the revenues will be divided only among SOV stake in the second category.

A note on terminology, because it has come up a few times: There has been some debate over what to call stakers whose staked SOV is not encumbered by a vesting contract. “Voluntary stakers” has been suggested however this isn’t accurate since unless some stakers out there had a gun to their head when they bought/staked SOV then everyone here is a voluntary staker because they voluntarily entered into whatever smart contract caused their SOV to become encumbered by a vesting contract. “Liquid stakers” has also been suggested however this does not capture very well the fact that early unstaking comes with a penalty that can be quite hefty, so the stake is (by design) not actually very liquid.

I settled on the term “fully-vested stakers” because this is the technical term for an asset that is not encumbered by the terms of a vesting contract, including an asset that never was encumbered by a vesting contract as well as an asset that originally was encumbered by a vesting contract but no longer is. This may be a new term for folks coming into the community, but I think it’ll be easy to pick up on and when compared to the alternatives I believe most will see this as the more suitable term to use.

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It’s clear now. Will vote. Thank you.

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Honestly fully-vested is a little confusing (especially for the never vesting) and has no ring to it. Sure newbies can take the extra 5 minutes and figure it out, but it just sounds too technical and confusing at first glance, especially for never-vesting folks. How about something in the range of pure stakers?

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When is this going to be up for vote and execution?

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looking forward to this vote

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With regards to the ‘vesting/vested’ conundrum—which places an unnecessary burden of comprehension on already overtaxed attention-spans—I’d propose keeping the former (as befits the specialised nature of the contract), but instead referring to the latter as opted-in stakers.

Do you see any disadvantage in this approach?

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I think most of the community agrees with this, including myself. Waiting to vote for it!

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I agree with others here that the vested/vesting terminology can be tricky, and will continue to be a thing people trip over when the userbase starts to grow. It’s also useful to have a term form for the staking done through vesting contracts, for which “stakers” is ambiguous and “non-vested stakers” a little gruesome imo.

What about “active stakers” versus “passive stakers”? Passive stakers have assets under vesting contracts but never required the action of staking; active stakers are those that went through the action of staking. Works also for the stakes itself: active stakes and passive stakes.

Clear SIP, offers yet another nice improvement to the staking experience.

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This is more in the ballpark IMO. Active because you’re actively staking and passive because you’re not taking an active part in staking, just locked into a vesting period. It’s also pretty simple to gather the meaning just by the words. I think it should be this or something like it.

Guess it could also be active v. vesting stakers, if it is seen as important to note the vesting quality. Either way, I think Martin is in the right direction.

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yeah, that works for me too. I think clear newbie-friendly terminology is smart to facilitate entry and minimize friction.

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I did mull over ‘active’ before settling on ‘opted-in’, but found this to be similarly problematic: since vesting stakers include some of bitocracy’s most prolific contributors, and equally, I’d venture that a not-insignificant proportion of vested stakers will be in effect ‘silent partners’ whose participation consists of staking alone, to deem the former as ‘passive’ and the latter as ‘active’ risks putting our official messaging at odds with our community ethos.

By contrast, ‘opted-in’ seems to me to strike a relatively optimal balance between linguistic precision and layperson-accessibility.

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I agree with what you say regarding the terminology, but do we actually have to use the word Stakers for the vested rewards at all?

As long as the word Staker is a refference for both cases, i beleive there will be confusion amongst the coming hoards of new people that join Sovryn.

Just my thought, as i found it confusing until i read up on it in the wiki… But as i see in the TG channels, this comes up as questions quite frequently.

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Not quite sure what you mean here with not calling vested rewards Stakers.

Considering this terminology issue, Stakers is defined as a party who places or locks crypto in an account and who also gets some form of rewards or APY. I am wondering about vesting “stakers” now. Are they stakers at all? They did not place or lock their crypto up, the crypto is just held in a vesting account. And do they recieve any rewards or APY for this vesting crypto. As far as I know they do not. Please feel free to educate me.

But if vesting “stakers” do not meet both elements, 1. intentionally making the decision to place or lock their crypto and 2. receiving some monetary benefits or rewards for doing so, then effectively they are not stakers at all.

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Well from my understanding, the LP rewards are vested, and in my opinion does not fall under the intentionally making the descission to lock( even though people are aware , or at least should be aware that their rewards are locked with monthly cliffs as its called) and as from reading the suggested SIP, there are no rewards on the vested rewards. So i beleive that vested is vested, and staked is staked, so the terrminology should be clearer to hopefully cause less confusion…

The reason i beleive this is quite important, is due to a couple of factors, but mainly say that a lot of people from El Salvador as an example, that are fresh to crypto visits Sovryn with the goal to mulitply their BTC/Sats, and end up get confused by terminology, which then could lead to them leaving Sovryn…

As i mentioned in a post, new members to our crypto community are not familiar with the crypto world and its terminology, and the integration should be easy.

I think Sovryn is on the right track, as compared to using UNI or Pancake, Sovryn actually has an interface that people recognize. Making the page even more friendly for regular Joes could be beneficial, and reduce workload for the mods in the TG channels, as it seems the same questions pop up on a daily basis.

#Stay Sovryn

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Good point, for all Sovryn terminology. Best to have simple, clear language that is easy to understand in the global arena. SOV Worldwide baby! Complex verbiage can seem appealing to the writer, but it’s not to the masses.

Stay Sov

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“Opted-in stakers” has the same issue as “voluntary stakers”. All stakers have “opted-in”, unless they were forced/coerced to stake. They opted-in when they chose to either accept SOV into a contract that stakes them automatically (as is the case for vesting contracts) or stake SOV on their own initiative.

The vesting contract actually does stake the tokens, that is why SOV in a vesting contract also has voting power.

I hear the feedback about the terminology. I haven’t thought of or seen a suggestion yet that really compels me to change it but I’m keeping an open mind about it!

One idea I just thought of is to call them “stakers” and “vesting stakers”. If your SOV is vesting in a vesting contract, you are a “vesting staker”. If your SOV is not vesting in a vesting contract, either fully-vested or never been in a vesting contract, then you are simply a “staker”. What do you think?

The SIP will be put to a vote some time in the next few days. I will update this thread when the vote is live. You can also watch the announcements channel in Discord for when the vote is live.

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