You and a few others are asking that withdrawals be opened up prior to, or perhaps simultaneously with, the mevETH launch.
30 Apr 2023, 17:22
1. You and a few others are asking that withdrawals be opened up prior to, or perhaps simultaneously with, the mevETH launch. I think this partly stems from a misconception about what this would entail from a technical standpoint. Enabling crETH2 holders to claim their underlying ETH plus accrued rewards isn’t like flipping a switch. It requires intensive, careful smart contract development and testing with the same slow, methodical prioritization of security as any other part of a liquid staking system. Contrary to what one might expect, these aren’t “simple” contracts to build, and a single bug or exploit could be catastrophic, so realistically, writing them from scratch, getting them audited, etc., takes a month or two at minimum. This is why Lido and other major staking platforms also haven’t implemented this functionality yet—the difference is that their receipt tokens are holding their pegs reasonably well, so people can swap out at a good exchange rate and thus aren’t feeling “stuck” in stETH.
2. The sort of arrangement you’re describing—where C.R.E.A.M. shuts down its staking services, people claim their ETH, and then each decide whether to manually stake into mevETH—isn’t really a meaningful partnership or collaboration between C.R.E.A.M. and Manifold: It would just be one liquid staking platform shutting down and another starting up, maybe with some joint publicity or something. This isn’t an arrangement that Manifold or its community would be interested in providing incentives for, especially not at the levels we’re planning for crETH2 holders. Remember, Manifold is acquiring C.R.E.A.M.’s ETH staking business, which both teams felt is an extremely attractive path because of (1) Manifold’s ability to design and implement novel, full-stack MEV strategies; (2) the passion, dedication, and enthusiasm with which C.R.E.A.M’s community of defi participants and stakers engage with projects; and (3) C.R.E.A.M.’s intention to focus on other defi products and services that they can innovate in and bring unique value to, which you’ll hear more about in the future. Neither C.R.E.A.M. nor crETH2 holders would be well-served by prioritizing developing withdrawal contracts for a platform they’re sunsetting when they could instead transfer the platform to a partner who can build a much more comprehensive revenue-generating system for stakers, and who will provide robust incentives for those stakers to smooth the transition.
3. It’s absolutely critical that we launch mevETH in as simple a form as possible. As I’ve mentioned in the past, we’re building a new kind of liquid staking system entirely from scratch, and we have extremely ambitious, elaborate plans for building frankly wild things on top of it, which we’ll reveal in stages through the rest of the year and beyond. But for this to work, we need to ensure that the foundations—basic mechanics and accounting for deposits, rewards, price feeds, etc.—be absolutely bullet-proof and rock-solid. We’ll be launching with as few moving parts and as little attack surface as possible, and we’re considering the first weeks of the protocol’s life a critical period for ensuring everything works seamlessly before we begin opening things up and adding functionality. This even applies to things like MEV strategies: we’ll launch with only one or two strategies live, and then add more and more as time goes on. This is not how we’d launch if our aim were to generate maximal hype and get everyone talking about us for a few weeks and then moving on. Rather, this is how we launch a protocol that defines a new class of full-stack MEV, staking, and block-building services, something no one else can do today and that we expect will be one-of-a-kind for a long time.