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THALES Tokenomics
THALES is a standard ERC-20 used by the community as the governance token of Thales DAO. Token distribution follows the outline below:
8.75% to SNX stakers
- 4.5% Retroactive distribution for SNX staking (L1 and OP) - Distribution Completed
- 2% Airdropped to every SNX staker (L1 and OP) - Distribution Completed
18% Thales Core Contributors - Vesting for 3 years starting Q2 2022
15% THALES stakers - Ongoing 3 year long distribution that started Q4 2021 Includes SNX stakers in gamified staking rewards bonus, along with protocol volume bonus
58.25% Growth Fund:
- 9% to Strategic Partners - 2 year long distribution that started Q4 2022
- 2% Crowdpooling event on DODO - Distribution Completed
- 1% Initial DODO LP reward - Distribution Completed
The Thales governance structure has modified the original distribution plan to improve long-term alignment with the Thales protocol and DAO
The original distribution plan from 2021 was as follows:
35% to SNX stakers
- 18% Ongoing SNX staking distribution
- 15% Retroactive distribution for SNX staking (L1 and OP)
- 2% Airdropped to every SNX staker (L1 and OP)
30% Growth fund
- 18% ThalesDAO treasury to fund further development
- 9% to Strategic Partners
- 2% Crowdpooling event on DODO
- 1% Distributed over 20 weeks for LPs on DODO THALES/ETH pool 2
20% Thales Core Contributors
15% THALES stakers
This original distribution has gone through 4 major improvements and modifications:
Part of the initial tokenomics plan included 35% of the THALES total supply to be distributed to SNX stakers to ensure a long-term alignment between Thales and Synthetix communities. Subsequent TIPs (Thales Improvement Proposals) introduced changes to the protocol to amended this distribution.
- TIP-18 paused the retroactive distribution to SNX stakers as part of the introduction of gamified staking by TIP-17 (more on this below).
- TIP-32 gave a deadline for claiming the one-off airdrop. Unclaimed THALES were returned to the treasury of ThalesDAO.
- TIP-37, championed by Kain (Synthetix co-founder) effectively stopped the vesting of retroactive distribution for SNX stakers, and forfeited his own allocation as the largest SNX staker for the greater good of Thales protocol.
When TIP-37 was approved by Thales governance, the THALES token was effectively distributed to SNX stakers as follows:
- 4,500,000 THALES to retroactive SNX stakers
- 2,250,000 THALES to ongoing SNX stakers
- 2,000,000 THALES to any SNX staker via one-off airdrop
After TIP-37 was implemented approx. 26,250,000 THALES tokens were returned to ThalesDAO treasury.
Initial staking emissions were planned to be fixed at 100,000 THALES tokens weekly to all THALES token stakers. However, Thales has always wanted for its products to be not only easy to use but fun!
With this concept in mind THALES launched the gamified staking initiative which changed the Staking distribution to be split into two categories:
- Base rewards (currently at 60,000 THALES weekly)
- Bonus rewards (currently at 30,000 THALES weekly)
In May 2022, the idea of utilizing SafeBox funds (a safeguard smart contract that takes a fee from AMM buys and sells) to start a buyback and burn program for the THALES token was specified on TIP-50. This program was subsequently modified by TIP-59, increasing the buyback frequency, and TIP-124 paused Buyback and Burn. Buyback and Burn was resumed thanks to TIP-141.
As explained in TIP-9, after a Thales Core Contributor stopped contributing and communicating with the rest of the team, the situation was shared with the community-at-large and it was decided by governance to re-allocate his future THALES tokens, send back 2% to ThalesDAO treasury, and reduce the Thales Core Contributor part of the distribution from 20% to 18%.
