As outlined roughly in our previous post, Constantinople will see two major changes to our testnet:

  • A proposal system that strengthens the governance structure of the platform, shifting the day to day responsibility of monitoring the network and allocating resources to voters and the Council
  • A new incentive structure, with a fiat (USD) pool backing the testnet tokens, setting up a more realistic economic system for the platform

For most users, the most significant difference will be that the old system (consisting of weekly payouts), where the magnitude of rewards and number of slots were decided by Jsgenesis, will be replaced:

  • All roles will be rewarded directly in tJOY
  • tJOY will be backed by a USD fiat pool, and redeemable into monero at the convenience of participants
  • This means that tJOY - only needed for staking and fees on the previous testnet - will now function more like the mainnet token
  • The "exchange rate" will simply represent the total amount of tokens issued divided by the size of the fiat pool
  • When a user exchanges their tJOY for USD, the tokens will be burned immediately, thus having no effect on the exchange rate
  • New tokens are minted to pay rewards for the various roles on the network
  • The fiat pool will be topped up weekly, without minting new tokens
  • Jsgenesis will create KPIs, each assigned a USD value that will be added to the fiat pool (without minting new tokens), if the goals are achieved
  • The Council, through the new proposal system, will be responsible for monitoring the functionality and economics of the network

The value flows can be summarized by the figure below.

Take Part

On the 20th of May, around 1300GMT, a runtime upgrade will take place. After that:

  • An initial fiat pool of $2500 will be established
  • Tokens will be minted to all platform members (as of the time this post goes live) and all subscribers to our newsletter that claimed tokens
  • After minting new tokens, the total issuance will be 100,000,000 tJOY
  • The initial exchange rate will therefore be 0.0025 Cents/tJOY
  • Jsgenesis will keep roughly 50% to distribute via faucets, bounties, etc.
  • All Storage Providers, Council Members and Curators operating on Rome will be fired
  • A new set of role parameters (slots, rewards, staking, etc.) will be established by Jsgenesis
  • A new, initial Council, consisting of active community members will be set by Jsgenesis

The main objective this new system is to create a more realistic incentive system. On previous testnets, tJOY, the network token, was only needed for staking and fees. From now on, users need to consider the underlying economics, consider the opportunity costs of their choices, and try to allocate their own, and the platform's resources as efficiently as possible.

Information, guides and examples outlining further details pertaining to incentives and governance will be added to our helpdesk repo in the coming days.

We hope you are as excited about this release as we are!  If you haven't already, join our Telegram channel for the latest updates!

Disclaimer

All forward looking statements,  estimates and commitments found in this blog post should be understood  to be highly uncertain, not binding and for which no guarantees of  accuracy or reliability can be provided. To the fullest extent permitted  by law, in no event shall Joystream, Jsgenesis or our affiliates, or  any of our directors, employees, contractors, service providers or  agents have any liability whatsoever to any person for any direct or  indirect loss, liability, cost, claim, expense or damage of any kind,  whether in contract or in tort, including negligence, or otherwise,  arising out of or related to the use of all or part of this post, or any  links to third party websites.