Cardano (ADA) tokenomics

The token economics of Cardano revolve around its native asset, ADA, which is designed to secure the network through a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mechanism called Ouroboros and facilitate transactions and governance. The system is structured to promote long-term sustainability and decentralization.

Issuance Mechanism

Cardano operates with a fixed maximum supply and an inflationary reward mechanism funded by a reserve.

• Maximum Supply: The maximum supply of ADA is 45 billion tokens.
• Genesis Minting: Approximately 31.2 billion ADA were minted during the Genesis Block Distribution.
• Inflationary Rewards: The remaining 13.8 billion ADA were initially allocated to a reserve to be minted as block rewards over time.
• Inflation Rate: Inflationary ADA rewards are generated by pooling 0.30% of the remaining ADA reserve each five-day epoch. This mechanism ensures a continuous, albeit decreasing, supply of rewards to incentivize network participation.
• Burn Mechanism: There is currently no token burn or buyback mechanism featured or planned for ADA.

Allocation Mechanism

The initial distribution of ADA occurred through a multi-stage Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and allocations to the founding entities.

The ICO took place in Asia from September 2015 to February 2017. The tokens became available to purchasers upon the network's launch in September 2017.

Usage and Incentive Mechanism

ADA serves as the utility token for the network, primarily used for transaction fees, security, and governance participation.

Network Security and Rewards (Staking)

The core incentive mechanism is staking, which uses the Ouroboros Proof-of-Stake consensus.

• Delegation: ADA holders can delegate their stake to a Stake Pool Operator (SPO) to contribute to block production and network security without relinquishing ownership of their tokens.
• Reward Sources: Rewards are paid out from a "pot" funded by two sources each five-day epoch:
  1. Network Transaction Fees: All transaction fees are pooled.
  2. Inflationary ADA Rewards: 0.30% of the remaining ADA reserve is added.
• Reward Distribution: A portion of the pot is distributed to ADA stakers (delegators and SPOs), while a fixed 20% of transaction fees goes into the Cardano treasury for sustainable development.
• Decentralization Incentive: The protocol uses a "k parameter" to impose a soft cap on stake pool delegations (saturation point). Pools that exceed this cap distribute fewer rewards, incentivizing users to delegate to smaller pools and promoting decentralization.
• Slashing: Cardano's reward-sharing scheme is designed to operate without a slashing mechanism, meaning delegators do not risk losing their staked ADA.

Network Fees

ADA is required to pay network fees for processing actions and storage costs. The fee for each transaction is calculated based on a constant minimum fee plus a variable component tied to the transaction's size in bytes.

Governance and Treasury

ADA is central to the network's governance, particularly through Project Catalyst and the ongoing Voltaire era development.

• Project Catalyst: This is an on-chain governance experiment where tokenholders can vote to signal funding support for community-proposed projects using the Cardano treasury.
• Voting Eligibility: Tokenholders must have at least 500 ADA delegated before a fund's snapshot date to register and vote in Project Catalyst. Voting participants receive rewards from the treasury.
• Voltaire Era: This final era aims to implement fully on-chain voting for treasury disbursement and network upgrades (Cardano Improvement Proposals or CIPs), transitioning control from the founding entities (IOG, Cardano Foundation, EMURGO) to ADA tokenholders.

Locking Mechanism and Unlocking Time

For standard staking (delegation) on Cardano, there is no mandatory locking period.

• Staking Flexibility: ADA holders who delegate their stake retain ownership and can use or withdraw their ADA at any time.
• Staking Activation: Stake becomes active after two epochs, and the distribution of rewards begins after the third epoch.
• Token Locking Functionality: The Allegra hard fork introduced native support for token locking capabilities. This functionality is used to reserve a certain number of tokens for a specified period to enable complex smart contract use cases, such as:
  • Contractual Agreements: Locking tokens to represent a promise or asset in a contract.
  • Vote Registry: Locking tokens to represent voting rights in governance mechanisms like Voltaire, which helps prevent issues like double-counting votes.

Information regarding any specific future token unlock events for the initial allocation of ADA (such as for the founding entities) was not available in the provided data. However, the initial allocation to the three founding entities was subject to a vesting schedule, with the final two-thirds becoming available on June 1, 2018, and June 1, 2019.