'Organic growth point' or 'top PUA', what are the advantages and disadvantages of the points incentive model?

Written by: Pzai, Foresight News

In the long history of development in the field of cryptocurrency, the economic model based on decentralized consensus has brought the dawn of the Holy Grail of cryptography to countless users. But as the wheels of the industry are rolling, project parties have also begun to think about how to weigh the relationship between the long-term development of the protocol and user retention rate in the encryption tide. As a relatively "moderate" incentive model between news and tokens, points are being adopted by more and more project parties. And many people believe that the concentration of attention brought by point incentives can form an organic growth point for the protocol indicators and strongly promote project growth.

But recently, the TGE allocation of projects such as Blast has triggered a frenzy of anger, reflected in dissatisfaction with prolonging the incentive cycle while delivering low returns. Some major players are clamoring that similar airdrops have now evolved into "top PUA" for all participants. Therefore, this article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the points model from a multi-dimensional perspective and tries to find corresponding solutions.

Early Incentive Model

In the earliest days of the wave, when the Ethereum ICO was in full swing, airdrops could be said to be relatively simple and crude. You only need to submit a simple 0x address to get considerable token income. Since the main feature of projects in the ICO era is concept hype, and there is almost no construction of on-chain interactions, the (coin holding) address itself can become an incentive indicator for everyone.

At the beginning of DeFi Summer, both Balancer and Compound adopted liquidity mining for incentives. It is not difficult to see that for the DeFi projects at that time, the scale of on-chain liquidity determined the development of the protocol, and the demand for liquidity was relatively urgent given the market situation at the time, so they all adopted direct token incentives. Although it has contributed a lot to the growth of TVL, it has also given rise to the disadvantages of "poaching, selling and withdrawing".

After that, Uniswap’s airdrop was a stone’s throw, truly bringing the interactive airdrop paradigm into the encryption field, and thus spawning a professional group of airdrop hunters. Subsequently, many DeFi projects followed up, and with the implementation of many L2 and public chain technologies, the construction of ecological governance models was also put on the agenda. Since the governance of many protocols is essentially a subset of their token economy, relevant airdrop expectations are bound to arise for participants. Since then, the incentive model with tokens and interactions as its core has begun to be integrated into the crypto economy.

To sum up, we can summarize the characteristics of the incentive model in the early cryptocurrency field:

• Direct token incentives: For early-stage projects, the growth space brought by the unsaturated competitive environment gives them enough freedom and allow them to achieve scale growth while benefiting users through token incentives.
• Low interaction threshold: Since the on-chain ecology was not mature at that time, the product model of the protocol was relatively simple, and the interaction process was also very simple for users.
• Instant rewards (synchronicity): Before Uniswap, many projects used mining to achieve instant token rewards for users’ deposits. What you do is what you get.

The origin of point incentives

Before point incentives, with the vigorous development of the ecosystem, projects faced the dilemma of user retention and incentives. A number of task platforms such as Galxe provide a solution. Specifically, the task platform allows projects to spread the incentive process to specific tasks of user interaction, and uses NFT instead of tokens for incentives (marking) to a certain extent. . Overall, this incentive method has begun to produce incentive asynchrony, that is, the period between the issuance of token incentives and the actual interaction of users has been lengthened. In fact, point incentives, like the task platform, are one of the products of refined interaction in the encryption field.

The earliest project to widely adopt the points model is Blur. Pacman innovatively uses points to calculate incentives for NFT transactions, and related measures have significantly contributed to the growth of Blur's protocol, which is specifically reflected in liquidity and transaction volume. Analyzing the scale development of Blur from the data in Figure 1, we can see that points mainly play the following three roles:

• Improving confidence: through point incentives, users can have a certain sense of gain in advance and increase their interest in subsequent airdrops. The degree of confidence and influence the initial launch of the currency price.
• Extended cycle: Points can evenly share users’ expectations for protocol airdrops and extend the overall incentive cycle. An obvious example is that after Blur implemented the token launch, it still maintained the existence of point incentives, reducing selling pressure while creating a sustainable incentive environment for users, which is reflected in the sustainability of transaction volume and TVL.
• Reality: Compared with NFT after the interactive task, points can give users a certain feeling of token mapping, making users feel that they have obtained tokens instead of just getting symbolic badges, which is reflected in the early stage. The correlation between mining transaction volume and token prices.

图 1 Blur 相关数据（DefiLlama）

Based on the above functions, several major advantages of point incentives can be derived:

• 提高留存率：过去在「挖卖提」的大背景下，用户通常对协议的忠诚度不高。而通过积分激励，项目方可以引导用户产生持续性的现金流和链上交互。
• 规避代币成本：基于积分的激励可以减小项目方在代币做市和相应运营上的成本，有的时候还可降低合规风险。
• 更高的灵活性：积分激励的有机调节赋予项目方更高的灵活性，并不受相关代币走势的影响，将注意力更多集中在产品构建上。

积分创造的信心

在以积分为主要激励模式的加密项目运营周期中，我们可以大致分为三个阶段，两个重要节点分别是采用积分激励和 TGE（代币生成事件）。图 2 展现了用户在项目周期内的信心程度变化。

图 2 用户在项目全周期中的信心程度变化

在积分激励之前，我们可以看出整体的信心呈现线性增长的态势，因为在项目的早期阶段，用户通常对项目的发展保持乐观态度，并且早期阶段相对应的消息面也有较多利好。而在实施积分激励之后，相比于无积分激励而言用户因为积分本身所产生的获得感，导致信心有短暂增强。但随后积分激励的周期开始平摊用户对项目空投的预期，同时场外开始对项目的激励进行市场化定价，故信心整体回落到无积分激励的水平。在 TGE 后，经历过积分激励的用户信心程度会降低更多，因为积分激励的整体周期较长，导致用户无法在 TGE 后整体收益明晰的情况下继续承受周期产生的成本继而选择抛售，体现为更大的抛压。

综上所述，我们可以看出积分所带来的信心程度主要体现在积分激励的初期，对用户而言本质上是提供了一个切入生态的机会。但对于用户留存而言，最核心的部分一定是项目方的作为。而积分激励本身为项目方们提供了多样化的操纵空间。

积分的操纵空间

当今的积分激励模式根本上成为了项目方进行预期管理的一个工具，并且因为积分激励是一个长久的过程，用户会拥有对应的沉没成本，基于这些沉没成本会给项目带来一些被动的留存，所以项目方只要拉长激励周期，并保持周期内的基本激励便可以维持项目基本指标的表现。而在基本激励之上，项目方的分配空间也逐渐增大。

在发放上，积分的操纵空间主要体现在不上链和规则清晰度，相比于代币激励，积分激励通常不会上链，进而对于项目方而言操纵空间更大。而在规则清晰度上，项目方掌握对协议内各部分的激励分配权，并且从 Blast 的激励就可以看出，激励的长周期代表着规则的强灵活性可以在周期内最大程度上中和大部分用户的情绪反应，减少信心损耗。但 Blast 第二阶段的分配事实上对上线前大户的存款积分进行了稀释，并将这一部分利益转移给链上交互者。对于大户而言，这样的平摊导致空投可能不能覆盖前期所产生的资金成本，并增加后期链上的交互成本，但如果提取存款，他们便面临沉没成本的问题。且在空投最终分配时，大户被动性的线性释放已经证明了项目方在发放上选择转移大户的利益到散户手中。

在市场定价上，诸如 Whales Market 等场外积分交易平台也为项目方提供了一个可供衡量的数据源。具体而言，他们为市场上的积分 OTC 交易进行了可观的市场化定价，而项目方可以通过做市商对积分所带来的预期定价进行合适的调整，并且 TGE 前的低流动性环境减少了做市的难度。当然，这样的交易也加剧了潜在项目预期的透支。

综上所述，从积分的操纵空间可以衍生出积分激励的劣势：

• 操纵空间大：不管是在发放上还是在市场定价上，项目方都可以进行足够的操作。
• 透支预期：积分激励的长周期和二级市场的过度投机带来对用户空投预期的消耗。
• 平摊收益：由于积分的释放周期长，早期参与者和后期参与者所产生的价值被平摊，相对应会损害参与者的利益。

如何扬长避短

在分析过积分激励的优劣势后，我们可以探究如何基于积分模式扬长避短，更好的构建加密领域的激励模式。

分配设计

在积分激励的长周期中，积分分配对协议的发展至关重要。与任务平台上的交互不同，大部分项目没有对交互指标与积分之间的对应关系进行明晰，形成了某种黑匣子，用户在这种情况下没有知情权。但完全明牌的规则也会为工作室的针对性打法提供方便，导致抬高链上的反女巫成本。一个可能的解决方案是通过分散激励流程以控制规则对用户的可见性，例如将积分通过生态内协议进行有机分配，在平摊分配成本的同时可以对用户的链上行为进行进一步的激励细化，且分散的分配权给予特定项目方更大的动态调节空间，也方便用户基于强可组合性进行一鱼多吃。

权衡各方利益

现在很多协议需要面临 TVL 和链上交互数据的权衡，在积分机制上体现为如何分配相对应的权重，对于 Blur 等以交易为主导或 DeFi 以 TVL 为主导的项目而言，二者本质上可以形成互相促进的飞轮效应，所以积分在其中的作用是激励单一指标。但当这套逻辑转移到 Layer 2 上时，参与者便开始分裂，并且项目方的诉求也从单一指标转向多元化增长，继而对积分分配机制提出了更高的要求。而 Blast 的黄金积分尝试解决这样的分裂，但最后由于分配比例问题，整体的效果仍然不尽人意。在其他项目中，目前还没有类似的机制设计，故未来协议的积分机制设计可以考虑对交互和存款激励进行相对应的细化。

需求空间换激励空间

现今，很多项目使用积分激励的初衷只是想在保持激励活动的同时对 TGE 进行延迟，相比于传统的积分激励用例而言缺少了积分本身的用途，而这一部分需求的空白也是导致积分在用户眼中只作为另一种代币存在的根本原因。所以对于这一部分需求可以进行有效的开发，例如对于跨链桥或链上衍生品而言，使用积分进行相关费用的冲抵既可以使用户即时获得积分所产生的效用，吸引用户持续使用协议的同时，还可以释放积分分配的空间，减小通胀压力的同时控制预期。但在这一部分上需要对用户的实际交互和手续费之间进行有效的精确衡量。

另外无论是对于传统领域还是加密领域，需求永远是需要大于激励的，而需求空间很大一部分由协议本身产生。正如很多 MEME 相关项目没有积分激励，因为他们天然占据需求端的优势，并且用户使用这些项目时更多从协议外获取价值。所以对于项目方而言，需要考虑自己的产品模型构建是否拥有对应的 PMF，让用户参与其中的目的不再是为了缥缈的代币才是正道。

共识化激励

对于用户而言，共识化的激励为他们创造了一个规则清晰的环境，并允许他们以独立的个体参与到共识构建中来。例如在社区中，项目方可以构建一些去中心化的环境，让用户参与自由竞争并按照结果进行类似 PoW 的有机分配。这样的竞争一方面可以在共识中消解空投分配周期的影响，另一方面还能提高用户的忠诚度和留存率。但共识本身的变化相对缓慢，灵活性较低，可能不太适合快速增长的生态。

链上积分

把积分放到链上与直接发行代币的做法不同，相比于代币去除了流通性，同时又增加了链上的不可篡改和可组合性。Linea LXP 给我们呈现了一个很好的例子，当所有地址和积分都可以进行链上追溯的时候，操作空间就肉眼可见的减小了，且智能合约提供了基于链上的可组合性，大幅提高了积分在生态内的指标性，使生态内协议可以根据相关指标进行激励调节。

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