Discussion: RSR emissions approach for the second half of the token supply

[nevin.freeman]

The question to settle is: How should the remaining ≈50% of RSR be released and utilized?

Basic background facts:

• Confusion Capital currently administers the Slow Wallet and Slower Wallet
• You can see those here – they are the top two holders, totaling ≈50b RSR as of now, about 50% of total supply
• While Confusion Capital does have some contractual commitments for a small portion of that RSR, it’s for a minority and these can be ignored for the sake of this overall planning exercise

If you haven’t already, please read the blog post in full, as it sets the context for this discussion.

To start, let’s consider the entire spectrum of options for how the remaining ≈50b RSR could be released and allocated, from most restrictive to least restrictive:

If supply is emitted, we can consider the spectrum of how it could be allocated, from most decentralized to most centralized:

We essentially need to choose where on each of these spectra is most likely to lead to long-term success of the Reserve project.

As you saw in the blog post, I already have some views about where on each spectrum we should be, but the point of starting this discussion is to get many more opinions and ideas out there before we commit to any one direction.

There are many viewpoints among those that are part of Confusion Capital, ABC Labs, and Best Friend Finance. We are just beginning to discuss this topic and have not reached any agreements or predetermined conclusions behind closed doors.

This thread is the start of a discussion that will likely last months, as there is a lot to consider and many perspectives to incorporate.

Note that not all stakeholders will have the same incentives in answering this question. Long-term success of the project is the objective I try to hold in mind (even where that may imperfectly align with my own incentives) and it’s the only end goal that should be considered legitimate in defending any proposal. However, this doesn’t mean we should ignore other incentives like short-term RSR speculator’s interest in making money – those also feed into the long-term goal, since if everyone with that motive decided to sell RSR it would be really damaging to the project. So we must consider what’s desirable to all involved parties, even if they don’t care much about the Reserve project succeeding.

This is a good thread for:

1. Sharing your current take on which point on each of these two spectra would be best and explaining why you see it that way
2. Asking questions about background information that needs to be surfaced for the conversation to move forward
3. Raising sub-questions we need to answer in order to figure out the best plan

[Mallo]

Hi there, I’ll just jump in with a few questions around metrics to understand what current use of RSR is and what it might be in the future for enhancing the protocol.

1. What uses is liquid RSR put to currently and at what volumes
2. What is the efficiency ratio of RSR spend to RToken uptake? I’m pretty sure this was mentioned in the Arbitrum submission
3. Are there any current uses of RSR which might stop in the near/medium term (i.e within 1-2 years)

Hopefully that will help in evaluating if an emissions contract at a certain level will cover future demand for liquid RSR - although I suspect with the future being fairly unknown a contract for all of it would be too restrictive.

I’ll have a think about what happens when we’re in a situation where there are multiple billions of RTokens - will we still need to unlock RSR at certain points there for example.

Anyway, that’ll set the ball rolling.

[RyanTreeFiddy]

I’m going to just type what’s in my head. Full of types and grammatical errors.

I have mixed feelings about this.

The biggest pushback I get from people who dig into the project are concerns about dumping and the locked-up RSR. Can I do the math and explain it away? Yes. Will this unlock really affect anything regarding price? No. Do other projects do the same thing? Yes. Does it look bad and feed into a negative narrative? Yes. The narrative matters more than the reality so it’s important to be mindful of it.

A primary reason Reserve caught my eye many moons ago was some of the big names backing the project. Why not go to them to raise capital if needed? Other companies grow and scale without the ability to create magic money.

If you have enough cash on hand and do have resources for further investment, I’m mixed on whether taking the PR hit for this is the right thing to do, especially repetitively.

So, without knowing anything about your internal finances, why not do a mixed approach by burning some and releasing some SLOWLY? My initial thought is to release only when certain price levels are reached. I haven’t really thought through it and I can’t really give a full opinion not knowing internal numbers but it’s my initial thought.

Also, why not take a portion of the yield you guys are getting from your different LP positions and a portion of the coming revenue from BFF and dedicate it to burns? Even if it’s a small amount, people are busy and don’t do math. But at least I could point to they are releasing AND burning. Maybe set aside 5% (or whatever) of all yield and BFF revenue towards burns? That could expose internal financials you may not want public so I get why that could be a problem but something like that would help form a narrative and in marketing it’s 80% ABOUT NARRATIVES, NOT REALITY.

EDIT: The irony that a project fighting inflation has a super inflationary governance token is hard to refute in public forums.

[Aslan]

If you have to unlock RSRs, it’s because you need them for something, that’s my understanding. Now the question you’re asking us, or rather the issue you’ve raised, is: How can we make everyone happy? That is to say, the investors can see the value of their bag increase, and on the other hand, the team can see the project move forward.

I imagine there’s no other solution than to unlock tokens if you need funds to continue financing certain things (if I’ve understood correctly, forgive me if I’m wrong). So if these funds are to be released, they might as well be released with a timeframe that allows the team to obtain sufficient funds and allows us to obtain an increasing price on the tokens over time.

I know that what the team is looking for in the first instance is an increase in investment in Rtokens, because that’s also the heart of the project. And it’s these ongoing inflows on the Rtokens that will fuel the interest of speculators (us), through the revenues generated (APY) on the protocol. So we’re bound to see a rise in token prices.

All this to say that we need to strike the right balance between releasing too suddenly, which would dilute investors, and releasing too slowly, which would be detrimental to the development of the project. I’m not giving a solution here because technically I don’t have the means. I’m just saying that, as a project supporter and investor, I’m prepared to accept the fact that the token price may rise a little more slowly for the good of the project, but it must continue to grow in spite of everything.

[nathan]

Hi all. Respectfully, the timing and verbiage of this post is a little surprising - glad to see a few folks around here raising eyebrows.

If I understand correctly, we’re trying to determine what to do with 50% of Reserve’s tokens. That’s a big conversation. I think a lot of folks appreciate the transparency but don’t know how to react to how casually the topic has been introduced?

There seems to be two high level questions that need addressing:

Why does Confusion Capital need more liquid RSR? - e.g. staking, contributor compensations, etc. please get into specifics…
How can we most appropriately get Confusion Capital more liquid RSR - e.g. purchasing from existing market, selling from frozen wallet, what are all options, considerations, second order effects.

It’s impossible to assist with generating the financial strategy without key information to understand the scope, urgency, timelines, suggested distribution percentages, rationales, etc. The blog post loosely lists a few items that liquid RSR would be used for, and then qualifies with >we reserve the right to use RSR for any purpose. That isn’t exactly confidence inducing, when in quick succession there’s the widest Overton window imaginable that shows one end of the spectrum at 1B/month withdrawal. IMO - damaging optics to be suggesting (even if not implementing) a 1B/month rate, when the explanation for why this withdrawal is happening is so loosely/casually introduced.

Focusing instead on supply dynamics with a clear linkage to price action and including sentences like “this doesn’t mean we should ignore other incentives like short-term RSR speculator’s interest in making money” is… shockingly tone-deaf to the current SEC climate. The blog instead of describing the problems that need to be addressed via liquid RSR, meanders into price comparisons with BTC.

Start with the issue/problem. Detail it with all the facts, data, numbers necessary, create a bucket of well-articulated suggestions, and then bring those suggestions to the community. While we all appreciate the transparency of including everyone on discussions here, the proposal seems underbaked. Sorry if this is a bit harsh, love and appreciate all the hard work being done to keep Reserve growing. Investors understand protocol changes will need to occur as market fit is refined. Clear communications are KEY, and my 2 cents is to onboard someone who can help strategize & communicate internally and externally if that hasn’t been done already. I fell in love with Reserve because it was one of the few projects solving a real world problem. Imo the north star is always solving problems and generating real world revenue from that. The stickiest investors will follow growth real world revenue, the flakiest investors will follow artificially high staking rates from dilution.

[beconcerned]

Hi - appreciate the thoughtful approach Nevin and team, longtime follower and RSR holder, busy non-crypto MD. Stumbled into the project thinking of RSR as a quick in and out ‘investment’ then fell in love with the vision and now actually understand RSR holding as a governing responsibility with probable long term societal and personal benefit. However it is clear RSR price in the short term is driven more by the quick in and out speculators. Key in all decisions will be striking some balance of outcomes between the RSR speculators and RSR Stakers/Governors. Tough to appease everyone so I think Clarity of releases is the key for people to come and go, stake and speculate, with full information (Nevin the Fed Chair, providing clear signals to the market, ah deep down evolutionarily maybe we all crave centralized leadership, ah! Joking!). My vote would be steady drip of slow wallet over the next 10 years to juice the Reseve Ecosystem growth and then, release of remaining slower wallet over the next 2-5 decades (as we all cruise into our golden years). Anyway, always happy to chat if someone from the project needs an outside perspective, no time for twitter scrolling, try my best to read everything in Discord. Keep up the super important work, stable currency is a human right, can’t wait to see how Reserve shapes the future globally. Quick separate question, why does it say on the website that RSR is not to be purchased by US residents, this foreboding statement has limited my financial contribution to the project. Be well! Seriously too much screen time is bad for your health (not to be taken as medical advice, no patient doctor relationship establishes through this anonymous post)

[BTCFan]

Agree with the vast majority stated here. IF the project has capital and enough run way; while currently still holding RSR; burn them. Value of currently held RSR will increase and perception of project should improve. It’s almost the same thing; burn RSR, held RSR increases… Release more RSR; price decreases; except the latter is worse for the community. Hard to say for sure without knowing overall financial situation but there is a sense of negative feedback looping here with adoption bringing price increases which brings dilution through release of new RSR, which decreases price and community.

[lycurguz]

Just sharing my “out-of-the-box” idea: create a DAO, let’s call it the Reserve DAO, and let the community directly participate in the ownership of the locked RSR and how it is spent.

Lycurguz (@0xLycurguz) on X

Will try to expound later when I have time.

[SloaneRanger]

This Reserve eco system will never be decentralised until this 50B is gone. In my opinion you have three choices.

1. Release the whole lot. Where that’s a slow release or all at one go.
2. Burn it all.
3. Release and burn.

The slow wallet is currently a storm cloud over those $RSR holders and stakers.

Reserve and you may not care about the value of $RSR but holders and stakers do.

Releasing 50B tokens or 50% of total supply and 100% of currently supply in circulation will massively decrease the value of $RSR.

To be truly decentralised you need to release the power that this remaining 50B holds.

If it’s just for marketing/protocol benefit etc doesn’t matter. Get investment from outside sources like other businesses do.

[Teeb]

Perhaps I’m simplifying this too much but I agree here with everyone that’s suggesting we burn the 50B completely. There is no other option here.

If the contractual obligations Reserve has are already catered for, then there is no actual use for the 50B tokens at all.

The goal of the project is to increase the value of $RSR. This fundamentally will add value to all areas of the ecosystem, whether it be RToken governance, backing, minting or Reserve, confusion capital, BFF funding and development. As others mentioned, if you’d like to raise capital in the future then future investors should buy into the market supply of RSR.
Of course, for projects like Ugly Cash, you might opt for cash, PE funding, however, this how I view the financial backing of the ecosystem to grow organically and with purpose.

There should not be a 50B cloud over the project at all. There is no fundamental need. Burn all of the 50B. The project teams should focus on increasing the value of RSR and get it well above $1. For example, as the RToken value grows to 1B, at a price of $1, only 1B RSR is needed to provide 100% collateral to all RTokens, I think you get what I’m putting down. In addition, with 50B tokens currently in supply, a MCAP of $50B is more than enough to organically grow the ecosystem with the correct foundations, focusing on the core of the whole project, combating inflation and protecting store of value for citizens globally.

Questions I would like the answer to:

1. How much RSR has been put aside for Reserve funding?
2. Out of the “founders”, how much RSR was given to them?
3. What is the $$ run rate required to fund Reserve, Confusion Capital, and BFF for the next 5 years?
4. What payments partnerships/investments (PayPal, Payments companies, TransferWise etc.) can be sought to buy into Reserve from the current 50B supply (Reminder: no other option than to Burn the 50B in the slower or slow wallets)
5. If founders have multi-million tokens (I’m sure they do) then show long term commitment to the project and sell or transfer them to the projects long term funding as opposed to tapping into the 50B in the slow/slower wallets.

In summary, the above will have a laser focus to ensure the sustained organic growth of not just the Reserve ecosystem but more importantly the value of the RSR token and its core value/important to the ecosystem itself.

Ps. I’m a long-term RSR holder and fell in love with the projects mission and more importantly management. I’d like the same management to continue listening to its investors and focusing on increasing value for them and of course the overall ecosystem, which is happening wonderfully. Keep up the good work team. Keen to see Ugly Cash explode, that is fundamental, to the Reserve payments/transfers ecosystem and real world utility.

[Slowpokie]

Here is somewhat an unconventional approach it Lowers the amount of RSR as well as gives the Team a way to access funds . Just thinking out of the box here just a different idea. What about increase the supply to a total of 62.5 billion, 12.5 goes into a slow or slower wallet Burn the rest of the 100 Billion . Then do a reverse split of something like 2.5 . We end up with 20 billion RSR in circulation right off the bat, then there is 5 billion for the team to use . Giving a total of 25 billion RSR This should raise the price as well as give the team adequate funds going forward for projects that help reserve do what it intends to do . Yes, this will make people upset because you are taking RSR away but this should allow people to buy at a reasonable price for a short time , then supply will help raise prices faster and stabilize RSR so that we can do what is intended to help others have the human right to have $1 equal $1 . Just a random thought and out of the box idea that probably can get torn apart real quickly! Remember we have to allow the team to have access to funds to further the Reserve eco system.

[SteveBruma]

In my humble opinion, I think the team should release a document explaining the liquid RSR needs moving forward so the stakeholders could properly vote on how to use the 50b RSR in question.

We can’t jump right into the burning ( although short term investors would love that ) without understanding the project’s requirements in terms of funding and development. As soon as the team puts out said document we could start a vote on how to use the locked up supply. The burning option of some of it seems like the best option as it would help/motivate the holders but never the whole 50B.

I have to say nonetheless that having an identity ( or 2 ) holding 50% of the supply might not be the best option as a crypto project seeking decentralization and may possibly make new investors stray away from the project.

[LeVic]

I’m going to try to structure my response to give a constructive opinion that is consistent with my expectations.

At this stage of the discussions, and until I’m proven wrong, I’m in favour of burning all the remaining tokens in the slow/slower wallet. In other words, all 49b.

Confusion Capital and affiliates would use the released RSRs for these purposes:
1- stake on RTokens (with fresh RSR from slow wallet)

• In my opinion, it’s counterproductive to use new RSRs to stake on RTokens. The aim is still to decentralise security and overcollateralisation. Whether individuals or professional entities, they have to make a financial effort to access part of the governance and security. (For example, it would make no sense to mint ETH “for free” in order to become a validator of the Ethereum chain, even less so if it comes directly from Vitalik).

• Enhancing the value of RSRs already on the market would mean less effort would be required in terms of staking in order to be over-collateralised.

→ This utility is unlikely to see the light of day

2- compensate contributors of various types to the Reserve project

• With all the DeFi positions that Reserve has taken in recent months, Confusion Capital certainly has a substantial stream of passive income and should use it to fund this kind of action.

3- buy other cryptoassets that grant voting powers which can be used to incentivize liquidity on RTokens

• Although this is a strategy that other protocols use, I strongly disagree with this practice. Freshly released governance tokens (free of charge) should not be used to “finance” shares.

4 - directly incentivize usage of RTokens

• Why not, but this could be done using RSRs already on the market.

5 - fund operations, security audits, and public grant

• Same as point 2.

---

How could Confusion Capital easily get away with burning the 49b?

1. Add fees on Register (10% for example)
2. Add value to UglyCash to increase the fees generated
3. Add value to Register to increase the fees generated

Let’s take a concrete example with figures and imagine a scenario:
Register introduces a 10% fee on all Rtokens and therefore captures 10% of the revenue generated in RSRs after the auction. These RSRs would be added to a specific wallet which would replace the slow(er) wallets.

Let’s take eUSD as a benchmark at different prices:

Today

Now, BestFriendFinance is promoting the adoption of UglyCash (and other future products…) :

Let’s dream a little… UglyCash captures a large part of the American continent:

SO : It’s clear that if we value the products of the Reserve ecosystem, the fees that can be generated can well cover the RSRs needed to carry out the actions that Confusion Capital requires. And we’re only talking about eUSD and UglyCash here.

---

Opening :

In these illustrations I’m only talking about the eUSD because it’s the one that could generate the most RSRs today.
But I’m not talking about the other Rtokens (current and future), the +600M of RSR staked by the team (for security and passive income), the indirect value that the token will receive when this story is closed (this is a major negative bias, which I’ve encountered many times in the French-speaking community), and other things that could add value to the ecosystem in the future…

Conclusion:

In my view, no further releases should be made. All RSRs must be burnt, as they will be useless even in the future.
Feeding a specific portfolio of fees (RSRs) will directly force the team to develop their product(s) further so that the TVL increases over time, in order to generate more fees and therefore finance the actions the team requires.

In any case, burn those tokens, wipe the slate clean, don’t dilute anyone, add fees (I don’t mind cutting passive staking revenue by 10% for this reason), get off your asses and make that TVL grow, get UglyCash adopted by 50M+ people and everything will be fine.

Your beloved french follower (LeVic)
If you want to discuss this : DMs opened → victeam on Discord

[nathan]

What is the goal of this project? Is it to provide “Stable currency, a human right”, or is it to “Farm like it’s 2199”? Based on the framing of the discussion, it looks like the project has evolved it’s mission to focus on the latter, correct me if I’m wrong.

Is Reserve self-sustaining via revenue generated by usage, or does it need to subsidize operations? If we need to subsidize, then by how much and what is the roadmap to get to a flywheel being a fully self-sustaining entity?

I agree with the questions stated above by Teeb, we’re missing key data on Reserve’s run rates. I agree with the observations made by LeVic too. But I don’t agree with a blanket burn of the funds. Trying to appease short term investors in the same breath of discussing how to deploy 50% of our tokens is a bit worrying to put it mildly.

If we envision returning to our all time highs or higher, we’re discussing what to do with potentially upwards of $5 billion.

The best thing to do might be to sit on our hands, keep the money out of circulation as our own personal “Reserve” with explicit and programmed contingencies/guardrails for why portions of those tokens would ever need to be moved.

I’m nowhere near smart enough to know how to create thee contingencies, but an outright burn seems short-sighted. I think it’s worth taking time here. The team might want to consult Reserve’s deep advisor network and examining case studies of other failed/successful crypto projects and bringing all ideas to the table.

We’re fixated on what to do with 50B when we might want to consider tranches or smaller scopes. What could we do with 1B or 200M? 200M RSR can more than fund a well-structured international developer grant program that imo would dollar for dollar yield a better return than burning the money outright. But, if we have the money already to do this, then there’s no need to dip into those funds. Generally always more in favor of using money to build real things than to dope prices.

In summary - I don’t think we should jump to burning anything without honest disclosure of funding rates and how they impact Reserve’s medium and long-term objectives.

[DollarQuestion]

My thoughts on this can be summed up as follows: The existence of the 50b provokes an automatic question from anyone who looks at the project… what will be done with it and when?

Uncertainty of potential subjective decisions made by centralized parties is simultaneously a deterrent and also the source of positive speculation if people feel positively about the entities making those decisions.

IMO arbitrarily burning anything is a bad look. It reeks of superficial pandering to speculators as a means to get attention.

To many people this situation appears to be viewed as a bandaid and they are debating how it should be ripped off - a negative framing essentially. But another way to frame it is: this is a pool of potential that can be directed in a productive way… an arsenal, so to speak.

Generally speaking, I think all messaging should be unapologetically framed that way. In aid of this, another component is the mechanisms for directing this arsenal. If, as suggested, the pacing of emissions is gradual and limited by delay periods and min/max bounds, then the sooner a pattern can be established, the sooner the negativity can become a non issue. The details are important, but this whole topic seems to be primarily an emotional one… at least as far as CT and community is concerned. To use a parenting analogy, more than the actuality of things, children are sensitive to volatility in expectations. If a range can be established in the expectations, then it will be much easier to focus all the energy on the actuality of things, which should be measurable growth strategies, RToken entrenchment and creativity.

[ette3]

I think better have movement in bear market
Now even doing any stuff will effected current price.

Last bull cycle also make the decision to effected price.

[ette3]

And buring all tokens is a nice idea to compare wtih release to lequid the price
It will let much more holder or inevstor get away from this project

Otherwise we can have vote for holder or node to decide what we gonna do with the 50b token
Btw do we still Have Sam Altman’s invest?

Seems long time we don’t have investors group’s information

[BTCFan]

Great points here. Can’t be decentralized holding half the RSR.

[buddj]

Every virtue is between two extremes. Burn the same amount that Confusion Capital withdraws. So if CC withdraws 1b RSR per month then also 1b RSR will be burned.

[Smeddy]

I think this is a classic case of under-thinking and over-thinking the situation.

Meanwhile you don’t want to make decisions that lock you in to rules for an ultra-long term, or will reflect badly in hindsight.

And yes, getting RSR into a decentralized state quickly is also key.

Why don’t you simply set up an 83m unlock to Confusion Capital a month, running indefinitely. That’s a billion RSR a year to use as you best see fit, and at a 2% (and dropping over time) inflation rate, no-one’s going to blink an eye. That’s 50 years until the total supply is out there.

Why don’t you also reserve the right to do occasional large unlocks, without needing explanation.

Why without explanation? Because, to take a future hypothetical, let’s say you reach a potential RToken growth strategy that you simply cannot talk about for regulatory reasons or NDA reasons.

For example, a billion RSR unlocked and given to a third party for governance might be super important to a specific RToken’s growth, but you can’t talk about it (yet).

In return, make a promise to do a “State of the Nation” or similar annually, where you can (once secrecy is not necessary) say: “That billion we unlocked 18 months ago was for Reason X about RToken Y”.

I’m not a fan of burning, it’s a waste of resources. I guess the only way I would see it as a good thing is if it was extremely slow: “8.3m RSR will be burned a month, aka a billion burned every 10 years, meaning in 500 years supply will be 50%”. Maybe there’s good in that economics-wise (a slightly deflationary protocol), but otherwise it’s not something I advocate.

Community DAOs etc? It’s making it all too complex to understand. There are good reasons to do it, but why not filter it through the above format: “Today, were unlocking 1bn to the Community DAO, let’s experiment with it. If it’s a success, maybe we can do it with 2bn in 2 years time”.

TLDR: Give Confusion Capital a monthly, relatively tiny and inconsequential buffer each month (83m, or 0.083% of total supply a month, or 1% a year - it’s not an eyebrow raising amount) to use as you see fit.

Do occasionally bigger amounts if necessary, even if you can’t explain why - but try to make that 0.083% go the distance as much as possible. Occasionally publicly audit how it has been used.

I guess another path is to simply unlock the lot - total supply is now out there - but then move it into a vault. But really that’s just shifting the narrative a little and doesn’t resolve anything.