e9e9f2da1074050875ee3b264942a848285b62a5
Before getting into the proposal, we would like to provide some important context about the current state of the SPS token and what the Splinterlands company is and is not able to provide going forward.
When the SPS token first launched in 2021, $3.6M was raised in a private sale. This is where the SPS DAO got its funds. A portion of those funds have been spent on various things over the past few years, including legal services, marketing, exchange listings, liquidity pools, hiring, etc. The primary purpose for which those funds were meant to be used, however, was to build out the infrastructure necessary to operate the SPS token in an open and decentralized manner.
At launch, the Splinterlands company went ahead and built out the infrastructure to run the token in a closed and centralized manner (without asking for any funds from the DAO to do so), which was meant to only be a temporary measure until the open-source SPS validator software was completed which would allow the SPS token to be run as its own layer 2 chain on top of Hive, which we are now calling "SPS Chain".
Unfortunately, since the temporary solution was implemented and works well, there was never much urgency to build out the open, decentralized solution that was originally intended. As a result, the Splinterlands company has been operating the SPS token in a centralized manner for the past three years and paying all of the costs to build and maintain the temporary implementation as well as to build out the SPS validator software, despite that being the main purpose of the DAO's funds.
For many reasons, the company is no longer in a position to keep doing this, and responsibility for building and operating the SPS token infrastructure must be turned over to the SPS DAO. This means that the Splinterlands company will no longer be spending any time or resources working on the SPS validator software going forward and as of July 1, 2025 we will no longer continue to operate the SPS token through the temporary implementation that is currently in place.
This gives the SPS DAO one year to build and launch a separate solution to operate the SPS token. We believe that the best path forward is for the DAO to hire the developers that have recently been brought on by Splinterlands to finish the validator software, which is what this proposal intends to do.
It is important to note that the DAO does not have to go with the solution proposed here. Someone else can be hired to complete the SPS validator software, or a completely different solution can be built to operate the SPS token. Whatever the DAO members decide, however, it is important to understand that if no solution is implemented then many of the functions of the SPS token will cease to operate when Splinterlands is forced to shut down the temporary implementation it is currently operating in roughly one year from now.
JPTR Corp is a software development company owned and operated by Patrick Gorrell, who most of you know as @PJ on Discord. Patrick has been leading the development efforts for the Splinterlands team for the past year and a half and we have hired the developers who are currently working the SPS validator software through his company.
It is important, for many reasons, to maintain as much separation as possible between the Splinterlands company and the SPS DAO, and as such we believe that the best course of action is for the DAO to hire Patrick's company to continue the development of the SPS validator software that will be used to operate the SPS Chain.
The details of the proposal are as follows, and - if approved - a contract will be executed between the SPS DAO entity and JPTR corporation with these terms.
Regarding the cost, building out a layer 2 blockchain platform and integrating it with a large, existing project is a very significant undertaking, to say the least. From that perspective we believe the cost is actually quite reasonable and that it would be quite difficult, if not impossible, to find a trustworthy development team that can complete a project like this, at the level of quality we would like, for less. Additionally, please note that since this contract is monthly, rather than a large, up-front payment, the DAO can cancel at any time, and for any reason, through a proposal vote.
Finally, we would also like to address the fact that in the past, the Splinterlands company has stated on a number of occasions that we expected the SPS validator software to be completed by certain dates, which did not happen. This is due to the fact that this project was never able to be a priority for the company. We were not being paid to build it and it did not generate revenue for us. As such, the developers working on it always ended up being pulled off to work on other projects. This is why we believe it is important for the DAO to directly hire the development company that has been working on this most recently. That way those developers will work directly for the DAO on this project and will not be available to be pulled onto any other work.
Based on some of the feedback and questions regarding this proposal we thought it would be helpful to add some additional information.
First, regarding JPTR corp - all of the developers currently working there were previously Splinterlands employees. They recently moved over to JPTR which is a just a small entity set up by Patrick Gorrell, Splinterlands CTO, in order to help Splinterlands reduce its operating costs and administrative overhead.
These developers have been working on the SPS validator software exclusively for the past few months now (paid for by Splinterlands) and expect to have the initial version finished and released well before the March 1st date in the contract terms above. The March 1st date is purposely further out than the expected release in order to make sure that what is committed to is something that can definitely be hit, no matter what unexpected issues may come up.
Additionally, these developers previously worked on the Splinterlands game before transitioning onto validators, so they are uniquely qualified to do the work necessary in the Splinterlands game so that it works with the new validator software. This is a significant part of the project and that work is included in the total cost of the proposal. This is not something that other third-party developers would be able to do.
They have also been working closely with other members of the Splinterlands team throughout the entire process and will continue to do so to make sure that multiple different people are reviewing and checking the work along the way. The costs of this were also considered when estimating the total cost for this project.
Finally, it is important to note that the developers will plan to publish the open source code for the validators as soon as possible, certainly well before the initial release, so that anyone can independently review or audit it.
