Introduction
Network Emissions are the protocol-level minting of new $XRD tokens distributed as staking rewards to validators and their delegators. This mechanism provides the primary economic incentive for securing the Radix network through Delegated Proof of Stake.
Supply & Distribution
XRD has a hard cap of 24 billion tokens. At genesis in July 2021, 12 billion were allocated: 9.6 billion unlocked and circulating, and 2.4 billion locked indefinitely in a stable coin reserve. The remaining 12 billion are minted as emissions over approximately 40 years at a rate of roughly 300 million XRD per year.
Emissions for each epoch are allocated to active validators proportional to their share of total staked XRD. Validators take their configured fee percentage, and the remainder flows to delegators proportionally. The protocol auto-compounds staker rewards by re-staking emission XRD, increasing the value of existing Liquid Stake Units.
Eligibility
- Only the top 100 validators in the Active Validator Set receive emissions
- Validators with uptime below 98% receive zero emissions for that epoch
- This creates strong incentives for high availability and distributed staking
Fee Burning
50% of base network transaction fees are burned (permanently destroyed), creating deflationary pressure that partially offsets emissions inflation. As network usage grows, the burn rate increases — potentially reducing net inflation or even making XRD deflationary at scale.
This dual mechanism — inflationary emissions for security, deflationary fee burning for value — aims to balance network security incentives with long-term token value.
External Links
- Tokens and Tokenomics — Radix Knowledge Base
- Staking & Validating — Radix Blog
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