IMPORTANT: The Path Through Chaos, What you NEED to know! NEW PACKS! Voting! Much more! Splinterlands 2022 Roadmap AMA Summary +Giveaway
If You Aren't Playing Splinterlands Click here to sign up
In this post I will summarize a recent roadmap plan for 2022 AMA (located here ) for the #Splinterlands game and what it means for the SPS market, Voting, Land, and more surprising developments therein. INCLUDES a comment giveaway. Check it out!
Riftwatchers: SPS ONY Pack Expansion SOON!
If you check the announcement here the game will be launching a mini set entitled "Riftwatchers" similar to Dice that ran print alongside Untamed. The one key difference will be that these packs will be ONLY purchasable via SPS. This means that we will likely see an increase in the price of SPS over this period as this pack set is released. The name fits with the Chaos Legion card packs that precede it's launch announcement. If it's anything like the previous expansions there will be desirable cards within.
SPS Foundation: What is it?
The excerpt:
"The SPS foundation is an entity created to hold and manage the funds for the development and promotion of the Splintershards token and ecosystem. 10% of the total supply of SPS tokens go to the foundation as specified in the SPS token whitepaper.
The SPS foundation currently holds around $4M worth of various cryptocurrencies not including its SPS tokens which has come from a combination of the private token sale proceeds, SPS token sales, and earnings from LP positions in various pools.
These funds - including the SPS tokens - are owned jointly by the staked SPS token holders and as soon as the SPS governance system is released the community will be able to submit and vote on proposals regarding its use. Proposals can include things like purchasing SPS tokens, providing liquidity to an Automated Market Maker (AMM) pool, paying for a product or service, burning tokens, or even distributing funds back to token holders. It really can be anything the community agrees upon.
The ownership and management of the SPS foundation treasury is just one of the many utilities of the SPS token and we hope and expect that the value of the treasury will grow significantly over time as a result of asset price increases, yield from liquidity pools, and other investments."
As you can see in this excerpt from the official announcement there will be an entity owned by the stakers and used for proposals voted on by everyone. Sounds great right? But hold your horses, there is more to this entity and this proposal in the section below.
SPS Token Witness Nodes and What It Means
The game will be running open source node software anyone can download to witness the blockchain transactions (like WAX, EOS, HIVE, etc.). However, there is one crucial difference located below.
The excerpt:
"Anyone running the validator node software will be able to register as a validator and earn SPS rewards from the "oracle rewards" pool based on the amount of staked SPS that is voting for them, and the top 10 validators by votes will be the signatories on multi-sig wallets on both Hive and BSC (and potentially other chains in the future) that control the SPS foundation funds among other things." Excerpt from official AMA here.
Essentially we would need to vote for 10 people to direct the communal pool of SPS into their hands. Not the "community driven" aspects mentioned in the foundation section.
Why is this necessary? You may ask. Well it's not. The community and developers can propose changes to the game and EVERYONE can vote on them transparently (stake being vote, witness node and oracle pool still maintained etc.). Proposals that don't get the votes don't go anywhere. Developer proposals or any other proposals would pass if they are smart or creative proposals (usually with a plan for the long term for large and small investors). It's that simple. The benefit being we can see EXACTLY who votes for what agenda, and it gives ALL players and members of the community the most direct ability to impact the community. There doesn't need to be proxies with voting for representatives. It's true you could still delegate your SPS to another account to vote from that account to attempt to obscure your vote, but it would be a greater decentralized and transparent format than having 10 people be in charge of it. A logical conclusion.
Questions and Answers
Now before some of you respond with the obvious "We'll just vote for the developers and it will all go well, why allow community proposals?", "I don't have time to follow all the proposals that the community and developers would propose to vote for them all." or "What's wrong with the 10 witness system?"
Here is my response to those responses.
- Why Allow Community Proposals: Because everyone's voice should be heard and be able to evolve and create new aspects for the community. Additionally, everyone's voice should be able to influence the game we all are a part of. Centralizing it to 10 people seems unnecessary at the current time.
- I don't have time to check all proposals, what then?: Simple, delegate your SPS to someone who you think will vote well and keep it active. This is transparent and people can see they have your vote.
- Flaws with 10 voters having foundation control: The flaw with this is it obscures who is voting for what or how much a vote is worth and it gives 10 people centralized control where it isn't necessary. The community should be able to vote with their stake and the big/small holders (Splinterlands and their team themselves, bot lords, whales, big investors, small investors) will all have their say directly. This would be transparent on the blockchain with the most direct power to the userbase in a decentralized fashion. ANYONE should be able to submit proposals to change the game if the game is really "a game owned by the players", then the players and investors would decide what happens.
- Delegation Pros and Cons:The pros being you can delegate SPS to friends and guild members so they can enter tournaments. The only con being it makes it SLIGHTLY harder to see someone's vote.
I know reading this many of you have questions or your own responses to this news and everything else. Keep those typing fingers at the ready until you read the rules for the giveaway in the giveaway section. I still support Splinterlands and think they have done MANY visionary things this past year. However, this one point with 10 witnesses in charge doesn't need to be gone about in this way. I also think they are publishing this not as purely an ultimatum but a call to the community. They have been open about changes and receptive in hearing the community. So let your voice be heard. Agree/ Disagree? Something I need to know? tell me in the comments below, but check the giveaway section first.
New Reward Pools Coming to a Splinter Near You
In the future various pools for earning SPS (Ranked battles, brawls) will be implemented next year (list here). Further details as to when will be announced. However this does mean SPS will be able to be earned by players... and bots. So please consider that before responding for the giveaway.
Talking Tidbits and Land at last?
I think the developers have been creating an amazing game driven by community thus far, but this next year will be the year we see many crazy changes that may make or break the game (and SPS rise and or fall accordingly). This next year we will also see the implementation of land being used for minting cards, this action will rely on staked SPS (to be determined). Kudos to the developers for their transparency in 2022. Now is the moment to voice how you feel about ALL of these developments. What are your takes? What would you do differently? Which brings us to what you all have been waiting for...
Speak Up: Giveaway and Rules
The rules for this giveaway are: Comment on the presented roadmap for 2022. What would you do differently? What do you like/dislike? What is your opinion? It's time to discuss and be polite. Everyone who comments with an in-depth response will be given a random common card 15 day delegation (a completely random common card from the faction of your choice). There isn't random chance this week, so you do have to work for the giveaway. Just comment your comment by the payout of this post. Don't forget to hit that follow button for more content on #play2earn stuff, giveaways, #Splinterlands stuff, and more. Don't forget to also comment on the ORIGINAL AMA here
Keep Summoning and See You in the #Splinterlands
@cryptoniusrex! The Hive.Pizza team manually curated this post.
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@kqaosphreak(2/5) tipped @cryptoniusrex (x1)
Join us in Discord!
Thanks for the way you've outlined this and opened it for discussion. I have a few fledgling thoughts that are mostly me learning how to think into the possibilities and ramifications of being invited into governance. And yes, my political ideology shows through here in a pretty obvious way.
Clearly a representative governance makes sense because not everyone has time or desire to read proposals and be involved. Technologically, it seems easily possible to have any number of delegates with power corresponding to the amount of votes delegated, so 10 delegates seems arbitrary - and quite small (How many languages is this game being played in? Can 10 delegates possibly cover the diversity of engagement?) Why not use use the power this technology offers to allow each a vote or a delegation as desired?
If there are 10 representatives, what keeps it from becoming a political campaign. Can the representatives offer rewards as encouragement to vote for them? What's to keep bots from voting on the 10 and keeping them in power? I suppose the same questions stand regardless of the number of delegates.
I think some fundamental question that it brings up to me are similar to those a country faces. Who gets the power and how much is that power consolidated? There is already a clear pattern I've seen as a relative newbie (here since June). Folx who have been here awhile and folx who have the financial means to buy in substantially are rewarded. This is how SPS have been distributed, rewards reinforce it - especially with miniscule credits and single boxes in Bronze, and land will further establish this power arrangement by creating a literal land-owning class that cultivates resources and sells them or uses them to dominate the plebs. (side-note: I do hope to buy one piece of land, but more than that seems beyond my means). So... we are in a recreation of the power structures of most of western society across time.
Which maybe is fine... No one said we were creating utopia here. It just feels important to name that the resource gap is quickly widening. Is this governance system intended to increase and reinforce that gap or to challenge it.
Some other questions that pop up for me:
What happens when you make cards buyable for governance tokens? Those who want to get more involved and don't have large financial resources are looking for every opportunity to do so. Many of them had a small air drop so have minimal governance tokens. It seems like there's a built in tension between holding onto tokens to have some vote/power and buying packs to increase their in game capacity. Folx who have received a good airdrop based on the same criteria mentioned earlier (bought in or been here longest) don't have the tension of that trade off.
Perhaps it's useful for me to remember this is the creators of a for-profit game figuring out how to spread that power to the players. Which is, indeed, revolutionary. And regardless of how many nature-spirits, elementals, and angels populate the game it is a business deeply steeped in a capitalist battle ethos and not the governance of some magical egalitarian kingdom. I'm grateful I'm getting to witness and participate in the experiment. Apparently I should write me own post about it.
Congratulations on your delegation! Which faction would you like? I also agree with that 10 people seems like a centralization that might not be needed.
By faction, do you mean splinter? Let's go with water.
This is a great writeup on it and it helps direct me a little bit more as to what to look at, thank you for that one, I will skip on the delegation right now, but thank you for the option.
Oh and go !PIZZA :D
Thanks for sharing! - @ashikstd
This is a great post inviting folx into meaningful conversation. Why are there so few comments? I’d like to hear from more people.