I gave some more thought to this proposal from the SPS DAO. Just trying to figure it out myself if I should vote for it or not in this form.
While it was presented by Splinterlands, since they are the only ones who can make proposals currently, it looks like they may not be at the origin of it, but they adapted it. Watch yesterday's Monster Mavericks show for details.
While I have concerns it won't work as intended, it can be an interesting experiment. And it is an experiment, with a limited lifetime, in theory. The only thing that won't be limited about it would be the new token, DEC-B. And we have seen some strong opposition against another token in the ecosystem.
Once created and added to the ecosystem, it will continue to be part of it and play a role, especially if free trading can go on between DEC and DEC-B, directly or indirectly. Regardless of whether the amount of DEC or VOUCHERs to be burned through this proposal is capped and there will be no follow-up proposals to extend that. Unless the functionality is added to the game and then removed, which would be a hard-to-understand waste of resources and time. Even as is, there is opposition against what is perceived as another step sideways from working on actual game development. Even if things can be done in parallel, looks like patience is at the limit these days.
What do I find interesting about it?
If the new tradable token won't be abused to create more inflation for DEC (instead of being used as intended, for future DEC expenses on use cases that burn DEC), it is a way to save up DEC equivalent at a discount (DEC-B) for the costs you foresee and plan ahead, especially for building upgrades on land. The question is what guarantee do you have that DEC-B doesn't lose value compared to DEC over time? None. It's a free market, and DEC-B would be tradable. It could go up in value, but why? It wouldn't make much sense because it has fewer use cases than DEC and everything you can do with DEC-B you can do with DEC as well. In the ideal scenario where DEC-B would be hard pegged to the value of DEC, it makes sense to lock your DEC as DEC-B if you plan to use it for certain use cases and receive an instant 20% bonus for doing that.
Otherwise, maybe it's just safer to use one of the DEC-stablecoin liquidity pools for roughly 15% APR or save up DEC without looking for any additional return (hmm, who wants that, right?). Or you could swap it to HBD and put it into savings until you need it.
There is one more thing. LP rewards are paid in SPS, which put pressure on the price of SPS. Something like this discount offered through burning DEC (or VOUCHER) for DEC-B doesn't create additional SPS, but as I mentioned a couple of times, introduces the risk of creating more DEC for a limited time. It also has a chance of bringing the price of DEC to peg, which would be really good for starting the SPS burning mechanism.
There are potential benefits, there are trade-offs, there are potential pitfalls, and this requires dev time. Still a hard decision for me on this proposal.
And one more thought. If VOUCHERs wouldn't be part of this proposal, would it even be a proposal? I may be wrong, but I believe DEC matters are entirely up to the Splinterlands team.
