CHESS — The governance token of Tranchess, was initially designed to incentivize the active users of Tranchess platform. After releasing DAO in the future, it would also be the token used to achieve community management of the protocol. With DAO already in development and the release of Boosting feature right around the corner, it is only apt to take this opportunity to walk our users through the key design features of CHESS.
Staking
By staking QUEEN, BISHOP and ROOK tokens in the protocol, users would be able to mine CHESS almost immediately. The three tokens mine CHESS at a weighted rate of 3:4:2 respectively, which means to say that for any specific period, each staked QUEEN that yields 3 CHESS tokens, a BISHOP would receive 4 CHESS and ROOK 2 CHESS. Participating in Staking is the prerequisite for Tranchess Swap trading and CHESS reward boosting, which we will discuss further later.
With some CHESS on hand (of course, one can also get CHESS via Pancake Swap), let’s look deeper into the benefits that CHESS brings, specifically the interest spread voting, the BTCB rebate and the CHESS reward boosting. All benefits require veCHESS, which can be obtained by locking CHESS tokens.
Lock CHESS for more rewards
As mentioned, veCHESS is your entry ticket to enjoying the benefits specially designed for the CHESS token. You get veCHESS by locking CHESS in the protocol and the more CHESS you lock, or the longer you lock them for, the more veCHESS you would receive.
Here is a short video explanation:
For a step-by-step CHESS locking tutorial, check out the How to guide:
Voting
veCHESS grants users the voting power to participate in the interest spread ballot under Governance. This ballot decides the interest spread to be added on top of the USDC interest rate derived from VENUS. The final rate determined would be used as the next 7-day interest rate BISHOP receives from ROOK.
Users can cast their votes on any of the three options: 0%, 2%, and 4%. A BISHOP holder is likely to cast all votes on 4%, whilst a ROOK holder would probably vote for 0%. The result is a volume-weighted average of the voting distribution across all three options.
BTCB Rebate
BTCB Rebate is probably one of our most popular features. Tranchess rebates 75% of all protocol income (Note) to those who enrolled their veCHESS in the program. Your share of any current week’s rebate pool is determined by the percentage of veCHESS held from the previous week. You can increase your share of the rebate pool（i.e., more veCHESS) by locking more CHESS or extending your CHESS locking duration. Currently, users still need to enroll every time they increase their veCHESS amount. Tranchess will update its protocol on Monday, September 20th, after which all new veCHESS will be automatically enrolled in the rebate program.
Find out more details on the BTCB weekly rebate here:
Boosting
The upcoming protocol update on September 20th., 2021 comes with another highly anticipated feature: Boosting.
Boosting increases the efficiency of earning CHESS rewards from staking, ie, Users can now earn CHESS tokens at a much faster rate — Up to 3x of normal speed! For example, Alice was collecting 1000 CHESS tokens per week by staking Q/B/R tokens. She will now harvest 2500 CHESS tokens per week if she has a boost factor of 2.5x.
The boost factor is determined by the percentage of users’ staked Q/B/R in the overall staking pool as well as their share of the total veCHESS pool. Therefore, to prepare the account for the upcoming Boosting feature, be sure to execute these two easy steps:
1. Staking. To refresh your memory, Staking was discussed at the very beginning of this article. The boost factor enhances the efficiency of staking reward yielding. If there’s no Q/B/R token staked in the protocol, naturally there would not be any CHESS reward and for sure nowhere to apply the boost factor for yield enhancement.
2. CHESS locking. Your share of the veCHESS pool partially determines the boost factor you would enjoy. Lock your CHESS or extend the locking duration to obtain more veCHESS and boost your staking rewards.
Find out more in our FAQ and Whitepaper.
We hope the article provided a concise introduction to the utilities of CHESS. Tranchess will continue to implement more use cases for CHESS tokens in the future. Please feel free to share any thoughts and comments in the Tranchess Telegram group, Discord, or Twitter. Who knows — You might see some of your suggestions becoming a part of Tranchess in the near future.
(Note: In celebration of Tranchess’ successful launch, 75% of the total protocol fee is distributed to users who lock CHESS. The promotion is valid till 23rd Sep 2021. After which, the distribution will resume to 50%.)
