I love the proposal, the only thing i would change is to give more MNDE per mSOL than SOL Native staking, putting mSOL at higher APY than Native staking. Since mSOL has little more risk the APY should be higher, i would suggest 1 mSOL gets double MNDE rewards compare to 1 SOL Native Staking.
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Based on the existing pace of adding new protocols in directed staking (slow to none) and assuming the overall liquidity will stay the same (proposal does not offer any outlooks and rationale to assume otherwise), I think more details are needed:
- what does the large mSOL TVL mean in context of protocol being added? Is it 100? 1000? 10k?
- what will be the timeframe to add such protocol to monitoring when the above large TVL condition is met? 1 day? 1 week? 1 month?
Other questions:
- Will the distribution be claim or airdrop?
3 Likes
With the marinade native paying no fees presently it seems a bit odd to have them benefiting the same from emissions under this system.
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First, are we going to have enough time to discuss and vote before August 1st?
I think we should let time for this discussion to happen indeed, but we can technically start the monitoring on August 1st, no matter how the incentive model is designed, which I think could be fair too?
I also want to address your other points but will do so at the end.
Since mSOL has little more risk the APY should be higher, i would suggest 1 mSOL gets double MNDE rewards compare to 1 SOL Native Staking.
I don’t think this is fair because by taking on more risk with mSOL, you also can access DeFi and way higher yield than you could with Native. I think incentivizing one product over the other doesn’t give users the full freedom to choose the most adapted product to their risk-profile or their activities.
- what does the large mSOL TVL mean in context of protocol being added? Is it 100? 1000? 10k?
- what will be the timeframe to add such protocol to monitoring when the above large TVL condition is met? 1 day? 1 week? 1 month?
This is fair and I think that this proposal could include the necessity for Marinade to add a protocol that would have more than 10k mSOL in a reasonable delay (7-10 days), or that Marinade would provide a way for a protocol to do so themselves when reaching this cap.
The distribution is planned to be done through claiming your MNDE
Now to get back to Durden’s point, I think you bring up a lot of interesting ideas that could definitely improve the Marinade governance experience, nonetheless, I disagree on the fact that they would have to be included inside this proposal or right now.
・Extend the max lock period to 1 year
・Voting power is directly proportional to veMNDE balances
・veMNDE stays locked until you tell it to start unlocking
・While unlocking, locked MNDE is unlocked linearly and veMNDE balances decrease linearly
・Max (1 year) locked veMNDE can be converted into xMNDE (its tokenized version) and vice versa
・Create a constant product xMNDE-MNDE pool with a 1% fee
・Use a portion of the treasury’s MNDE to provide liquidity in the pool
I truly think that all of that would be very interesting and beneficial to MNDE governance, and could definitely be the path towards which we evolve, but all those changes could actually be applied later, once the incentive program is established.
As long as people receiving their 30d-locked MNDE can increase the lock time and multiply their governance power by doing so and aligning themselves long term, you achieve the same without having to give less APY to people that don’t align themselves long term.
This allows two things:
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All users are incentivized the same for using mSOL/Marinade Native, which is actually what you might want. We cannot expect all the users to be interested in governance, and there’s no real reason they should be getting “less” for not wanting to participate into governance. In your model, they could also lock for a year and sell the xMNDE version of it even more easily
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The people that actually take their MNDE and lock it for longer when/if possible will extract a lot more value from their MNDE, if you make the whole system revolve around how much veMNDE (and not MNDE) is owned.
And that makes it so that you get the most out of MNDE utility and value when you align yourself long term at a later time, and if you want the best staking yield, you sell the MNDE to people that do want to keep it and lock it for a while and participate.
I really think that making the APY you get for using mSOL/Native even more variable (which it already is, because of MNDE price moving) can complexify the system too much and make it harder to use in the end.
You’d already get an absurd amount of additional value by committing to a longer lockup and getting a multiplier on your veMNDE in my eyes, so I think it could be an interesting path to distribute the same amount of MNDE to everyone, but give the opportunity to users to lock it longer and commit, if they choose
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As long as people receiving their 30d-locked MNDE can increase the lock time and multiply their governance power by doing so and aligning themselves long term, you achieve the same without having to give less APY to people that don’t align themselves long term.
The difference is in the claiming part. My idea differentiates between those who will lock 30d and 1y at the point of claiming and gives less MNDE to the short-term locker, whereas in your model the locking comes after the claiming, so they end up getting the same amount of MNDE.
You think giving a smaller APY to people who aren’t long-term aligned is a bad thing, but in my view it’s a feature, and one that I think most MNDE holders would prefer. The main reason for differentiating between them is because the short-term lockers are participating merely to sell the MNDE.
We can do a simple thought experiment to demonstrate that in practice we are not indifferent between the two types of users. Suppose we have to give away 1M MNDE to one of two people. Person A will immediately sell the MNDE. Person B will immediately lock it and start participating in governance. Would we prefer to give the MNDE to A or B? It’s hard to imagine anyone saying A. The fact that B will lock the tokens tells us something about the type of user they likely are. But if we have a preference between A and B, and we are going to be giving tokens to both types of users through this campaign, it makes a lot of sense that we’d want to give more to B if we can tell them apart. And by giving them the choice, we in fact can!
All users are incentivized the same for using mSOL/Marinade Native, which is actually what you might want.
Actually, my model also incentivizes all users the same for using mSOL/Marinade Native. We’re not forcing a smaller APY on anyone; rather, my model provides more than 1 option. And everyone has the same options. So users aren’t incentivized differently.
We cannot expect all the users to be interested in governance, and there’s no real reason they should be getting “less” for not wanting to participate into governance.
It’s important to frame this as they themselves making the choice to receive less. Marinade is simply offering two options: less MNDE but available faster, or more MNDE but available slower. I agree not everyone can be expected to be interested in governance, but those who are are more valuable to Marinade, so we reward them accordingly. It’s similar to how protocols such as Tensor and Cypher reward their users with points according to the actions they take – some actions are more valuable to the protocol than others, and this indicates that those users are more valuable to the protocol, and thus the protocol wants to (and does) reward them more.
In your model, they could also lock for a year and sell the xMNDE version of it even more easily
Short-term lockers choosing to lock for the longer 1y just to immediately sell it as xMNDE is also not an issue. For one, xMNDE liquidity is not going to be super deep, certainly not as deep as MNDE liquidity. The pool will also have a high 1% fee. So the sell pressure on MNDE will be much smaller than if they straight up received MNDE. Further, the MNDE rewards will be locked. People can still sell xMNDE → MNDE → USDC, but the MNDE rewards are still locked even after being sold (converting your xMNDE to MNDE doesn’t mean any MNDE is unlocked). All this means 1. more MNDE will end up being locked, 2. smaller negative effect on MNDE price, and 3. those choosing to exit their xMNDE positions early (rather than waiting for it to unlock) will generate fees for Marinade.
The people that actually take their MNDE and lock it for longer when/if possible will extract a lot more value from their MNDE, if you make the whole system revolve around how much veMNDE (and not MNDE) is owned.
You’d already get an absurd amount of additional value by committing to a longer lockup and getting a multiplier on your veMNDE in my eyes
There’s no difference between my model and yours in how governance power is determined, namely by how much veMNDE you hold. The difference is that in my model users are rewarded for their choice of locking their MNDE rewards longer, whereas in your model they are not rewarded because the act of max-locking does not come with any reward relative to the short-locking (same amount of MNDE). In fact, in your model people are disincentivized from locking because locking decreases the value of your MNDE! MNDE always has the option to be freely converted to max-locked MNDE (xMNDE), but not vice versa. Therefore, xMNDE always trades at a discount to MNDE. So in practice this will lead to much less MNDE being locked, because people will be reticent to voluntarily devalue their MNDE. The equation changes when you are rewarded with less MNDE for choosing to not lock. More MNDE being locked matters because 1. it leads to greater participation in governance, and 2. it means less MNDE being sold → higher MNDE price → greater incentive to participate in mSOL/Native.
I really think that making the APY you get for using mSOL/Native even more variable (which it already is, because of MNDE price moving) can complexify the system too much and make it harder to use in the end.
If you choose which locking period you want, that won’t bring any additional variation to the rewards. I highly doubt anyone will be frequently flip flopping between the two lock periods. I think two options to choose from is pretty simple.
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Hello Durden and everyone,
We’ve been looking into your suggestions technically and unfortunately, we estimate that they would add a significant amount of work to what’s already been prepared, and this would prevent Marinade from launching incentives in the coming weeks, maybe months.
While I agree that all of your suggestions should be explored to improve Marinade’s governance setup, I have a feeling that Marinade needs to launch this incentive campaign sooner rather than later, given the ‘airdrop farming’ vibes all around.
I appreciate all the reasoning and arguments you laid down above and you got me convinced on some parts, but I have doubts that your model would be easy to put in place, and it would also add both the concepts of multiple lock time and xMNDE which might be a lot. I believe this incentive campaign can be structured in a really simple way, being mostly an additional benefit to using Marinade’s products, and governance can then be iterated upon and improved in parallel, but not through the incentive campaign directly.
What do you think?
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If the team thinks it will take too long to implement, I can’t argue with that!
Is that true even if the xMNDE part is skipped, and you just add a 1 year lock (which I think is already automatically supported by Realms) and provide 2 options to reward claimers (1 month or 1 year)? If it’s just those parts, seems like it doesn’t add much work and still retains the benefits of having 2 options that I explained earlier.
2 Likes
Hey @Cerba 
Also happy to see this proposal making its way through the governance process. Thank you for advancing it!
Just had one quick follow up question on the ratio of MNDE chosen per SOL (4:1). Was there any quantitative analysis done to support? If this number was chosen based on the desired excess yield (~1%), how confident can we be that this extra 1% APY will be enough to move the needle?
And on the flip side, could we possibly achieve the same effect with a ration of 2:1 rather than 4:1? Why or why not?
3 Likes
Also consider that the extra smart-contract risk of mSOL is balanced by its extra yield opportunities
3 Likes
This would still require to support a 1-year timelock for MNDE, but let us look into that.
Just had one quick follow up question on the ratio of MNDE chosen per SOL (4:1). Was there any quantitative analysis done to support? If this number was chosen based on the desired excess yield (~1%), how confident can we be that this extra 1% APY will be enough to move the needle?
And on the flip side, could we possibly achieve the same effect with a ration of 2:1 rather than 4:1? Why or why not?
Hey @dobby, this number was partially chosen to also fit with the Open door program and conserve this same ratio. The 1% extra APY could become more or less, depending on SOL and MNDE prices, so it wasn’t the main factor for the decision, but mostly to keep this “fair price” of 4 MNDE for 1 SOL in the TVL for a year, which is what is applied to the Open door program too.
Maybe a more precise number could be obtained through in-depth analysis, but I feel that 4 MNDE per SOL over a year is both an enticing incentive for users, and a fair price for Marinade to attract long-term users
2 Likes
Agree with @Durden here, the mechanism he described is more nuanced and detailed and in those details better advances Marinade’s cause, but it also can be implemented later.
@Cerba how about adding this as “future implementation” part in the proposal?, meaning that even if we launch now the simple version, users are aware that Marinade DAO could:
a) Implement a variable MNDE claim based on the amount of lock time, being 365 days max-lock → full rewards
b) Allow users to tokenize max-lock into xMNDE, so people not wanting max-lock have an exit
4 Likes
How would these rewards get distributed to mSOL holders? Is that going to be clear to those holders that they got MNDE for holding mSOL? Apart from the MNDE I have locked in (now) Realms, I’ve got the majority on Kamino.
Would it be clear to someone in that vault or the underlying Orca LP that they were being rewarded with MNDE for holding mSOL?
If you’re running a chain wide incentives program it’s got to have visibility to work, how are these rewards going to be visible to:
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mSOL holders who aren’t engaged with Marinade already
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non mSOL holders (who you want to convince to switch their holdings to mSOL
Sidenote:
I really like the idea of locking MNDE, it helps you select for the type of liquidity you want and deselect for the type you don’t, but totally agree with the arguments here around not trying to ship too much too soon. Slow and steady wins the race.
2 Likes
Hello everyone,
I’d like to suggest several changes to the proposal above so that it would align better with Marinade’s growth objectives. Here are the suggested changes to the original proposal:
- Reduce the campaign duration from one year to 3 months. The ratio would be kept intact, so staking 1 SOL for 3 months in either Native or mSOL would make you eligible for a reward of 1 MNDE.
- Use a budget of 80M MNDE for those 3 months, still capped by TVL growth (the full amount would only be distributed if 40M SOL joins the pool and stays for the full 3 months. We’d currently only distribute 7.1M MNDE over 3 months if there is no growth.)
- Introduce a new way to earn MNDE from this campaign, referrals.
- Refer people to Marinade Native. This option will allow anyone, from a regular user to Phantom or Solflare to become Marinade advocates and push its growth.
→ Referring someone would make you eligible for the same rewards as your referee, 1 MNDE per SOL over 3 months.
- Up to 40M MNDE would be distributed to mSOL/Native users, with a rate of 1 MNDE/SOL held in those products for 3 months. Up to 40M MNDE would be distributed to Marinade Native referrers.
- MNDE would be available to claim at the end of the 3 months campaign, and locked for 30 days. People will have 90 days to claim their MNDE before they are clawed back and sent back to the treasury.
- If Marinade TVL grows so much that 80M MNDE needs to be distributed at the end of 3 months, the distribution would be split proportionally among participants based on participation to not go above 80M.
The rationale and benefits of running such a campaign stay extremely similar to the original proposal, so I will mostly focus the rest of this post on the rationale behind the changes.
Rationale and expected positive impact of those changes
Marinade Native success and growth (as well as mSOL’s, in a way) greatly depends on deep integrations, as well as large stakers moving to Marinade. Getting mSOL or Marinade Native directly into wallet’s UI, or as an option offered by custodians to their clients can be a hard task if those entities are not incentivized at all.
Being able to reward the people or protocol bringing stake to Marinade Native should play a huge role in aligning everyone behind Marinade’s success. This is why expanding the incentive campaign to include some MNDE distribution toward referrers and potential integrators is something we should consider.
Moreover, this incentive campaign has the potential to be a powerful growth flywheel, as everyone already benefits from more people joining, without getting diluted, due to its design.
Adding a direct incentive for people to talk about Marinade Native, refer their friends or audience, and get people to use it will reinforce this virtuous circle where everyone (existing users, new users, validators, the network, and Marinade) wins as more stake joins Marinade.
Shortening the campaign to 3 months will allow us to concentrate the focus and the activity on a smaller timeframe, as well as having a shorter feedback loop.
For example, the open door program was designed and voted to last for a year. Even if it didn’t bring the results we hoped for, it’s currently impossible to revamp it or modify it significantly, as its terms are already agreed upon, on chain.
Running this campaign for 3 months will allow us to quickly see if this strategy is effective or not. It also opens the way to repeat it, cancel it or completely change it, based on the data obtained through the first iteration, instead of having to commit to a full year.
Overall, those changes allow a better alignment with integrators, which will be key to Marinade’s success in the long run, while conserving all the benefits that will allow large holders to move to Marinade and invite their friends to do the same. I believe those changes are needed for the incentive campaign to stand out and unlock growth for Marinade.
Any other considerations?
- Due to the liquid nature of mSOL, creating a perfect and impossible to game referral system for mSOL before launching this campaign is not something that can be done. For this reason, earning MNDE by referring people will only be available if the referee is using Marinade Native.
2 Likes
Sounds good. I hope longer lock periods will be added during the 3 months so that the choice of lock period can be given for the next incentive period 
2 Likes
sounds good, when is the vote scheduled?
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Only newly staked SOLs will be counted for the incentive ?
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Hello, no all SOL in either mSOL or Marinade Native would be accounted for 
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Hello everyone,
This updated proposal will now be put on chain for a vote. Please note that there will be a delay between the vote results and when the incentive campaign actually begins.
Here are the final terms summed up:
- For every SOL held over the full duration of the campaign (3 months) in either mSOL or Marinade Native, a user would receive 1 MNDE.
- For every SOL in Marinade Native deposited by a user that has been referred to Marinade and held for the full duration, the referrer will accumulate 1 MNDE.
- All SOL in Marinade Native would be accounted for.
- For mSOL, only mSOL detected by Marinade’s monitoring snapshot tool (for directed stake) would be accounted for. Marinade would nonetheless expand the list of protocols supported and do its best to allow new protocols hosting a large mSOL TVL to be added.
- The MNDE would be distributed in a locked form (veMNDE), with a 30-day unlock period, that can be claimed at the end of the campaign. Users will also have 90 days to claim their MNDE before they are clawed back and sent back to Marinade’s treasury.
- Up to 40M MNDE would be distributed to mSOL/Native users, with a rate of 1 MNDE/SOL held in those products for 3 months. Up to 40M MNDE would be distributed to Marinade Native referrers.
- If Marinade TVL grows so much that 80M MNDE needs to be distributed at the end of 3 months, the distribution would be split proportionally among participants based on participation to not go above 80M.
3 Likes
Broadly supportive of this. Would love to know more about some aspects around it.
Marketing
- will Marniade be working with large liquidity players like Raydium, Orca, Kamino, etc… to get their mSOL offerings showing something in the UI on each of the relevant vaults about the MNDE campaign?
- will this campaign be featured in any defi news outlets?
Claiming MNDE
“The MNDE would be distributed in a locked form (veMNDE), with a 30-day unlock period, that can be claimed at the end of the campaign. Users will also have 90 days to claim their MNDE before they are clawed back and sent back to Marinade’s treasury.”
Where is this claimed from?
1 Like
Thanks, and good questions!
Regarding Marketing, it’s a fair point that they should be pushing more mSOL deposits, both for the improved APY of mSOL and for the Open Door program.
We’ll hopefully make a lot of noise with this campaign, both by having a huge number of people incentivized by the referral program, and also by doing our best to get featured in DeFi outlets. Through the referral, a number of protocols or primitives could also gain by integrating mSOL (Squads, wallets, staking data websites, etc.)
It should be one of the missions of Marinade supporters and advocates (in addition to the contributors) to make sure this incentive program is known and used!
Claiming MNDE will probably be done on Marinade’s website, but nothing is determined at the moment.
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