A schedule of token emissions the market will hold is one that is published in advance, falls over time, and pays for something the network measurably needs. Solana’s schedule shows both the strength and the limit of that approach. It started at 8% a year, falling 15% each year toward 1.5%, and in August 2026 validators voted to double the rate of decline, a change that still needed implementation before it could take effect.
Who decides this
The foundation council owns the emission schedule. It is accountable for every token that enters circulation, whether through an allocation, a vesting contract or a reward programme. Emissions are sometimes set by a product or protocol team as a reward parameter. The council should treat them as supply decisions, approve them as such, and name the person who can change them.
What is the emission paying for?
Every emission should buy a specific service the network cannot get more cheaply, and the council should be able to name the metric that shows it is working. If no one can name the metric, the emission is a subsidy with no end date.
There are three common purchases. The first is security: rewards to stakers or validators so that enough of the supply is bonded to protect the network. The second is liquidity: rewards to liquidity providers so that the token and its markets are deep enough to use. The third is growth: incentives for users, builders or integrations.
Each needs a different test. Security emissions can be measured against the share of supply staked. Liquidity emissions can be measured against depth and volume in the pools they fund. Growth emissions are the hardest to measure and the easiest to waste, so they should carry a budget, a review date and an owner.
Each purchase also needs an exit. Security emissions can step down toward a permanent floor, as Solana’s do. Liquidity and growth emissions should end, or be renewed by a fresh decision, on a date the council sets at the start. An emission that renews itself by default stops being a decision and becomes an entitlement, and the holders receiving it will defend it. Writing the exit into the original approval is far cheaper than negotiating it later.
Some protocols tie the emission directly to the service. The Cosmos SDK mint module moves inflation toward a target bonded ratio. Curve directs its emissions to pools through weekly votes by locked-token holders. Both make the purpose of the emission part of the mechanism.
Should the schedule be fixed, rule-based or governed?
Choose a fixed or rule-based schedule for the base issuance, and keep governance power narrow and slow. A fixed schedule is the most credible promise; a governed one is the most adaptable. You need some of each.
| Model | Example | How the rate is set | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed decay to a floor | Solana | 8% start, falling 15% a year to 1.5% | Predictable; easy to model | Can drift from the network’s needs |
| Fixed and unchangeable | Curve | Cut by 16% each August; set at launch | Highest credibility | No room to correct |
| Rule-based on staking | Cosmos SDK mint | Moves toward a bonded-ratio target between bounds | Responds to security needs | Harder for holders to forecast |
| Published ceiling | Arbitrum | Inflation capped at 2% a year | Holders know the worst case | The actual rate is harder to forecast |
Curve shows the fixed end. Its token documentation says issuance falls by 16% each August. Curve’s own news site reported that when the August 2024 reduction triggered, annual emissions inflation fell from roughly 20% to about 6%, and that the schedule was set at launch and cannot be changed. Holders have never had to guess.
Arbitrum shows the ceiling approach. Its published token specification lists inflation of at most 2% a year rather than a fixed path. Uniswap’s 2020 launch post took a similar line, saying a 2% perpetual inflation rate would start after four years. A published ceiling tells holders the worst case even when the actual rate is left open.
Our recommendation for most funded projects is a fixed decay for the base schedule plus a hard ceiling on anything governance can add. That combination gives holders a forecast and gives the council a bounded way to respond.
How high should the rate start, and how fast should it fall?
There is no correct starting rate, and anyone who quotes one is guessing. The useful test is whether stakers earn a real return after dilution and whether non-stakers can see when dilution ends.
Solana makes the arithmetic visible. As of late August 2026, The Tie put Solana’s inflation at 3.86% annualised, with a nominal staking reward of 5.35% and a real reward of 1.43% after dilution. Holders who do not stake carry the dilution in full. That is the trade any emission schedule makes: it pays stakers partly with value taken from everyone else.
The rate of decline matters as much as the start. Under Solana’s existing schedule, Helius estimated in June 2026 that inflation would reach the 1.5% floor around 2032, against about 2029 if disinflation doubled. The same analysis modelled about 18.9 million fewer SOL issued over six years. It also set out the case against: lower yields, pressure on smaller validators, and the risk that staking falls below a safe level.
The Cosmos parameters show the range a rule-based system can span. The SDK documentation lists example bounds of 7% to 20%, a 67% bonded target and a maximum change of 13% a year. It labels these as examples, so each chain should confirm its own.
Should the council keep the power to change it?
Keep the power, but make it expensive to use. A schedule that can never change will eventually be wrong; a schedule that changes easily is not a schedule.
Solana’s August 2026 vote is the clearest recent case. CryptoSlate reported that the proposal to double the disinflation rate passed with about 67% of displayed turnout; excluding abstentions, as the voting rule does, support was about 73% against a two-thirds threshold. It also reported that the vote was a directional mandate, and the change still needed implementation and activation before it could take effect. A contested vote on a published schedule is healthy governance. It also shows how contested emissions become once holders depend on them.
We would set three rules. Changes require a supermajority. Changes take effect only after a published notice period. And the floor and ceiling cannot be moved by the same process that adjusts the rate within them.
How should emissions sit in the unlock calendar?
Put emissions in the unlock calendar alongside vesting, because to the market they are the same thing: new supply. Some teams track vesting carefully and leave emissions in a product dashboard.
In dollar terms, emissions can dominate supply. The Tie’s analysis of 2026 unlocks found that Bitcoin mining issuance made up 35% of the supply it tracked, and Solana 7%, while investor allocations were under 4%. Yet it also found Solana’s daily issuance had a median size of 0.13% of daily volume. Steady, predictable emissions are large in total but small on any single day.
That is the argument for continuous, published emissions over lumpy reward drops. Price each month of emissions against expected trading volume, as you would a vesting cliff, and show the combined figure to the council.
What goes wrong: tokenomics the contractor rewrote
The council approved a schedule in a model. Someone else typed it into a contract or a chain’s genesis file, and the two do not match.
The errors are ordinary. A per-second rate calculated from the wrong number of seconds in a year. A per-block rate that assumed a block time the chain does not hit. A reward contract funded with more than the approved budget because the deployer topped it up. A mint function left callable with no cap. The Cosmos SDK documentation notes that a maximum supply parameter of zero means no cap on minting. A default like that can ship without anyone on the council choosing it.
The defence is a reconciliation before launch. Compare the approved schedule with the deployed parameters, compute the first 36 months of issuance from the contract itself, and require written council approval for any change after that.
How Alcyone approaches it
Alcyone treats emissions as part of the token model, reviewed with vesting and the unlock calendar rather than left to the product team. Emission schedules are tokenomics work, which sits in Alcyone’s fundraising and tokenomics advisory alongside vesting structures. The plan is built over three to six weeks with a named owner for every part, including whoever can change the emission rate.