Holders of our MAXUV tokens on Steem-Engine have now received an airdrop of our new MPATH tokens on Hive-Engine.
We have changed the name to MPATH to avoid confusion going forward and not having to always qualify whether we are talking about MAXUV-Steem or MAXUV-Hive. I hope members like the new name: MPATH.
The posting account for MPATH, and the issuer of MPATH tokens, will be @mpath; the @maxuv account will be laid to rest on Hive.
However, as the voting and earning power are in different accounts, those accounts will continue to operate on Hive, so you may still see some votes coming from those former MAXUV accounts. It just takes too long to power-down one account just so as to power-up a different account.
This is all good news for existing MAXUV holders, but there are a few issues to address going forward.
MPATH is not as yet 100% operational.
Let me describe this in more detail.
Why the MPATH airdrop now?
We had promised MAXUV members that they would receive an airdrop of equivalent tokens once we had seen our own HIVE coin airdrop and once Hive-Engine was working. At the same time, we decided to wind down our MAPX and MAPXV vote-bonds on Steem.
All of this has meant a huge migration of tokens and value across different MAP FinTech programs plus cashing-out options to those MAPX/MAPXV token-holders. Because of the length of power-downs, this could carry on for at least another 4 weeks.
I recently thought that this was too long to wait and, as Hive-Engine does appear now to be operational, this is a good time to liberate those new tokens to members. This also means members are now free to do as they please with these new tokens. Furthermore, back on Steem, the MAXUV token can return to being sold at its previous price.
Who received MPATH tokens?
With under 100 members, sending tokens was fairly quick. MAXUV token-holders received MPATH tokens on a 1:1 ratio based on their balance on Steem-Engine. Those with less than 1 MAXUV token received nothing, and any tokens on market were also not counted. Total tokens sent were about 32,000 MPATH.
What happens now with MPATH?
All members who have received MPATH tokens on Hive currently hold MAXUV tokens on Steem. Such members currently receive upvotes on both Steem and Hive posts. This has allowed us to test the voters on both chains. The next step is to separate those voters so that they run independently. This has not yet been done and we shall announce when we switch on the independent voters.
However, MPATH (like MAXUV) will no longer be a pure vote-bond but will instead be distributing rewards as new tokens that can then be either compounded or sold on Hive-Engine. The reason for this change is that such rewards will be higher than the delivered upvotes, especially for those members who are at dolphin level and below - which is almost every member. The new reward curve since HF21 makes small votes worth even less, hence it is more profitable to generate and distribute rewards.
So, although new MPATH members buying new tokens will not, for the moment, receive votes, they will receive these reward distributions. These will be paid out on Sundays, starting next week. I shall explain more about how the reward distribution is calculated in a future post launching MPATH. All I wish to mention now is that rewards are based both on tokens held and the frequency of posting.
How are MPATH tokens priced?
The MAXUV tokens, from which MPATH is derived, were never designed to be asset-backed in the same way as, say MAPR tokens. We kept fairly close to the sale value of 1 STEEM just so that we had enough funds to buy tokens back if the need arose, but the value of the tokens lay in the size of votes received; these were far higher than the equivalent member SP could generate. This was due to the mathematical structure of the voters and a level of delegations that were invested in the program.
Now, replicating tokens is easy enough to do with a few clicks and a small fee; replicating the underlying asset value in HIVE is not as simple. The movement of tokens and power-downs is not yet complete, as stated above, and yet we would like MPATH tokens to be useful immediately. Also, as described in various MAP FinTech posts, we have retained the vast majority of our token values because we had most of our assets in STEEM and SP, but we have lost some value from those tokens that have dropped in price on Steem-Engine and those that have not duplicated on Hive-Engine.
After some thought, I have decided to change the price of MPATH tokens to just 0.50 HIVE, with a small buy-back at 0.40 HIVE for those who wish to sell their token reward distributions. These numbers will increase as and when our assets increase.
Also worth noting that as our rewards are based on HIVE income, the token reward distributions will be slightly higher than seen in the last 2 weeks as the price per token has dropped.
So, the votes have now doubled, being across both Hive and Steem posts, and the reward distributions will henceforth take place across both chains. The short-term price to pay for this is a drop in the official MPATH market price compared to MAXUV. Hive-Engine is a marketplace, so members can trade their tokens as they wish - my primary concern here has been to maintain the value in the tokens and their utility, rather than the value of the tokens on the market.
(As I edit this text just before posting, I notice some healthy sales of MPATH tokens have already happened, without any announcement, so I think this new price looks more attractive on the new Hive chain.)
The Future of MPATH
As mentioned above, there are a few technical and financial issues to sort out. We plan for the voters on Hive and Steem to be independent. We are also in the process of moving funds, subject to the speed of power-downs.
MPATH and MAXUV will both transform into "vote simulators" and distribute income as token distributions. The feedback so far is that many members seem attached to the idea of having an upvote, even though direct rewards would be higher, so we may retain some votes in the future but they will decrease in value compared to the distributions. Votes for MPATH token holders will still appear to come from former MAXUV accounts just because the funds are there. More on the "vote simulators" in a future post, as I feel there is more than enough info here for one post.
Welcome to MPATH!
[BUY MAXUV] - [READ MAXUV]
[BUY MAPR] - [READ MAP REWARDER]
[BUY MAPXV] - [READ MAPXV]
