Proposal to increase Community Pool Tax

[lechenghiskhan]

Background and Context

The last community pool tax update was completed with Proposals 240 and 241 at the end of December 2023.

Since 2023, we saw on-chain fees grow by 144% QoQ and 565% YoY, GPU usage grow by 42% QoQ, GPU capacity by 37% QoW, and new leases (apps) grow by 274%, making Akash the highest-earning DePIN, with 3x more than Render, 2x more than Helium and Filecoin.

This growth was fueled, in large part by Provider Incentive Pilots 1 & 2. With Pilot 2 over 90% committed as of February 10, 2025, additional funds from the Community Pool will soon be needed to accelerate Akash Network’s growth.

Proposal

We are proposing an increase to the Community Pool tax from 40% to 50% to ensure it is properly funded for provider/tenant incentives and other community initiatives.

The use of Community Pool proceeds will always be requested via governance proposal and determined by detailed discussions within SIG-Economics, Steering Committee, and associated Working Group meetings.

[piber-dev]

hi @lechenghiskhan thanks for writing this proposal, while i don't have anything against with raising the community pool tax to 50%, i don't think some of these numbers are appropriate to use for the backround and context. for example i don't think it's fair to use the number of new leases when the trial funds feature is still being abused AFAIK and to my knowledge has not been dealt with at all through e.g. limiting GPU mining, the full usage of GPUs, or other pitched ideas by me and other community members. this is just a small detail for this proposal and i think having as much money as possible in the community pool makes sense right now.

while not super relevant to this proposal, i don't think a new PIP03 should be created right now without knowing how much of the GPUs are actually being utilized by real users. from my understanding, USDC is also being recycled with the trial funds feature making the PIP provider earnings send back the trial funds to console and the providers being fully funded by PIP02. my current opinion is that PIP proposals are a waste of money at the moment although i really liked the idea of the first PIP. when the abuse is actually dealt with and we can see more accurate usage numbers, i would love to see another PIP proposal.

[lechenghiskhan]

Thanks for participating and sharing your thoughts as always @piber-dev!

Addressing your comments here:

1. If it isn't fair to use leases or even network revenue as a measure, what do you suggest?
2. When it comes to issues that exist with trials, these are being actively addressed by the client teams as we speak. Here is just one example: Trial accounts can only create 5 deployments console#827.
3. Most of the GPUs are being used by real users. Very few, if any, GPU providers brought on by the PIP02 are even in trials to start.
4. OCL has administered the PIP funds very carefully by breaking up these pilots into stages to ensure demand is validated before pushing further.
5. A new PIP proposal will be coming soon, so please stay tuned!

Most of your concerns fall outside of the purview of this discussion, which is focused on just increasing the community pool tax. I encourage you to continue participating in the client SIG and other appropriate SIGs to voice your concerns about trials.

[piber-dev]

thanks for your reply @lechenghiskhan - you're right that most of this is outside of the discussion as i do support highering the tax to 50%. i just wanted to have some of this be written out before the new PIP proposal is out in a hope that some of these concerns can be addressed before that.

for the third point, that is nice hear as that makes the GPU numbers more accurate. i would love for this information to be available in a PIP03 proposal how much of the total resources was available in the trial funds whitelist. i think these metrics would be fair to use if the trial funds feature was funded in another way or if the trial funds were not abused. if what i've heard is correct, a new trial account can be created in an incognito window making the 5 deployments per account not do a whole lot.

i'd love for more PIP proposals to be successful and i understand that there is a lot of work to be done there. i do believe it is important to recognize how much these cost and to make sure that the funds are not being wasted on e.g. abuse, large downtimes, and other factors and AFAIK the downtimes has not been a concern thanks to the great work put in there.

[KamuelBob]

I support this proposal but only together with a reduction in InflationMax rate to around 8%.

We are currently tracking around 2M AKT above the supply target (around 1 month ahead) but if left unchecked, this time next year we will be 10 months worth of emissions ahead of plan (15M AKT).

At the very least I would support this proposal with an updated inflation plan being communicated if the original is no longer the plan.

Side note: Given the very low staking ratio, APY would still remain above inflation at this rate which is an important parameter for some people.

[lechenghiskhan]

Thanks @KamuelBob and it's good to see you here :)

Both inflation and CP tax rates are definitely important to keep track of and manage openly with the community; I assure you that these are still vitally important.

To keep in line with the last discussion around this topic, the community's desire was to keep these things separate, so let's continue doing so: https://github.com/orgs/akash-network/discussions/641

We can start a separate discussion about reducing inflation in the near future and I look forward to seeing you there.

By increasing the CP tax rate, the effective amount of tokens going to stakers will be reduced anyway, effectively reducing the number of tokens being emitted to the open market. This is a simple proposal, and I hope the motivations are clear: increasing funding for the community pool while reducing token emissions to the public.