---
title: "Radix Economic Model"
url: "https://radix.wiki/contents/tech/research/radix-economic-model"
version: "2.1.0"
updated: 2026-08-09
last_verified: 2026-08-09
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# Radix Economic Model

| Radix Economic Model |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Measured at** | Epoch 333342 · state version 547,628,486 (9 Aug 2026) |
| **XRD supply** | 13,505,461,118.64 |
| **Total ever minted** | 13,513,127,623.88 |
| **Total ever burned** | 7,666,505.23 (0.057% of minted) |
| **Emissions** | ~300M XRD/year, flat — see [Network Emissions](/contents/tech/core-concepts/network-emissions) |
| **Network fee split** | 50% burned · 25% proposer · 25% validator set |
| **Tips** | 100% to the proposer, never burned |
| **Royalties** | 100% to the recipient, outside the split |
| **Fee schedule pegged at** | 1 XRD = 0.06 USD (protocol constant) |
| **On-ledger supply cap** | None — the 24B ceiling is a schedule |

## Overview

The **Radix economic model** is the set of rules that decide where [XRD](/contents/tech/core-protocols/xrd-token) comes from and where it goes. There are only three flows, and each obeys a different rule:

- **Emissions** mint new XRD at the end of every epoch and hand it to the active [validator set](/contents/tech/core-concepts/validator-nodes) in proportion to stake ([Network Emissions](/contents/tech/core-concepts/network-emissions)).
- **Network fees** take XRD out of circulation and out of the payer's account, splitting it three ways — half destroyed, half paid to validators.
- **Royalties** move XRD from a caller to a component or package owner without touching the split at all ([Component Royalties](/contents/tech/core-concepts/component-royalties)).

Every parameter below is a constant in the [radixdlt-scrypto](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto) engine rather than a policy someone administers, and every figure is checked against mainnet at the epoch stated in the infobox. Where this page and a marketing summary disagree, the ledger is the authority.

## Where a fee goes

A Radix transaction fee is not one number. The engine records it in five parts — execution, finalization, storage, tipping and royalty — and only the first three count as _network fees_ ([fee_summary.rs](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/blob/develop/radix-engine/src/system/system_modules/costing/fee_summary.rs)). Those three are then divided by fixed percentages:

- **25% to the proposer** — the validator that proposed the round the transaction landed in (`NETWORK_FEES_PROPOSER_SHARE_PERCENTAGE`).
- **25% to the validator set**, shared across the active set (`NETWORK_FEES_VALIDATOR_SET_SHARE_PERCENTAGE`).
- **The remainder is burned.** The engine does not carry a burn percentage at all: `to_burn_amount()` is defined as everything left after the proposer and the set are paid, which at 25 and 25 leaves exactly half.

**Tips are the exception.** `TIPS_PROPOSER_SHARE_PERCENTAGE` is 100 and `TIPS_VALIDATOR_SET_SHARE_PERCENTAGE` is 0 ([transaction_execution.rs](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/blob/develop/radix-common/src/constants/transaction_execution.rs)), so a tip is paid whole to the proposer and none of it is destroyed. A tip buys priority from one validator; it does not add to the burn.

The split is observable on any transaction. Four consecutive mainnet user transactions between 02:51 and 03:05 UTC on 9 August 2026 each reported `to_burn` at exactly half of network fees with `to_proposer` and `to_validator_set` equal at a quarter each — for example a 0.75854478253 XRD fee resolving to 0.379272391265 burned and 0.1896361956325 to each side. The same reads confirm the unit prices: 9,669,160 execution cost units billed 0.483458 XRD, which is the count multiplied by `EXECUTION_COST_UNIT_PRICE_IN_XRD` of 0.00000005 exactly.

## The fee schedule is priced in dollars

The least-discussed constant in the model is `USD_PRICE_IN_XRD`. Radix does not price its fee schedule in XRD and let the dollar cost float; it prices several things in **US dollars** and converts at a **hard-coded rate of 16.666666666666666666 XRD per USD — that is, 1 XRD = $0.06** ([transaction_execution.rs](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/blob/develop/radix-common/src/constants/transaction_execution.rs)).

Two of the engine's figures are set that way and carry the intended dollar amount in a source comment:

- **Storage** — `STATE_STORAGE_PRICE_IN_XRD` and `ARCHIVE_STORAGE_PRICE_IN_XRD` are both 0.00009536743 XRD per byte, commented "1 MB = 6 USD".
- **The royalty ceiling** — `MAX_PER_FUNCTION_ROYALTY_IN_XRD` is 166.666666666666666666 XRD, commented "10 USD", which is the same peg applied to the maximum a package or component owner may charge per call.

The consequence is easy to state and rarely stated: those dollar figures are only true at $0.06. The XRD amounts are what the protocol enforces, so the real cost of storing a megabyte, and the real ceiling on a royalty, move with the market price of XRD in the opposite direction from the comment. Changing the peg is a protocol update, not a parameter a validator or a fee market can adjust.

## What the ledger actually shows

The fee burn is real and it is small. Read directly from the XRD resource at epoch 333342 (state version 547,628,486, 9 August 2026):

- Total ever minted: **13,513,127,623.876558485383676466 XRD**
- Total ever burned: **7,666,505.2330698031699972 XRD**
- Current supply: **13,505,461,118.643488682213679266 XRD** — the difference, exactly

Cumulative burn since the [Babylon](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-babylon) ledger began is **0.057% of everything ever minted**. Measured against emissions of roughly 300 million XRD a year, the entire burn to date is worth about **nine days of issuance**. Radix is issuing far more than it destroys and will keep doing so until fee volume grows by orders of magnitude; a description of the model that leads with the burn describes an aspiration rather than the current ledger.

This is also what makes validator income a fee question rather than a subsidy question. The Foundation subsidy that once topped up validator revenue was voted out and ended in June 2026 ([Validator Subsidy Sunset](/contents/history/validator-subsidy-sunset)), leaving emissions and the 50% validator share of network fees as the whole of it, with the validator's own fee percentage deciding how much reaches [delegators](/contents/tech/core-concepts/staking).

## The 24 billion ceiling is a schedule, not a cap

XRD is commonly described as having a fixed maximum supply of 24 billion. The ledger is more specific than that, and the distinction matters to anyone reasoning about the asset.

Read as a resource, XRD reports `supply_fixed: false` and `mintable: true`. There is no supply cap enforced at the resource level. What exists instead is an authority structure:

- The **minter and burner roles are both locked to a single system badge**, so only the protocol itself can create or destroy XRD — no account, component or council can.
- The **rules can never be changed** (`rules_locked: true`). The freezer and recaller roles are permanently `deny_all`, which is the ledger-level guarantee that XRD can never be frozen in a vault or clawed back from one.

So the 24 billion figure is the endpoint of the ~12 billion emission schedule added to the ~12 billion created at [Olympia](/contents/tech/releases/radix-mainnet-olympia) genesis, enforced by the emission logic in the protocol rather than by an arithmetic ceiling on the resource. Raising it would take a protocol update, the same class of change as moving the dollar peg — hard, public and out of any single party's hands, but not the same thing as impossible.

That endpoint has also been voted down once without moving. A May 2025 token holder consultation approved shortening the emission schedule by twenty years to bring the ceiling to ~18 billion, with 91% of weighted input in favour; measured across the twelve months that followed, the network minted 297,171,771 XRD — the original ~300 million-a-year rate, unchanged. See [Network Emissions](/contents/tech/core-concepts/network-emissions).

## External Links

- [radixdlt-scrypto — transaction execution constants](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/blob/develop/radix-common/src/constants/transaction_execution.rs)
- [radixdlt-scrypto — fee reserve finalization summary](https://github.com/radixdlt/radixdlt-scrypto/blob/develop/radix-engine/src/system/system_modules/costing/fee_summary.rs)
- [Radix Knowledge Base — What is the XRD token?](https://www.radixdlt.com/articles-learn/what-is-the-xrd-token)
- [Radix Documentation](https://docs.radixdlt.com/)

### See also

- [Network Emissions](/contents/tech/core-concepts/network-emissions) — the issuance side in detail
- [XRD](/contents/tech/core-protocols/xrd-token) — the asset itself
- [Component Royalties](/contents/tech/core-concepts/component-royalties) — developer revenue
- [Validator Subsidy Sunset](/contents/history/validator-subsidy-sunset) — how validator income became fee-driven