Tokenomics
Everything marked (proposed) is a starting assumption for public discussion before mainnet. The code implements the mechanisms; the numbers live in genesis and can change before launch.
Asset
| Name / symbol | AUREN / AUR (working names) |
| Decimals | 9 (1 AUR = 1,000,000,000 sparks) |
| Roles | pays fees, staked for security, weights governance (Phase 2) |
| Cap | none; issuance is rule-based and tapers |
Supply mechanics
net supply change per block = issuance − burn
issuance_per_block = supply × rate(year) / blocksPerYear
rate(year) = max(0.5%, 3.0% × 0.85^(year−1)) (year counted from genesis)- Who receives issuance: validators that signed the previous block, pro rata to voting power; each validator splits it between commission and delegators via the reward index.
- Burned: base fees, slashed stake,
.aurregistration fees. - Not burned: tips (to the proposer) and unclaimed rewards (they accrue to delegators).
| Year | Issuance rate |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3.00% |
| 2 | 2.55% |
| 3 | 2.17% |
| 5 | 1.57% |
| 10 | 0.69% |
| 13+ | 0.50% floor |
Example: with 1,000,000,000 AUR, year-1 issuance is ≈ 30,000,000 AUR. If fees burn 10,000,000 AUR that year, net growth is 20,000,000 AUR (2.0%). Burning does not guarantee a falling supply or a rising price; it only offsets issuance when usage is high enough.
Why a tail emission instead of a hard cap
A fixed cap means validator income eventually depends only on fees. If fee revenue is thin, security spend falls with it, which weakens the chain precisely when it is young. A small perpetual floor (0.5%) keeps a predictable security budget while the decaying schedule removes most dilution over time. The trade-off is explicit: AUR is not fixed-supply. If the community prefers a cap, this is the parameter to debate before genesis.
Initial distribution (proposed, for discussion)
| Bucket | Share | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Community, ecosystem & grants | 35% | released by public programs |
| Validator & staking bootstrap | 15% | seeds genesis validator stake and early delegations |
| Foundation treasury | 20% | vested over 4 years |
| Core contributors | 15% | 1-year cliff, 4-year vesting |
| Early supporters | 10% | vesting, disclosed terms |
| Security, audits & bug bounty | 5% |
The protocol already supports vesting accounts (vesting: {total, start, cliff, end} in genesis): locked balance is excluded from spendable and cannot pay fees or be staked until it unlocks. No token sale is part of this repository.
Fee flows
user ── baseCost ──▶ burned
── tip ───────▶ block proposer
── name fees ─▶ burned
issuance ──▶ signing validators ──▶ commission to operator, rest to delegators (claimable)
slashing ──▶ burnedStaking parameters (mainnet defaults)
| Max validators | 150 |
| Min self-stake | 10,000 AUR |
| Voting-power cap | 10% of bonded stake per validator |
| Max commission | 20% |
| Unbonding | 28 days |
| Double-sign | 5% slashed, tombstoned |
| Downtime | jailed 1 day, 0.1% slashed if absent from > 50% of a window |
Conservation invariant
The test-suite asserts after every scenario: supply = Σ balances + Σ bonded + Σ unbonding + Σ accrued rewards. Any change that mints or burns must keep this exact.
Governance of economics
Issuance, fee, and slashing parameters may change only through an on-chain proposal with a long timelock and an explicit activation height (Phase 2). Until the governance module exists, parameters are fixed by genesis and change only through a coordinated, publicly announced upgrade.