Since we're quite open about things on hive such as rewards and investments, generally, I thought I'd post some of my thoughts regarding the current zing distribution and future plans of it alongside my strategy of how I'm investing into zing, which may not be the same as others due to also wanting the project to continue to receive funding.
Current Distribution is as follows:
Hive Power delegations receive 200,000 daily zing.
Zing Staking receives 20,000 daily zing.
Collection rewards (Alpha Vials and Achievements) receive 500,000 daily zing (of which 5k (1%) goes to achievements).
Zing Liquidity Providers receive 80,000 daily zing.
This is a total of 800,000 daily zing being distributed.
What stands out is the Zing Collection rewards, this decision to increase those was made a few months ago when the price of Hive remained low for longer, meaning delegation rewards weren't near as much as what people were spending to purchase vials which cost $20 each and the team was in need of more funding. We hoped it would lead to more vial sales which did not really happen as much as expected, this has caused vial holders to earn a lot of zing, some who may have sold it could potentially have earned back what they've spent on the vials due to delays.
The reason we will keep it this high is as follows:
With Alpha Vial opening getting closer, we will shift the distribution of collection rewards from unopened alpha vials to opened ones, i.e. items and creatures. The shift may come in a gradual change based on how many vials are opened, i.e. if we sell 5000 vials, and we notice that 1000/5000 have been opened, the collection rewards will shift from an initial 50/50 split to a 60/40 split for items and creatures, with 40% going to still unopened vial holders. Then as another 1000 are opened it would shift to 30/70, etc.
These decisions are of course not set in stone as there may other things entering the collection reward share which is another reason we are leaving them as high as they are now. One of them is the collection set packs that we have planned to open for pre-sale here soon. Since these also come from the Alpha set and are priced at $2 (although we will also accept Zing for them rather than only Hive/HBD), they will earn an equal share to vials in the collection rewards (i.e. 10% since vials cost $20).
Furthermore, before the game goes live, we may stop selling Alpha Vials to prepare the sale of Beta Vials. The plans are to not have them be opened yet, but Alpha Vials can. Anything Beta however will not earn an equal share of collection rewards to further reward those who hold Alpha Vials and Collection Packs, even though they've been earning for quite a while during the delays, etc. In the case where Beta Vials start being sold and collection rewards are going out for those holding them, it will most likely be an 80% earning potential for Beta vials/packs compared to alpha vials/packs.
Last reason as to why we're keeping Collection rewards as high as they are now, is that when the game is launched, it'll give players extra weight towards the collection rewards based on creatures they capture and items they craft through professions. This means that, wild creatures you capture can give you equal weight to alpha starter creatures but depending on the rarity of them. They will earn an equal amount of zing rewards from the collection share as creatures from the alpha vials and the same goes for items crafted during the launch of the game from professions, only later when we introduce creatures created after the beta has launched, i.e. creatures, craftable items along with opened beta vials, those will have a smaller pull on collection rewards (80%).
What this basically means is that players actively playing will start to dilute those who've only bought vials/packs and are not actively playing the game. We will however place a focus on those who hold "passive" assets, to be able to delegate and earn passive income from their assets if there is demand. I.e. if some players want alpha starter creatures they're not getting from beta vials, or alpha starter items or crafted items during the alpha period, they'll be able to lease these from other holders who were here during these times and hold those assets.
As you can tell, we have a lot of different plans to reward those who've helped crowdfund the project in different ways, however there are also some ways people can get involved without assisting in funding the game directly. One of them is providing liquidity to the swap.hive:zing pool, while there's zing rewards going out to those, this does not directly help fund the game, it just provides volume for those wanting to enter zing speculation/investment or wanna get out of it into hive without affecting the price too much with larger orders. Also, simply buying zing and holding/staking does not fund the game but it may indirectly help us either way.
Now I wanna get into my own strategy of how I've been increasing my skin in my own game over time.
HP Delegations, I've been delegating since the token launch, almost 2 years ago with an average 100-200k HP. Currently I'm delegating less due to the price of Zing being lower which means I can earn more Zing by just curating with my HP and using those rewards to buy zing from the market (until the APR gets back to 8.5% or so):
(what isn't showing on the website & screenshot is the APR from collection rewards, which should be slightly higher than LP APR at this time)
Alpha Vial purchases, this has been the only other way to directly fund the project and earn passive zing rewards through collection rewards for almost close to a year now. We launched this option late because we wanted to make sure the game is doing to exist and works before asking people for direct purchases rather than just HP delegations. I've purchased somewhere north of 1200 vials so far to help fund the game and have earned a considerable amount of Zing through that. My plan here is to purchase more vials if the price of Hive can go up a little in the near future as it would mean my DCA would adjust upwards a bit as I've purchased most vials at an average hive price of 25 cents.
I haven't entered the liquidity pool personally because of the risks of the price going up and taking a lot of my zing that way, I may however enter it in the near future when the game doesn't require as much funding as it does currently.
If I could invest in the project without thinking about its funding needs, I would probably focus mostly on the liquidity pool and buying zing directly from the market at current prices and HP delegation APR. I'd also make sure to get some alpha vials before they are sold out, although naturally that would've been a better buy as early as possible if we had known it would be delayed this much, some people may have already earned back their $20 (along with many having discounts) by now through zing collection rewards, but maybe it's still worth it if unopened vials get scarcity value later depending on how many will exist in total, currently 3775.
The other thing that kind of makes me a bit reserved from investing too much into zing, is that hive has been low for so long and naturally I'd also wanna grow my Hive stake as well which makes it a bit difficult having to invest into both. So I kind of have to balance between when zing requires more funding while making sure things aren't moving so fast that we'd suddenly have 2-3 devs and 2-3 artists all wanting payment "right now" which would bottleneck our current funding income and force me to basically throw more money at vials which has happened many times before.
I understand people on hive aren't as encouraged or have much extra money laying around, especially with Hive being this low it's understandable that they'd opt for buying hive instead - which makes sense - or that they're choosing not to sell any hive because it is this low currently so that's kind of their way to "stay invested/invest" by selling less even if they may need it. I also understand that hive-engine tokens and games on hive have not performed that well over time with only a few outliers such as splinterlands and leo. Thus it kind of makes things difficult to find more funding on here before we're ready to offer some kind of gameplay and look into opening roads for outsiders to come in and help with funding/investing in the project.
It's basically just a difficult time "now" but with things slowly falling into place and some potential hype coming back into the game once there's finally things to do I feel like this may be the darkest before the dawn moment, and hopefully after that there's less pressure on myself to be the main person to fund the project and "centralize" zing stake.
Even with things not looking as great right now, I am still very thankful for those who have stuck with the project and kept investing little over time and helped out with funding, without them it would've been way, way harder to get this game funded as things turned out to get more complex than expected and I hope people will be surprised as to how far it's come along even due to any lack of publicizing how it looks currently.
Thanks for reading, zing/hive on!
