A deep dive into Meta Pool’s new model of sustainable governance tokenomics
TL;DR
- Meta Pool is governed by DAO and our vision is for it to be community run
- Meta Pool wants to deliver a healthy and sustainable economic model for the $META token holders
- Meta Pool is here to support NEAR decentralization and security
- Deep dive into new $META governance and tokenomics model
Sustainable Liquid Staking Model for the Long Run
The vision behind Meta Pool and our $META tokenomics redesign is to create a way for individuals to be self sovereign and create on-chain value for a blockchain protocol.
We were really lucky to generate the right momentum in order for the NEAR ecosystem to support us. Hence this enabled us to begin our journey in the Web3 space delivering products and services around liquid staking. For that reason we are truly thankful to the NEAR Community.
The last couple of days have been pretty hectic in the crypto industry. We understand that many in our community are struggling and believe us when we say we know first hand how this looks.
New $META Governance Tokenomics Highlights
The key components of a healthy and sustainable liquid staking protocol supported by a solid community-governed DAO are:
- the tokenomics (for the community)
- the revenue model (for Meta Pool’s operations)
We have been working hard on a revised version of our $META governance tokenomics as well as on developing new products that will allow more utility for $stNEAR to be able to deliver on that vision.
Meta Pool Revenue Model
Meta Pools’s revenue model is based on 2 types of fees:
- A fee for immediate unstaking (what we call liquid unstaking) of stNEAR
- A fee on NEAR staking rewards generated by the delegated NEAR tokens
The first version of Meta Pool revenue model implemented a variable immediate unstaking fee 0.3% to 3%.
The NEAR staking rewards fee was of 0.5% in order to bootstrap the protocol. Thus allowing node operators and NEAR delegators to accrue most of the value from the staking rewards.
But without the right resources in the Meta Pool Treasury, delivering that sustainable liquid staking protocol, supported by a solid community-governed DAO is a difficult challenge.
Staking Rewards Fee Structure
This is why we are updating the NEAR staking rewards fee to 4%. However the big change is that these 4% in staking rewards fee are mainly distributed to the community:
- 1.5% to Governance Incentives for the Meta Pool DAO and $META token holders
- 1.5% to NEAR Community activities, such as Stake Wars III to help onboard new validator and chunk producer nodes, community and developer grants
- 1% to cover Meta Pool operation costs:
- Contract audits
- Development
We’ll deep dive into how we are allocating these fees from the treasury into key activities for the NEAR Ecosystem.
Governance Incentives
A good incentive structure for governance activities on Meta Pool is key for building a sustainable project. Consequently, a very important part of this is the allocation of $META tokens to partners and the community.
For us, this means it is critical that we provide a voting mechanism for $META token holders. When we looked at what has been built on the NEAR ecosystem, the team decided to build our own solution for token voting that was more suitable to our needs.
Therefore in the next couple of weeks we will be launching a platform that will allow $META token holders to engage with a voting platform. We are allocating 1.5% of the staking rewards fee into this activity, so we can guarantee engagement and start testing it on mainnet.
NEAR Community Activities
Since our launch, community engagement has been a huge part of our success. As a matter of fact, we want to allocate resources that reflect our appreciation for our users. As an illustration, one such activity we are supporting that is relevant to the staking process is the Staking Wars III campaign that NEAR Protocol recently announced.
Additionally, we are putting resources into validator and chunk producer nodes that the community wants to support. As a consequence, this means that the protocol can allocate more delegated NEAR to those nodes.
We are aware that incentives need to be provided for this, and we cannot rely on our external funding to do this. It will eventually be decided by the community and $META token holders, and it is important that they have resources in order to exercise their rights.
That is why we are assigning 1.5% of the staking rewards fee into all the initiatives around community engagement and support.
Meta Pool Operational Costs
As you may know, we have been backed by some of the most important partners of the NEAR ecosystem. It is our responsibility to use those resources in a sustainable way, as those funds have been our main source of covering our operational costs.
We will eventually need to move away from the need to rely on external sources in order to maintain the operation of the Meta Pool protocol. As such, we have to assign a percentage of the staking rewards fees to pay for the team that is building and maintaining the platform.
In order to keep the machines and the team behind it running smoothly we are assigning 1% of the staking rewards fee to cover operational expenses.
Looking Forward
With this post, we hope to have given clarity into how we envision the creation of a sustainable tokenomics model for Meta Pool that will allow us to continue improving and building new solutions for our liquid staking platform.
As always, we appreciate your support and want to thank you for being here with us, sharing your concerns. We want to build tools and resources that allow NEAR Protocol to become a leading blockchain platform so more builders and creators can rely on it to become self sovereign and create on-chain value for themselves and the NEAR ecosystem.
About Meta Pool & stNEAR
Meta Pool is the leading liquid staking solution for $NEAR and wNEAR token holders. With Meta Pool you earn NEAR staking rewards and maintain your liquidity to participate in DeFi protocols on NEAR and Aurora.
Users staking $NEAR and wNEAR with Meta Pool receive in exchange stNEAR (staked NEAR) tokens.
stNEAR simultaneously accrues staking rewards and unlocks users’ liquidity enabling them to participate in DeFi activities (e.g. lending, farming, borrowing) on NEAR and Aurora.
Stake $NEAR on Meta Pool
~11% APY
Get stNEAR
Yield-bearing token
Go DeFi on NEAR & Aurora
More APY and more rewards
Meta Pool also solves the problems associated with Proof-of-Stake networks staking: illiquidity, immovability and accessibility. Meta Pool also aims to distribute staking in multiple validators to improve censorship-resistance of the NEAR network.
With a TVL of ~9 Million $NEAR and growing, Meta Pool has become in just a few months a cornerstone element of the NEAR ecosystem. Meta Pool is making NEAR Protocol more decentralized and therefore more secure.
In February 2022 Meta Pool has been successfully audited by BlockSec, confirming the implementation of the highest security standards.
For more information visit https://metapool.app.
