The value of a network is directly correlated to the number of participants within in it (Metcalfe’s Law). So it stands to reason that we should find & utilise methods that widely distribute tokens amongst active users. Metabonding is an ideal candidate for this - essentially acting as a vested airdrop.
However, broadly speaking, metabonding on xExchange has for the most part stagnated, with the last token having been added many months ago and no indication when/if the next will occur.
I believe there is a great opportunity here for metabonding to act as a token distribution and bootstrapping vehicle, but it needs to empower xExchange and XMEX holders. To do so, I propose changing how projects are selected for the metabonding program.
It could be something like this:
Allow ANY project to apply (provided they already have a token issued)
No restrictions, completely permissionless (even memecoins eligible)
The community decides upon approval of a project/token through governance
No prescriptive requirements of token allocations (can be 1% through to all 100% of the total supply)
Flexibility on the duration of the metabonding disbursement period (could be 3 months through to 36)
It could then function something akin to this:
Project A launches digital product and its respective token
Project A creates a metabonding proposal on xExchange governance module (a dedicated section exclusively for metabonding proposals)
By completing a standardised application form, the proposal details their project background, tokenomics and the amount/duration of metabonding, along with the contract address for the token
This proposal is then reviewed & voted on by the community via XMEX/energy, requiring passing quorum and a majority approval
On its success, proposal details are then subject to review by the xExchange/MultiversX team (the team cannot veto on the basis of subjective quality etc, purely an assessment for malicious code)
Team approves the proposal and subsequently adds the token to the metabonding program
To summarise; this would make some effort towards decentralising xExchange, empower its XMEX holders, provide greater value to the token, whilst enabling a route for projects/protocols to distribute their tokens within the community on self-authored terms. Elevating xExchange with an innovative and decentralised token distribution module.
Interesting proposition! Do you think that with this decentralisation more projects will participate in the metabonding program? We are already all ears to projects that want to participate. The reason why we have not seen new tokens in metabonding for the last few months is probably something else to my opinion.
Hey, I’m glad that I’m not the only one thinking that metabonding needs a life boat. But I do not think going full permissionless is what the team wants. Imo their products need to be safe for the average user and not clogged up by random stuff. Going full permissionless is good for existing crypto users, but I’m not so sure about the new ones that are not so accustomed this space. To open up the metabonding should be a no brainer thing for sure, but some minimum requirements to smooth out possible rugs/scams are necessary imo.
I suppose my rebuttal to that would be: why did the team decide to go permissionless on liquidity pairs? Why does permissionless stop there and not appropriate across the other aspects of the platform, namely metabonding. What I’m proposing doesn’t mean every applicant would be successful, it merely empowers the community to decide within an open and transparent framework, as opposed to a currently opaque one.
It’s my perspective that being overly curated is exactly what is hindering the potential success of xExchange - this kinda flies against what crypto is meant to be about, broadly speaking.
I understand your perspective however, regarding scams etc and think it’s warranted. Partly what the code review is there for, to ensure there isn’t some malicious activity baked into it. Perhaps it could go a step further and projects that end up being successful have the ‘Experimental’ tag clearly labelled on the metabonding page beside them.
I can only speculate that there would be more activity, yes. Particularly if there are some innovative or novel ideas being put forward. Hence why I think having non-prescriptive and flexible terms (token allocation & duration of disbursement) opens the potential for projects to be creative and innovate with their token models. For example, there might be some projects that might want to give away the vast majority of their supply - specifically socially driven projects would benefit from this, or memecoins being wholly socially driven (I’m not advocating for memecoins however, just they are a part of this industry whether we like it or not). Or the opposite end of this, could be projects that can’t allocate the current 10% supply minimum, due to financial, economic or strategic reasons - they may wish to only provide say 3% over 10 months to suit their inflation/vesting/disbursement plans. It’s the flexibility that could spark interesting ideas and opportunities.
I do agree, there are probably more factors at play influencing the lack of uptake in the metabonding space - with being in the trough of a bear market a notable one. However, I believe by making the process more accessible, transparent and community driven, would not only strengthen xExchange’s operation, but is fitting with the overarching ethos of decentralised products and crypto.
As a side note, I’ll also be creating a secondary proposal that builds on this decentralised aspect of ‘greenlighting’ projects for metabonding through governance. Namely, educational reward campaigns - Meta-learning.
Well we are building a tool to help no coiners to interact with the MultiversX blockchain and this is the kind of permissionless features that will help us to start our journey
why did the team decide to go permissionless on liquidity pairs? Why does permissionless stop there and not appropriate across the other aspects of the platform, namely metabonding
I am not saying that permissionless stops at pairs and that metabonding should not be decentralized. Ideally, we want everything to be permissionless while protecting users from scams.
We decentralized pairs listing because we got too much demand for it and we were slowing down the projects. So we decentralized in order to scale: i.e. list more projects while requiring less work from the and being sure the experience is still safe for people.
In the case of metabonding, we don’t get too much demand from the projects. If projects want to be part of metabonding, they can contact us (DM me on Telegram @LucasWillems) and we will add them if the deal is interesting for xExchange users. Right now, we don’t get too much demand. Hence my point was: maybe metabonding is in the current state not because of centralization but because projects are not interested enough and decentralization won’t solve this.
I like the idea of nearly permissionless (with the approval of the governance)!
To answer the part about interest from projects, I have my idea @lucaswillems:
Documentation showed that projects needed to give 10% of their supply, which is a very high percentage.
The Metabonding was tightly connected with xLaunchpad and the first listings with a few exceptions, maybe giving the impression it’s not accessible to smaller projects.
What does a project have to gain from it? They are gaining some exposure but risking selling pressure from all users that claim and then converting it immediately.
Here is my suggestion:
A similar model to what @x89 was mentioning, permissionless request and then voted by the governance.
A social tool similar to Polkastarter, Chainboost etc…
On the Metabonding page, you would have a list of projects that are part of the metabonding, but to start receiving your share of the tokens, you have to complete a few steps.
Those can be: Follow on Twitter, Join Discord, Join a Newsletter and a quick quiz to ensure the user is educated on the project.
Once those steps are completed, the user starts receiving Metabonding rewards from the project.
This allows two things: Only receiving tokens you care about and projects knowing they are distributing tokens to users that are more likely to participate in the project.
In addition, instead of distributing to every user, the rewards are focused on active and interested users. Giving the incentive to be early to claim metabonding as the more users take those steps, the fewer rewards they receive individually.
Metabonding can become a powerful tool for the entire ecosystem and a new way to bring engagement to new and exciting projects while rewarding active users on xExchange.
I like the part about metabonding becoming more flexible as you said. My concerns were just about the scam/rug avoidance but yeah, those could be easily filtered out with some safety mechanisms. Metabonding should offer projects more holders, strengthen their community and reward those who support the project. Imo a good idea would be to offer boosted metabonding rewards for those who provide LPs in the form of the project token and base rewards for the rest of the xMEX holders. Choosing how much of the supply to offer and for how long should be a priority for the team in order to attract more projects. Also, I’m eagerly waiting for your draft about the meta-learning educational campaigns. Thanks for sharing your valuable feedback and information!
Overall I agree with all of you, metabounding should be permisionless and also customizable.
I think the requirement of 10% of the supply is too much and probably something that has held back many projects.
I really like @joaquim idea of linking metabonding with @x89 other idea via meta-learning. Having a sort of Zealy/Crew3 within xExchange itself would be incredible for both the ecosysteme and the projects, educatione is the key, and this would then have every interest in being integrated into xPortal’s play tab!
The idea I’d like to add is that it would be interesting to see these features (aka Meta-Staking, Meta-Learning, Meta-Bonding) above all as products, and that to integrate them, it would be necessary to have a certain amount of energy. (which, in my opinion, should also be a requirement for listings. Not a big fee which would be a too big barrier, but simply one that conveys the message that to be listed on the official exchange, you need to be involved in the Dex community via energy)
This would put up a barrier to entry to any unserious projects that might want to use these features maliciously. But also to always pushed to make governance more important and more participative.
Finally, this could be added to the conditions for entry into the various token categories.
Experimental => only a permision less listing
Community => Integrate at least one of these features
As with the energy ranking, categorization tag should also be seen as a ranking to be climbed through merit, commitment and clear integration rules.
Will think more about them!