Resolves YES if, at any point this year, the price of mana (in USD) is decreased

price of mana is reduced

@Eliza

Proof that the code is real.

@Eliza While technically true due to criteria, this feels like a divergence from the intent of the title

@Stralor I think this is technically not true. The official price of mana remains the same; there is merely a coupon applying a discount...

@SG GJ making an edge case for Joseph to sort out 😂

@Stralor And you're buying YES on the below market because it merely requires that "you can buy" at a lower price, which you definitely can. That's unambiguous, I hope!

/mana/will-manifold-change-mana-prices

@chrisjbillington yep!

@Eliza I would say that the price of mana hasn't actually changed, there's just a specific way to get a discount. It still costs the same amount if you don't use the promo code or aren't one of the first 100 buyers.

@PlasmaBallin Just because you let the largest No holder (who happens to wear a VERY fancy badge and has Reasons to be Insistent on his Position) hoodwink you, doesn't mean I won't convince you to resolve in my favor on a technicality on some other market in the future!

@Eliza 😂

SG might have a fancy badge, but here Eliza is talking about it as if he doesn't have the singular most unique and fancy badge on the site!

Not sure what the sudden spike is about, but I know not to bet against Marcus.

@JosephNoonan I don't either but I want to sell my position.

Does anyone wish to buy the mana value of a market sale of 114 Yes shares on 31 October at 11:00pm Manifold time from me? They are worth 65 mana for a market sale right now but I will sell them to you for just 60 mana. And you don't have to pay anything today, just make the agreement.

@JosephNoonan I think it might be related to this:

https://manifold.markets/SG/should-manifold-charge-a-fee-on-mar

Should Manifold charge a fee on market subsidization?

Should Manifold take a ~25% cut of added liquidity subsidies (excluding initial ante)? One way of viewing prediction markets is that they're a service provided to the question asker. In this model, it makes sense to charge the asker for the privilege of getting the market to answer their question. Unlike transaction fees on trades, charging the subsidizer is a friendlier, progressive tax that only those with higher mana balances will end up paying for. (Mana-poor users typically don't subsidize their markets.)

Chain of reasoning being if they are even considering making a change like that, then manaflation is at least something on the radar? I guess? Or something?

Does this trade based on the black market rate for Mana?

@MaybeNotDepends I suppose it depends on your definition of official.

@MaybeNotDepends No, that is explicitly not included by the word "official".

@JosephNoonan I'm talking about the official black market rate.

If mana does inflate, it's almost certain to be on the charity donations side, since Manifold presumably isn't going to make it cheaper to buy mana while still giving charity donations at the same rate (then you could bankrupt Manifold by making them donate arbitrarily high amounts of money to charity, if you're rich enough). But it's also very plausible that Manifold would increase the price of mana, which would count as mana deflating by the definition in this market. They may even do both at once.

Another arbitrage opp:

Should Manifold let the Mana float?

59% chance. This will resolve YES iff the market reaches > 95% inclusive on the title question representing a positive consensus. This will resolve NO iff the market reaches < 5% inclusive on the title question representing a negative consensus. ** The market needs to have at least 50 distinct traders in order to close to represent consensus. ** If Manifold let's mana float - changes the current conversion rate of 100 mana / 1 dollar - before the above conditions are met, then this market will automatically close as YES. The closing will be pushed out indefinitely as long as possible the above conditions are met. If Manifold closes the market earlier or forces resolution before the conditions are met, then it will resolve in whatever the majority position is at time of closing. See these markets for something similar: https://manifold.markets/AdamTreat/will-manifold-let-mana-float-in-202 https://manifold.markets/JosephNoonan/will-mana-officially-inflate-relati

Just seeing this now. I made a question before seeing this that is kinda duplicative but I guess not completely so in that I'll resolve if the ratio increases too:

Will Manifold let Mana float in 2023?

16% chance. This question will resolve to YES if Manifold market makes a change to the mana/dollar exchange rate anytime in 2023. This question will resolve to NO if Manifold does not make a change and the current exchange rate is preserved for the remainder of 2023 which is 100 mana for 1 dollar. Based on supply/demand the amount of total mana seems to be going up daily so the real power of the dollar for buying mana is diluted continuously. For this to look more like a real market the mana should float, no?

Fwiw I think it's pretty likely that we'll drop the charity conversion rate at some point, to turn the charity program into a revenue-positive system for Manifold. It's not clear whether we'll do this in 2023 it after.

@Austin How about taking the cut when people buy mana, instead of when they donate it?

@ZicoVerona I agree, that’s a better idea. @Austin Please don’t set a precedent by decreasing the charity conversion rate. Long-term markets are already challenging to incentivize, and concerns about one’s mana being devalued only exacerbate the problem

@Simon74fe I'm open to that solution as well (eg charging $12 for 1k mana) though @SG doesn't like it

@Austin I think I'm usually on your side but sounds like I'm siding with @SG this time! (The culture of healthy debate y'all have is amazing, btw.) I've started making a list of things I think it would make sense to try before resorting to a mana/dollar depeg. It's persuasive enough to me that I intend to keep bidding this market down! Argument in a nutshell is that you can impose various fees, restrictions, and nudges to avoid having to deviate from a nominal 1:1 exchange rate for buying and donating mana.

@ZicoVerona @dreev The reason to change the charity redemption rate and not the purchase rate is that it's better to charge a fee on things that cost the platform money (ie sending charitable donations), rather than things that don't (ie intra-platform mana sinks like boosts, lootboxes, subscription plans (eventually), etc.). The latter will become a bigger deal over time.

The purchase rate also seems more symbolically important to me.

@SG Both options have the downside that you have already printed way more mana than any foreseeable money you could have. Another option would be to donate monthly 80% of the revenue of the past month, and split it equal to the % of mana donated that month for each charity. Or get rid of the donation concept, make people choose a charity to sponsor, and donate based on % of total mana earned on the site, for each sponsor. Those have their own problems but I just wanted to share that concern

@NiciusB Hm I don't think this is true? If Mira's figures are correct (I haven't audited them but they seem roughly right) then we've printed something like $300k of mana which is basically offset by our remaining Future Fund grant for charity prediction markets.

@Austin Oh my bad, I haven’t looked at the numbers at all, it was just an asumption

Mira's numbers here:

@Austin so based on that you have 12mm of purchases and 32mm of printing. You are also printing mana by giving uncollateralized loans, but I don't have those numbers. I'm also not seeing liquidity subsidies. Let's suppose that those are 10mm combined.

So if you want to reduce losses by 4mm you could print 8% less mana, or charge a 33% fee on mana purchases, or charge a 7% fee on donations.

I mostly favor printing less mana. If you charge a fee on donations then you're effectively printing less mana anyway. This will require fixing some technical issues that subsidies are papering over.

@Austin What about API fees? Are they hidden in some row in Mira's numbers, or not enforced? https://docs.manifold.markets/api#fees

Manifold API | Manifold Docs

Programatic access to Manifold.