Future of VOUCHERs in Splinterlands
In one of the previous town halls (maybe the last one), Matt said something needs to happen with VOUCHERs because as they are the source of continuous work for the team and more problems for the other tokens in the ecosystem. He also said he would prefer to have them gone, rather than a solution of compromise, but that he is opened to see the proposals that come up.
In the meantime, two proposals were drafted for a potential resolution of the VOUCHER-generated issues.
In one of them, @cryptoeater proposes to "sunset Vouchers into DEC-B". Voucher inflation would stop completely, and all VOUCHERs in-game would be automatically converted to DEC-B at at rate between the market value of VOUCHER and its shop valuation (higher). Also, all VOUCHER-related use cases would be removed, except VOUCHER on Hive-Engine, which would remain tradable (when bridged in-game they would be automatically converted to DEC-B). The author mentions a number of community members worked on this proposal, including Matt.
The author(s) identified as cons:
- a reduction in rewards for SPS stakers and license holders
- potentially a short term negative impact on the price of DEC by the influx of new DEC-B (proposed solution: burning through it with 1-2 new promo cards)
The other proposal comes from @thepeoplesguild and they propose to turn VOUCHERs from existing utilities to having a use case in the Glint Shop (items that can be purchased exclusively with VOUCHERs). They even gave an example: to keep a few reward cards from the next soulbound reward set that can only be purchased with VOUCHERs in the shop.
They identify as a pro of this approach that SPS stakers and license holders don't lose a portion of their rewards. By comparison, the other proposal says the loss in rewards will be compensated by an increase in the price of SPS on the long term (by bringing DEC to peg and then activating the flywheel effect that supposes SPS being burned to create more DEC and bring it back to peg once it gets over it - in practice, this only happened once, for a short while, after Land 1.5 was released).
My Opinion
I believe technically and from the workload point of view, the first proposal makes sense. It also makes sense that VOUCHERs should stop take away from DEC utility. Reducing complexity for newcomers, I believe that should happen too with VOUCHER gone. I doubt it would lead to the SPS flywheel effect, if passed. Land 2.0 might.
It is however a proposal that probably won't pass, for multiple reasons, some of them being a matter of principle: this space and its community reacts quite adversely when something already earned (including future rewards) is taken away. And we've seen a number of such moves at Splinterlands in recent years.
The second proposal is... more of a premature band aid that came as a reaction to the first proposal. While there aren't enough desirable items that can be sold in a VOUCHER-only shop and that don't affect the gameplay too much (like cosmetics) - because if they affect gameplay they can create serious differences between the ones with large quantities of VOUCHERs and those with a few or none - having such a change doesn't help much. There is also the argument that such a shop would compete with DEC and Glint shops. I guess depending on implementation, it can or it can't.
Personally, I think I'll vote against both, not that it matters too much. Between the two, the first one is better thought out, but I'd rather not see something removed permanently when a better solution might come up in the future.
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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. In its current form, VOUCHERs are closer to being just another extra asset to manage.
I understand the reasoning of those who want to see VOUCHERs gone. It does not act as a way to provide gated access to Presales etc. The problem is too much supply and creating more use cases have mostly acted as a DEC alternative. 2 Tokens doing the same is counterproductive.
Yes, in the end, vouchers have been overprinted to actually work for the intended purposes, and their maintenance is too costly while being only a secondary token alongside a growing number of tokens if we consider the ones from land, but those are only for internal use case, not listed on HE, as far as I know.
The current vote favors the elimination of VOUCHERs altogether. The developers will have to find a way to deal with crowded Presales in the future.
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It all became complex when we decided to create Dec-b to make up for the irregularities of DEC, to be honest, making it simpler will go a long way, but my question is, will good proposals pass if they don't feel good with the top hierarchies?
I don't know. I have no problem if the proposal passes. I actually think it was pretty well thought out. Might even vote for it. I think they are trying to fix a past mistake (which the introduction of vouchers was), the problem is throwing things out and then taking them back, especially when we are talking about something related to tokenomics isn't the greatest approach.
Vouchers were a bad idea since the beginning, I'd be for erasing them totally, if the node holders want another reward (although I don't agree with it) they should increase the SPS rewards for them and done.
We're paying with inflation the unfulfilled promises of the team, nodes should be already active and giving a value for their utility, now they're a dead weight.
I agree with almost everything you said. I don't think increasing SPS rewards for node holders is an alternative though. Increasing SPS rewards is not an alternative for pretty much anything, unless it's taken from something else. And, as you remarked, node holders are rewarded passively now, while they should've been in operation for a good while. The team has a lot of "debt" to the community.
I don't really like either option, but if I had to pick I would choose the 2nd. If it can give me a chance to get more reward cards, then I wouldn't mind.
Yeah, but the discrepancies in holding and rewarding vouchers will continue and deepen. The only difference is they can't be used in other places except in the voucher shop and on HE. There is the argument that a voucher shop will take away from the utility of Glint and the possibility to use, as an alternative, DEC burns.
I don't understand much about the said VOUCHERS but it looks like the second option would work better, both are brilliant ideas nonetheless. Anything that can be done to stop the depreciating value of assets on the platform should be done. Thanks for writing.
That would only work if there were items to sell for vouchers without taking away from the utility of DEC or Glint.