Appreciate the perspective and feedback!!
It seems like the bulk of your concerns are centered around buy+burn or LP deposits, just wanted to add to Val’s comments, here is some additional context on the “surplus revenue” decision/discussion that definitely still needs more attention: Tokenomic Rework Vibe Check: Surplus Revenue Redistribution
Based on your feedback I suspect you would prefer the “voter share” option, but I’m curious if you have any thoughts on the “voter share” specifically? I didn’t see any mention of it in your feedback.
I think “voter share” also relates to the RPL collateral requirement concern you brought up. I’d look forward to hearing more thoughts on this, but I also wanted to share my perspective as this topic came up previously with NodeSet (a slightly longer version of my response to this same topic can be found here): Discord.
For simplicity, maybe assume the surplus revenue decision ends up leading to only a “voter share” and no “surplus share”. When comparing “voter share” vs an RPL collateral requirement, I think the implementations roughly converge at maturity but “voter share” seems to provide more value and sustainability.
Let’s consider a mature state where you remove RPL issuance to NO’s (which you seem to be in favor of). As an example, picture a relatively static Node Operator set with Rocket Pool near it’s self limit of 22%:
- The RPL bond is really more like a “security deposit”
- Node Operators could meet the RPL stake requirement at initialization and then never top off again but continue to earn ETH yields in perpetuity (despite any RPL/ETH ratio changes)
- There would be very little “new” purchases of RPL since everyone already met the one time RPL collateralization requirement at initialization.
- If a Node Operator does decide to exit they still own their “security deposit” of RPL, which they could sell after exiting since they maintain ownership of those tokens.
In that scenario, I don’t think RPL really captures any value. The only way I could see it possible for an RPL requirement to have a sustainable “value capture” mechanism in perpetuity is to enforce the collateralization ratio by reducing ETH commissions proportional to your RPL collateralization. At this point though the ideas really begin to converge with the tokenomics proposal since you are basically enforcing some consistent % of ETH commission to be directed to RPL (you just give NOs the choice for when they should swap their ETH commission to buy RPL). This has the downsides of being unpredictable both for NOs and for the protocol (vs the tokenomics proposal where the protocol predictably/consistently directs a set percentage of revenue to RPL).
Another challenge with enforcing an RPL requirement is you have to “guess” the correct RPL exposure requirement, and assume all NOs are ok with it. This forces a binary:
- “I’m ok with RP’s chosen exposure requirement, so I’ll be a NO”
- “I’m not ok with RP’s chosen exposure requirement, so I won’t be a NO”
That binary can end up excluding participants who fit under the second bullet point, and may have otherwise contributed value to Rocket Pool’s growth and success. Instead, with a voter share, these contributors can have competitive, predictable rewards (even as an ETH-only Node Operator), while simultaneously providing real ETH yield revenue to the protocol, including those who do choose to stake RPL. With a voter share, we also don’t have to “guess” the correct RPL collateral/exposure to target, and can instead listen to the market as Node Operators are free to stake any amount of RPL they feel comfortable with.
In addition to the “voter_share” vs RPL requirement conversation, I think it would be really valuable to have your continued input in the “surplus revenue” decision as further research and discussion is definitely warranted. I think a world with “voter share” and no RPL issuance to NOs could still include a healthy amount of RPL staking delegation since there may very well be parties interested in earning additional ETH yields on their RPL principal through the “voter share” mechanism. I would think those rewards would even be more attractive than the alternative status quo of only RPL issuance yield on their RPL principal (especially if no value is directed to “unstaked RPL” and the total amount of RPL staked trends toward 100% leading to no real yield).
I’m optimistic that with our proposal the days of Node Operator supply as a bottleneck will be behind us, and we can focus on growing rETH demand. That would be an exciting time for Rocket Pool and assistance with boosting rETH’s brand and adoption will be greatly appreciated!