I just finished recording Ep-004 of the Diggin in the SAND podcast with Cyril.
One of the topics we discussed as we worked through the end of the Community Concerns (also addressed in Ep-001 and Ep-002), was āSAND Stakingā
So, I am opening this thread for community discussion around this topic.
Share any ideas, thoughts, or concerns hereā¦ 
The best timeline update we can offer is to say we HOPE to have this prioritized by the TSB devs in Q1.
We are grateful for your patience and understanding.
100% supportive of this idea to count sand in staking as VP. Maybe an indirect way to do that would be to use the score used for the ranking
Iām supportive. I too have staked SAND but I donāt feel quite so intense about it as others do. I heard Cyrilās comment on it, and how it wasnāt as impactful as some of the other things on the Admin teamās to do list. Makes sense to me. We can get to it when it works out in the workload of things to accomplish. 
Hummm thinking out loud.
I hope this could increase community involvement and give more weight to those who are genuinely invested in the long-term health of The Sandbox ecosystem.
Hereās an additional thought to consider:
Alongside the increase in voting power, could we implement a tiered reward system for stakers?
For example, the longer or more SAND someone stakes, the higher tier they achieve. Each tier could unlock additional benefits:
Tier 1 (Basic Staker): Voting power increase.
Tier 2 (Intermediate Staker): Voting power increase + exclusive access to certain events or beta tests in The Sandbox.
Tier 3 (Advanced Staker): Voting power increase + exclusive events + a small percentage of transaction fees from the marketplace (to incentivize staking larger amounts or for longer periods).
Could this system would not only encourage staking but also promote deeper engagement with The Sandboxās platform, events, and community?
Iām all for unlocking transaction fees for funding staking! Before we do that, I feel like we need to make the marketplace more active for SandFam to buy and sell. If we brought more activity to it and it saw more trading volumeā¦Iād feel much better about allocating some of the trading fees to stakers.
What do you think, hishmad?
We should start discussing how to increase marketplace activity
The current discussion concerns staking mechanisms with voting power, which I believe is a fundamentally sound proposal.
Ohhh. I think I misread your post about the tiered reward system, my fault!
I support this idea, we do need to provide VP for stakers. It might even promote the use of delegates!
I have another thought and would love to hear your feedback on:
Staking services are unavailable in the UK, USA, and Canada. While staking is technically allowed in both Canada and the USA, there are many and complex regulations, especially around Taxes. Some companies, like the TSB, have stopped offering staking services to avoid potential legal complications!
I looked into it, the ask is massive! The company would be required to collect all data and tracking every staking transaction.
Iām thinking we could have two SIPs for staking, not sure if those are drafted by the community or the DAO team ?
I agree that the UK, USA, and Canada have complex regulations that make staking difficult. To ensure a smooth SIP, it might be best to initially exclude those regions.
I agree, to consider bringing back staking to those regions, a new SIP is better.
For the VP, It wouldnāt matter, since voting doesnāt require KYC.
Iām actually not supportive of rewarding voters with staking rewards, or interlinking the 2 in any form because it leads to ppl voting for the sake of it.
Itāll turn into a p2e, or rather, vote to earn platform, but unlike experiences, this are projects with aspirations that we are putting on the line, with people who may not necessarily care about the results of their vote as long as they can claim staking rewards.
Fair points. Remains a system like the tier approach and/or use of ranking points proposed by @hishmad.
Issue here if you start to add something on top of VP is how do you include UK, USA, and Canada communities (maybe they are fine with VP aspect but adding on top rewards feels a bit excluding them)
On the other topics about staking availability in UK, USA, and Canada, if I am not mistaken (heard that once) you cannot stake via the TSB website anymore but you can still do it by interacting directly with the smart contract on blockchain (no clue how to do that ). Not sure staking will come back via TSB site on those region.
Just finished watching EP-004 (skip to 13:58)
My input on that weighted formula would be:
2x multiplier of SAND once that staked SAND reaches 1 year, then halving that multiplier every year after that. Reason being: I think gives loyal token holders a fighting chance with LAND being 4.5K and 2M+ delegates.
I drew up a table below to show what 100 staked SAND could turn to year after year. After 6 years, 100 SAND would total 393.75 VP
What do you all think? Does it unfairly penalize those for staking too long?
| % per year (halved) | Total % | Year staked | Actual VP for 100 SAND |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200% | 200% | 1 | 200 |
| 100% | 300% | 2 | 300 |
| 50% | 350% | 3 | 350 |
| 25% | 375% | 4 | 375 |
| 13% | 388% | 5 | 387.5 |
| 6% | 394% | 6 | 393.75 |
Whatever the mechanism that will is selected we will need to find a way to keep transparency about the āpotentialā increase of VP that can be created by the system as this is potentially a risk to the system. I am explaining: today you can know which address holds sand but if those sands are staked it is very difficult to find the info about the time this amlount is staked. Therefore it could pontentially be used to artifically multiply fast your VP if you add a high mutliplier in one go and use it to influence voting. The mechanism then should be that the multiplier and bonus on sand staking is really coming slowly in.
Gotcha. Yes, I think it must be required that the mechanism be fully disclosed on SandboxDAO website. Kind of like how I wrote out the table above.