I was posting this as a reply to the ongoing “How to use the Slow Wallet” thread, but realized it could quickly derail the thread.
So here it is in its own spot.
I do sometimes think about how airdrops could work in a Reserve world.
I’ve come to think of it as a dirty word, from the land of ponzinomics and memes.
But there are ways they could work in a Reserve-aligned way.
To @lycurguz’s point in the other thread, let’s say 2bn was allocated to an airdrop. You could do it so that anyone who stakes RSR on RTokens on Base for 12 months minus 6 weeks would get their proportion of the 2bn RSR airdrop.
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Why Base? Minimal gas expense at airdrop time.
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Why minus 6 weeks? So that stakers could choose to swap their staking position three times over the year (better make it 7 weeks then).
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A good faith exception would be made if an RToken de-pegged, where the stakers would be treated as though they staked for a year. (The things I’m saying here would need to be thought through to avoid gamification)
This could achieve a few aims:
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Up until the point of 2bn RSR being staked on Base, everyone would get a 2x on their position = the monetary incentive. If 4bn was staked, people would get 50% added to their position.
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You could get a lot of new, curious stakers who, over the course of a year, would get a lot of education about how Reserve works, who perhaps would be motivated to keep staking or being involved (or not).
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You would be gifting to both long-term holders and new people alike, but treating both equally for a year of their overcollateral + governance time.
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You would turbocharge staking on Base, increasing the representation and reputation of Reserve on Base.
There’s also negatives attached (would you turn that crowd into governors? Is this regulatory wise? Is this a good use of 2bn RSR?)
To be clear, I’m not advocating the idea, with probably more downsides than suggested here, and I also didn’t want to veer off the original subject in the other thread.
But if you remove the stigma of the word, there could be some good, incentive-aligned outcomes from it.
PS: Not to gatekeep the post, but this is less “Should there ever be an airdrop?” (Who doesn’t like free things?) and more “Could there ever be a way to do them that makes sense in a Reserve world, broadens the ecosystem in the right way, and doesn’t run foul of regulatory risks?”