Title: Re-assign forfeited unvested grants and staking rewards & make unvested token grants and staking rewards un-expirable
Author(s): @TropicThunder
Related Discussions: [Implemented] Expire HFT grants that have not been claimed for over 60 days
Submission Date: 06.12.2023 (June 12 2023)
Proposal detail:
Simple Summary:
- Re-allocate the forfeited unvested token grants and staking rewards because it affected active users which was not the intended consequence when implementing the 60-day expiry rule. The intention was to target inactive users.
- Make unvested token grants and staking rewards unexpirable, only vested token grants and trading rewards can expire from now on.
Abstract: this proposal corrects what has been an unexpected treatment to some early users of the protocol that were unaware of this new 60-day expiry rule and that were not helped by the vague UI warning. This does not not prevent these tokens to eventually be forfeited if the users are inactive for a long period, which respects the original objective.
Specification:
On Jan 2 2023, the DAO approved a proposal to expire HFT grants that have not been claimed for at least 60 days. This proposal has since been implemented by the DAO as intended.
The objective of this proposal was clear: avoid wasting resources on inactive users, and it is a good objective.
Since then, it has been clear that many affected users did not understand that if they did not claim their small vested rewards, then they would lose both their vested rewards (claimable) and their large unvested rewards (unclaimable) and also their staking rewards (claimable).
The User Interface showed a warning to users that were at risk, but the wording was not clear: You have 123 HFT about to expire. Claim HFT now in order to avoid forfeiting your rewards.
There are many reported cases of users that had a couple HFT tokens to claim (vested), and thousands of HFT unvested, which were all forfeited in one go. This was not clear to users. The User Interface should have either said:
- Claim HFT now in order to avoid forfeiting all yours rewards (vested and unvested and staking rewards) or better
- Claim HFT now in order to avoid forfeiting all your rewards (123.456 HFT).
Highlighting the number of tokens that are at risk would have been clearer, which is why many users are now confused and it is highlighting an important point to address.
WHY IS THIS AN ISSUE THE DAO SHOULD CARE ABOUT
We can debate if the affected users deserved to have their HFT tokens forfeited, that is subjective and there will be two camps.
We cannot debate that the affected users who lost unvested tokens or staking rewards had actually earned these tokens fairly in the first place, by being community members one way or an other and probably still being active community members.
This whole industry started with Bitcoin and a fundamental property: you own your coins without having to trust anyone. No one can take them away from you. You do not need to log back on your wallet every two months to check they are still there, or the latest governance proposal.
Passing a proposal that forces future rewards to have to be claimed within 60 days or else they are forfeited is one thing, but to make it affect old tokens that were awarded a year before the proposal was implemented and that are locked for another 1-4 years is very different.
Behind these affected addresses there are real people with real lives. Perhaps they were offline for 2 months. Perhaps their owner unfortunately died, and they have children that would have figured out how to claim these tokens in a couple months. This is extreme but this is why the concept of property and predictability of rules are so important. You can change the rules for future rewards, but changing the rules for old rewards is a dangerous precedent, especially during a period when these tokens were meant to be locked, adding to the confusion.
I think the Hashflow proposal started with a good intention which should be kept, the DAO needs a way to get back rewards that go unclaimed for too long. But it had the unintended consequences of affecting active users and it should be corrected.
Proposal:
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Re-allocate the expired HFT grants that were vesting over four years to users on the original terms (effectively undoing the forfeiture that occured in 2023)
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Re-allocated the expired HFT staking rewards that were forfeited on the original terms (effectively undoing the forfeiture that occured in 2023)
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Make unvested token grants and staking rewards un-expirable
Benefits (Pros):
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sets a good precedent that DAOs should not affect old rewards with new rules, and shows that the Hashflow DAO is fair towards its early users and stakers.
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ensures the DAO can get the rewards of inactive users back as they vest and go unclaimed over the months or years, excluding staking rewards permanently from this treatment.
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shows good faith towards active users who were genuinely confused or unaware of the details and implication of the current 60-day rule.
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makes staking more attractive as there is no need to claim frequently and potentially waste gas
Downside (Cons):
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the rewards might add sell pressure, but this point was already addressed by locking these tokens linearly over 4 years and that is still a valid mitigant.
Voting:
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Yes, in favour of re-assigning forfeited grants from unvested token grants and staking rewards, and both making unvested tokens unexpirable until they vest and making staking rewards unexpirable permanently.
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No, against this proposal.
