I think this discussion leads quite nicely into a consideration of what will Cardano Team and large holders (mostly located in Japan) do with their ADA holding when it comes time to vote/stake for staking pools.
While Cardano Team holds 17% and large holders may hold as much as 60%, their decision on if or where to stake becomes extremely important. While Cardano Team has a choice with their allotment, for now we will need to wait and see how the 60% chooses to vote.
Let’s consider four potential outcomes with regards to the Cardano Team (foundation):
Foundational ADA is not staked. This would have the effect of making circulating ADA more valuable from a staking perspective, giving large holders a larger say in the direction the ecosystem takes.
Foundational ADA is staked and kept. This has the effect of diluting some of the large whale holders. If kept, it could stay dormant, used to fund internal projects or maybe the treasury. Either way it gives the Cardano team more control than not staking.
Foundational ADA is delegated to pools evenly. Helps dilute whale holdings and spreads the love evenly among any acceptable pools.
Foundational ADA is delegated to worthy pools. This is the most interesting. This indirectly funds community pool/projects and signals a direction and a culture that projects with potential should be supported.
Theses decisions, yet to be issued by the team, will be critical to the shape of the ecosystem, but I am fully optimistic we will see them following this ongoing evolution:
Bitcoin - You are rewarded for maintaining, investing in and creating hardware.
Early PoS (Dash, NEM)- Rewarded for maintaining a node and holding value.
Next Gen PoS (Cardano) - Rewarded for ecosystem contributions via pool staking mechanism, and oh yeah, a bit of staking and node maintenance.
By delegating to a worthy pool, the foundation and whales are playing and import role in signaling which staking pools it sees as valuable to the community.
And so what will make a staking pool valuable to the community? Well clearly it’s unlikely to be how much hardware you can purchase and configure. And it’s additionally unlikely to be how well you can install a docker image, and keep it running.
A staking pool will be deemed worthy by how much it is contributing to the growth of the ecosystem. It will be about tools and innovations and support of these pools will drive support and growth of the ecosystem - and everyone benefits.
I hate communism more then a i hate banks, your thread name “Will ADA Whales Ever Give Up Their Power?” sounds like a commie , i am sorry i this opinion offends you…
So lets imagine this, you invested 1 mil usd in ada in 2015… Look at the graph i posted up… that year 1 btc was ~ 240 usd or smth so he bought lets say 4000 btc ( …at todays prices even in btc is a lot…so what is it that you want - for him to sell now? why should he sell, if he can stake if and live off that?
@Adafans_io have you read through the original post and the reason for this discussion? The concerns being highlighted have deep and long term implications.
We cannot insult people because we do not have a logical counter or are too close to the “project”. It’s admirable that you are such a fan of cardano but let’s try not to be disrespectful to others.
I am sorry - this looked and still does like an anti-whale echo chamber… THere are so many false assumptions made in the first post - it will take to much time to answer it all, and i dont think its worth it - you clearly already know the truth - we need to get rid of the bad whales ))) even if u have 0 proof they are working together or that they would push an anti-cardano agenda…
Just an example of false statement. All ICO buyers went a rigorous KYC process - so someone knows them - or you want full disclosure? How about you give us an example - post your ada address and your ID scan
So this comparison is logic to you mate? Cardano’s software is 4 months (main net launch) and you compare it to ex-colonial failed nations from Africa? My man, Did you read why the “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty” ? Its not about concentration in the nr of a few ppl, its more about: 1. having a fair chance to get ada cheap (like I posted the proof above - ada on bittrex in the first month almost the same as ICO price (in terms of satoshi) 2. its about a fair distribution of the network growth and the value that will be the outcome! (the rewards will be PROPORTIONAL - how can this be “more fair” ?
ps still, comparing Software with countries will get you to nothing!
ada’s price will go up and you will b e happy only when the number of ada holders grows exponentially like x25 - so, for your wish to be true (to see whales give up “power” and see the price go up) you want them to dump it to 10 cents so more could buy - or just hold and hope with time ppl will see the cardano potential?
From what I know from little insight i have from the Japan community, they have no plans to either vote against IOHK or Cardano F or dump it, they probably love it more then you do - cos they invested in it - when you had no idea about them
how are whales “controling the economy” if you stake your ada and get a proportional to stake reward? again - no stakeholder would vote for something to diminish their own value
@HazelMazel3 - Yes, this could turn into a self-interested, keep 100% the rewards for yourself project. But as there are no shortage of those - why call Cardano a 3rd generation project?
As a stakeholder with that much ADA how many wouldn’t settle for a 90% payout if 10% was funding some kind of ecosystem growth?
@lovelacepool I really appreciate your substantive, clear, and creative thinking here. I think there are some interesting ideas here that could potentially reduce a small portion of the whale problems.
Before I comment on your specific ideas, here are some scaffolding concepts to cover first. . . .
To the Team/Community: We Understand Existing Ideas & Processes Are Probably Already in Place. Many of the concepts we are discussing here are surely already fleshed out in CF’s own internal compensation program documentation. We also understand the founding team probably wants their own stake pools, among other things. So, nothing here is intended to mean we are trying to revolutionize everything in Cardano Land. This discussion is specifically intended for the community to think creatively, clearly, and as precisely as possible about how to resolve our very serious concerns associated with the whale problem until we start getting some direct clarity and feedback from the CF team.
Precedent: The Treasury Stock Model. I think the team could make an official class of ADA within the existing founder’s pool, which could have clearly defined rights and restrictions just like different classes of stock in a corporation. One class of ADA could operate like treasury stock (or restricted stock grants) in a corporation, which is essentially inert and has no dividend rights or other privileges because, technically, nobody owns treasury stock. Treasury stock is held in reserve on the company’s books until the company decides to sell/grant the treasury shares in the future. So, based on this precedent, nobody should reasonably feel like any of our ideas here are intended to unfairly/arbitrarily constrain their rights and privileges without any objective precedent or justification.
Foundational Stake = Founder’s Stake. What do you think about calling it “Founder’s Stake”? That’s shorter, everybody in the business world is familiar with that terminology, and I think it’s a bit less ambiguous because “foundational” can have different meanings in different contexts.
Precedent: Eliminating Conflicts of Interest. There are numerous precedents associated with how companies and governments eliminate conflicts of interest. For example, these conflicts occur when executives/politicians have enough power to move markets or to engage in various forms of self-dealing. In these cases, employees are often forced to divest their stocks/bonds or put their securities in a blind trust. This is another example of a restriction on an “instrument of value” while an employee is working in a position of power.
With those objective precedents in mind, now for your specific ideas. . . .
This option would be a waste of an opportunity to create more balance in the ADA economy. So, this is not ideal.
Philosophically, I’m opposed to the founders benefiting from the staking process while they’re employees because they’re too close to the reigns of power and there are too many ways that they could potentially game the system. This is not about questioning anybody’s intentions; it’s about creating clean incentive structures that eliminate both the temptation and the appearance of a conflict of interest because that’s how we build trust-less systems and institutions.
Pragmatically, I’m opposed to the founders benefiting from the staking process while they’re employees because I believe the team should do everything possible to re-balance the gross imbalance of wealth/power that currently exists in the ADA economy. They’re all going to be billionaires already if they manage to preserve our community’s confidence in the ADA economy. So, there’s no rational reason for them to be greedy on this small but important principle.
I think this is the best option because:
(1) It doesn’t require any human intervention, which guarantees there won’t be any corrupt incentives or unethical temptations to favor some pools over others.
(2) It has important macroeconomic affects associated with reducing economy-wide volatility, increasing the velocity of the money supply, and creating strong systemic resistance against concentrations of wealth/power throughout the economy.
(3) It is the most direct, efficient, and timely mechanism to reduce the current gross imbalance of wealth/power.
(4) It’s linked to a meaningful exchange of value: Pool operators contributing to the security, stability, and sustainability of the network in exchange for this ADA income.
We could perceive this option as a basic income for all pool operators. Alternatively, we could perceive it as a dividend paid to all pool operators like sovereign wealth funds payout to family households. Either way, this option distributes the love evenly, as you indicated, which has many systemic benefits, in exchange for the value that pool operators contribute to the ADA economy.
On a personal level, I would benefit from this option because I have significant technical skills and company resources that will add value to the community. I suspect this is why you like this option, too. However, on a systemic macroeconomic level, IMHO, this is not the best option because there is too much human discretion involved, which means there will be constant opportunities for exploiting the system, easy corruption, favoritism, political clientelism, and all the problems that every country has when they have a government that picks individual winners and losers in an economy.
Theoretically, a pool-focused meritocracy like you’ve described seems logical, but there’s no way to execute it effectively without significant human intervention, which leads to all the broken incentives and potential corruption described above.
Additionally, if a pool operator attracts ADA to their pool, then by definition they’re already creating value, otherwise, they wouldn’t have attracted the ADA in the first place. Also, pool operators add value by contributing directly to the security, stability, and sustainability of the network. And they add value because they invariably serve as community leaders/organizers/tech support gurus/etc., which reduces the tech support/training burden on the CF team.
So, I don’t think we need to create a class hierarchy of pool operators nor allow the Cardano government to pick winners and losers to create an equitable ADA economy that rewards pool operators for creating all the components of value described above.
Once again, I really appreciated your thoughts on this issue. I think this framework will give a lot of people some interesting things to think about.
WRONG
this is a descentralized network - who are YOU to ask from an ada holder to NOT maker their own pool and to NOT stake there? you seem confused to me - if ada would go evenly to all pools (yes, your pool will get some) but whales’ pools will get more ! pfff So, to ensure that ada minted is distributed rather balanced - i am convided that IOHK, CF,and Emurgo will have their owns pools. And cos they already run the nodes - i think from a technical point of view - we need those pools to get stronger and stronger
@Adafans_io This is not intended as an insult, but your hostility compels me to say this: It appears your English comprehension is not very good in this thread because you’re misinterpreting a significant percentage of the concepts that we are discussing here. Then you confront and lash out at people and accuse them of things they never even said. This makes it impossible to communicate with you.
So, let’s agree to disagree on everything in this thread so that you can gracefully move on to another thread. That way, you won’t need to waste your time educating all the commies in this gulag archipelago.
This is a real pressing issue. I think Cardano foundation needs to address it seriously and publicly. The ADA community and the potential newcomers need to hear about it. Right now, many of us are in the dark, had no idea about this internal time-bomb within the ecosystem. Thanks for sharing, great job!
Hi @ADALove, i would like to commend you for writing this post! I have been semi-aware of the distribution history, unfortunately not to the extend of your post. Personally i agree with most of what you have said. I think it’s extremely important to get an official response from IOHK and Cardano Foundation. Seeing as it is of vital importance to the community’s health and it’s members mental well-being.
If no official statement is made soon. I will be pressing the importance of delivering clear answers to this post towards the foundation at the next meet-up (28th Feb), i will also personally redirect all attendees to this post to broaden the community’s awareness of this issue.
It means i did insufficient research, I had looked at statistics regarding the distribution but hadn’t really taken a more in depth look at it. I know whales are part of the ecosystem and I’m not opposed to them. I am however in favour of clarity, and a good symbiotic relationship between the community and iohk/cardano foundation.
I don’t see how responding to the community’s concerns regarding this issue is a bad thing…
How will the founders staking ADA contribute to a balanced distribution?
The system is not decentralized yet at all. Shelley is when the system is supposed to start moving in that direction.
Most importantly, I believe the Cardano Foundation will literally be choosing which pools are allowed to operate in the beginning, so I think it absolutely would be a conflict of interest for the decision makers to be picking their own team members.
This is especially true when they’re the ones setting the inflation rate.
The official treasury is already going to be getting a percentage of all transaction fees, so they don’t need to be staking on top of that to remain funded.
If I’m interpreting you correctly is it possible under current conditions for only a few people to collude and posses over 50% of the votes thus giving them control of the treasury if they wanted it? Thanks for the time you’ve devoted to the community it’s much appreciated.
again - no stakeholder would vote for something to diminish their own value