During this week's INLEO AMA and later in a regular post, Khal introduced the new HP delegation tiers to @leo.voter.
Before the introduction of tiers, a delegation of HIVE Power to leo.voter paid out the same percentage to all delegators, without any tiers. So, how would tiers help?
Well, as a concept, I think it's a good idea to reward loyalty - we even talked about it recently. Reward (much) more the holders of LEO than delegators who prefer to receive their LEO rewards liquid, and possibly sell it. And a little more on top for premium users. Khal explained in the AMA how they think they can make this APR sustainable, and that, if it won't be, it is flexible and it will be changed.
What will be the tiers and what are the requirements?
Tier 1
This is the tier of delegators who prefer to receive liquid LEO rewards. It is also the tier of delegators who powered down LEO during the last 3 months, regardless if they had set to receive staked or liquid LEO rewards.
They receive a 13% APR for delegating HIVE Power to @leo.voter.
Tier 2
At this tier, delegators receive an additional 7% APR (so 20% APR in total) for receiving their LEO rewards staked (and not powering down LEO during the last 3 months).
Tier 3
And finally, a little extra benefit for being a premium user and getting your delegation rewards staked (and not powering down LEO), tier 3 offers a 22% APR, which is pretty good considering the potential of LEO.
How to Change If You Want LEO Delegation Rewards Staked or Liquid?
Currently, using the interface, the only option is from the dashboard on the Labs version of Inleo. On this dashboard, only the "Delegate & Earn" section at the end currently works, the rest are placeholders. Here's what it looks like:
The alternative to making this change without using the Labs interface is by sending a 0.001 HIVE transaction to @leo.voter with the memo "staked" or "liquid", depending on how you want it changed.
Feedback Regarding Special Cases
While, as I said, as a concept to reward loyalty I agree with adding this tiered system to paying delegation rewards, and whoever wants to participate in the higher tiers gets higher APRs, I believe there are special cases that weren't considered, and probably not few.
Let's just think about the case where stakeholders have one account for HP and one for LEO. I believe there are enough such cases. If one such user wants to receive their LEO rewards staked, but in the LEO account, not in the HP account, that doesn't work, from the way the design is made right now for the tiered delegation rewards. Rewards are received in the account from where the delegation is made.
Another case is my own. I have my HP stake in one account and I have a posting account for my "user" activity. If I activate staked LEO rewards on my staking account from where I delegate the HP, I end up with a bunch of LEO staked there that I don't use. At most, I can delegate them to my posting account, but there are other benefits I might lose on, like the ad revenue.
Overall, not a great situation right now for cases where HP and LP are not in the same place. This can easily be fixed if on the dashboard we can also add the account where we want to receive the staked LEO rewards. Obviously, it's not only a UI change that's needed.