Update to our Community

With the last week of July 2023 in the books, we hope everyone reading is enjoying their summer and getting the chance to spend quality time with friends and family. As we continue to progress through Q3, we thought it would be valuable to provide an update recapping recent developments going on with all things stake.link and Chainlink – and there are plenty.

As the saying goes, there’s never a dull day in the blockchain space. Let’s dive in →

SLURP-8 | SDL Tokenomics v2.0 Proposal

• This proposed SLURP represents a massive update to the tokenomics of the platform.

• SLURP-8 Community Sentiment Poll passed 13 July 2023

• Proposal passed 20 July 2023 with all 7 members of the Council voting “For.”

• The main objectives for the revisit of tokenomics were:

  • ​​Incorporate extensive community feedback

  • Increase the reward rate for long-term participants

  • Increase staking allocations for long-term participants

  • Promote an increase in long-term participation

We’re confident this SLURP will achieve clarity, reinforce how the native token provides security and value to the platform, and aligns incentives of all participants. “By keeping the proposition simple, rewarding its participants with boosted rewards and allocations from their long-term participation, it creates positive feedback loops that benefit all.”

Technical Overview:

• Reward Escrow: Adopting a ve-like structure incorporating VelodromeFi's NFT representation of staked positions, reSDL boosts the reward rates & staking allocations for long-term lockers.

• Reward Escrow details: reSDL can be locked for up to 48 months, with linearly increasing multipliers. Once locked, full reward boosting applies until a user issues a withdrawal request. Locked positions are wrapped as a transferable NFT.

• Reward Escrow specs:

  • No Lock: 1x SDL Multiplier

  • Minimum 12 Month Lock: 2x SDL Multiplier

  • Minimum 24 Month Lock: 4x SDL Multiplier

  • Minimum 36 Month Lock: 6x SDL Multiplier

  • Minimum 48 Month Lock: 8x SDL Multiplier

• Node Operator Incentives: Locked stSDL for nops will be burnt, current and newly joining nops will receive SDL from the treasury on a 4 year vesting schedule, with current nops receiving 1M SDL each in total.

• Total Supply Reduction and Deprecating Mint Function: Total SDL supply will be reduced to 100 million. Separate SLURP will be issued later this year to deprecate the mint function entirely.

• While overall fees remain at 23%, reSDL stakers will now receive an increased share of the fees on rewards (15%), and nops fees (5%) will come from rewards earned by their own staking allocation.

• The locking of SDL will boost staking allocations in-line with the multipliers detailed in the specification. The details of the new staking queue system will be outlined in a separate SLURP.

These proposed changes mark a significant step towards a more sustainable and growth-oriented future for stake.link by aligning incentives between the node operators and community and enhancing rewards for long-term participants.

Read more on SLURP-8 and the community questions below the proposal here, and tweet announcing its passage + short recap.

Chainlink Roundup:

• Chainlink price feeds now available for three RWA’s (Real World Assets) in conjunction with / tokenized by Backed Finance in the form of ‘bTokens’

  • A significant step towards broader RWA adoption that is coming to a chain near you!

  • Read more about the announcement here (and peep the assets below)

• Chainlink Labs announced the highly-anticipated launch of CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol) at EthCC

  • CCIP: Chainlink Labs’ solution to connecting the hundreds of Layer 1 blockchains, Layer 2 rollups, subnets, appchains, bankchains, and sidechains.

  • This solution comes at a time when billions have been lost to bridge exploits, enabling the seamless transfer of data and value across chains.

  • Initial Mainnet Launches: Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, and Polygon

  • Initial Testnet Launches: Arbitrum Goerli, Avalanche Fuji, Ethereum Sepolia, Optimism Goerli, Polygon Mumbai

  • Synthetix & AAVE CCIP integrations

    • Synthetix will utilize CCIP to seamlessly transfer tokens across chains via a highly secure burn-and-mint model.

    • AAVE to begin utilizing CCIP for native cross-chain governance.

  • Read the announcement thread here, and check out the in-depth blog here.

  • It’s also worth noting our productive conversations with the community about a potential CCIP’d future for the stake.link protocol, and while this is initial collaborative brainstorming, it may translate into a variety of interesting initiatives for us. We are building this all together!

• Chainlink Labs CEO, Sergey Nazarov hosted the CCIP Launch Event keynote address at EthCC. Rundown of the talk below →

  • “What we’re actually doing is creating an internet of contracts. It’s one of the things missing from our industry, allowing liquidity to be globally accessible – not just siloed in one chain”

  • “We have an opportunity to make sure that instead of everyone focusing on one single chain, and having to silo liquidity or technical work, people can launch applications across multiple chains. Much like you today are able to launch applications today across multiple clouds.”

  • “We’re going to see two internets of contracts.”

    • A public blockchain, DeFi internet of contracts. We’re launching this on mainnet today with AAVE & Synthetix. This is important because it pushes the limits of innovation and creates the foundation on which the new world financial system will be built – smart contracts built by DeFi.”

    • The second category of value is the bank. All the world’s value up until this point has been aggregated in banks / asset managers / custodians - $100s of trillions of dollars.”

    • We can’t escape this fact. We need the value in these firms to flow into our industry, in order for us to go to the next level. Not from a few trillion, but to $20T-$50T. That is next level.”

  • “To date, there has been no technical way to achieve the level of connection required between these two worlds of value. While both will create value, eventually connecting them will result in the ‘leveling up’ of the entire industry.”

  • “This is an important step in us going to a world where $100s of trillions are secured, powered, transacted, and managed on technologies we’re working on.”

  We view this release as one of the most significant advancements to date in the history of our industry that brings much needed composability and security in a rapidly evolving space that will enable the transfer and storage of data and value at a global scale. This excites us. Check out Sergey’s full address here.

• Coming Down the Pike →

  • Users that met the outlined criteria for the 18 April 2023 Community Airdrop as issued in SLURP-3 have until 15 October 2023 to claim their SDL (180 days after airdrop went live).

  • Community Elections for stake.link council! 23 August 2023

  • Actively analyzing and exploring L2's to deploy stake.link to leveraging CCIP

  • Assessing new DEXes to migrate liquidity to

  • SmartCon 2023 coming up 2-3 October in Barcelona, Spain. Details below.

    • https://smartcon.chain.link/

To conclude, we’re excited. We’re excited as ever, we’re optimistic, and we are beyond privileged to be surrounded by some of the finest core contributing NOPs in the Web3 space, as well as working with one the most engaged communities in our industry. It’s because of your feedback, your input, your engagement with respect to SLURPs, Twitter, and Telegram/Discord that have enabled us to think differently and make more informed decisions. Community feedback matters – your input matters – and we look forward to continued engagement and collaboration with all involved.

OK;LG