For more clarity and extra additions to the info above…
Yes, it could be a form of staking as well, but for now I’m just talking about the the 90,000 IDLE rewards that’s being distributed monthly among all the pools that are “supplying” collateral like USD. When they redeem their rewards (APY + IDLE rewards). Give users a option between 6 month or 12 month lock periods that allows them to earn more IDLE rewards if they choose to lock upon redeeming. Will help with reward dumping as well.
The above is just one idea.
You can also add a new collateral pool specifically for IDLE token as well. This will allow users to “supply” their IDLE as collateral to earn extra idle rewards. You can look at this as a modified version of "staking’, but it’s not really staking, because the protocol will be able to use that supplied/locked collateral however they seem fit to earn interest in other ways to increase treasury/buyback/burn.
Think of it like this. Users are rewarded for helping protocol grow. They help dry up supply and at the same time it allows for protocol to grow and burn to increase. So at the end of the lock period, not only will users have more idle, but the price of IDLE will likely be a lot higher than the previous 12 months, since the protocol was earning APY throughout that lock period in other ways for treasury market buyback and burns.
When supplying IDLE as collateral into the IDLE pool, it will be different than all the other pools; There will be a time lock for it, 6 month or 12 month or even 24 months…while all other pools require none.
So for example, let’s say the maker/dai allow IDLE as collateral. We can take those users locked/staked IDLE and supply it into maker and mint DAI. Then we take those DAI and use it to earn APY for treasury, but all $ earned will be used to buyback and burn IDLE from open market.
Also, this won’t impact the staking model that is being setup to share platform fees. Stakers will still earn their share from protocol fees. And the ppl supplying their IDLE as collateral into IDLE pool will still be considered part of the “stakers” that are able to collect platform fees, but if they lock/are part of the IDLE supply pool, they will also earn extra IDLE.
You can simply view it as two types of staking pools: locked and no lock pools.
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no lock stakers: receive normal part of protocol fees.
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Time locked stakers: receive normal protocol fees + plus extra idle rewards + some of the APY that the protocol generated from the locked funds pool (but majority of the APY generated with locked funds will go towards buy back and burn)
I’m no coder nor financial guy, so maybe this won’t work, but just sharing ideas that I think can benefit.