> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://whitepaper.caspius.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://whitepaper.caspius.ai/protocol-design/tokenomics.md).

# Tokenomics

#### Supply

$CAS is an ERC-20 token with a hard-capped total supply of **1,000,000,000 tokens**. There is no team allocation, no investor allocation, and no pre-mine. The entire supply is reserved for ecosystem incentives: contributor rewards, validator compensation, and protocol-level mechanisms.

This is a deliberate structural decision. The absence of insider allocations means there are no scheduled unlocks, no vesting cliffs, and no overhang of tokens waiting to enter circulation at predetermined dates. Every token in circulation was either earned through data contribution, earned through validation, or spent and recirculated through protocol sinks.

| Category             | Allocation | Notes                                       |
| -------------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| Ecosystem incentives | 90%        | Mining, validation, future protocol rewards |
| Team                 | 0%         | —                                           |
| Investors            | 0%         | —                                           |
| Treasury/reserve     | 0%         | —                                           |
| Liquidity            | 10%        | DEX liquidity pool                          |

#### Emission

$CAS enters circulation through daily emission, distributed between miners and validators. The network enforces a hard daily emission cap — a ceiling, not a target. When aggregate contributor activity exceeds what the cap allows, the per-point conversion rate compresses proportionally. Every participant still earns in proportion to their contribution, but individual yield decreases as the network grows.

This produces a natural early-mover advantage. Contributors who join during low-participation periods earn at a higher effective rate. As the network scales, the cap increasingly binds, and per-contributor yield converges toward a long-run equilibrium.

#### Sinks

Token sinks remove $CAS from circulating supply and exist at two levels.

**Protocol-level sinks** are active from day one. NFT leveling requires burning $CAS, creating deflationary pressure that scales organically with network growth — more participants entering the network means more activity. When validation becomes decentralized, community validators staking $CAS results in more supply being removed from circulation.

**Revenue-linked sinks** are introduced as the data marketplace develops. As Caspius data is sold to or licensed by robotics labs and model developers, a portion of that revenue flows back into the token economy. The same applies to royalty streams generated when production systems trained on Caspius data are deployed commercially. These sinks tie the token's deflationary mechanics directly to the real-world commercial value of the dataset — the more useful the data, the stronger the sink pressure.