Now HBD does a pretty good job at holding it's value at $1 but there's legit no work to be done to get that 20% APR.

With all due respect, APY is not about work or effort, it's about risk. Investing is always about risk vs. return.

HBD is not risk-free, by any means.

HIVE is not risk-free either, of course.

HIVE has huge upside potential. HBD only has its APY.

If HIVE crashes, so does HBD. If HIVE moons, HBD stays around $1.

Imho, a 20% HBD APY seems about right, given its dependence on HIVE, but a longer lock-up period at that rate seems reasonable.

I’m talking about a CD-like time vault, though. Not power-down vaults.

With that said, variable HBD APY for variable lock-up periods is the way to go, imho. 20% at 365 days, maybe 5% at 3 days, with a few set points in between.

These should all remain witness parameters, though.

Maybe 6 parameters: 12 mo, 9 mo, 6 mo, 3 mo, 1 mo, 3 d.

Or maybe 2 parameters, 12 mo and 3 d, with hard coded interpolation for the in between durations.

If I have 200 HBD and I put 100 each into both time vaults (20% and 5%}, after 365 days, I have 122.14 in one and 105.13 in the other (assuming daily compounding).

The difference being I have to wait at most 3 days to get my 100 HBD back (plus interest) from the short term vault. In the long term vault, I have to wait up to 365 days (which decreases as my anniversary date approaches).

Either way, we should allow removal of principle with the only penalty being accrued interest since last rollover, imho.

This is all very similar to what @taskmaster4450 has been saying for months, I do believe.