The Riftwatchers sale was an incredible experience. It was different than what we've done before and it both exceeded our expectations while identifying some areas of opportunities for the Splinterlands Community to consider that will build on the success of this historic event. First and foremost, presale packs sold out in 1 minute and 39 seconds. That's pretty amazing. Not only that, but the community purchased over 1300 validator nodes in Tranche 1 that day too. Simply breathtaking to watch; especially as all of that commerce directly benefits the community as opposed to the Splinterlands company. It was over $5M in total which is a pretty amazing day deep in a bear market.
As stated, this sale was different than what we’ve done before, because it’s the first pack sale that Splinterlands made on behalf of the DAO. Another key difference of this presale is Tokens are burnt rather than spent, which adds a layer of complexity.
There are a few challenges. The first problem is with the user experience of purchasing packs. For most people the site opened and worked, but with the small caveat that vouchers did not auto populate with the maximum allowed. In the mad rush to get packs before the sell out many people didn't enter the right number of vouchers, and some didn't enter any vouchers. This includes Yabapmatt himself. So, if one of the founders didn't do it right then there's obvious room for improvement. Additionally, it appears that for some people the option to enter vouchers didn't appear at all.
The next consideration is that the website went immediately into the general sale. Some players that intended to purchase presale packs and get the bonuses ended up purchasing general sale packs and had no way of knowing.
Lastly, we heard from several players that they weren't able to participate because of physical and internet challenges because the sale wasn't open for at least a few minutes.
In previous sales, Splinterlands would go out of our way to make things awesome with customers. We'd do refunds and other things to make the experience as pleasant as possible for the user. We're not in the same position to do that here because Splinterlands isn't the entity of record selling these packs. It's the DAO. Further, some tokens were burnt. So, the vouchers in particular that were spent are literally no longer in circulation.
A second consideration is that the sale went immediately into the general sale without any break. What this does effectively is make it so that people who submitted purchases for the presale may have inadvertently purchased general sale packs without their knowledge. It gets especially complicated around the last packs. What if you submit a sale for 575 packs, but there's only 500 available? Do you get 500 presale and 75 general? What if you don't consent to that? Should it fail and someone that requested fewer than 500 get their order filled even though you were technically first in line?
A third consideration is people who are physically unable to complete the sale quickly or people living in parts of the world where the internet speed isn't good enough to ensure everything works in under 1 minute and 39 seconds. Part of the intent of this company and game is to bring people from all over the world into crypto. If we exclude them from presales it feels counter to one of the primary objectives of the company.
When considering how to handle this our goal as a company is to provide the best experience possible to as many people as possible to ensure we continue to grow our community and that as many people as possible have good things to say about us.
We've listened and engaged in a lot of feedback on these issues. I think it boils down to two points:
Additionally, I've heard a lot of people discuss not wanting to have proposals lumped together unless necessary.
So, with positive intention for growth, with an eye towards keeping close to the terms of the sale, with an eye towards remedy, and with thoughts around governance we offer the following proposals for a vote:
1- Any purchase that made it into the final block of the presale, the full purchased amount qualifies as presale packs.
2- Anyone that purchased packs but used less than the full amount of Vouchers for available bonus packs be allowed to purchase the full amount of available bonus packs based on their purchase size by submitting the missing vouchers. Any such bonus packs that were part of purchases included in the presale will also count towards the presale benefits.
3- DAO to refund anyone the exact amount of SPS and vouchers they spent for Riftwatchers packs. Packs can be refunded up to two weeks after purchase if returned as long as it remains unopened and no air drops have been claimed. Packs refunded this way would be burnt and the purchaser ineligible for airdrops. Splinterlands to loan 30k Vouchers to be returned by the DAO at a later date. Players would have a 2 week window to redeem the refund.
In addition to a DAO based refund Splinterlands also proposes the following two items for consideration in one proposal. Both 4a and 4b have to pass in one proposal in order for it to be an option. If both 3 and 4 pass players will have the option as to which way they want to process their refund.
4a- Anyone requesting refunds will be refunded by the exact amount they purchased (in both SPS and VOUCHERs) by the Splinterlands company as opposed to the DAO. Splinterlands will then be considered the purchaser of those packs and will receive the presale bonuses like any other account, but unlike any other account we intend to use the majority of purchased packs and awarded cards as promotional givaways.
4b- We would like to increase the number of packs eligible for pre-sale rewards to allow anyone that purchased packs within the first 3 minutes (60 blocks). This would be a ~10% increase to the total pre-sale packs and resolve 60% of the transactions and 81% of the financial considerations of the presale refund requests.
In this case there are no right and wrong answers. The question is one of community values. Do we value a firm limit on 500k packs or do we value some flexibility when things went a little awry on the first try? We're planning on voting yes to all of these proposals, but what's most important to us is that it's not actually up to us. It's up to this community to decide what we value and how we want things to go. This is the heart of our decentralized game and the strength of the governance token that you own and stake. As founders we're key constituents, but ultimately this is your game and your call and we look forward to serving this community with whatever direction you choose to take.
(The following proposals are numbered in order as they appear in this post, but on the site Proposal 1 will show as Proposal 4, Proposal 2 will show as Proposal 5, Proposal 3 will show as Proposal 6, and Proposal 4 will show as Proposal 7).
Overall, 3 users who made a purchase in the appropriate window are requesting a refund. This amounts to 541 boosters.
There are currently 30 players who have asked for refunds. There are 36 transactions totaling 21,810 packs and 3,037 bonus packs.
Proposal 1. Any purchase that made it into the final block of the presale, the full purchased amount qualifies as presale packs.
Up until the second to last block (Block 67936463 at the 1 minute, 36 seconds mark), there had been 1303 different purchase transactions totaling 495,489 boosters.
In the last block (Block 67936464 at the 1 minute, 39 mark), there were an additional 19 purchase transactions totaling 5577 boosters, bringing the overall total to 1322 different purchase transactions totaling 501,166 boosters.
Should proposal 1 pass then the total number of packs eligible for pre-sale packs will be increased by 1,166 packs to allow for those purchasers in the last block to receive pre-sale bonus eligible packs. If you consider there are 541 boosters being requested for a refund that brings the total increase for including the last block to 625 packs.
Proposal 2. Anyone that purchased packs during the presale, but used less than the full amount of Vouchers be allowed to purchase the full amount of presale eligible packs by submitting the missing vouchers.
Should proposal 2 pass we'll setup a a wallet where players can send vouchers and be credited presale bonus legible packs.
We see 13,389 boosters that are missing from pack purchases. This would represent a 2.6% increase in to packs eligible for presale pack bonuses.
Proposal 3. DAO to refund anyone the exact amount of SPS and vouchers they spent for Riftwatchers packs. Packs can be refunded up to two weeks after the proposal passes as long as packs remain unopened and no air drops have been occurred or been claimed. Packs refunded this way would be burnt and the purchaser ineligible for airdrops. Splinterlands to loan 30k Vouchers to be returned by the DAO at a later date. Players would have a 2 week window to redeem the refund.
Should proposal 3 pass the DAO will need to refund approximately 25,000 packs. The DAO will transfer 2M SPS to a Splinterlands controlled account along with 25000 vouchers. Splinterlands will refund players and then return any remaining SPS and vouchers to the DAO. Packs that are refunded will be burnt and no rewards or airdrops will be sent to players that receive the refund. If additional funds are needed the DAO would send a subsequent 2M SPS and 25000 vouchers and excess tokens would be returned by Splinterlands after the refunds were processed.
Refunds can be processed for 2 weeks after the proposal passes.
4a - Anyone requesting refunds will be refunded by the exact amount they purchased (in both SPS and VOUCHERs) by the Splinterlands company as opposed to the DAO. Splinterlands will then be considered the purchaser of those packs and will receive the presale bonuses like any other account, but unlike any other account we intend to use the majority of purchased packs and awarded cards as promotional giveaways.
4b- We would like to increase the number of packs eligible for pre-sale rewards to allow anyone that purchased packs within the first 3 minutes (60 blocks). This would be a ~10% increase to the total pre-sale packs and resolve 60% of the transactions and 81% of the financial considerations of the presale refund requests.
Should proposal 4 pass Splinterlands will set up a wallet that players can transfer their packs to. Splinterlands will return the exact amount of SPS and vouchers used to purchase the packs. Splinterlands will become the purchaser of record in the logs and be eligible for all pre-sale bonuses the original purchaser would have been entitled to.
Additionally, should proposal 4 pass any pack that was purchased up until 3 min after the presale started would be eligible for pack presale rewards. This would increase the number of packs available for bonuses by approximately 10%.
NOTE- if Proposal 3 and Proposal 4 both pass a user would have the option to get refunded by the DAO and see the pack burnt or be refunded by Splinterlands. It would be a choice the refund requester would make.
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NOTE: All rewards from this post will be burned.
