(SNIP #420.68 was, can SNIPs be a thing? Stacker News Improvement Proposals?)

Ok so I had a wacky idea the other day, maybe this has actually been brought up before (apologies if so), but I guess this would be just another vote or nudge to make it happen. It seems like it may not be very feasible, but a man can dream.

Fractional Territory Ownership

Or, "Community-Owned Territories?"

The dilemma:

Territories are expensive to maintain, and even more expensive to set up on a permanent basis.

But SN may benefit from a few new ones from time to time. (Those of you who think there are too many already, hear me out...)

I have a territory in mind which I think could add real value to SN, and I'd love to set it up, but can't stomach the idea of parting with 3m sats to do so. I bet there are lots of others in the same boat.

So I had a thought, "what if one could do some sort of fundraiser, and pool the sats to make a territory happen?" If it's a worthy enough idea for a new territory, I bet stackers could get the 3m sats as a group, even if it played out over some time. (We could donate to a fundraising pool directly, or even forward sats on related posts to the pool somehow?)

Now that begs the question of who would "own" the territory? Who would receive the sat rewards, who would be able to moderate/ set the posting fees etc.

So that led me to the thought of:

Could a territory be "fractionally" owned?

Maybe ownership could be divided into 50 or 100 shares. The sat income from the territory would be distributed out to shareholders like dividends. Would be pretty badass if the shares were transferable, so one could sell their shares to someone else, but that's just a bonus.

That's actually the "easier" part in my view. The governance / decisions about fees, moderation etc. that all seems much harder, but I'm sure some people more familiar with open source software governance might have ideas on that.

Another option is that a territory like this could just be "community owned" where all the sat income would just go right into the main rewards pool as a donation. Again, governance is the tricky part there.

So maybe the simplest and most realistic setup would be: posting fees are voted on in advance, and would remain set that way permanently. All sat income for the territory would be forwarded to rewards pool, permanently. There would be no moderation at all, just let the market of zaps/ downzaps do the moderation. Then there would be no need for any sort of shares/ dividends/ or governance.

A potential problem with the fundraiser for 3m sats, is what if it never goes the distance? Then contributors would lose their sats for nothing. It would need to work like a traditional crowdfunding campaign where there is a goal and a timeframe to achieve the goal. If the 3m mark isn't crossed by a certain date, then the sats get returned.

I'm sure there are lots of other problems I didn't think of, but I still think it's a cool idea.

Am I just dreaming here or does this seem like something that could actually work?

1 sat = 1 sat, but we're not all OGs. So as the fiat price of Bitcoin increases, will the territories list become permanently fixed (as in, only the ones that were bought outright will remain) ? And/ or will it only be btc whales who are able to found new territories?

100 stackers starting a territory together = 30k each. 50 stackers = 60k sats.

Seems very doable, but the bar is high enough that it would need to be a uniquely strong idea for a new territory, one that would be an obvious value-add, for a fundraiser to succeed.

Could result in more sats in the rewards pool, more income for SN.

Seems like even if it may be technically difficult, the result could be a very useful protocol for new territory generation. It could benefit the stacker community and strengthen the SN platform?

It's too "out there" of an idea, right?

210 sats \ 1 reply \ @supratic 24 Nov

Is is the backlog, between subterritories and partially funded territories

Still the issue of funding. If a territory is already fully funded for 3M sats, would a 300k sats give a 9.09% ownership? Or another 3M sats 50%?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coyote_Cosmico OP 24 Nov

Thank you, it's great to see that! The "partially funded mutual territories" proposal looks a little different than what I pictured, but pretty close.

Yeah I see the issue with funding if it's just an open zap to donate function. Not sure how that was envisioned to work but if a territory becomes fully funded maybe the donate/ crowdfund function would be disabled?

I'm sure there are lots of challenges with this I didn't even consider.. the proposal also mentions "unregistered security" issue if the sat income is shared, I didn't even think about that but seems like an obvious problem now.

I like the model where it's just a trustless community fundraiser and the sat income just goes to rewards pool.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 24 Nov

I think this is a very interesting idea. I am sure we will have some solutions for this eventually.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 24 Nov

It's probably a long way off, but it's a fun hypothetical. You could solve the management issues by having a general partner/limited partner structure.

43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coyote_Cosmico OP 24 Nov

Yeah I figured it's a ways out, if ever, but wanted to plant or water the seed. Looks like something similar is already a formal feature request in guthub as posted in the comment here by @supratic

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 24 Nov

I don't know about 50-100 stackers. I like the idea for up to 10 stackers. Then at least you have some skin in the game.

I'm about to give up the territory based. I started it just to see what it's like to be a territory owner.

I am interested in doing a couple as a partial owner (askSN and possibly a Parents Corner). For now we just have to be able to trust each other. If that's too much to ask it could be done as a multisig setup with a third party. If one of us cheats they simply lose their bond.

If it's a rev share situation you're right 50 is probably too many. I personally don't care much about being a territory owner but just think some particular new ones should exist, so the 50-100 is better suited to that model where basically SN would own it and stackers contribute just because the territory seems like it should be part of the mix.