As of the last edit my position is something like:
“Manifold could have handled this better, so as not to force everyone with large amounts of mana to have to do something urgently, when many were busy.
Beyond that they are attempting to satisfy two classes of people:
People who played to donate can donate the full value of their investments
People who played for fun now get the chance to turn their mana into money
To this end, and modulo the above hassle this decision is good.
It is unclear to me whether there was an implicit promise that mana was worth 100 to the dollar. Manifold has made some small attempt to stick to this, but many untried avenues are available, as is acknowledging they will rectify the error if possible later. To the extent that there was a promise (uncertain) and no further attempt is made, I don’t really believe they really take that promise seriously.
It is unclear to me what I should take from this, though they have not acted as I would have expected them to. Who is wrong? Me, them, both of us? I am unsure.”
Austin said they have $1.5 million in the bank, vs $1.2 million mana issued. The only outflows right now are to the charity programme which even with a lot of outflows is only at $200k. they also recently raised at a $40 million valuation. I am confused by running out of money. They have a large user base that wants to bet and will do so at larger amounts if given the opportunity. I’m not so convinced that there is some tiny timeline here.
But if there is, then say so “we know that we often talked about mana being eventually worth $100 mana per dollar, but we printed too much and we’re sorry. Here are some reasons we won’t devalue in the future..”
If we could push a button to raise at a reasonable valuation, we would do that and back the mana supply at the old rate. But it’s not that easy. Raising takes time and is uncertain.
Carson’s prior is right that VC backed companies can quickly die if they have no growth—it can be very difficult to raise in that environment.
If that were true then there are many ways you could partially do that—eg give people a set of tokens to represent their mana at the time of the devluation and if at future point you raise. you could give them 10x those tokens back.
weren’t donations always flagged to be a temporary thing that may or may not continue to exist? I’m not inclined to search for links but that was my understanding.
“That being said, we will do everything we can to communicate to our users what our plans are for the future and work with anyone who has participated in our platform with the expectation of being able to donate mana earnings.”
″everything we can” is not a couple of weeks notice and lot of hassle. Am I supposed to trust this organisation in future with my real money?
If you are inactive you have until the rest of the year to donate at the old rate. If you want to donate all your investments without having to sell each individually, we are offering you a loan to do that.
We removed the charity cap of $10k donations per month, which is going beyond what we previous communicated.
Well they have a much larger donation than has been spent so there were ways to avoid this abrupt change:
“Manifold for Good has received grants totaling $500k from the Center for Effective Altruism (via the FTX Future Fund) to support our charitable endeavors.”
Manifold has donated $200k so far. So there is $300k left. Why not at least, say “we will change the rate at which mana can be donated when we burn through this money”
Austin took his salary in mana as an often referred to incentive for him to want mana to become valuable, presumably at that rate.
I recall comments like ‘we pay 250 in referrals mana per user because we reckon we’d pay about $2.50’ likewise in the in person mana auction. I’m not saying it was an explicit contract, but there were norms.
Nathan and Carson’s Manifold discussion.
As of the last edit my position is something like:
“Manifold could have handled this better, so as not to force everyone with large amounts of mana to have to do something urgently, when many were busy.
Beyond that they are attempting to satisfy two classes of people:
People who played to donate can donate the full value of their investments
People who played for fun now get the chance to turn their mana into money
To this end, and modulo the above hassle this decision is good.
It is unclear to me whether there was an implicit promise that mana was worth 100 to the dollar. Manifold has made some small attempt to stick to this, but many untried avenues are available, as is acknowledging they will rectify the error if possible later. To the extent that there was a promise (uncertain) and no further attempt is made, I don’t really believe they really take that promise seriously.
It is unclear to me what I should take from this, though they have not acted as I would have expected them to. Who is wrong? Me, them, both of us? I am unsure.”
Threaded discussion
Carson:
Austin said they have $1.5 million in the bank, vs $1.2 million mana issued. The only outflows right now are to the charity programme which even with a lot of outflows is only at $200k. they also recently raised at a $40 million valuation. I am confused by running out of money. They have a large user base that wants to bet and will do so at larger amounts if given the opportunity. I’m not so convinced that there is some tiny timeline here.
But if there is, then say so “we know that we often talked about mana being eventually worth $100 mana per dollar, but we printed too much and we’re sorry. Here are some reasons we won’t devalue in the future..”
If we could push a button to raise at a reasonable valuation, we would do that and back the mana supply at the old rate. But it’s not that easy. Raising takes time and is uncertain.
Carson’s prior is right that VC backed companies can quickly die if they have no growth—it can be very difficult to raise in that environment.
If that were true then there are many ways you could partially do that—eg give people a set of tokens to represent their mana at the time of the devluation and if at future point you raise. you could give them 10x those tokens back.
seems like they are breaking an explicit contract (by pausing donations on ~a weeks notice)
Carson’s response:
From https://manifoldmarkets.notion.site/Charitable-donation-program-668d55f4ded147cf8cf1282a007fb005
“That being said, we will do everything we can to communicate to our users what our plans are for the future and work with anyone who has participated in our platform with the expectation of being able to donate mana earnings.”
″everything we can” is not a couple of weeks notice and lot of hassle. Am I supposed to trust this organisation in future with my real money?
We are trying our best to honor mana donations!
If you are inactive you have until the rest of the year to donate at the old rate. If you want to donate all your investments without having to sell each individually, we are offering you a loan to do that.
We removed the charity cap of $10k donations per month, which is going beyond what we previous communicated.
Nevertheless lots of people were hassled. That has real costs, both to them and to you.
I’m discussing with Carson. I might change my mind but i don’t know that i’ll argue with both of you at once.
Well they have a much larger donation than has been spent so there were ways to avoid this abrupt change:
“Manifold for Good has received grants totaling $500k from the Center for Effective Altruism (via the FTX Future Fund) to support our charitable endeavors.”
Manifold has donated $200k so far. So there is $300k left. Why not at least, say “we will change the rate at which mana can be donated when we burn through this money”
(via https://manifoldmarkets.notion.site/Charitable-donation-program-668d55f4ded147cf8cf1282a007fb005 )
seems breaking an implicity contract (that 100 mana was worth a dollar)
Carson’s response:
Austin took his salary in mana as an often referred to incentive for him to want mana to become valuable, presumably at that rate.
I recall comments like ‘we pay 250 in referrals mana per user because we reckon we’d pay about $2.50’ likewise in the in person mana auction. I’m not saying it was an explicit contract, but there were norms.