Diddydidit, I like that you are trying to solve a problem you see. I appreciate the thoughts and I'm happy you are bringing this discussion up.
I agree with @ducecrypto and @vettev that reducing emissions, and thus extending rewards over a longer period of time, makes more sense than just burning them.
I get your frustration, but people make decisions using a total market cap based on 3B total tokens eventually given out. I feel that making it less (or more) than the whitepaper would be a problem, and it would hurt the trust and confidence in the future.
I also think this is a very intricate subject that will take a lot of discussion to pass. I welcome the process starting, but I'd be surprised if this topic can pass anything without a bunch of people getting together to build a compromise solution. (ps... you can count me in if anyone wants me involved!)
To be honest I don't think cutting from 3B to 2B is enough. We are in a downwards flywheel already and I don't think anything can stop it. Maybe if we halted all token emissions and card printing entirely, there would be a small chance that the ecosystem recovers. I prefer we keep the 3B and wait until asset/token prices drop another 99% which will not take so long if we keep things like they are. With a 2B supply it will take longer, which is undesirable. Once we get a legendary gold alpha card for 80 USD and an occupied legendary plot for 25 USD new players will come because they can become Goldmatters for 1-2k and vugtis for 10k. Currently new players have no desire to fund the old whales only to become tiny shrimps. They just won't. And the more the whales buy now the more they exacerbate the problem that new players won't be interested in participating. Only when new players see a similar "advantage" like with the SPS airdrop or the original land sale, they will come back in bigger numbers. When whales need to get a 100x only to break even, that would be some incentive for new players, We aren't there yet but we will be. The best thing we can do is to prep the SPL team for sustainable hibernation, so the game can still exist in a few years with absolutely minimal costs, and to run prices to almost zero as fast as we can. Hence, i am against cutting to 2B because it will just slow down the inevitable. We need another 99% drop as fast as possible on all assets. When the big reset is complete, we can start to recover.
this is the most ridiculous thing ive ever read
here is more: https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@tharanthula/the-future-of-splinterlands