As a project, Empowa is committed to decentralisation. Our long-term vision is to have the ecosystem run as a decentralised offering managed by a DAO. This long-term ambition is not achieved overnight and starts with nurturing a strong and engaged community. We also want to ensure the products we design have broad appeal.
So with this in mind, we want to more actively tap into the wisdom of the crowd. We will do this by engaging in a three-phased approach.
Phase 1 — Engage the Community
We will pose questions for debate around a key topic for our project. These debates will happen on a dedicated Discord channel #think-tank. If necessary at the end of the discussion call will be arranged to explore the topic further with the core team.
This is an opportunity for our team to listen, learn and explore with our community the best approach. We will do this as part of the preparation for a launch or key decision.
Phase 2 — Implementing and Evaluating Feedback
Take the feedback and look at what is achievable and can be worked on. Look to implement any learnings into an offering which we will also present back to the community for comment, before the details are finalised.
Phase 3 — Evaluations and Reviews
We’ll continue to do our feedback surveys and post-mortem blogs highlighting areas that we felt went well, as well as areas for improvement. Where possible we’ll outline fixes planned or areas that will be investigated further to ensure our next iteration addresses any concerns.
Over the coming weeks will be exploring three topics namely; staking as a utility for our next NFT, Rarity and how this can drive value and the role of a community-managed treasury for Empowa. The first topic we’d like to explore as a collective is staking as a utility for our next NFT. In order to ensure we have a productive discussion, we have included some additional information that is important to consider before we discuss staking.
As a team, we have topics we’d like discuss and will do this over the coming weeks. But we are also keen to know what topics you’d like to discuss so we can include these as areas to explore. Please send a message in #Suggestions with any topics you’d like to discuss as a collective.
Thank you again for joining our journey and continuing to support Empowa and we look forward to some healthy engaged discussion.
The context for the staking discussion
You’ve already done an ISPO, token sale, sold the FC NFT and the WMT collab why are you still selling more NFTs haven’t you raised enough money?
The sale of the FC NFT, ISPO and token sale were all aimed at raising the capital needed to build out the Empowa ecosystem and get the project to a point where it can generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining. The money raised across these activities was never going to be used to finance the houses, this is where the sale of the NFTs comes in. You have likely heard the team share the statistic that current estimates suggest there is a backlog of 50 million affordable homes that need to be built across Africa equating to a $1 trillion opportunity. Needless to say, the limited funds raised to date will not fully realise this opportunity and fund all these homes.
In order to fund these homes, Empowa will sell NFT collections where the money raised will go to funding the construction of houses. As an example the WMT collab sold 3 000 NFTs raising $300 000 and funding 30 homes. Our plan is to continue to release NFTs to build more and more homes.
So hold on if I brought your token or FC NFT was that just a donation?
No, while the FC NFT does not get rewards from the houses directly we are committed to always adding value for those who hold the FC NFT within our project. As we grow holding this NFT and earning the benefits it offers across our ecosystem will become more desirable.
As for the tokens held the EMP token is the utility token of the ecosystem. There will only ever be 200 000 000 EMP. Right now 60% of the total supply is kept in the housing fund to reward those who help finance the homes through buying future NFTs. Each time a house is financed the EMP funds for that house are locked into a smart contract linked to the NFT. As more houses are built more funds are locked and supply is decreased. The more homes are financed through Empowa the more demand drivers there will be for the EMP token. Note the first NFT already locked up over 1% of the housing fund with only 30 homes financed.
Please note the Empowa team will not engage in price speculation and nothing shared above is financial advice.
Okay so people need to keep buying NFTs, how are you going to keep making these NFTs desirable?
Our NFTs have value in three ways.
First, as an earn with impact project, we hope those who choose to support us see value in the impact they are making on the lives of others.
Second, our NFTs offer rewards to those who hold the NFT for the impact made. They also return the initial capital at the end of the period in EMP.
Third, we aim to partner with other projects to create additional value this may be higher yield on a DeFi platform, unlocking something within a metaverse or play-to-earn game, providing an NFT of artistic value or a real-world application.
While not all utilities will appeal to everyone if we are to be successful we will need to release hundreds of NFT collabs so we are confident that our community will find the NFT that has the utility that most appeals to them.
For our next NFT, we are looking to offer the ability to stake as the utility for buying this NFT and the details of how this could work are what we want to discuss with the community.
Hold on so if I want to stake my EMP I am going to have to buy another NFT?
Simply put, yes. Staking is not part of our project’s tokenomics. We therefore only have limited funds to allocate to rewards and need to use these funds to drive an NFT sale as this moves us close to our long-term goal of providing affordable housing and locks up more EMP which is good for all token holders.
If we were going to offer unlimited staking the tokens to support this would have to come from somewhere. If we just reallocated funds something else would suffer. For example:
- If we took it from the housing fund we limit our ability to reward collectors for financing the delivery of homes which is long-term negative for the project.
- If we took it from the team fund, we would have less to attract and retain the talent needed to build out the ecosystem since everyone at Empowa has a significant percentage of the remuneration paid in EMP with a 3-year vesting period.
So staking is being proposed as a utility for holding this NFT in the same way that receiving a piece of land in a metaverse could be the utility for buying a future NFT. It is there to further motivate people to purchase these NFTs which will finance families in the same way the Empowa World Mobile Seed NFT did.
So where are the funds coming from to reward stakers?
Those who took part in the token sale will know that we had around 15% of the EMP unsold. At the time we committed to not rushing the distribution of these funds and rather finding a way to distribute these funds in a way that supported our project but still landed up in the hands of our community. We feel this NFT is a great way to distribute a portion of these unsold tokens. This will be combined with some of the operating fund to finance these rewards.
I’ve been holding EMP since the start of the year and now I may not even be able to stake if this NFT sells out.
Unlike other NFT collabs that are aimed at growing our community by offering perks to the community of the partner project for this NFT we are making use of the services of a partner but not treating this as a collaboration. This means we do not have to give their community priority ensuring more of our existing holders can purchase an NFT and stake their tokens.
If I can’t stake what am I meant to do with my EMP?
EMP will be the utility token of our ecosystem and play a role in governance.
Longer-term NFTs will only be sold in EMP. Since the NFT will return your initial EMP back at the end of the period and reward you with Impact Rewards that will be convertible to EMP at a fixed rate, this represents a valuable utility for the token.
Holders are also able to yield farm on all major Cardano DEXs with triple yield farming launching soon on MuesliSwap.
That’s a great point will I be able to buy this NFT 100% in EMP?
This is a point we’d like to discuss with the broader community. Right now due to limited liquidity we are unable to sell all the NFTs needed to finance our next set of homes 100% in EMP. If we did this an were forced to cash out all the EMP to pay for the homes we would negatively affect the price of EMP which would be bad for all holders and the long-term prospects of the project.
We are however able to increase the amount of EMP we do except for this project. We therefore would like to discuss with the community what would be the best approach. Some possible scenarios include
- Increase the % of the price accepted in EMP for all NFTs
- Increase the % of EMP for those who hold the FC NFT or the WMT NFT or both
- Have a sliding scale where the majority are sold in ADA with a small percentage of the price in EMP. But others are sold for different amounts of EMP but in smaller quantities
- We are also open to other suggestions that could work.
Okay, so what are the details for this staking how much can I stake, for how long, what is the lock-up period and what return should I expect?
Again this is something we want to decide collectively. Quantity staked, duration of the lock-up and how long the pool runs for and the rewards offered need to be balanced to make this attractive for as many people in our community as possible. We, therefore, are keen to understand which factors are most important to EMP holders. We’ll be sharing more of the parameters during the discussion but suffice to say this is something we hope to decide collectively to ensure the majority are happy with the NFT offered.
So please head over to Discord (click here) and join the channel #think-tank to weigh in on this discussion.
Note: The feedback received will need to be investigated by the team to determine feasibility and the complete offering will be presented back to the community. Not everything recommended may be technically possible given timelines for the on-the-ground delivery and in the case where recommendations can’t be implemented this will be addressed in the feedback shared with the community.
