Two months in, Sceptre is growing strong. Our educational material, released every week since launch, has provided valuable insights into the platform and its assets. Yet, the complex nature of liquid staking and our platform in particular means our community still has questions and requests, and we're committed to addressing them.
A primary focus of community inquiries has been on rewards, specifically their distribution and transparency around individual rewards.
These were limitations we couldn’t address without making some profound structural changes to the way Sceptre works.
Recognizing our platform's community-centric focus, we've decided to prioritize our users' needs, even if it means making strategic and business adjustments.
What’s changing on Sceptre?
Reward distribution
To prevent users from unfairly benefiting from the FlareDrop distribution model, Sceptre implemented an anti-gaming mechanism that involved dividing the FlareDrop into 30 equal parts and distributing them to the pool over a month. This approach ensured that users couldn't exploit the system and take advantage of the rest of the community by claiming rewards without being staked during the 23-day snapshot period used by the Flare Network to determine eligibility.
It also made reward distributions very hard to understand, so we are changing it to a simpler model.
From now on, the entire FlareDrop will be added to the pool as soon as it’s distributed. Since we are committed to preventing gaming and keep Sceptre a fair platform for everyone, this change will introduce new dynamics to Sceptre as we are about to see.
Staking period
The only way to prevent users from exploiting the way FlareDrops are calculated and distributed is by ensuring equal participation in the Sceptre pool during Flare Network's snapshot periods. Therefore, Sceptre will introduce an open staking period followed by a non-staking period aligned with Flare's 23-day snapshot window.
Staking Period: Starting right after the FlareDrop is added to the pool and lasting for about 7 days, until the next FlareDrop snapshot period starts. Everyone can stake on Sceptre during this period.
Non-Staking period: The 23-day FlareDrop snapshot period. This period lasts until we’ve added the FlareDrop from the current FlareDrop window to the Sceptre pool. During this time, staking with Sceptre will not be possible.
We know this isn’t optimal for our users - neither is it optimal for us - but it’s currently the only way we can guarantee the fairness of the platform for our community while simplifying the distribution of FlareDrops. With that being said, our team will explore new ways to pre-schedule deposits so users can stake on Sceptre at the time that’s most convenient to them. Until then, we will make a calendar event available (similar to the one we have in place for claiming rewards) so users are always notified when the staking period opens.
Rewards view
While not convenient, this model opened the possibility to add to Sceptre the feature our community has requested the most: a way to see exactly the amount of rewards they are entitled to by checking the wallet modal if the sFLR is in your wallet or typing the amount of sFLR you have into the unstake tab. That wasn’t a possibility until now because calculations had to be made every single day following the distribution and there were plenty of factors beyond our control contributing to them. Users will be able to see their FlareDrop-related rewards in the app.
What does this mean to those already staked on Sceptre?
Absolutely nothing. The staking and non-staking periods have no impact on the unstaking process. You can unstake from Sceptre whenever you want and if you unstake right after a FlareDrop, you will have all the FlareDrops you would have a right to, in their entirety, since they will no longer be paid out during the month.
When will these changes take place?
These changes will be introduced soon. The next FlareDrop, which is scheduled to take place on August 8th at around 3PM UTC, will also start the Sceptre staking period.
We understand that these changes represent a significant adjustment. Our goal is to create a platform that is both fair and user-friendly, and we believe these changes are essential steps in that direction.
We are committed to continuous improvement and will closely monitor the impact of these changes in our community. Your feedback is invaluable to us as we work to refine the Sceptre experience so please let us know what you think on Telegram, Discord or X.
Thank you for your continued support and trust.