One of the ideas Id like to explore is a spin on the liquid staking rewards program; lottery entries for a big MNDE prize
The current rewards program is about to go get cut in half and will likely lead to a few people switching staking providers. My idea is to “change the math” and make it more exciting to participate in staking with Marinade by giving a massive incentive to fewer people and tapping into the gambler in most of us
The goal of this lottery is primarily to increase Sol staked – this would not be aimed at accomplishing 1) more governance participation or 2) more contribution in marketing
Average growth case has 11million MNDE going out in March for “Earn 2” with an average of 12m SOL staked
We should aim to have a campaign that can get an additional 8million in SOL staked at a cost of less than 14million MNDE
How can we accomplish this:
Set aside 1million MNDE for a new lottery incentive. This is an additional bonus that stakers are eligible to win through lottery. The lottery is “Winner Takes All” – bigger prizes attract more attention.
That 1million would be locked and vesting in governance over the course of 5 years or could be received immediately at a discounted lump sum just like a lottery
Other flavors to explore
The lottery can increase as SOL staked is increasing. This would be good if we have evidence that the lottery is attracting new users
Stakers could swap their guaranteed MNDE from liquidity rewards with more lottery entries
Lottery drawing could have no winners (ie there are 100 million combinations and issue 1 raffle per staked SOL – ie 20 million SOL is 20 million tickets and no one draws the winning number). This direction makes the end date uncertain but could allow for multiple drawings (refill the lottery based on success)
Native staking and Liquid staking get the same entry amount (1 ticket per SOL staked per month)
First drawing would be after X amount of tickets are given or a specific date (end of earn 2)
I would be very excited to announce such a big prize and think this can be a viral campaign!
I think this could work well if less than half of the emissions go to a lottery and the lottery has a mechanism that’s +EV for Marinade, such as the suggested ability to use your MNDE rewards to purchase more tickets for the lottery. I think the wide distribution that the current emissions provide is important, so I wouldn’t want everything to go to a lottery. And if the lottery’s mechanism means it reduces the total amount of MNDE emitted depending on the users’ choice (just have to choose the ticket purchase price accordingly), it’s a net win for Marinade. Could also partner with memecoins, enabling tickets to be purchased with them if they add a certain amount of their own tokens to the lottery prize, for example.
This is an excellent idea. Only improvement i can think of is that instead of a winner takes all system, doing a Raffle and then 10/25 draws walking away with a prize is better. Psychologically gives the impression that one can win.
Another idea that I think could click would be to have a staking yield lottery and not an MNDE one. This is how it could potentially flow:
Give user the option to become part of the lottery; essentially just the acknowledgement that they are participating in a game & may have variable returns.
Users stake X amount of SOL. Can set a balanced qaulification threshold with a cap and floor so that airdrop hunters & whales are duscouraged
75% of the staking yield is distributed / claimable in line with the norm
The next 15% is distributed / claimable by those in accordance with their MNDE holding (more to those who hold more MNDE vs less). Again have a balanced criteria with a cap & floor
The last 10% of the staking yield is raffled to say 25 people. The barrier to this could be lower and give a fairer shot to all accounts.
I actually googled this up haha and it turns out the psychology works more for the “WTA” (Winner Takes All) approach. This might be counterintuitive and that was my understanding of the excerpts I had read. Would love more materials to share on this