End of TRS

Aion token holders November 9, 2018

Some call it FUD. Some call it TA. If nothing else, Aion token holders will be glad to call the TRS for purchasers over with the final distribution on November 9, 2018.

Since December 2017, early Aion token purchasers who opted-in to a smart contract have had those tokens plus a bonus locked up and redistributed on a monthly basis over the last year (157,195,116.81 total; 9,824,694.80 monthly after initial distribution). Although all participating addresses and their balances can be tracked via blockchain, unsubstantiated claims persisted since the beginning that these tokens were being dumped on the market, thereby diluting the supply and suppressing price. Everyone agrees, however, that the completion of these distributions next month will be a relief, even if only for market sentiment.

This doesn’t mean a complete halt to circulating supply increase, however. 304,891,961.19 tokens are distributed in a separate, three-year TRS ending November 2020 (8,469,221.14 tokens monthly). As part of the dissolution of Nuco and formation of the Aion Foundation this past summer, half of these tokens go directly to the Aion Foundation, one-fifth to former Nuco shareholders, and the remainder to early private backers.

Token Distribution (top side-by-side; bottom stacked)

As shown in the charts above, as of November 2018 purchasers control over 60% of the current circulating supply (compared to about 20% for the Aion Foundation, 8% for former Nuco shareholders, and 12% to early backers and partners). Although the non-purchaser TRS will continue making distributions for another 2 years and change this balance, at the end the total distributions will still favor purchasers (34%) over the Aion Foundation (33%), former Nuco shareholders (13%), and early backers and partners (20%). These relative figures will swing further in favor of purchasers as the non-purchasers transfer their distributions — though not necessarily to the market for sale.

As of the time of this writing, only about 2.3 million of the Aion Foundation’s tokens (4.4% of distributions to the Foundation to date; 1.5% of the total) have been spent, primarily (if not exclusively) on reinvestment in the Aion ecosystem via bounties and grants. Voluntary financial disclosures from the Aion Foundation are anticipated in the coming months and will shed further light on how its token allocation and token sale proceeds are being managed.

As for the former Nuco shareholders and early backers/partners, these folks are likely savvy, accredited investors and have supported Aion since its inception. They will have opportunities to reinvest in the Aion ecosystem by providing funding directly to new projects or via venture capital firms like Bicameral Ventures, thus maximizing their returns while further increasing the value of Aion.

TRS aside, Aion’s Proof of Work main net (Kilimanjaro) has 1% fixed annual inflation to incentivize main net security via mining. The monetary policy for future consensus mechanisms (Proof of Intelligence and hybrid/modified Delegated Proof of Stake) is open for discussion and will likely be submitted as an Aion Improvement Proposal for community discussion and input before being implemented.