Hello readers! We’re a few weeks post staking V2 implementation, and I wanted to share my review of the new interface and how these changes impact current stakers. Overall, in addition to V2 bringing improvements for new stakers with reduced transaction fees, there are a number of aesthetic and informational improvements with the new interface. I’m a fan of many of these changes, as they reflect some things I’ve been trying to capture in my staking dashboard. Of course, I’ll also be a critic of a few others, but you don’t read my blog just for hype.
Before we get started, hopefully everyone who participated in the original Illuvium staking has either upgraded or unstaked and restaked. If you are still staked but haven’t upgraded, you are not currently earning rewards. While I appreciate getting my part of your share, for the good of engagement, please take a few minutes to upgrade to keep earning rewards and enjoying the fun that is watching our balances increase!
Here’s my review by section of the new staking.illuvium.io site.
Overview Tab
In the new overview tab, I particularly like the Emission Schedule at the bottom. This quickly and clearly shows the total amount of ILV that has been distributed of the 3 million tokens dedicated to yield farming. We can see we recently passed the 50% mark of staking rewards. We’re currently in Epoch 21 of 78, which runs from April 14 through April 28. This means two years of yield farming remain, but under half of the rewards left to be distributed. The epochs and progress is also visually shown in the bars at the bottom.
We also see the distribution of rewards across the three types of pools - the two core pools, ILV and SLP, and Flash pools, though from the most recent IIP vote, Flash pools may “be deprecated” in the future. I haven’t seen an official Illuvium analysis of past success of Flash pools as a marketing tactic, but based on my analysis, I agree that the value they seemed to provide was not worth the cost.
I also value seeing the current estimated number of ILV token holders, currently clocking in a little over 18,000.
I’m not as much a fan of the Total Amount Staked graphs. While useful and interesting from a dollar perspective, as a staker, what is more valuable to me is the total number of tokens staked, which gives a better view of how staking is progressing. I’ve recently added these to my personal staking dashboard. Focusing on dollar value, these graphs are complicated by the change of ILV and ETH token prices.
Dashboard Tab
The Dashboard tab brings in a key element I have been attempting to capture on my dashboard - ILV Earned Daily. This is probably the most important value, and provides insight into how staking is really performing for you personally, particularly what to expect today. Also within the dashboard, I really like having total pending rewards displayed prominently, as well as your current ILV and sILV2 balance within your wallet. These work regardless of whether you are staked or not. I also like the historical data at the bottom, showing how much ILV and sILV2 you have claimed over time. These factors are particularly helpful if your ILV core pool is a mix of staked tokens and rewards, knowing your overall return in terms of reward tokens.
Staking Tab
Within staking, I applaud the new simplicity in staking, particularly adding buttons to select common percentages of tokens (25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) to stake, and common durations versus previously having to use the slider to select lock timing. For new stakers, the Details charts add some value to understand how your pending stake compares to the broader pool, but it again misses the more critical element of how the number of tokens has changed over time. While the graphs largely demonstrate the same trend,in my opinion, the number of tokens staked over time is the more impactful trend.
My biggest issue with the new representation is APR and APY. I’m happy that APR is now used rather than APY from the previous dashboard. However, the calculation of APR seems to have reverted to the more simplistic snapshot of today’s rewards that I first wrote about here.
Matching my personal reward accrual to this APR, the calculations for both core pools is basically saying “if today’s conditions persisted for a year, this is the percent return you should expect.” However, we know this isn’t true. The biggest and easiest factor to account is the fortnightly 3% decrease in rewards, which no longer seems included in the APR calculation. I’ve added my attempt to add this APR to my dashboard to give a more representative best case scenario for annual return. Realistically, just accounting for the fortnightly decrease, APR is about a third lower than shown on the official dashboard.
Then we get to APY. The initial version of the V2 dashboard added several buttons which adjusted for daily, weekly, and monthly claim frequency. The final version now lists only a single APY, and when moused over indicates it is based on “12 claims per year,” presumed to be monthly. As I shared previously, time-based claim strategies are highly inefficient based on how rewards are issued. A more optimal strategy is based on the frequency of reaching a threshold of rewards to claim. I’ll revisit these articles soon, so look forward to more math! For now, here’s the issues I have with APY listed on the Staking V2 dashboard.
- It relies on the reported APR, which is a snapshot and not reflective of the fortnightly 3% decay.
- It relies on a standardized monthly claim, which is inefficient based on the reward issuance structure.
- It neglects the impact of transaction fees on real return since receiving these additional rewards.
Due to these reasons, I believe very few people (only the largest stakers) will benefit from this information. For the others, having this APY listed will actually cost them money. It’s not the team’s fault, everyone needs to do their own research, and APY is certainly something that is highly sought after. However, more information out of context isn’t great, so I’ll continue my crusade to educate. APY is still dumb. Onward!
Rewards Tab
Now we’re talking! Huge benefits and improvement here. First, one of the biggest issues in staking V1 was the requirement to claim all pools whenever claiming, meaning if you were staked in the SLP, you also had a second transaction to claim a small fraction of your rewards, doubling your costs with minimal value added. When claiming, you were also forced to claim all as ILV or sILV2. Now, you may select to claim only one pool, and you may select different rewards per pool. The biggest win - even if you claim both pools at once, it is now only a single transaction! While V2 offers more significant transaction cost savings to those who staked since its implementation, this is a major cost savings to legacy stakers. Personally, my strategy hasn’t changed significantly, and I’m claiming everything as ILV, and am selecting both pools at the same time for only a marginal increase in transaction fee.
Here’s a scenario where the new format may be incredibly helpful. Suppose you only want some sILV2, but want the majority of your rewards as ILV (or vice versa). Now, you can select only one pool to claim as sILV2, and then separately claim the other pool as ILV. This avoids the issue where you would have to better time your claim of both pools to reflect the amount of each reward you wanted, and incur double the transaction costs.
Vesting Tab
Big improvements here as well, but less valuable so far, at least for me personally. Here, you have a sortable list of every stake and claim you’ve made. Using the drop down boxes at the top, it's easy to sort by type of stake (deposits, rewards, and unlocked), and you can sort by size of stake, weight, or the default of time remaining to unlock. This system is very clean and easy to use.
The advantage of the new interface and system is the ability to withdraw multiple unlocked stakes at the same time, saving on transaction fees. Personally, since the ILV and SLP core pool claims all listed as unique stakes, I’m nearing 40 unique stakes to track. Eventually, once they are available to withdraw, I can save a significant amount on transaction fees to bundle these together.
Summary
Overall, there are some major improvements in fees, aesthetics, and general quality of life for Illuvium stakers were a part of the Staking V2 upgrade, which was a big step forward for the project. While I have some issues with how APR and APY are presented, I know these are community demanded items. I just hope people do their own research, such as reading articles by this Deraji guy, or maybe using calculators by Lelahel, and understand what to really expect in staking Illuvium. Now, wen open beta, wen land sale?
Thanks for reading!
