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@SG I think the close date is wrong.

Close date is space year 3009?

Announce, or implement?

@firstuserhere "announce"

I'm gonna be so salty if SG screws up my arbitrage by announcing December 31st and implementing January 1st😂

@Joshua ikr, better to ask xD

@Joshua for this reason, I'm planning a large donation

Related market: https://manifold.markets/market/will-mana-officially-inflate-relati

I predict that anything that counts as a mana/dollar depeg would be bad. So a fee on cashing out to charity is probably ok but changing the charity conversion rate would feel bad (I know it's a blurry line).

Will mana officially inflate relative to the U.S. dollar in 2023?

16% chance. Resolves YES if, at any point this year, the price of mana (in USD) is decreased, or the amount of USD you can donate to charity with a given amount of mana is decreased. Otherwise resolves NO.

Am confused. Is the charity program currently funded by a $500K grant to Manifold's 501(c)(3)? Are the administrative costs that considerable (especially if you limited it to a set of charities that had been popular to reduce the number of payments to process)?

Based on some reasons to question the extent to which Manifold donations are counterfactual (see linked market), I am concerned that a non-trivial fee would destroy much if not all of the value of the program. The impact would be less if the fee could be paid in mana (it would be a functional devaluation of the exchange rate in that case).

Are Manifold donations counterfactual?

I want to determine the counterfactual nature of Manifold donations, and I'm looking for a response ranging from 0 (indicating "no" they are not counterfactual) to 1 (indicating "yes" they are counterfactual). My current belief is 0.5. To make this more interesting I will subtract my 2023 Manifold donations (currently $800) from my personal donations. For instance, if my Manifold donations total $800 and the chosen answer is 0.5, then I will donate $400 less than my original intended amount. I will award 1000 mana to the response that provides the most compelling argument, probably based on the results of a well executed poll or a similar approach. Additionally, to encourage active participation, I will offer a 10-25 mana bounty to interesting responses.

@Jason Yes, it wouldn't be a dollar fee but a change in the mana redemption rate.

Changing the rate would allow us to make use of our grant for a longer period of time and potentially allow the business itself to support the program after we exhaust those funds.

The administrative costs to us also are not trivial.

@SG Flipping through the top few recipients, it seems that the substantial majority of funds are donated by Manifold staff. From the staff perspective, there doesn't seem to be a clear difference between devaluing mana (e.g., 100 mana = 70 cents' donation) and cutting the staff monthly mana allocation (e.g., 1MM to 700K) . . . except that the latter doesn't break the buck: $1 USD purchases 100 mana that converts back into a $1 charitable donation.

The marginal slowing of grant exhaustion from devaluing non-staff mana donations doesn't seem worth debasing the value of mana in the eyes of would-be purchasers. Manifold's long-term business plan is opaque to me, but the end of grant funds seems way too far away for the interest in extending them a bit to outweigh the interest in not impairing interest in mana purchases and not weakening user incentives for engagement.

I think this is a good idea!