Forum Post Organisation
Title: Reward Retention Survey Evaluation
Author: @MrMadila, @Matthew_Graham and @Lavi
Created: 2nd April 2021
Introduction
In our previous post, we identified that a noticeable proportion (~40%) of community members sell some or all of their contributor rewards shortly after receiving them. In response, we performed a survey presenting various reward options and asked the community for feedback. In this post, we will illustrate the main findings from the survey and propose the next steps. Before we jump in, we would like to thank everyone who kindly partook in the survey.
Learnings
The survey results provide context for the on-chain data and valuable insight into how some members would like to be compensated.
The survey results clearly show that whilst 50% of contributors are happy to continue to receive 100% INDEX, the other half would prefer a different combination. The two most popular alternatives are 50% INDEX and either 50% ETH or 50% Stable Coin.
Interestingly, 57.1% of participants noted that they did not buy back into INDEX at a later date, after selling. This makes sense when 42.9% of participants who sold INDEX, did so to fund living expenses.
At the bottom of this post, there is a link to the google form detailing the survey results as graphics and in data form.
Proposal
The 3 most popular options for how contributors would like to receive their rewards are shown below:
- Option 1) 100% Index
- Option 2) 50% Index + 50% ETH
- Option 3) 50% Index + 50% USDC
The survey also showed that 50% of contributors would like the option to choose how to receive each month, whilst 34.6% would like to “Keep it fixed unless I change my mind”
What is the core problem you want to solve?
As highlighted above, the core problem was that we can do a better job of accommodating our community’s needs when it comes to distributing rewards.
Why is this worth addressing today?
As community members are always free to sell their INDEX for ETH / USDC / Fiat / other, this proposal was always a matter of convenience rather than something with a particularly high impact. On reflection and after consultation with the treasury committee and engineering, it has been flagged that implementing any changes at the moment are not as easy as first thought. If / when the treasury has diversified into these assets or similar, and the community has the engineering capacity (may require multiple claim contracts etc.) then we expect this to be a quick and easy win to implement.
In summary, on balance it is actually not worth addressing today. However, we believe it is worth informing the community and presenting these findings including the rationale for implementation at a later stage.
How will you address it?
It is currently envisioned that contributors would express their reward preferences upon submission of their work each month. As outlined above, once the treasury holds ETH and stablecoins, plus the engineering resources become available to update / create the reward contracts, this initiative will be revisited.
What impact will this project have?
Happy owls make a happy nest! Rewards will be given out to users in a manner that best suits them. With fewer INDEX tokens being sold potentially around the same time each month, we can also avoid any detrimental market dynamics for our native token.
Another benefit is that the treasury will also have greater control over diversifying and managing our assets. In other words, we know which tokens are preferred by the community so that the treasury team can act accordingly.
Additional information
The survey also contains a lot of other interesting facts that we don’t want to withhold from the community. However, in order to keep this post on topic, we refer to the link below for further results.
TL:DR
- 26 Responses. 6 Responses from people yet to receive their first rewards.
- Of the 20 receivers 13 hold vs 7 sell some / all (Roughly aligned with on-chain findings)
- 5 Out of the 7 sellers sold just once.
- 4 Out of 7 of sellers sell 20-40%, mostly into ETH followed by USDC
- Between 0-60% being converted to fiat (Most of these users view rewards as salary and are not/are not able to buy back)
- 13 Out of 26 want to continue to be paid in INDEX, the other 50% would prefer 50/50 INDEX/(ETH/Stablecoin)
- Most want to choose each month, with many happy to keep it fixed until they change their mind.