The incentive for stakers/validators should be covered by chain revenue, not inflation and the printing of new $BLD tokens.
The $BLD supply should be fixed as follows:
A perpetual $BLD token supply cap limit
You’re describing the destination, but missing the journey. Everything you’re asking for (supply caps, fee-based rewards, value accrual) is already planned. The question is HOW and WHEN. You can’t just ‘fix supply at 1B’ without first ensuring enough chain revenue to pay validators.
In fact, Dean has already answered that if there is enough revenue on the network, the emission can be deflationary. They cannot limit everything in advance until there is at least a slight prediction of profitability. If they do so now, the validators will leave due to losses, and the staking rate will be 0%. The model proposed by the team appears to be highly effective.
Did you read the proposal first?
I see you jumped right in without reading or considering the proposal.
First, I didn’t say 1B.
I gave three options: 1B, 1.1B, or 1.2B.
Let’s assume 1.2B.
That’s about a 1.9B increase. They can divide it over several years to reward validators.
You tell me that the team can’t make max supply so they can minting $BLD without limit and in final results $BLD zero value.
Inflation = zero value that’s simply mathematical proof
Your math is off: an increase to 1.2B from the current ~640M supply is a ~560M increase, not 1.9B. But this is a minor detail. The fundamental flaw in your argument is the simplistic formula ‘inflation = zero value’. This ignores the entire demand side of the economic equation. By your logic, Ethereum should be worthless, yet it delivered 100x returns during its highest inflation years. Why? Because utility and demand grew faster than supply. You’re presenting a false choice: either an arbitrary supply cap now OR infinite inflation. The proposal, as Dean explained, outlines a third, sustainable path: transitioning FROM inflation TO fee-based rewards as chain revenue from orchestration grows. This is the proven model for modern, successful blockchains like Ethereum post-merge. Demanding a supply cap before the network generates enough revenue to pay for its own security is like wanting to fire your security team before you’ve even installed cameras.The discussion isn’t about if the supply should be fixed, but how to do it sustainably without killing the network. The team has a clear plan for that. I won’t argue with you anymore, let the other participants draw their own conclusions.
You asked a lot of great questions, so we’ll be taking them separately over time here.
Osmosis, any EVM DEX that BLD gets deployed to, and/or an onchain source (probably managed by the Comptroller). The price is partly low because it is illiquid. I’m fine with Orchestration usage pushing back on that :). Also, given this automated purchasing, I would expect liquidity to improve a lot.
My preference is that it happens in external markets: some services like Axelar get paid directly in BLD and do their own exchange. Orchestration apps like Ymax will need to acquire at least that much BLD plus commission plus Agoric native gas.
On a completely unrelated topic: trading volume is one of the two main criteria for new exchange listings of already existing tokens.
Thanks for the question and for the answers. Please let’s keep the discussion on topic and civil. In particular, this is not a place for historical token price discussion.
Deflationary or fixed-supply is a necessary outcome of these goal:
Establish a sustainable economicmodel for validators, stakers, and developers
Link token demand to orchestration adoption, Agoric’s core differentiator
Provide enforceable rules for contract lifecycle, execution, and governance
It’s not sustainable to just jump straight to it. But that’s where this is desgined/intended to go.
Some interesting points here, but one thing that should also be added into the discussion of inflation yes/no (or, put another way, issuance yes/no): The potential tax consequences to BLD stakers. In many jurisdictions the use of funds earned by the network to pay stakers creates a tax liability that does not exist when those rewards are paid by new issuance. It’s arcane tax stuff, but of big consequence to stakers who are in those jurisdictions. (Also of course impacts Validators.)
So, just something else to keep in mind for the mechanism design. And for the record – I am totally on board with having burns, or other mechanisms, that help offset (and maybe even one day, negate) the inflation created by issuance, but, we have to design in such a fashion that we don’t unintentionally create new liabilities for ecosystem participants.
The fees for remote services automatically adjust based on the price of BLD (i.e., how much BLD is required to buy the appropriate amount of gwei for a supply operation on Aave?).
Initially, the fee schedule for local execution costs is determined by governance. My strong expectation is that fees will be adjusted as the price of BLD changes. The fall back is that they are expressed directly in BLD, and get adjusted via governance on a regular basis. If there is a reliable an inexpensive price oracle for BLD price, then the adjustment could be made automatically. That’s now plausible with vote extensions from cosmos-sdk 0.50.
We have a fair bit of experience with this sort of thing in working with collateral for IST. Technical defenses include using consensus among multiple independent sources, exponential moving averages, and on-chain local market for key gas types. As this scales to be a consideration, market makers and others will provide liquidity to resist that. And I think that also makes an incentive for contracts to keep a sizable reserve of BLD for their fees. I know we plan to for Ymax.
