If you were previously familiar with Icosa and Hedron end stake bonuses, I have some big news for you. While at first this is going to sound like a bad thing, I will break down what it means and why it may actually be a net positive in the long run.
If you are not familiar with the end stake bonuses, here is how they work:
Unfortunately, an error was found in the math for calculating bonuses. Essentially, the math was made originally to prevent a gargantuan stake (by the Hex OA or one of the few largest players in Hex) from removing all yield from smaller players who are staked in the Icosa pool. This math was flawed however and caused the system to round smaller percentages of the staking pool down to zero, effectively removing the yield for smaller players in the theoretical case that this happened.
Because of this error found, the yield bonus has been permanently removed from both the Hedron and Icosa staking pools.
No, your coins aren't at risk. No, this is not a security risk. In fact, this may be a net positive for the system. Here's why.
To receive the 5-20% of bonus yield when your stake is done, your principal amount of Icosa needs to remain in the staking tier that it started in, as seen in the above image. The problem is that the Icosa supply that is used to calculate staking minimums and consequently your theoretical yield bonus at the end of the stake, is only the un-staked or liquid Icosa. This means that while there is currently around 460,000 ICSA that is un-staked and viewed by the system as 'Total Supply', that does not include the 18,380,105 and counting Icosa that is staked.
As this staked Icosa comes back into circulation, the total supply will increase and will cause most users to hold a smaller percent of the total supply. This means that the yield bonuses will effectively lessen to a great degree or completely go away for many by the time some of the bigger stakes are ended. But how is it a net positive? The Source Address made two massive moves to compensate stakers.
The Hedron Source Address made two huge moves to seemingly compensate for these changes, and I think you're going to like them.
First, the SA burned 250 Billion Hedron tokens and sent a massive increase in yield of around 5% of your principal to all stakers. I'm definitely ok with this.
Secondarily, The SA increased the base amount of Icosa going to the pools every single day for the next 360 days by 25%. this means that the base amount of yield sent to all pools will be around 50,000 Icosa, up from 40,000. This does not include any yield generated from the mass HSI auction event happening.
Here are the two transactions that you can view on the blockchain to see for yourself
This does change the game theory behind staking strategies for both the Hedron and Icosa staking pools. It also changes the bonuses that would have been received by WAATSA NFT holders. What it also changes is this. Instead of having the low probability of receiving any yield bonus at the end of your stake, you were effectively paid up front for the yield bonus you likely would have never actually seen. Most users should actually see more yield due to this in the long run than if the bonuses were still active.
There is more to talk about here, as this has some long term ramifications regarding longer stakes, however we will save the game theory talk for another blog very soon. Happy staking, - CRYPTOGRFX
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