Tokenomics
Acurast is the decentralized compute network designed to power the emerging decentralized compute economy by aligning developers, compute providers, and end-users around shared incentives.
At the heart of Acurast is the ACU token and economic model, fueling a secure, scalable, and decentralized compute ecosystem while incentivizing active collaboration and sustainable growth.
Also, with tokenomics, we're focusing on a sustainable community-first approach.
Key Highlights
- Initial Supply at TGE: 1,000,000,000 ACU
- Adaptive inflation: between 1% and 5% annual inflation
- Only 6.5% allocated to early backers — while important for funding and supporting us all the way to mainnet, we kept this allocation very low in order to facilitate a fair launch of the token.
- Nearly 70% of tokens are allocated to the community or community-supporting purposes (Community Treasury, TGE Community Activation, Operational Funds, Liquidity Provision)
- Team and Advisors have the longest lock-ups, aligning them with the long-term mission of the project.
By capping early backers at just 6.5% and allocating the majority of tokens to the community and community-supporting initiatives, the token distribution puts the ecosystem interests first, acknowledges early contributions to the broader crypto ecosystem, and fosters the creation of services and products on top of Acurast — ultimately supporting the project's roadmap and long-term objectives. Moving the needle again to decentralization, because decentralized compute is not for the few but for the many.
Genesis Token Allocation
Allocation Categories
Early Backers: A small, diverse group providing initial funding to ensure the protocol reaches mainnet maturity without heavy institutional influence.
Team and Advisors: Tokens for the core contributors of the protocol, encompassing employees, advisors, founders and future key team members, with the longest lock-up; this allocation is structured to align for long-term incentives.
TGE Community Activation: Tokens from the participation of the launchpad token launch, canary token conversions, airdrops and additional broader activation of the community on TGE.
Community Treasury: With decentralization in mind from the first day, a large part of the tokens are allocated towards the community treasury, allowing ACU holders to determine through on-chain governance the future development of the protocol and support significant contributions via governance proposals.
Operational Funds: Strategic funds with the mandate to foster protocol acceleration and growth, governed by the Acurast Association council.
Liquidity Provision: This allocation is used exclusively to ensure enough liquidity of the Acurast Token on centralized and decentralized exchanges.
Token Allocations
| Category | Supply | Token Amount | Available at TGE | Linear Vesting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Backers | 6.5% | 65'000'000 | 0% | 24 months |
| Team and Advisors | 24% | 240'000'000 | 0% | 36 months |
| Community Activation | 24% | 240'000'000 | 15% | 12 months |
| Community Treasury | 24% | 240'000'000 | 100% | 0 months |
| Operational Funds | 11.5% | 115'000'000 | 0% | 24 months |
| Liquidity Provision | 10% | 100'000'000 | 100% | 0 months |
Only tokens allocated to the community and community support will unlock at TGE. All other allocations are locked for at least 24 months after TGE and are released gradually over that period.
Token Utility
Network Fees: The Acurast network, a Proof of Stake blockchain, acts as an orchestrator and settlement layer for the decentralized compute economy. To interact with the Acurast network, ACU is required for transaction fees.
Staking: While compute is secured by design, an additional layer of economic security is added to the network by staking through Processors. Stakers receive fees from the network as rewards for providing economic security to the network. Every ACU holder can participate in staking without having to run their own Processor through Delegation.
Settlement: ACU acts as a unified settlement token for the system to assign and measure reputation and quality of service of the provided compute. A 30% burn is applied on every settlement transaction to avoid reputation score tampering. This mechanism is abstracted from the end user, making payment for decentralized compute on Acurast possible in any token.
Governance: Holders of ACU can engage in protocol governance by voting on a variety of proposals brought forward by the community, guiding the development of the protocol and its components, and ensuring true decentralization and future-proof evolution by design.
Inflation
Inflation is what makes the Acurast process sustainable by rewarding active participation in the protocol and creating incentives to be run as a decentralized protocol indefinitely. The protocol sets inflation between 1% and 5% annually, depending on various on-chain metrics, and can be further adapted through governance votes.