Okay... lots to unpack here.

No. You wouldn't have heard of the GLD coin before. It has a market cap rate and hasn't been active since the Merchants Guild in Splinterlands game went dormant. I don't want to promote it as it is only for members of the Earn Spend Give community.

As for staking it. The quick answer is: Don't.

At this time there are NO staking rewards because I haven't figured out how to set that up yet. I'll keep supporting the coin from its current value of 0.007 Hive until it reaches 0.01 Hive so expect those coins to go up in value. After it hits that target amount then I will look into support people who hold the coin with staking rewards. My goal is to provide an 8% return BUT I don't even know how to do it yet so giving numbers is really premature.

As for missions vs posting.

If you look at the name of the community: Earn, Spend, Give

That wasn't chosen at random.

I expect everyone to be able to EARN the GLD coin here. Formerly I was giving prizes to the best author but I hated that. @jjmusa2004 is a top notch writer and he'd be winning the majority of the time leaving nothing for the less accomplished writers. That just didn't seem fair. My current goal is to purchase GLD tokens weekly using my LEO rewards and then distribute those tokens to all the people who write on the weekly post topic or otherwise add good content to the community. In that way I can encourage all users not just the people who are most educated or most eloquent.

I really want people to be able to SPEND their coins in the community as well. I haven't exactly figured out how that will work though (this is a new community, remember). However, there are certain things I'd like to learn about life in different countries. Missions let me see how things work in your country without me being there. It may be something simple like purchasing an internet package on your cellphone It may be something like buying street food or making a dinner for friends. I'm offering additional value because I'm paying for the information I get as well as the service.

I'm also hoping to purchase and review various items that I think would be useful for fellow Hivians in developing nations. Some may be great and others terrible but I'd like to try them myself and post my viewpoint. Once I review the item I'll be making it available for sale. As an example (and preview of upcoming post) I purchased an inexpensive, low power, windows laptop which should be arriving today. It is underpowered and probably poor for most Windows tasks. However, it has a keyboard, mouse, and larger screen. It should be perfect for people to make their Hive posts in Nigeria. Once I review and if it is something I could recommend I'll be making it available to purchase with GLD coin at about half the cost I paid for it. However, it's at half price because I'd like someone to either agree or disagree with my viewpoint on its useability. IF its cheap and I think its useable and a fellow member agree THEN I'll purchase to make available for sale at slightly above cost.

At first my priority will be on things that allow members to access Hive more cheaply and post more easily. Laptop, tablet, phone, Keyboard and Mouse (bluetooth), power bank and solar charger are my first items to look at. Over time I'll see how the community develops.

Which leads me to the final portion: GIVE

Giving back to others is important to me as well. @monica-ene has mentioned that there are many who are homeless and hungry where she lives. She has a heart to help them but doesn't have the means. I'd love to be able to support other community members in their endeavor to help those less fortunate. Feeding the hungry is something I'd like to look into but I'm cheap so I'm always looking for the least expensive, most nutritious, while still tasty way to help. That means I'll be offering some missions to explore different recipe's and getting different ingredients to make low cost, high nutrition and good taste meals.

In Short

You will be able to earn the the community whether you choose to do missions or not. The liquidity pool is there to ensure that your coins will have value whether you wish to purchase items or missions or not. I'll just be offering extra value to those who want to explore different things with me :)

As for trading GLD for HP. That isn't really targeted at you. It is targeted at people like @lovingmama who I recently onboarded to HIVE. She has a grand total of 0.006 HP gained from the giftgiver faucet. That's enough for only one post every two or three days. A simple delegation of 10HP allows her to post regularly so she can engage more on HIVE. That 10HP costs me very little but makes a world of difference for her starting out.

So, for people like her instead of 150 GLD coin I thought perhaps 75 GLD coin and a 10HP delegation for 10 days would be more useful. Some coin for her effort and some HP so she can continue on her quest to be a good Hivian.

That's it :)

Thanks for the reply and hopefully that gives a little more clarity where I hope to go in the future.