Nov 4, 2020
66 Weeks of RUNEVault
How a simple staking program created one of the greatest communities ever, distributing over $23m in RUNE to 2600 members over a year.
Wealthy communities are happy communities, and happy communities are the best communities.
Summary
For 66 weeks the RUNEVault staking program ran to retain, engage and distribute RUNE to the THORChain community. The following are key metrics:
- 2600 members
- 160m RUNE staked
- 65m RUNE paid out
- Estimated $23m payout value
The key purpose of RUNEVault was to reward early holders for participating as well as distributing over 30% of new supply of RUNE to them. RUNE launched with around 100m circulating with several hundred holders, but it was important to grow the holdership base and distribute RUNE at the same time. A wide distribution of RUNE means that the network is more resilient to sybil attacks.
By rewarding RUNEVault participants with new supply via a simple staking mechanism, an active membership grew from 100 to almost 2600 over 66 weeks. Total on-chain holders also increased to over 6000.
Success Metrics
The program was undoubtedly a success and despite the supply doubling in a year, (due RUNEVault rewards and operational emissions) the value of RUNE grew over 100x in the same time period.
This served to make early holders very wealthy, which in turn grew an extremely passionate and loyal community. These community members are active in both promotional and development efforts, choosing to spend their time and resources on the project to double down on their investment. Since a lot of efforts seen are self-funded (not funded by THORChain treasury), the downstream effects of making early holders wealthy has driven ROI back to the project.
Community Promotions
There have been many community-funded initiatives, as well as thorchain-orientated accounts who have been dedicated to promoting the project on their own terms. These members, by participating in RUNEVault, became orientated due to the wealth-effect. Wealthy communities are happy communities, and happy communities are the best communities.
The following are some thorchain-orientated accounts that have spent almost a year supporting THORChain:
Community Development
At the same time, a flood of new self-funded developers embraced THORChain and built products themselves. If the products were adopted by the community, THORChain later supported them with grants. The sheer number of community-built products is testament to the project capturing the mind-share of smart people.
RUNE Price Calculator
RUNE Price Prediction
THORChain Hammer Twitter Bot
(https://twitter.com/THORChainHammer)
Telegram Bot
Twitter Bot
Delphi Defi Dashboard
https://defi.delphidigital.io/thorchain/chaosnet/network
THORChain Network Explorer
RUNEData
View LP data, and predict future returns
RUNEBalance
View current arbitrage opportunities in the pools
https://www.runebalance.com/#/pools
RUNEStake
View your current LP performance in each pool.
Trading Leaderboard
View the current leaderboard for traders on THORChain
https://leaderboard.thornode.org/
The Flippening
The job of the community is to now ease the transition from RUNEVault to BEPSwap where capital is being put to use in the pools. The flippening is likely to occur in ~ 1 week for user count, and ~3 weeks for capital amount.
In BEPSwap, users can earn incentives from both emissions as well as trading fees. At current rates, half the returns are from fee revenue, which is real cash flow. Going into the future THORChain’s community remains its strongest asset, and the job of RUNEVault in this can’t be understated.
Community
To keep up to date, please monitor community channels, particularly Telegram and Twitter:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thorchain_org
- Telegram Community: https://t.me/thorchain_org
- Telegram Announcements: https://t.me/thorchain
- Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/thorchain
- Github: https://github.com/thorchain
- Medium: https://medium.com/thorchain
