Supply Schedule

Our vision for tokenomics is simple: reward early participants generously while building toward a sustainable long-term economy. The SALT supply schedule is designed to incentivize early network participation while ensuring long-term economic sustainability. Mining rewards start high and decay over approximately 20 years, converging toward the maximum supply of 1 billion SALT. Combined with the fee burn mechanism, the effective supply will peak and then gradually decrease as network usage grows.

Emission Curve

SALT mining rewards follow a halving-based decay schedule. The block reward is halved every 2,100,000 blocks (approximately every 2 years at 1 block per second per miner, though actual calendar time depends on network hashrate).

Era	Block Range	Reward per Block	Annual Emission (approx.)
Era 0	0 - 2,099,999	100 SALT	52,500,000 SALT
Era 1	2,100,000 - 4,199,999	50 SALT	26,250,000 SALT
Era 2	4,200,000 - 6,299,999	25 SALT	13,125,000 SALT
Era 3	6,300,000 - 8,399,999	12.5 SALT	6,562,500 SALT
Era 4	8,400,000 - 10,499,999	6.25 SALT	3,281,250 SALT
Era 5+	10,500,000+	<3.125 SALT	<1,640,625 SALT

After approximately 10 eras (20 years), the per-block reward is negligible and the system transitions to a fee-driven economy where transaction and inference fees sustain validator and miner economics.

Supply Cap: 1,000,000,000 SALT
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  Y0      Y4      Y8      Y12     Y16     Y20     Y24   Time

Initial Supply Distribution

At genesis, 200 million SALT (20% of maximum supply) is in circulation. The remaining 800 million is emitted through mining or released through vesting schedules.

Genesis distribution:

Community launch:     100,000,000 SALT (immediately liquid)
Treasury (DAO):       100,000,000 SALT (governance-controlled, partially locked)
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Total at genesis:     200,000,000 SALT

The community launch allocation covers initial liquidity provision, testnet participant rewards, and ecosystem bootstrapping grants. The treasury allocation is controlled by the DAO and can only be spent through governance proposals.

Mining Rewards

The mining reward allocation of 400 million SALT is the largest single allocation and is emitted entirely through block production. Miners do not receive tokens from any reserve -- they mint new SALT as part of the block production process.

GhostDAG's parallel block structure means multiple miners earn rewards simultaneously. If two valid blocks are produced at the same DAG level, both miners receive the full block reward. This is a key difference from single-chain systems where only one miner wins.

However, the blue score mechanism differentiates block quality:

Block Type	Reward Multiplier
Blue block (majority DAG)	1.0x full reward
Red block (minority DAG)	0.3x reduced reward
Orphaned block	0.1x minimal reward

This incentivizes miners to maintain good network connectivity and reference the most recent block tips.

Vesting Schedules

Non-mining allocations follow vesting schedules to prevent large-scale selling pressure:

Ecosystem Fund (200M SALT):

4-year linear vesting, starting at genesis
~4,166,667 SALT unlocked per month
Allocated to grants, partnerships, developer incentives

Team & Contributors (150M SALT):

1-year cliff (no tokens released for 12 months)
3-year linear vesting after cliff
~4,166,667 SALT unlocked per month after cliff

Strategic Partners (50M SALT):

6-month cliff
2-year linear vesting after cliff
~2,083,333 SALT unlocked per month after cliff

# Check vesting schedule status
citrate-cli tokenomics vesting-status --rpc https://rpc.cnidarian.cloud

Output includes total vested to date, next unlock date and amount, and remaining locked amount per category.

Maximum Supply Convergence

The theoretical maximum supply of 1 billion SALT is an asymptotic limit that is never fully reached in practice due to the halving schedule. After 20 years, approximately 950 million SALT will have been emitted.

When combined with the fee burn mechanism, the circulating supply follows a different trajectory:

Years 0-5: Rapid supply growth (mining emissions far exceed burns)
Years 5-10: Supply growth slows as emissions halve and burns increase
Years 10-15: Supply growth approaches zero; burns may exceed emissions in high-usage scenarios
Years 15+: Potential net deflationary supply if network usage sustains

The exact crossover point depends on network usage. The governance system can adjust burn rates to target specific supply dynamics.