[NIP-017] NFTE Tokenomic Adjustment

Summary:

Proposal to immediately adjust the supply of the NFTE token from 100M to 1B (100,000,000 > 1,000,000,000) in efforts to preserve operations of the protocol.

Background:

NFTEarth has built several unique and novel features and use cases and contributed to the NFT space at-large in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, the project has ran into obstacles in efforts to fundraise. In light of the recent nomination for all of the opensource contributions to receive a grant retroactively, the team and contributors were under the impression that some sort - whether large or small - form of resources/grant to support the continued development efforts and deliverables of the project - would be coming. Unfortunately again, this was not meant to be.

Motivation

The project will either need to wind down operations, or make another creative attempt at fundraising to find a way to stay afloat, as well as stay in a capacity to still potentially grow in a big way if a partnership is found, a grant received, etc. But for now, there is only 1 resource left at the team/protocol/community disposal: the token itself.

There is ~$10K in liquidity across several networks - a dramatic fall from the peak market cap of >$10M in March of 2023, but nonetheless, an adjustment to the tokenomic plan in place now makes sense as a last effort to spark some creative approaches to building.

The team has several projects in the pipeline being developed, though all of which will need funding. By expanding the token supply - there will be new opportunities to onboard contributors with remuneration in tokens, cover marketing expenditures with tokens, and use the new supply to add liquidity to 2 (and potentially more if they make sense) specific chains in an effort to attract interest from larger buyers who may have interest in arbitraging NFTE tokens as it is a LayerZero OFT and can be sent cross-chain nearly instantaneously: Ethereum Mainnet and Solana. There will then be at least 5 core pools on 5 networks that are actively being built in a 50/50 ration to support the LPs and attract new users. Of these 5 pools, 4 will be on SushiSwap and 1 on Raydium, 3 will be paired with ETH and 1 with MATIC and 1 with SOL. In essence, the project will follow SushiSwap and LayerZero predominantly as to where they expand as a strategic goal.

Rationale:

NFTEarth has continued to build despite receiving financial resources from its lack of formed business model yet, all the while still maintaining a stellar track record of 0 security compromises in the project life-cycle.

Solana has significant interest as of late, and adding liquidity to Raydium and SushiSwap (on Mainnet) will mean there are 5 (to be changes at any point) liquidity pools that are set to be 50/50 NFTE/Native token - which is something that has proven to lead to stabilizing the price. If all goes well, this could significantly increase new interest for the project, and on the flip side, if this does not workout, the project is not in a much different place than it finds itself currently.

Implementation

Upon conclusion of this vote, the Multisig and Deployer will mint the tokens and add liquidity on Mainnet and Solana. Further steps of action will be assessed as results are discovered in time.

Implications:

First: Continued operations is the goal. Upon passing Snapshot, the DAO Multisig and Deployer will mint the additional tokens and use a meaningful amount to add to new liquidity pools and get them established on Solana and Ethereum and then a community discussion is to follow on how the tokens should be distributed over time. This will likely mean a significant amount is locked still, some reserved for airdrops, some for staking rewards, some for potential new collaborations, etc.

Closing Thoughts

It is worth noting that there was never a plan or intention to alter the supply or add inflation to the NFTE tokenomics when designed; much like with traditional fiat systems, the team does not see inflationary tokenomics as the best long-term approach... however, sometimes completely unexpected items occur - such as the one the team finds itself in now, and if there is to be any chance of continued building... it simply makes sense to give this a shot.