I wrote this a couple months back and never posted. I struggle with the idea of ending staking for the community when launch partner unlocks likely won’t change. In light of recent AIP ideas for various staking pools to be stopped, I thought I would post this for discussion as well.
Proposal Name: Ending ApeCoin staking at end of Year 1.
Proposal Category: Process
Author: CapetainTrippy
Abstract: This AIP proposes to terminate AIP-21 and the associated AIPs 4 and 5 which are referenced in AIP-21, all of which are regarding ApeCoin staking. This specifically includes an end to the staking for ApeCoin and the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT ecosystem: Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), and Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC). The primary intention is to prevent further dilution of ApeCoin and to reallocate reserved funds for staking back to the DAO treasury for more strategic and impactful purposes.
I will reach out to request/ negotiate a change in the unlock mechanics for the known launch partners and request access to the unknown. This is an important step for me, as I believe the staking AIPs are essentially the community unlocks and I believe if we sacrifice our unlocks, others should as well.
Benefit to ApeCoin ecosystem:
Reducing Dilution: By ending AIPs 4, 5, and 21, we prevent the continuous over dilution of ApeCoin at a time of challenging market conditions and few use cases.
Strategic Resource Allocation: The saved funds can be reinvested in more strategic initiatives that benefit the development and expansion of our ecosystem in the future.
DAO Treasury Preservation: Protecting our treasury is critical to the long term success of our ecosystem. Preserving the remaining ApeCoin that is to be allocated over years 2 and 3 better positions us to make more strategic decisions in the future and strengthens the position of the DAO treasury. This will preserve a total of 75 million ApeCoin within our treasury.
Key Terms:
DAO Treasury: A reserve of funds held by our decentralized autonomous organization, used for various community driven initiatives.
Platform & Technologies: Staking contract developed for AIP-21.
Steps to Implement & Timeline:
Work with necessary parties on remaining token allocations into contract and necessary steps for completion of staking at end of year 1.
I was literally writing this AIP and was just about to post it tonight.
Staking is a zero sum game and is only hurting $APE. It should never have been built in the first place.
Eliminate all staking pools and reallocate all ApeCoin to the DAO treasury. Replenish all the $APE that has been wasted on worthless AIPs that provide little to no value to the ecosystem.
I’ve been thinking deeply about this as well while monitoring the publicly visible treasury activity in and outflows. I feel like we’re potentially stuck between a rock and a hard place.
On one side; continued staking rewards dilute $APE. On the other side; ending staking could likely trigger a mass sell-off.
It would be ideal, if staking were indeed to end, to have it times with the launch of a new utility to balance said potential sell-off. I wonder if there’s an opportunity to trigger the end of staking in parallel to the launch of ApeChain. Maybe these two could offset each other if times correctly.
Although I’m entirely in favour of protecting the treasury and ensuring the long-term sustenance of ApeCoin in every way, my analytical mind asks; ‘are there any potential legal ramifications to reversing/striking a previously written AIP?’. It’s possible those who staked a while ago may possibly incur damages as a result of the staking ending and may seek restitution. Better to discuss that topic openly in advance instead of leaving it lingering in limbo as a white elephant.
I suppose if the community votes in favour of striking AIPs 4, 5, and 21, then it’s a community decision, which is entirely valid. I just want to ensure all the t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted prior to moving to fast on something like this. Being proactive is always the path forward.
For example, what if everyone who is staking right now votes no, and everyone who is not staking votes yes. I wonder if there should be some majority vote specifically for those who are staking, to ensure the right stakeholders are providing majority consent, and not just those who are not involved in the topic which this AIP focuses on; the staking.
Love that this AIP opens this important topic for the community to weigh in on with their thoughts and comments. I look forward to hearing community sentiment on this, in either direction.
Smart steps towards a smarter future. This is a bold move, but by stopping placing bets, we are preserving our value. Protection from dilution, strategic reallocation of funds and preservation of our treasury are certainly the key to long-term prosperity. I doubt that it will pass, but it’s nice to see that more such initiatives are becoming available at the forum
I had already thought of this and planned to include it in my draft.
$APE staking will eventually end anyway, so this “selloff” is inevitable. The idea is that this is a one time effect, and it will happen sooner or later. The pro vs con is favorable.
This is a valid concern, I would assume there were some T&C users had to approve in order to stake which cover this and prevent them from having any legal claims. But I do agree this will need to be consulted with legal, which to my understanding this is part of the AIP process already. I believe when an AIP enters the Administrative Review phase?
Great question and I appreciate the response. This is exactly why I posted this idea. I want to get perspective from the community on all sides. I am not convinced stopping staking is the best solution but want to have the dialogue with the community on the pros and cons.
To answer your question… I do believe we are approaching a time where we will see more use cases with a few of the current AIPs that are up and so stopping staking in this capacity to potentially add back staking with a purpose in some capacity in the future. An idea behind this would be to add staking to apechain. (If we even get a chain AIP approved)
What use cases are those specifically? I ask because I don’t see anything in the works be it near, mid, or long-term that I think will meaningfully impact the price of $APE. Although I may or may not be an outlier in believing that The Otherside will never achieve a meaningful level of success (or for them to properly build a game to achieve that level of success, they’d need another several years of development to release a product at the level of quality to compete with AAA game studios.)
But, I’m also not a fan of using staking as a sole way to prop up a price. It just isn’t sustainable in the long-term. It can help, for sure, but if there isn’t eventually real organic demand, the Ponzi style structure will fail as the supply continues to climb and new demand isn’t introduced. We’re watching this right now with Blur, who is using a much more aggressive version of staking to drive the price up. It’s working, without question. But that cannot last forever, so they too are on a race against the clock to generate real demand.
I do agree that immediately ending staking would likely cause a market dump which will harm the price. I’d just personally love to see serious companies come in asking for 8 figures worth of $APE to build products that have a shot at mainstream adoption. The DAO (in terms of spending) is often so risk averse, that I’m not sure we’ll ever see this happen. Instead we shuffle through AIPs asking for 6 (and sometimes 7) figures that clearly will not generate demand.
We need a real paradigm shift in terms of mentality to succeed from this point. Obviously my opinion and there’s a lot of valid points being made in here that I agree with.
I’m a small holder, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But from a small holder perspective this feels like something that benefits whales.
I don’t have much in this game, but what little I do have, or what little I can earn, I am excited about. I recently just removed my hex on X so I can resume staking.
I’m not rich, so any bit of $APE I can get to have more fun in the ecosystem, the better.
What I’m about to say, is pure “feeling” so, again, take it w a grain of salt. But this is what it “feels” like from my small holder perspective.
It feels like when you over withdraw your bank account, and you get fee for it. That fee goes to the bank, and essentially the shareholders.
In this case, the remaining stakeable $APE goes back to the pool, where the whales can vote on what they want to do with it, small holder be damned.
You mentioned that this money could be reinvested. My questions are, how? And by who? Is there an idea on the table already that would reinvest that $APE and distribute it in a way that would benefit both small and large holders?
We haven’t seen that yet. If we did, I may be more inclined to be for this. But I would like that secured before we decided to end staking, which hurts the small holder, while we wait for ideas on how that value prop could be achieved.
Great feedback, and I appreciate your perspective and honesty from the point of view of being a smaller holder. Do most that consider themselves smaller holders look at stopping staking as a whale benefit only?
Appreciate your perspective. The whales are also staking, however, and therefore growing their bags too. So the actual gap in terms of amount of $APE held only grows over time. The whales will simply always control this ecosystem so long as the voting mechanics stay the same. I think the bigger impact is trying to get that changed.
I don’t look at staking as staking. I look at it as community unlocks for playing a part in the success of the ecosystem. This is why if I was to support this, it would have to come with conversation + changes to launch partners. I am not okay with asking the community to stop their unlocks if the launch partners can’t do the same.
Yeah. While I appreciate that those efforts are happening, it’s just more crypto economics to me. I’m looking for serious substance at this point. I also think crypto (not just $APE) has such a hill to climb to make it function anything like an actual currency. It makes far more sense based on actual human behavior patterns to function as a store of value. So long as people think number will go up, it makes far more sense to hold than to spend. Which, if anything (in my mind), puts MBA projects that only accept $APE at such a disadvantage to actually sell their products.
But to anyone making MBA projects, I would so love to see things that aren’t either weed or alcohol.
I’ve always looked at staking as a delayed airdrop for believers in the apecoin world. There was the initial airdrop sure but it was a smart move to keep the best marketing department available interested in the dao. Cutting it off I think is potentially dangerous to that relationship. Emissions drop significantly in Y2 anyway (50% of Y1) so we’ll see our own little halving take place.
I’m not against changing elements of staking, lower emissions, longer timeframe. Otherside is around the corner (hopefully) be nice for the degens to have some spending money!
