[RFC] RSR Health: Request For Comments

Been closely following the Reserve team since ‘20 and have always been impressed by Nevin, Gabo & co, truly. Now, I’m not an expert in this arena but what I can say for sure is that there’s nothing great/cool/valuable/interesting about a 100B supply in today’s world in a world is that we want limited, not unlimited. What brings attention to the most valuable assets in the world? The limited aspect, no? Of course you have to back that limited aspect up with fundamentals or value/narrative.

-Coach Bombay

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This discussion is really healthy and I am really interested in listening to the Team addressing this. It’s a major concern from part of the community and human beings will focus more on FUD than what Reserve is achieving. Look where we are. From the Main Net launch to where the ecosystem seats today. I am a supporter of the way emissions of RSR was set up. But on the other side I really think the adoption of RSR is very low. Only around 300 Wallets participate in the ecosystem. That’s extremely concerning.

How do we change that? It’s clear that there is no trust in the utility of RSR. Why locking and risking your token for a small APY?

I trust the Team and I don’t mind the increase of over 600M tokens per month. I know they are going to be put for good use. We already use RSR as an incentive for new users at Uglycash. What if Nevin or the Team want to use it to incentive a Big Player DTF launch?

Burning 30B tokens are not the way in my opinion but maybe it’s time to increase the communication about the destination and the intention of usage of those tokens.

I only see one way of changing people’s view of Reserve in the short term.

The TVL rapidly increasing with the launch of a DTF from a Big Player who will invest heavily in promoting it. As a RSR holder the only way I can promote RSR is to show my gains for participating in the ecosystem. Right now 4.5% is not it! But what about the right to vote? You can’t win against the big wallets and it happened to me voting on eUSD.

We need to increase the gains of RSR participants. And there is no better promotion for a project in crypto than climbing the ranks in MC. We need to consolidate our position as the one and only Crypto Index.

Let’s make RSR Great Again.

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I completely agree with everything you laid out. You nailed the problems and the reasoning behind them. The optics, the oversized supply, the concentration, and the lack of transparency — it’s all spot on.

It’s crazy how much “optical inflation” can hurt perception even when fundamentals are solid. And you’re right — if treasury decisions stay off-chain and the token’s role doesn’t clearly tie into value, it’s hard for anyone to take governance seriously.

I also really like the direction you suggested. The structure you described feels like exactly what’s needed to rebuild credibility and actually move RSR forward. Nothing about it feels reactionary — it’s logical, balanced, and realistic.

In short, I’m fully aligned with your take. Couldn’t agree more.

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Thanks for taking the time to formulate your thoughts on this. I have a couple of questions though:

  1. Fixed supply cap: I guess you mean replacing the fixed release schedule (not the fixed supply cap of 100B) with a flexible schedule governed by veRSR holders, correct? It could be misinterpreted as allowing token minting again, that’s why I am asking.

  2. veRSR and governance participation: One problem I see is that it still doesn’t necessarily solve the governance problem imho. You would still have the same entities locking their RSR to maximize their veRSR voting rights, so the distribution of voting power would largely stay the same one would assume. But we can agree that it would at least lock a significant portion of RSR for a predictable amount of time, which definitely has it’s benefits.

  3. How do we incentivize veRSR holders? A percentage of protocol revenue? We should not forget that RSR plays a significant role as backup collateral for yield DTFs and stablecoins as well as a governance token of index DTFs. We want to prevent a scenario where relatively risk free veRSR holding (as far as I understand the concept) is yielding higher rewards than staking RSR, which is treated as fallback collateral and therefore bears a higher risk. While the market will sort a lot of this out by itself, a rushed implementation could impose some risks here I guess.

Regarding the burn: I think we can all agree on at least one thing here: The protocol and its direction has changed quite a bit since its inception (when arbitrage was still a thing), so it makes sense to question whether a total supply of 100B is still justified. However, while simply burning 30B might sound attractive to a lot of holders, we also don’t want to create a pump and dump scenario here, leaving a lot of bag holders behind. Just to illustrate what 30B tokens are worth at current prices: $186M. That’s half of the current market cap of RSR. So while I am actually in favor of a burn, I do think it probably shouldn’t happen in one go, though. But I am happy to be convinced otherwise.

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in my opinion, a radical change like this to the project’s foundation would make people feel uneasy. The negative impacts are just stronger than any potential upside. I really think we’d be better off making a fundamental shift in the token release speed, rather than burning 30 billion tokens. This new approach shouldn’t only limit how many tokens are released, but also tie the amount to its real value. So, for example , each release could be a fixed percentage of the total market cap at the time, like 0.1% , Basically, I’m not in favor of the 30 billion token getting burned

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  1. If there’s more RSR locked in veRSR then the yield from DTFs is going up and increasing the amount of RSR flowing into DTFs. In the same time, as more RSR is put to use aka. locked there’s less RSR circulating and also increasing the price. This therefor makes the collateral RSR worth more. I believe this wouldn’t be a problem at all. The economics are selfincentivizing.
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Appreciate this, James. You’ve tackled the core issues directly. RSR’s monetary design doesn’t move with the protocol it represents. Supply and network growth live on different timelines and that disconnect keeps value creation from compounding.

As mentioned in a previous post, modeling RSR’s emission schedule after Bitcoin’s makes little sense because the two systems operate under entirely different mechanics. Bitcoin’s emission is tied to an objective proof of work that validates real energy expenditure while RSR’s current emissions happen in isolation from its actual utility or contribution to network growth.

Before the current setup, supply management was basically guesswork. Emissions followed no clear logic, treasury decisions were opaque and incentives were detached from measurable results. It led to weak coordination, distorted metrics and a token that drifted away from its purpose IMO. The current model is a step forward compared to that mess but it’s still worth questioning how durable it is long-term and whether it truly creates a feedback loop between RSR’s utility and protocol performance.

It could also be said that the current model does little to encourage an active or participatory community. In practice it rewards passivity among RSR holders. While comms promote a decentralized and participatory ethos, control remains concentrated in a small set of entities that can balance governance as they wish and hold large amounts of idle treasury funds often deployed without clear visibility or any real accountability. Under such a structure, the implicit message becomes: “Let us handle it, we know how to manage the project better”. It’s no surprise then that the community culture shifts toward speculation with RSR perceived less as a utility asset and more as a vehicle for trading sentiment from their PoV (little impact on the protocol, Yield DTFs governance and so on).

Your proposal pushes things in the right direction. Onchain treasury visibility, veRSR-based emissions and a proper tail-emission curve would add structure where there’s only trust today. The question is how to make those tools reactive, not just cleaner.

The idea of burning around 30B RSR makes sense in spirit. It would clear up FDV optics and show a commitment to accountability. The problem is that a one-off burn solves optics but not behavior. Without a continuous mechanism linking supply to network health we’d risk returning to the same imbalance in the future. It would be stronger if burns happened gradually triggered by verifiable milestones that reflect real progress.

A KPI-gated approach could look like this:

  • burn tranches only if TVL-to-supply ratio stays above 0.25 for at least 60 days

  • or if active veRSR participation remains above 25%

  • or wathever

That keeps the burn but anchors it in data. Each reduction becomes a confirmation of progress.

From there, several pieces could reinforce the structure you’re proposing:

  • veRSR weighting based on both lock duration and verified activity such as deployments, liquidity, governance participation or research contributions

  • a performance-based escrow for company-held RSR that releases automatically as KPIs improve and freezes if they drop

  • a public on-chain balance sheet showing total burned, emissions, grant use and return on emission over time

These changes would make the system harder to drift, easier to audit and more credible for builders and allocators.

The 30B burn could still play a central role if it becomes part of a long-term accountability framework instead of a single event. What matters is not burning for show but burning as proof that the protocol has grown strong enough to dismiss unnecessary supply.

Open to hearing how others interpret this and whether tying burns to verifiable metrics would strengthen the model you’ve laid out. One thing is clear though. The current framework was a step forward but it’s showing a certain rigidity and has unintentionally fostered a culture of disengagement around RSR. It’s healthy to stay open to new ideas if the long-term goal is to make RSR a token that contributes real utility to the protocol’s overall health rather than drifting into irrelevance/mere founding tool.

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I understand that Nevin’s primary concern regarding burning treasury is that the project might need these tokens in the future to fund growth. I have written a short argument as to why we can burn most of the treasury and still be able to fund future growth. I work primarily with stocks, so this is what I used below to make the argument, but the principle still applies to RSR.

Please note that I used ChatGPT to organize my thoughts and improve on the references that I originally selected to frame my logic, but this work is mine.

Please read through it and let me know your thoughts:

The Economics of Shareholder Value: Resolving Treasury-Share Overhang

When management retains an outsized number of treasury shares under the rationale of “future growth,” the market discounts that position. Investors implicitly price in the latent supply, treating those shares as deferred dilution. The result is a persistent valuation overhang: the stock trades at a structural discount not because of fundamentals, but because of uncommitted optionality in management’s hands—a dynamic consistent with the documented issuance overhang effect in which expected equity supply depresses valuations (Pontiff & Woodgate 2008; Asquith & Mullins 1986).

A substantial burn of those treasury shares—canceling most while retaining a residual amount—would be economically accretive on multiple dimensions. The immediate arithmetic effect is an increase in per-share value through contraction of potential supply. More importantly, the burn removes the perceived threat of dilution, eliminates uncertainty around capital deployment, and forces the market to re-underwrite the equity on operating performance rather than speculative issuance risk (Grullon & Michaely 2004).

This action delivers three distinct payoffs.

First, existing shareholders realize an instant uplift in intrinsic value per share. The marginal investor no longer discounts the stock for potential issuance; the bid-ask equilibrium re-centers around the current float. The re-rating is not merely mechanical—it reflects a lower implied cost of equity (Wang 2023; Grullon & Michaely 2004) and higher confidence in governance discipline. Empirical work shows that repurchase announcements typically generate abnormal positive returns (Ikenberry, Lakonishok & Vermaelen 1995) and subsequent long-run outperformance, indicating persistent underreaction to supply contraction.

Second, the company’s remaining treasury shares—though fewer—become more valuable in option-like terms. Because the overhang has been neutralized, the surviving treasury position functions as a high-convexity call on future growth. The total notional value of treasury holdings may fall in absolute terms, but their marginal value relative to realized growth potential increases sharply. The firm effectively converts dormant optionality into leveraged exposure to future value creation.

Third, the signaling effect rebalances expectations. Markets that previously doubted the growth narrative now face a self-contained equilibrium: either growth does not materialize—in which case the equity structure is right-sized—or growth does materialize, in which case the residual treasury shares appreciate alongside the public float. Repurchases and retirements serve as credible signals of managerial confidence (Bagwell & Shoven 1991; Lin et al. 2014), further compressing the equity risk premium.

Case 1: No Growth.

Absent growth, the burn rationalizes the capital structure. The float aligns with steady-state earnings power, and the deadweight optionality previously embedded in treasury stock is eliminated. Liquidity remains intact (Brockman, Howe & Mortal 2008), and supply-demand for the equity find equilibrium without the persistent threat of issuance.

Case 2: Material Growth.

If management’s thesis proves correct, the burn amplifies equity convexity. The market re-prices the stock upward as deferred skepticism evaporates. The remaining treasury shares, representing a smaller fraction of total capital, expand in absolute value and can later be deployed at higher valuation multiples—effectively preserving financing capacity without depressing current valuation.

Across the continuum between these cases, the same economic principle holds: eliminating most of the overhang converts trapped equity into realized value and transforms managerial credibility into a tangible capital-structure advantage. For sophisticated investors, this maneuver is not financial cosmetics but a rational optimization of expected shareholder value—pricing uncertainty out of the stock while preserving upside optionality if growth is ultimately proven.

I have chosen to tap into the economics of stocks rather than crypto because of the wealth of studies that have been conducted on the stock market, the longer history of market performance, and given that this is my own expertise. I submit that the logic is exactly the same.

In conclusion, I support the proposal submitted above.


References

  • Asquith, P., & Mullins, D. W. (1986). Equity Issues and Offering Dilution. Journal of Financial Economics.Elsevier link

  • Bagwell, L. S., & Shoven, J. B. (1991). Share Repurchase and Takeover Deterrence. RAND Journal of Economics. Columbia GSB PDF

  • Brockman, P., Howe, J. S., & Mortal, S. (2008). Stock Market Liquidity and the Decision to Repurchase. Journal of Corporate Finance. ScienceDirect link

  • Grullon, G., & Michaely, R. (2004). The Information Content of Share Repurchase Programs. Journal of Finance.JSTOR link

  • Ikenberry, D., Lakonishok, J., & Vermaelen, T. (1995). *Market Underreaction to Open Market Share Repurchases.*Journal of Financial Economics. NBER version

  • Lin, J.-C., et al. (2014). Limited Attention, Share Repurchases, and Takeover Risk. Journal of Banking & Finance.ScienceDirect link

  • Pontiff, J., & Woodgate, A. (2008). Share Issuance and Cross-Sectional Returns. Journal of Finance. JSTOR link

  • Wang, C. (2023). Share Repurchases and the Cost of Capital. Finance Research Letters. PubMed Central link

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Been saying this since day 1. Seems like Reserve don’t truly understand this at all.

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The plan laid out here seems to me a good halfway point between an instant burn and no burn at all through tying it to verifiable metrics that hold both Reserve and individual RSR holders accountable. I agree with the overall viewpoints expressed in the initial post and replies that 1) treasury operations have been opaque and communication has been lacking; 2) based on how the protocol functions today, the RSR supply overhang is much too large and that, fairly or unfairly, the market sees that as a weakness; 3) governance is weak due to outsized influence of centralized wallets and potential punishment in terms of locked RSR being seized during rebalances.

Raphael also brings a good point in terms of the necessity of bringing the right people into project governance and having them in the right roles based on what they hope to acheive out of the project. We definitely have some good ‘Eagles’ now, but I feel like I have seen other contributors lessen their role as their contributions were not as well rewarded. All contributors, despite their love for the project, have lives outside of this space and if they are not made to feel included or are rewarded in some small way, then they will cut ties and deprioritize that which does not bring value to them.

I think what PostArum has posted above is in essence a social contract between the RSR holder and Reserve. The excess token burn will happen, but behavior must be adjusted to form a stronger community. We cannot expect Reseve to provide all of the benefits for free yet Reserve cannot expect us to provide free and clear participation just based on love of the project. A good way to bind the contract for both parties is to tie it to verifiable goals like the KPIs mentioned above. Acheive a certain governance participation rate, unlock tokens to burn, etc. Both parties win long term and acheive the shared goal of a stronger and more vibrant community.

I do feel though that the first steps have to be taken by Reserve as a sign of good faith, mainly around the centralized wallets and the way voting takes place. We have several ‘Eagles’ who have created voting DAOs but remain outgunned on all proposals which brings disillusionment. A veToken system with fee rewards and other incentives sounds like a great driver for participation. Having quarterly election votes on Snapshot for a limited number of community DAOs driven by our most engaged community contributors would also help.

On a final note. Based on my interaction with the team at Monetarium, there are a lot of smart people working behind the scenes to drive the ecosystem to great heights and I have faith in the long term goals of the project. I believe the proposals and ideas suggested by all of those who have participated on this post thus far can drive Reserve to even greater heights and truly enshrine the spirit of decentralization.

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This is a welcome proposal and I plan to have a more complete response once I mull over the details.

That said, I do have a few immediate reactions:

  • All else aside, there is probably broad consensus on the importance of automating emissions and improving transparency surrounding RSR use. Developers should prioritize a decentralized (automated) emissions method, whatever its structure may be. Any recipients (or perhaps just major recipients?) should document their usage of the emissions
  • We need to seriously consider (model) our expense expectations and budget, and perhaps emit RSR accordingly.
  • Still, I don’t really see any appeal to the infinite/undefined emissions approach advocated here, pre-burning or not. The idea seems to be that unspecified emissions prevent the use of non-representative FDV values for asset valuation. Even if naive valuation approaches like this are commonplace, I don’t think its valuable to make FDV more ambiguous to avoid that column looking bad.

Finally, I think we need to do some much more serious modelling of all these factors. For example, RSR’s TVL/MCAP ratio is actually the best of all those included in the screenshot. We also need to consider which factors are RSR specific vs. market-wide. For example, it is well known that alts have underperformed compared to BTC over the last couple year. This is probably attributable to ETF flows or the “deflation trade,” and we should be careful to differentiate between RSR-specific problems and market-wide under-investment for alts.

These are my personal stream-of-thought opinions and not those of anyone else.

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As a sort of aside, there are more mathematically “principled” way to address the tokenomics concerned here.

The idea here is essentially to reduce current inflation (burn current tokens) but extend long tail inflation potentially infinitely (exponential deflation).

A more nuance approach to similar goals is just to adjust the exponent: maybe we prefer a gentler curve where there are fewer emissions now, but they extend very far into the distant future.

So, most reasonably, we need to either:
a) Find the “right” exponent.
b) Allow for the inflation slope to adjust algorithmically, with some guarantees of ultimate supply

I basically think either or fine depending on the data.
a) If there turn out to be some failproof constants, must use thpse
b) Requires a more detailed examining, but “slope votes” should be principled based on expected returns

My 2 cents

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I see this proposed RSR change as a bold and necessary move, but it definitely comes with some risks. To me, this update addresses the exact issues that have been holding the project back. Too much centralization, lack of transparency, and not enough real community involvement in governance. If it’s executed well, it could be a real turning point. The good part is that it brings clearer on-chain transparency through veRSR governance and public treasury data. That can rebuild trust and attract new investors and builders. The planned burn of around 30 billion unused tokens also makes sense, it reduces supply and improves the token’s credibility. I also like that the community will finally get more actual influence. When people have a stake and a voice, they engage differently. The timing seems solid too, since the market might be heading into a new upward cycle, which could support this shift. Still, there are risks. Implementing veRSR and a new governance model is a complex process. If communication or execution slips, trust could weaken before results show up. Decentralizing decision-making can also slow things down if the community governance isn’t well organized. In the short term, the price could be volatile, since the burn and restructuring will attract speculation. RSR also needs to prove it has real utility and demand. A good token model alone won’t matter if the number and activity of DTF projects don’t grow. Overall, I see this as RSR’s most important move in a long time. If it’s done openly and intelligently, it could restore confidence and make the project credible again. But if the change ends up being surface-level and the community doesn’t get real power, the same issues will remain.

In my opinion, RSR needs this change to survive long-term. This isn’t just an update, it’s more like a restart. Whether it becomes a true turning point or the last attempt depends entirely on how well it’s executed and how genuinely the team commits to decentralization.

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Hi there,

I’ve also let Claude.ai tidy up my thoughts a bit, and I don’t have the financial chops to go into the metrics of how a burn can be considered net good/bad, but I’ve jotted down my thoughts.

This is a very in-depth and thoughtful proposal, which I applaud.

On Treasury Transparency

I broadly agree on the treasury concerns. I know Confusion Capital is trying to build an ecosystem, but much of that doesn’t directly benefit RSR. Treasury spending and planning should be more transparent and open.

I’ve seen lacklustre governance involvement, largely because the team can outvote any proposal with such volume that it becomes fruitless to try changing anything that doesn’t align with the team’s requirements. I understand the team needs to allocate votes and resources in their best interests, but this process could be much more open.

On the BTC Emission Pattern

I didn’t agree with the BTC emission pattern when it was implemented, and still don’t. Yes, it’s recognizable, but RSR and BTC have little in common to justify that rate. Energy costs and verification make each BTC valuable—it costs a lot to produce one. RSR, on the other hand, is emitted basically to fund the treasury—these are not the same things.

Treasury allocation based on a concrete plan with enough flexibility for bear scenarios and a fixed amount (as the proposal suggests) is more than adequate. 20Bn RSR at the current rate of $0.006 is $120M—that’s $3.3M per month for the next 3 years. If this can’t cover scheduled spending, the plan could be to vote for additional treasury allocation as needed, or simply allocate more upfront.

On the Proposed Burn

I think the proposal to burn 30Bn RSR is fair. It’s currently unused and being emitted quickly. If the aim is to add value to RSR, the token price should reflect real-world protocol earnings—I prefer that method to incentivize the team rather than guaranteeing income for the next 10 years.

I’d be happy to see productive spending on ecosystem growth instead of burning 30Bn, but if it can’t be objectively spent to better the project’s value in the near term, I agree it’s become a white elephant.

On Community Engagement

I’m really enthused by the quality of the replies to this proposal—to me, this is an indicator that there are truly useful and engaged people in the community who are underutilized. Their skillsets should be leveraged more, whether through the Lodge or official channels. They can spread excellent information about Reserve.

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Well, it’s not actually burning the treasury. It’s burning the locked supply. The treasury already has 20 billion and it’s more than enough to make fast-acting decisions when they are required.

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Pretty much this. I think reducing emissions now by a considerable amount and extending it over a longer time horizon would be the lowest hanging fruit. It could easily be implemented and automated but would still make RSR a deflationary asset in the foreseeable future. I gave a more detailed explanation of why I think it is needed in the (Cockroach) Lodge, so I’ll just copy it here:

It all boils down to this, imho: In the early stages of any project its success is by definition totally uncertain and people buying into it almost always see it as a purely speculative trade, with the intention to dump as soon as they’ve made enough money (which is fine, they took the risk of losing it all in the first place). But there comes a point where the actual implementation of the idea becomes tangible and we arrive at a working product, so now you slowly attract people with a long term mindset (still a low percentage though), asking: “Is this actually becoming a profitable business and can I participate in it by investing my capital?”. My current interpretation is this: We have not fully arrived at that second stage yet, the protocol’s success is still rather uncertain and we slowly see competitors creeping up. Yes, we have DTFs, yes we are a lot further than we were a year ago, but it is still very much a highly speculative trade to most, although many of us (the more idealistic bunch one might say) see its long term potential. So - quite naturally - unlocks at such an early stage make it a lot less attractive to the first group, while the second group is still rather small. So we either address the first group’s concerns more seriously, or we make the investment less speculative by proving the protocol’s ability to grow and generate enough revenue. I think we are at a very unthankful stage where we can’t prove it to most and it might take some time to gain that trust, so focusing a bit more on the “pumpamentals” might help the project overall.

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Been holding RSR for 5 years now, watching it grow bit by bit. Totally agree with James’ idea on the burn + veRSR model. Cause if LCAP is really the best we can do in 12 months, I just don’t see us getting on that adoption curve.

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There are a lot of replies here and a lot to digest. It seems we are trying to balance two kinds of needs, some mechanical and mathematical, others emotional and perceptual. As with most economic systems, sentiment and perception play a big role. If it were purely mathematical, we could set emissions and budgets and let incentives and growth align naturally. But with the current market conditions, fatigue, and speculation, perception itself has become an important factor.

While I have my own interests, they are not the main driver of my view. I have always understood the project’s scale, token distribution, and overall structure as necessary for long-term success. The transition from centralized control to distributed participation takes time, likely years or decades. It takes sustained energy and coordination to move from a focused central entity to a decentralized network. I do not think that shift has fully happened yet, so a sudden change in power dynamics might be premature. Maybe this discussion is a key step in that direction.

That said, if sentiment has become a negative force, shrinking potential rather than supporting growth, then a policy change could help. A clear, hardcoded policy would remove uncertainty and eliminate the need for trust in that area. Beyond that, the most valuable next step might be a more detailed plan for how treasury tokens could be used.

For example, allocating RSR to partners as incentives for governance participation in institutional DTFs would add real value. If a large financial player like Franklin Templeton were brought in to create an index and part of that deal included RSR for governance, that would be a clear win and a positive sum outcome.

I understand the need for privacy in business development, since sharing too much could undermine strategy. But the current sentiment suggests some attention is needed. A published breakdown of token use, with amounts, scenarios, and priorities, could help. Something that explains how much is allocated for liquidity, user growth, partnerships, and other key areas. A meaningful public report could improve sentiment and act as a signal to collaborators and institutions.

Combined with a hardcoded plan, that transparency could help shift perception in a healthy way. I fear that a short term giant burn could cause a temporary spike in “euphoria” followed by exits and then a void of a galvanized decentralized movement. Having said that, some measured action of that nature that shows ability adjust and respond to negative trends could have a healthy impact on sentiment, maybe even prices, which in turn would be a positive fuel for awareness and growth.

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@nevin.freeman Are the two unlock discussions from Monetarium 1 available to publish? The community would benefit from hearing what was said in those meetings. I’m not sure why they were never released.

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Thank you, agreeing with the proposal.

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