SPS Governance Proposal - Price Riftwatchers Packs in DEC

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Going forward, the Splinterlands economy is arranged in such a way that most products should be priced in a fixed amount of DEC tokens with the goal of creating demand for DEC tokens and creating price stability for them. Any additional demand for DEC tokens above the target price goes directly to the SPS token through the burn mechanism.

Riftwatchers packs can currently be purchased with SPS tokens at the current market price and not DEC only because the details of the pack sale were announced before the SPS burn mechanism for DEC was live and available within the platform. Had the burn mechanism been live, Riftwatchers packs would have been priced at 5000 DEC, so we feel that at this point it should be put to a vote of the SPS token holders whether or not to re-price Riftwatchers packs to 5000 DEC instead of $5 of SPS at the current market rate.

If this proposal were to pass, all DEC tokens spent to purchase Riftwatchers packs would go to the DAO just like the SPS tokens, and the staked SPS token holders can decide what to do with them, whether burning them, providing liquidity with them, or anything else.

Generally, we feel that this would be an overall net positive change for the Splinterlands economy as it would provide a significant sink for the DEC token that would help it maintain its target value at which point it can help kickstart the flywheel effect of high DEC demand causing buying and burning of SPS tokens.

We also feel that it is typically a better player experience to have assets priced in fixed amounts of stable-valued tokens. Currently many players may be hesitant to purchase Riftwatchers packs while the SPS market price is low because they would have to spend a larger amount of tokens than they would if they wait and the price goes higher in the future.

Additionally, it would also likely lead to a large amount of Riftwatchers packs being purchased by the community as DEC is currently trading at a significant discount to the target value on external markets.

It is important to keep in mind that Riftwatchers packs are being sold by the DAO, and all proceeds go to the DAO (which is different than for Chaos Legion packs), so it is generally beneficial for the entire community to try to increase sales as much as possible.

The concept of a product-backed stablecoin is quite unique and powerful, and we believe it can - by itself - provide a significant amount of value and attention to the Splinterlands ecosystem if we can make it work. To do so, we need to price as many products in DEC as we possibly can, which is why we are bringing this proposal to the community.



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46 comments
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Right now I'm definitely against this proposal because it significantly devalues Riftwatchers packs and any players who bought Riftwatchers packs previously will feel like they are being "punished" since they paid a much higher price.

Right now with SPS = $0.0562326, the $5 Riftwatcher packs cost 1 voucher + 88.916 SPS (market value of $5).

Assuming that Riftwatcher packs will still be at $5 and DEC will be honored at peg value ($0.001) rather than current market value ($0.0005433), that means it will cost 5000 DEC which is just $2.7165 in terms of market value. That means buying Riftwatcher packs would be almost half off, which is a significant devaluation.

I might consider voting in favor of an amended proposal so that the price of Riftwatcher packs is increased so that the market value is $5 (so in this case it would be $9.20 in DEC, so maybe double the cost but make it require DEC instead of SPS).

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To be transparent, I'm undecided. I'm trying to gather some perspectives from our community but I'm not seeing many reliable points of view that are focused on long term growth for the entire community. It makes it difficult to get an accurate vision of how each side of this proposal would look in the long run.

First, I don't think it's fair to do the math on current DEC prices. Sure, a small percentage of people might get a nice discount at the current prices, but it's a miniscule amount in the grand scheme of things since DEC prices are likely to rise closer to Par (probably within 10-15% is my guess). Have you ever seen the rental market spike, and a bunch of people start doing math at that current ROA to make the decision to buy a bunch of cards? Yeah, I'm pretty sure we can both agree that's a terrible way to view a non-static market. I think this is a similar situation.

Then, I'm seeing some people worried the RW card prices would decrease. I've never seen how the market moves through a pre-sale to sell-out so I'd really value your opinions on this. I was under the assumption that the pre-sale and early general sale is essentially overpriced and the prices would generally decrease as the early adopter phase is ending. Because of this assumption, I find it odd that the early adopters would be shocked/upset if RW would become cheaper with time while it is still in print. Like I said, I'm no expert on this, and I only have Chaos Legion and other card games cycles to go by. So if I'm wrong about that, please correct me. Either way, in my opinion, this proposal might make it actually beneficial to buy packs from Splinterlands ($4.50 if DEC gets 90% to par), rather than on HiveEngine ($4.5671780). I don't see that as a bad thing.

As I said earlier, I'm undecided. I see benefits and negatives to either side. I only write this response because I just want both sides to get a fair shake, with more accurate numbers and outcomes. What are your thoughts?

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(Edited)

I'm against this 100%. Riftwatchers were supposed to be a SPS sink, not a DEC sink. Changing it would do a lot of damage to the credibility in my opinion.

Updated after yaba's comments..

Now I have a question for @yabapmatt that might help me change my mind:

Is DEC still going to be the currency used in Land Resource Liquidity Pools that pairs with the resources? If so, do you feel this change NOW will benefit that mechanism by making DEC closer to peg? (the reason why I ask is because if that's in your head, then at least we should have some understanding of it so we can factor that in as well)

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This! 100% THIS! DONT FUCK UP YOUR CREDIBILITY.
RW IS SPS ONLY. TO CHANGE THAT IS BEYOND STUPID...

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(Edited)

To be fair, these mini sets were originally designed for a DEC sink. That being said, I agree it is what it is at this point. Let the set run its course as is. For the pack sales portion, there is other ways to garner sales for example introduce a Holiday sale at Christmas time for all packs still actively being sold.

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(Edited)

agree on both points @rentmoney ...

and the change from DEC to SPS pissed off people too. At the time DEC was over peg and people lost a lot of money when the DEC was removed as the currency to buy Riftwatchers.

For the record, I have a ton of SPS and a lot of DEC and 0 Riftwatcher. I will make money if this change goes through on my DEC because I could buy cheap RW packs (for me). But I don't think its the right thing to do.

Credibility is important for value and I'm always aware of that when I evaluate any of these decisions. In my opinion, they will lose credibility if this proposal passes.

(NOTE: I am basing this view on facts I know, but hopefully Yabapmatt gives us a great reason to change my mind. I don't like disagreeing with the Devs unless I really think they are making a mistake, so I hope he does.)

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This proposal is a little trickier than the one with the node licenses, but again I think that getting the token value in line with the expended peg value would be more important than securing the price target for the underlying asset. The implied price value of the cards should go a long way to incentivize DEC purchases to move it closer to peg.

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(Edited)

do not really understand the sense behind it that you want to upgrade dec at any price and that too at the expense of sps. was not always said dec is virtually only there to trade? as long as it does not rise or fall quickly this does not matter? why should you have sps if it has no benefit except the tournament participation...

or are there any plans for the future that we don't know yet?

but i still vote for it, with cheap packs, i don't say no 😂

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I agree with byzantinist , if we are to allow packs being bought with DEC. then the DEC cost should be the same value that SPS purchased packs would cost. i.e. 8000DEC a pack with a voucher. then i would be more open to this idea.

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I can see why people would be against this, but I think the packs are too expensive at the moment. It’s not really doing much for the price of SPS, either. It’s more tempting to buy CL packs even though I already have most of those cards maxed.

I would vote for this proposal, honestly. I want more Riftwatchers packs and they’re far too expensive the way they are now.

If anything, maybe they should have cost a set amount of SPS instead of $5 worth. Then when the price of SPS drops as it has now, more people would buy packs.

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Yeah the price of cards is silly. Hardly surprising they sell slowly. CL isn't even selling fast with the huge DEC discount, yet RW is more expensive, and then there is tower defense lol, if DEC returns to peg it ends up being $8 a pack? lol

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This is the kind of proposal that shouldn't even be probed.

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(Edited)

Not entirely sure how I feel on this but I do understand how getting DEC out of circulation will help the value of SPS as DEC gets closer to the par value. So I could go either way.

DEC can hopefully and eventually become a product of SPS burning... i understand that's the hope of the team. That's why pricing in DEC now days is seen a bit like pricing in SPS. We still do have quite a bit being created by LP rewards i guess.

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Actually seems like maybe there may be interest in turning off DEC for LP rewards which is interesting aspect to this.

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Yes, stop printing DEC!

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Seems like this may become a proposal soon.

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Just curious, who is coming up with these things? Is it the Splinterlands team or are members of the community making these proposals?

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I think the current proposals come from within the SL team at the moment. There are not player proposals yet, but that is supposed to come in the future.

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Seriously? I thought RW was supposed to be a SPS sink? I really dont get why you want to start the SPS burn for DEC so bad. Do you really think the volume will be so much that it will change the sps price that drastically? Do you guys want folks to lvl up Guilds or not? Dec being at a lower price makes that a lot more likely than it being at peg.

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(Edited)

Yes agree with this point. I thought there was more sinks coming for DEC (I own a lot of both, thus I don't mind if it passes for economic reasons). But this proposal seems to show they don't have faith in the value of the sinks forthcoming in both Guilds AND Land. I will of course listen to Yaba, but I'm not seeing why they would do this at this time. But I've learned a lot from him before, so we'll see what he says next Monday.

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I just feel like it would completely devalue RW packs already bought and also cards on the market, all to bring something back to peg so the other token can be burned? RW packs are already being sold fast enough and holding their value far better than the bloated CL supply, this would cancel that out.

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The first reactions speak for themselves. Devaluing Riftwatchers packs feels even worse than devaluing nodes with the other proposal. And I have a bunch of nodes and got zero Riftwatchers packs. That should tell you something. Personally, I wouldn't mind cheaper packs for myself but this feels really unfair for everyone who got packs already. Nodes at least have the higher tranches to counter the discount effect. Riftwatchers don't.

You guys are on track with making DEC finally more important again but these two proposals should be amended, so that early investors don't get screwed.

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exact. It would be the same like increase needed cards to max level.

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I totally disagree. These things have nothing to do with each other. This game was build on the basis that people need to level up their cards. I have maxed all my cards over the years because of that and I will max all my future cards as well. Not everyone will be able to max but at least level their cards to Bronze, Silver or Gold levels is a MUST in this game.

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...

Is not what i said.

Changing the price of packs would be the same as changing afterwards the needed cards for max.

It has a strong economic impact on the bad, was the massage.

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Then change it for future sales not retroactively devaluing what people have already bought.

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For better or worse, I suspect this proposal will pass and that's why I loaded up on DEC right when the proposals went live. Might as well take advantage of the 2x or cheap packs.

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Just take a look at Hive Engine to see the negative impact of such proposal. Same price dive for Nodes, next price drops on cards I guess. What is the point in buying early and supporting launches if significant changes are made literally weeks or months after with the end result being price diving on our assets? Where are those dumbass proposals coming from? This was not even discussed during AMAs. Please STOP the insanity.

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No, you already came out with the whitepaper and you need to commit to the outline of that whitepaper, especially now that the packs are already out.

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I am 100% no on this one for sure. As someone that did a presale group buying over 9k packs, this would devalue so much that we put into the game.

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The mini sets originally were sold for DEC in the manner outline in the proposal as the mini sets were suppose to be a DEC sink. At current time I think its best to ride out this set as is and then re-introduce DEC the next mini set. If one of the goals is to sell more packs; Put on some spooky Halloween sales and then another sale at Christmas time for packs site wide.

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I will make a similar comment as on the post concerning nodes but I think it is a bad idea.

Not that I don't want to get cheap cards (I do!), but for a community to work smoothly together, a feeling of justice and equality is absolutely necessary!

Screwing the old supporters and giving a discount to the newcomers will only make people want to work against one another. It will be (even more) a race to one's personal profits an create a very unwelcoming atmosphere.

The whole "we can earn all together" idea seems like a utopia, but it actually works better than the "battle royale" scheme.

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(Edited)

Neutral, There are benefits of pushing DEC to peg and moving pack sales along.
At the same time, we could just apply this change to future card sets and leave RF as is.
From an affordability perspective, it would diversify holdings for some players who may shift from CL dec packs to RF dec packs.
Would want to see how the team calculates that this will kickstart the flywheel effect of high DEC demand causing buying and burning of SPS tokens.

If this proposal were to pass, all DEC tokens spent to purchase Riftwatchers packs would go to the DAO just like the SPS tokens, and the staked SPS token holders can decide what to do with them, whether burning them, providing liquidity with them, or anything else.

Having a Dao that has DEC and SPS seems interesting from a long-term perspective though

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DEC is never going to peg, the team evidently haven't a clue how to do it, they might as well quit pretending they do, or hire some seriously smart economists to oversee it. I've been in this game over a year and DEC has never been at peg even once in that time apart from the brief moment when it crashed through the peg having previously been above it

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I wonder if inaction isn't a better solution in the case of these two proposals. DEC doesn't go up because of the bear market and the state of the economy, not because of its (lower) inflation or because it's not used as a payment token for Riftwatchers and licenses.

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When asked about turning off LP rewards Aggy said it could have unintended consequences, but this won't somehow? Just turn off the DEC LP rewards and lets get the system working like its supposed to. Once that happens SPS might go up causing riftwatchers and nodes to sell again. You don't even have to change the whitepaper.

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I do not think one should change the rules of a certain product release afterwards. The price for RW cards and RW card packs reflects (reflected I guess) the agreed price of 5 USD per pack. As pointed out, if you can buy in DEC the price would right now be 2,7 USD or whatever. The result would not be a sustained rise in DEC IMO; people would sell their SPS to capture this arbitrage in the short term and then the scarcity rule for RW cards would be destroyed. As for the price for RW, I do not think it is unreasonable with a higher price tag than CL.

Furthermore, I do not understand why there should be a need for this discount talk already after only a few weeks of sales? This is supposed to be something sold over a period of time, no?

Another thing. If DEC is under the soft peg of 1000 DEC = 1 USD envisioned by the company it is because the market determines the price to be so. The reasons for that could also be a reaction to the current reward structure, as well as the overhanging amount of CL packs. There are a boatload of cards being minted daily as rewards, many millions of CL packs yet to be sold (thereby increasing the "collateral" part of the DEC universe) and so on.

Slightly off-topic here, but of importance. I think that the change to the rewards from the old system to the Ranked Rewards structure was 100% awesome, without hesitation. However, this has probably led to unintended consequences with regards to the distribution of cards/potions/SPS as rewards that has further lowered the value of the tokens. This might be partially corrected by the other SPS.DAO proposal on vote (card level discussion), but I think the increase in payouts has been massive, especially for Bronze and to a certain extent Silver.

So TLDR; Fix the underlying issues with the current dilution of DEC instead of trying to intervene here and there.

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It's embarrassing and damaging to the Splinterlands community that this even a proposal.

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lmao, devalue all riftwatcher cards for dec at 1$.

With land dec should become 1$ or land failed.

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This is what we need, not rewards but creating a use case for the reward

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Hard pass on this proposal. Burn the millions of overminted chaos legions packs!

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(Edited)

I think the problem many have with SPS is that any of your rewards end up in your staked holdings and so you have to wait a month to basically extract 100% (of say the 3.59 SPS you earned today). I had SPS saved up, but for new players SPS was already hard to come by I'm getting maybe 3 SPS per day from my staked and then anything else I earn, whether land/towerdefense packs, rewards and season chests is un-usable cause it's all locked up. It'll be months before I have enough reward SPS to buy more packs. I think it'll just take time for people to buy the packs, why the rush?

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I think that in the long run, it will not help to stabilize DEC to the peg price. IMO the main problem is that for a long time DEC was infinitely printed and now it is printed through LPs. Amount of DEC in circulation is so big, that I believe listing RW packs in DEC will pull up DEC price only temporarily. To stabilize DEC you have to:

  1. Stop printing it
  2. Introduce DEC sinks and use cases (which I believe you plan to do)
  3. Be patient, because decreasing amount of DEC in circulation is rather marathon than a sprint.

Cheers!

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