To Change Chain or not to Change Chain

5 min readMar 17, 2021

A couple weeks ago we asked the community for their opinion on whether Shard should stay as its own Chain or become an ERC20/BEP20 token. Since then we have seen a large majority of the community want Shard to become a token on either the BSC or ETH chains.

As there has been large support for a swap we will be holding a vote as previously announced. The vote will run for 7 days until the 24th of March 2021.

If you would like to take part in the vote you can do so by going to the #shard-swap-vote channel on discord and react with the corresponding option number, then go to the #shard-swap-opinion channel and give your reason or opinion as to why you chose the option “ETH”, “BNB” OR “STAY AS IS”. Only those that vote and provide a reason why they voted for their choice will be counted as a valid vote.

Here are the following choices:

1- Shard as a native ETH token (The teams choice)

Shard will be the decentralized governance token for Platform X with unique benefits for Shard .
The new Shard supply would change from being distributed in staking rewards to stakers securing the blockchain as currently, to staking rewards distributed to liquidity providers on Platform X, other incentives and the governance treasury.
Decentralized security on the ETH chain for the base token, taking advantage of the existing rich infrastructure of supporting exchanges, wallets and bridges to ETH sidechains to expand to in the future.
Shard bridged from ETH to BSC to be used on Platform X and allow for lower fees for the swap distribution.
Would require ETH as gas to send it (or BNB when bridged to BSC).

If it is decided to change to be an Ethereum token then Shard will be bridged on launch, allowing to swap from the current Shard chain to your preference of either ETH or BNB. This means you can still take advantage of the cheaper fees on BSC by swapping directly to the BSC bridged Shard, while if you want more decentralization and don’t mind higher fees then you can swap direct to ETH.

2- Shard as a native BSC token

Shard will be the decentralized governance token for Platform X with unique benefits for Shard.
The new Shard supply would change from being distributed in staking rewards to stakers securing the blockchain as currently, to staking rewards distributed to liquidity providers on Platform X, other incentives and the governance treasury.
Shard bridged from BSC to ETH and other chains to be used on Platform X and allow for lower fees for the swap distribution.
Would require BNB as gas to send it (or ETH when bridged to ETH).
A limited infrastructure of supporting exchanges, wallets and bridges, making it harder to get listed on centralized exchanges and other services.

3- Remain its own blockchain

Shard usable for micro-payments with very low fees, with a centralized bridge to ETH/BSC for trading on Platform X.
Would require another token to be made for decentralized governance of Platform X.
With staking rewards and the SCR split manually used to distribute staking rewards to liquidity providers on Platform X.

If it is decided to change to a token we would look to deploy the token and open up the ability to start swapping as soon as possible after the vote. The swap will run for up to 3 months, after which depending on the state of the Shard chain users may still be able to swap, however they will be required to pay either a set fee or % based whichever is the highest. This would continue for up to a year.

How will Platform X benefit Shard?

Shard as a native token on Platform X will benefit Shard in many ways, some of these are:

Shard burns and other deflationary methods from part of the platforms trading fees as well as future features that will burn Shard;
Used for governance and voting;
Shard distributed to those providing to the ecosystem, which at the start will be via liquidity staking and many other ways in the future;
Shard used to access future features and cashbacks;
Securely trade Shard against multiple pairs at less than a percent spread;
Large exposure to a wide range of new potential Shard holders;
The ability for Shard holders to earn a passive income by providing liquidity to an automated Shard pair pool, without needing to learn how to trade or manage market making software;
Multi-chain bridge allowing Shard to be used on the Ethereum and Binance Chains. This will provide Shard with many new options for exchange listings, platform integrations and thousands of potential new investors, bringing increased value and exposure to Shard as one of few multi-chain digital assets.
Shard will be used to validate coins, allowing tokens to pay in Shard to be reviewed and integrated as a whitelisted project. Due to being a fully decentralized platform, users can still trade and provide liquidity to non-whitelisted projects. However, whitelisted tokens will be reviewed and receive additional visibility and artwork to fit into a premium platform.

Planned tokenomics if Shard changes to be a token

If Shard becomes a token there will be a few changes to the tokenomics, some of these changes would be as follows:

Instead of Shard distributed via staking by securing the network it would be distributed to those providing value into the ecosystem, such as providing liquidity (especially to Shard pairs) and other methods in the future, as well as ecosystem grants approved by the governance;
All current Shard would be swapped at a 1:1 ratio which is around 28 million Shard;
A % of Shard emissions like now will go to the dev fund to further enhance developments and growth of the ecosystem;
The hardcap will stay the same as now at 210 million;
Up to 2% mintable yearly for future governance and growth up to the 210 million cap. With burning from platform x the supply could decrease over time;

There will be a 100 million supply minted at the start of which:

Around 28 million allocated for swaps from the current supply at a 1:1 ratio;
6 million made available during the first year for liquidity staking rewards and other incentives;
66 million locked up and released over time for future staking rewards/incentives and governance treasury grants to be voted on;

Conclusion

This is a big decision and it can only be made with the support and input from the complete community, so we ask that when considering which option to vote for to please think of the long term vision and goals of Shard, as well as what will bring the most value long term to the project.