Update to the ASTOR payout scheme

Over the last six months we paid out a significant share of the pool rewards to our loyal delegators. Most folks who received these benefits continued to delegate to the pool.

As a reminder, here is how it worked so far …
  • We took a snapshot of who had delegated to ASTOR consistently over the last six epochs
  • We calculated the average stake for every stake address that qualifies
  • From the pool rewards we subtracted 1% margin that went to charity
  • We then subtracted the actual running cost, which was very little
  • We further subtracted a tax escrow, which is subject to local tax regulations
  • The remainder was distributed proportionally among delegators who qualified
  • The minimum payout value had to be >= 1 ADA (enforced by the network)
  • Finally, we generated a transaction with metadata that published the details

Much of this can stay as is, but we can also make some improvements.
  1. With the event of Plutus the process can be handled by a smart contract and therefore becomes part of the network operations. This shifts the tax liability for the payouts from the owner to the delegators. In short, we can pay out the tax escrow as well - the grey slice becomes green.
  2. Some folks have stayed with the pool for a long time, but always with not quite enough stake so that we could make an actual payout. Going forward, we will now fill the pot in stages. As before, when you stay with the pool for six month you qualify and get access to the pot, but only to 50%. Every additional month unlocks another 10% of the total payout. This has the effect, that small delegators can carry their stake forward and not forfeit the benefit every month. It also creates a long term incentive. 
  3. Lastly, we cap the effective stake to 250k. This is because we don't want some whale to come in and slurp away the vast majority of all payouts to himself. Funny, Astor may be the only pool that prefers whales to go elsewhere 😉
The net result of these changes will mean significantly more payout for everyone in the long run. Loyal delegators will continue to get the same rewards as the pool owner - we are doing this together.

Here is the break out of the monthly payout amounts. A 100% payout would occur when we make at least 1 block per epoch. If we should have epochs with no blocks, we adjust accordingly.
 

The maximum payout of 1,800 ADA p.m. also means that we have 40 ADA per epoch to run the pool reliably and securely. From what we've seen over the last six months, that should be enough. The rest can therefore go to you - the delegators.

With all of this, effective cost per block is quite attractive.


We will of course continue to do our charity thing. With the 1% pool margin we continue to plant trees. Currently, this is approximately one tree per day and keeps our CO2 footprint in the negative. This one percent of your delegator rewards is your part, if you like.

I hope that this will further improve what you can get out of Astor and I'm proud to be part of this incredible journey and be able to offer this service to the Cardano community.

You're welcome on board

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