I think the time has come for reflection on why we’re ending up in these situations. Rewards ending sooner than expected should not have been possible. This is a UX problem where users aren’t given enough information to make informed decisions. It boils down to a failure to manage expectations and a lack of information about supply, rewards and schedules. These flaws still exist and will continue to cause problems in the future.
Right now, on the website within pools and on the homepage, nobody knows how much rewards are left, what the rewards per pool are, when they’ll end. It’s bizarre to me why this information isn’t published within the pool UI itself. Most of us know rewards are not infinite, therefore APY is already massively misleading because it’s 100% not sustainable given that it’s primarily made up of VALUE rewards which will end within weeks. Yet none of that is communicated in the UI.
Naturally, users see APYs of zero unexpectedly, find out it’s not a bug and many take their liquidity elsewhere as you’d expect for higher rewards. For others it’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back and they dump VALUE while they have it after exiting pools.
If there’s one thing markets don’t like it’s uncertainty. We’re got lots of it. We create more each week. Over the past couple of months we’ve:
- Voted on vaults fees and now we’re voting on them again.
- Voted to open certain pools then had them closed without a vote.
- Voted for a minimum staking amount then voted to remove it.
- Voted for vUSD / vETH distribution amount then had it cancelled and told they’ll be used in a different way and emissions will be going to another vote.
We’ve already voted for a supply of 2.37m VALUE just 6 weeks ago, do we really want to put it to another vote and mint more? Seriously? Having just burned thousands of VALUE with BAL buybacks?
I understand that people can change their minds and things can change quickly but we’re just digging a big hole for ourselves here with continued flip-flopping on token fundamentals. The more of these decisions we make, the more mistrust we build. People will start to question (if they haven’t already) whether they can trust an investment in VALUE or VALUE products when things seem to change on a whim so quickly - whether it’s an overnight executive decision by devs or something put to a vote. Or a vote to cancel a previous vote.
I feel that we need stability and certainty more than anything. If that means sacrificing price short term, so be it. We have to look beyond current price and ask how we can build trust, stability, reputation… all of the things necessary to secure the project’s long term future. High APY due to increasing emissions will just kick the problem down the road and attract ‘investors’ who have no intention of holding VALUE long term (otherwise why would they have dumped it when exiting pool positions?). It will just continue to mask other problems.
If rewards are running low, we shouldn’t increase supply… we should just reduce rewards to a sustainable level and think in terms of what supply is left, not what the market price of VALUE is. If it means lowering rewards to .001 VALUE per block or lower, so be it I say.
