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Loans and unique trader bonuses are being extended until May 15th.

So current expectation is that at market close stonks will be unsubsidised and trading with incur fees, but they will still generate unique trader bonuses and loans will still exist.

Loans are different now to when this market was created. There is an 8x leverage cap, and users with overall negative investment value do not get loans. Also the cost basis is not loaned out to you anymore, it's the minimum of the market value and the sum-of-bets amount that is eligible to be loaned out. So you can't get loans on amounts you bet that have since become unrealised losses, and if you buy and sell a lot realising gains you also don't get loans on the realised gains after you buy back in.

So I don't know whether they are mana sinks on net. The burned fees vs trader bonuses could in principle be looked at to find which is larger in practice, but loans are harder to think about. Loans can print mana when people go negative, which they can do by selling positions on purpose or just when some markets resolve against them. This isn't unique to stonks, and since stonks don't resolve, I suppose going negative on resolution isn't relevant - so loans allow people to print mana by selling a leveraged position all at once and going negative.

This is still possible (though a bit more limited due to the leverage cap) with the current loan implementation, but I don't know how often it happens (seems like it would have to be either a mistake or someone deliberately burning their account), and whether the actual rate it happens or the potential for it is what should matter for this market.

@chrisjbillington as you mentioned, stonks are unsubsidized by default, which means both no AMM subsidy injection but also no trader bonuses. Creating one that is unsubbed means permanently losing the starting liquidity. But there otherwise isn't a direct loss to traders except by fees

@Stralor Aha, good point.

OK so only mana printing that will remain past the close date on the current plan is the ability to get loans and sell for negative payout, and stop using your account, increasing the mana supply for others.

@chrisjbillington why did you buy this up so much?

@duck_master trading fees will be here soon, and unique trader bonuses abolished. Some of the trading fees will go to the creator, but some go to Manifold, so that's a sink.

@duck_master And loans are being done away with too so people can't leverage up and print mana for others by going negative when they sell. Liquidity subsidies are less clear, my reading of the community guidelines is that stonks should be unsubsidised, but it looks like enforcement is lax.

Edit: looks like new stonks are automatically unsubsidised. The old ones, presumably mods just haven't bothered to unsub them (yet).

That should be everything. Trader bonuses, liquidity subsidies gone, fees in, will definitely be a sink if those changes are in place by market close.

@chrisjbillington ah, unique trader bonuses are not going away! Yet - manifold says it's still the plan, but not being turned of at the same time fees roll out. Noneless, being unranked and unsubsidised (I forget which is the relevant toggle) means stonks aren't eligible for unique trader bonuses anyway.

Fixed typo in date. Please let me know if you were caught out, and if you were I will resolve n/a or compensate your losses.