Scope
In scope:- Quantitative comparison of options A-E.
- Go/no-go recommendation with explicit acceptance gates.
- Implementation-ready direction for follow-up tickets.
- Mainnet deployment.
- Live token emissions.
- Contract/frontend incentive implementation in this ticket.
Weighted Scoring Rubric
The weighted scoring model used byscripts/referrals/evaluate-incentives.ts:
| Criterion | Weight | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Referral conversion lift | 35% | Projected uplift vs baseline referred deposit rate |
| Net protocol revenue impact | 25% | Incremental fee value minus incentive cost |
| Engineering complexity/risk | 20% | Effort + delivery risk normalization |
| Abuse resistance | 10% | Effective risk after controls coverage |
| Time-to-market | 10% | Estimated delivery timeline score |
Baseline Inputs
- Baseline referred deposit rate:
12.00% - Average referred deposit size:
$1,800 - Average referred hold time:
52 days - Fee-derived value per referred user (flat regime): computed in script output
- Fee-derived value per referred user (volatile regime): computed in script output
- Staker reward sensitivity: reported per option in scenario CSV (
stakerRewardSensitivityBps)
Scenario Design
All options are simulated across:- Adoption bands:
low,base,high - Market regimes:
flat,volatile
scratch/KaironAI/ticket-125-scenarios.csv
Simulation outcome summary
Average across all six scenario cells per option:| Rank | Option | Avg weighted score | Avg net revenue impact | Avg conversion lift | Gate pass (conversion / revenue / abuse) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | C (performance fee discount) | 56.78 | +$1,738.47 | +15.45% | 3/6, 6/6, 6/6 |
| 2 | E (points) | 48.42 | +$966.16 | +6.76% | 0/6, 6/6, 0/6 |
| 3 | D (fixed USDC bonus) | 45.20 | +$109.06 | +12.56% | 1/6, 3/6, 6/6 |
| 4 | B (staking boost) | 41.49 | +$462.53 | +11.59% | 1/6, 6/6, 6/6 |
| 5 | A (vested esATLAS) | 40.32 | -$1,454.01 | +18.35% | 5/6, 0/6, 6/6 |
- Option C is the only path that combines top weighted score with positive net revenue and fully passing revenue/abuse gates.
- Option A has strong conversion potential but fails revenue guardrails in this model due emission cost.
- Option E is operationally light but fails conversion and abuse readiness gates for launch economics.
Abuse and Policy Checks Applied
The simulator includes these controls in the abuse-resistance pass/fail model:featureFlaggate required for runtime kill-switchingtreasuryCapfor hard exposure limitsminQualifyingDepositto reduce dust farmingholdPeriodRequiredwhere relevantfreezeCodeadministrative freeze control
Acceptance Gates
A strategy should satisfy:- Referral conversion uplift
>= +15% - Revenue drawdown cap
<= 10% - Unresolved P1 abuse vectors
= 0
Recommendation
Phase 1 default
Adopt Option C (performance fee discount) behind:- Feature flag
- Hard treasury drawdown cap
- Minimum qualifying deposit requirement
- Abuse monitoring with freeze controls
- Strong weighted performance in this evaluation.
- Fastest practical path to tangible depositor value.
- No token emission pressure.
- In the base/high adoption scenarios, it meets conversion gates while preserving revenue and abuse constraints.
Phase 2 optional campaign
Conditionally run Option A (capped esATLAS vesting) only if Phase 1 proves sustained uplift above gate thresholds and budget controls remain intact. Why:- Useful as a growth campaign lever.
- Emissions and implementation complexity are higher, so it should remain gated.
Not primary for initial launch
- Option B: viable fallback if fee discount is blocked by fee-path complexity, but staker dilution risk is non-trivial.
- Option D: can work as a temporary campaign but scales poorly and requires constant budget operations.
- Option E: fast to ship but weak immediate economic pull and higher gaming risk per user value delivered.
How to reproduce
From repository root:scratch/KaironAI/ticket-125-scenarios.csv