Dev Update — Staking is LIVE!

It’s time for another development update, and this one is EXCITING! We finally get to introduce a new staking feature that utilizes the Shimmer L1 and its time lock condition. Holders of $SOON will now be able to stake their tokens to gain access to core modules on the Soonaverse, discounts on service modules, and even receive additional $SOON as a reward for locking up their tokens.

But that’s not all. A ton of improvements have been made and a lot of new functionality has been added. Here’s a simplified list of all the changes that just went live:

• Delivered $SOON Staking. YAAY!
• Enabled ability for any space to perform token staking (non-custodial)
• Enable ability for any space to distribute staking rewards based on user’s stake (beta)
• Enabled static staking. Ability for space to lock away their supply without receiving rewards (non-custodial) (beta)
• Migrated away from Pinata pinning service
• Improved IPFS upload and structure
• Improved image caching through CDN. We should see image/video loading faster
• Improve collection / NFT views
• Video preview image. No more pizza slices :)
• Added up/down vote on the collection. Enable Rank Moderators and ranking of collections and tokens.
• Implemented default sorting on collection / tokens to be based on Rank Moderator’s rank
• Created @soon/lib on the NPM
• Showing token supply and total melted amount on the UI for minted tokens
• Vested airdrops automatically goes towards staking
• Adding and removing guardians requires agreement by 60% of guardians
• Editing of space requires agreement by 60% of guardians
• New space access, token based members on space. To be a member of the space, members are required to stake a minimum amount of their token

As always, let’s go through and highlight some of the most anticipated changes.

Staking

The main update in this new release is staking functionality. On the platform, users can now stake $SOON and earn $SOON. In doing so the users get access to parts of the system including creating NFT collections, creating tokens, and the ability to upvote / downvote collections. NFT creators will be happy to hear that they no longer need a badge to make a collection now that $SOON staking results in an anti-spamming mechanism.

When you stake $SOON, you must stake for a minimum of 1 week and can go all the way up to 52 weeks. While your tokens are staked, they are locked. This staking and locking mechanism is unique to the Shimmer network. You don’t need to send your tokens to a smart contract. Instead, you specify the amount of tokens you want to stake and the duration, then your tokens are automatically sent back to your wallet with a time expiry condition. The tokens, even though they’re staked, are still 100% in your control.

Why would a person choose to lock their tokens for a longer period of time? That’s where the multiplier comes into play. If a user only locks for 1 week then they will receive the base amount of rewards, but if they lock for the maximum 52 weeks, they’ll receive 2x on all their rewards. The multiplier is on a linear scale, so if one stakes for 26 weeks, they will receive 1.5x rewards.

$SOON holders will be able to begin staking on Wednesday, November 30th at 11:00pm PST. The first weekly reward distribution will happen on Thursday, December 8th at 10:00am PST, and every week following for the next 3 years. A total of 6 million SOON tokens will be distributed over this 3 year period.

More details on staking and rewards will be released in a separate article in a few days.

NFT and Token Ranking

We’ve listened to a lot of feedback on collections and NFTs over the past year and have adjusted accordingly. Additional sorting mechanisms have been added and now things like spaces with the most members are now at the top of the discovery page for an overall better first impression when landing on the site.

For NFT collections and tokens it’s a little more complicated, but we believe we’ve developed a great solution. The Soonaverse team will no longer have control on how collections and tokens are ordered on their respective pages. This will now happen via a community driven ranking system. Users that have staked $SOON will be able to upvote and downvote collections and tokens in the Soonaverse. Guardians of a new ranking moderator space will then be able to use the upvote / downvote information to rate the collection or token on a scale of -100 to 100. The cumulative score of all guardians rankings will determine the order the collection or token shows up on its discovery page.

This will lead to the best and most reputable projects being at the top of the list for users to explore. The Soonaverse core team has no involvement in the evolution of the ranking moderator space and its guardians. It will begin with the members of the NFT Moderators community group and then grow over time. For a new guardian to be added and or old guardian to be removed, 60% of the guardians must agree.

The new guardian addition and removal system is explained in more detail below.

Guardian Improvements

We had to change the system to function and have processes managed more like DAOs. It’s no longer possible for a single guardian to edit a space without prior approval. In order for a change to be recognized, it will require a 60% approval from all guardians in that space. Now a single guardian can’t go rogue and make whatever changes they want.

This includes edits that are as simple as changing the name and as important as changing the verified wallet addresses on the space or adding/removing guardians. If any guardian makes a change then a proposal will be submitted and all other guardians will need to vote. This is what we’re calling phase one.

Phase two will enable token voting where members can propose new guardians and vote on it with their tokens. This is where things will really start turning into more of a DAO structure. That means once this is enabled, SOON token holders will be able to propose and vote on guardians of the ranking moderator space and truly drive how the Soonaverse looks and operates.

While everything in crypto seems to be falling apart right now, the Soonaverse continues to iterate and improve the platform. Just to top it all off, we wanted to mention a few last cool things in this new release that didn’t make it into their own section above:

• 7 different parties have already migrated to the new API
• On spaces, before you had the member joining options of either completely open to anybody or it required guardian approval. A new option is now available where only users with X amount of staked tokens can join the space. That means the space will only have members that have staked their token.
• We’ve improved loading times for collections and NFTs. Finally there are no more pizza slices! We now have video preview thumbnails.

We hope you enjoy the new experiences around staking, NFTs, and Space management. This unlocks so many more capabilities with all of the future integrations with Solution Partners, Service Modules, and ShimmerEVM. This has been a release to remember and we look forward to the next one! Now, we hope you’re ready because this is just the beginning. LFGO!!!!