i spent some time thinking about why protocols create tier systems in the first place.
Most people assume the answer is rewards.
Im not convinced thats the whole story.
When i looked at @Bedrock 's planned $BR utility structure, what stood out wasnt the potential benefits. It was the behavior the system seems designed to encourage.
Access. Priority. Participation.
Those incentives operate differently from simple emissions. Instead of rewarding activity after it happens, they influence decisions before they happen.
Thats a subtle but important distinction.
A reward changes outcomes. Access changes behavior.
If certain vault opportunities become capacity constrained, the value proposition isnt just earning more. Its gaining entry before capacity disappears.
That creates a completely different decision framework than traditional reward models.
The question i keep coming back to is whether access-based utility creates stronger long-term alignment, or whether it simply shifts competition from earning rewards to securing access.
Does priority access produce healthier participation, or does it just create a different type of scarcity for users to compete over anyway.