Why are tier 5 and 6 (park rates and NSR sales) only being partially utilised?

[JordanLee]

It is obvious that the network has chosen a different liquidity model than what I have advocated. That can be healthy, as others in our network will have their own insights and our open governance model facilitates those insights becoming part of liquidity operations. We have had extensive debates over liquidity models over the last 20 months. There isn’t a compelling reason to revisit those debates right now.

However, I would like to ask the community why they have they have allowed liquidity to be severely impaired while only partially utilising tier 5 and 6. Park rates have risen less than 10% over the last several days (from around 25% for three months to 27%). The market has clearly indicated rates being offered are not high enough. As an aside, shareholders have chosen in recent weeks to not offer park rates when passed motions underlying the NSR buyback calculations clearly suggested shareholders should offer park rates. So, my question to the community is: Is the partial utilisation of park rates intentional, and does it serve a purpose? It doesn’t seem like optimal behavior.

Large orders for NSR have remained unfilled for about a week now. This demonstrates tier 6 has also only been partially utilised. Once again, I will ask: Is this intentional, and if so, what purpose does it serve? It doesn’t seem like optimal behavior to me.

The NuBit network has offered reduced liquidity three times: in February 2015, March 2016 and over the last week. Each time NuShare holders have been severely punished for it by the market. I have made very loud pleas for our network to understand the critical importance of high quality liquidity in recent weeks. Each day that liquidity is impaired alienates and erodes our customer base.

Why have shareholders and their representatives chosen to impair liquidity while only partially utilising park rates and NSR sales?

[Cybnate]

Why have shareholders and their representatives chosen to impair liquidity while only partially utilising park rates and NSR sales?

To me it has become clear that raising park rates above say 15% doesn’t attract any substantial -new- capital and is therefore not very useful. The cost of parking existing capital will only bleed the reserves of the network further without much benefits. Having said that I will update my datafeed with a further increase to provide more evidence of that. I’m also trying to introduce parking rates for 6 month, but that is also not picked up for reason I don’t understand.

Not sure why the NSR are not being sold. I understood that we should have an ever lowering price every day. Apparently that is not happening. I believe we haven’t been able to take care of proper executors unfortunately.

At last the peg is weakly maintained because of the above items failing. I believe it is prudent to keep it like that to protect any remaining value until the NSR sales are properly executed and the park rates attract significant funds over longer period. With that the reserves/liabilities balance can be temporarily balanced.

TLDR;

• We need proper execution of NSR sales
• Will increase interest rates for longer term to restore balance reserves/immediate liabilities
• When the above are working we can start decreasing the spreads.

[mhps]

I suggested 50% up to 22.3 days with reasoning but not everyone agreed.

To me it has become clear that raising park rates above say 15% doesn’t attract any substantial -new- capital and is therefore not very useful.

The maximum rate we offered was 23% or so. What you said above is not well substantiated.

[Cybnate]

What you said above is not well substantiated.

Having said that I will update my datafeed with a further increase to provide more evidence of that

I know and mentioned that, it is mostly from rough observations. Will keep on trying to obtain that evidence. Just increased the rates in my datafeed even further and see what happens. My policy is to maintain longer term rates as that would give the network a better chance to regain confidence.

[Sentinelrv]

Have these rates been advertised in Poloniex’s chat room, or are we assuming they already know about it? Just because people park doesn’t mean that the NuBits were bought from an exchange. They may have been sitting in a wallet up until now, which does us no good and wastes money. We need people at exchanges to know about the rates, so they can buy.

[Cybnate]

Have these rates been advertised in Poloniex’s chat room,

I’m hesitating from advertising it without all the disclaimers it comes with. That’s why I don’t have a lot of trust in the effectiveness of higher rates. They are getting to a level that people think something must be wrong and stay away from it.

[Sentinelrv]

I see what you mean. You want to advertise them, but the rates seem abnormally high and you don’t want to trigger a panic sale.

[mhps]

Just because people park doesn’t mean that the NuBits were bought from an exchange. They may have been sitting in a wallet up until now, which does us no good and wastes money.

From a macro ponint of view it doesn’t matter. Nubits are locked up and that limits their probability to get sold. For the same macro point when we calculate buyback we don’t care how many nubits are on exchanges. These are all macro parameters and levers. We have very limited microscopic data for precision surgeries. Liquidity is one of them.

[cryptog]

I have increased my rates to 50% up to 22 days.

I suggest we increase to 100% up to 22 days (6% in reality) and 50% up to 1.5m (6% in reality)

Part of the reason why shareholders do not use parking rates properly is that they think the figure is not annualized, subconsciously.

So when they see 100%, they think 100% of interest over the specific period.

As for the NSR sales, we should be probably bolder and sell more at a lower price.

[Sentinelrv]

Part of the reason why shareholders do not use parking rates properly is that they think the figure is not annualized, subconsciously.

So when they see 100%, they think 100% of interest over the specific period.

I see what you mean. I was checking https://www.parkingyournubits.rocks/ and noticed in the calculator there are two different percentages (one smaller and one larger) and was confused, but your post helped clear it up. So I imagine the client doesn’t show the actual percentage over the specific period of time listed (I’m not around my client to check)? If not, that should be added to the client to clear up any confusion.

[cryptog]

If not, that should be added to the client to clear up any confusion.

I agree.

[Sentinelrv]

Ok, I’m not good with interest rates, so I usually stay away from those discussions. Anyway, I’m trying to understand this here. On https://www.parkingyournubits.rocks/ I looked at the current interest rate for 22 days. I see two numbers, 1.40% and 22.50%. So from my understanding 1.40% is the actual interest reward you would receive after 22 days is up correct? 22.50% means that is the interest reward you would get if you were able to park in multiple 22 day segments for up to an entire year, ultimately receiving 1.40% each time. For example, you’d have to park a little less than 17 times at 1.40% each in order to make 22.50% by the end of the year. Is this correct?

What is the purpose of showing the latter percentage, because parking doesn’t work that way? At the end of the 22 days that same parking rate you chose will most likely not be there any longer. It will have either increased or decreased, so you wouldn’t be able to park 17 times in a row at the same percentage rate for a whole year in order to get 22.50%. If you can’t do that, what is the point of showing the APR?

In my mind it would make more sense to only show the percentage reward that you would make during the specific time frame that you park. If I park for 22 days, then I get 1.40% interest for that time frame. 1.40% sounds a lot more sustainable than 22.50% interest. It’s much less scary sounding and less likely to trigger panic in NuBit holders when advertising rates. Offering 22.50% or 100% interest as @cryptog mentioned above sounds fishy and sets off alarm bells for people to stay away. However in reality the interest earned is only 1.40% or 6%. These smaller percentages would be much easier to advertise without scaring people off and inducing panic selling. They would also be a more accurate description of the interest reward people would be getting, because it represents the interest for the exact parking time frame and nothing beyond it.

Am I making sense, or do I fundamentally misunderstand something here?

[cryptog]

I agree with you. It is much better to mention the actual interest you would earn over the specific period.

As for the calculation.

Ex: 22 days

1.4%/22.5%

22.5% per year.

There are 16.6 twenty two days periods in a year.
So you would earn 22.5/16.6 = 1.35% for 22 days, which matches the 1.4%

[Sentinelrv]

Right, that doesn’t sound scary at all, where 22.50% or 100% sounds unsustainable. So why exactly are we advertising APR when that isn’t the percentage you’re actually going to receive at the end of your park period? It just makes things confusing for newcomers and makes advertising rates harder for us than it has to be.

Is there something I’m overlooking. Anybody else agree with me?

[mhps]

APR is like telling speed in mph – mile per hour. You could only drive for 5 min at 40 mph, which doesn’t mean you will drive 40 miles nor drive for an hour.

but APR allows comparison of different rates from different sources. For example if your credit card charges 23% APR and parking offers 30% APR, you will know that in principle you can charge your credit card to buy nubits to park and make money.

But I’d agree that for normal people park rates offered for a short period of time should mainly advertise return rate at the end of period.

[Sentinelrv]

APR is like telling speed in mph – mile per hour. You could only drive for 5 min at 40 mph, which doesn’t mean you will drive 40 miles nor drive for an hour.

Good example

but APR allows comparison of different rates from different sources. For example if your credit card charges 23% APR and parking offers 30% APR, you will know that in principle you can charge your credit card to buy nubits to park and make money.

So APR is a kind of financial measurement tool then, which is helpful to compare rates from various sources, correct? If so, then APR can be helpful to different people and we shouldn’t remove it completely. However, we should reduce its significance in our advertising.

But I’d agree that for normal people park rates offered for a short period of time should mainly advertise return rate at the end of period.

I agree with you and @cryptog here that we should mainly advertise interest rates for single park periods. In reality, NuShareholders are only going to pay out NuBits for single park periods. Advertising 50% interest rates confuses people and misrepresents the situation as dire, making people think that we’re actually going to pay out that extreme amount of NuBits. This will leave people with the feeling that Nu is on the verge of collapse and people will stay away and not buy any NuBits for parking. For example, let’s look at the following numbers…

5.7 Days per Park Period = 0.78% <-----> 64 Park Periods per Year = 50% APR
11.4 Days per Park Period = 1.56% <------> 32 Park Periods per Year = 50% APR
22.8 Days per Park Period = 3.13% <------> 16 Park Periods per Year = 50% APR
45.5 Days per Park Period = 6.25% <------> 8 Park Periods per Year = 50% APR
91.0 Days per Park Period = 12.5% <------> 4 Park Periods per Year = 50% APR

All park periods have an APR of 50%, which by itself seems abnormally high and off-putting. However, people parking for these terms are not actually going to receive this 50% interest. They’ll only end up receiving the interest for a single park period, which is significantly smaller in number than the APR. We cannot go around Bitcointalk and Poloniex advertising 50% park rates unless we want to create panic with NuBit holders. We should instead advertise the smaller percentages for single park periods like 1.56% and 3.13% as shown above. These smaller percentages are a more accurate representation of the reward people will actually receive for a given period. They are more reasonable numbers, easier to advertise because they cause less alarm and they depict a healthier state for the network.

@JordanLee, do you agree with my reasoning above?

So how will we go about using these numbers instead? There needs to be a naming convention for them that makes it easier to refer to. On the https://www.parkingyournubits.rocks/ calculator, it displays APR as the larger yearly percentage and p.a. as the smaller percentage. I had to look that up. It means per annum, but the definition means per year as well: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/per%20annum. What would be the point of using per annum as the naming convention if it also means per year?. Do we just need to invent a new name like “park period?” For example, somebody on Poloniex chat would say the following: “Nu is offering 3.13% for a 22 day park period.”

Whatever it is, it would need to be displayed in the parking window on the client. It currently says “Duration” and “Annual Interest Rate,” rather than APR. We would need to stick the new title in the middle and display the smaller rates for a single park period. The changes would also need to be displayed on https://www.parkingyournubits.rocks/ to make it easier for newcomers to understand. Thoughts on all this?

[mhps]

“Nu is offering 3.13% for a 22 day park period.”

This is the best way to advertise rates for people who aren’t familiar with the terms.

I will update the info post for bitcointalk in the park rate voting thread.

[MaVo]

Shouldn’t we sell NSR in larger quantities and faster and increase the buy side on Poloniex? I mean before I would buy any Nubits, I would check whether the buy support to sell my Nubits later on looks at least healthy. There is now 3.5 BTC buy support at quite a large spread, would you as someone from outside the network really buy Nubits? I would certainly hesitate.
I think it even optically scares people away and it is not suitable at all for anyone who wants to convert larger quantities.

[masterOfDisaster]

This week’s NSR sale suffers from Cointoolkit complaining about block explorer being down, although it isn’t, or they aren’t.

We need to figure that out before we get the NSR to sale.

[Cybnate]

We need to figure that out before we get the NSR to sale.

After having a second blockexplorer up and running, what else is required. We can’t afford these issues.
Do we need a second and paid maintainer of cointoolkit?