AGON Tokenomics
Total supply, distribution, vesting, utility, and the burn/buyback engine of the AGON token.
What is AGON?
AGON is the native utility and governance token of the AGON protocol — a permissionless, leveraged prediction-market platform built on Base (Coinbase L2). The token powers a closed-loop economy in which every unit of protocol revenue either returns to long-term stakers as real USDC yield, is deployed into Protocol-Owned Liquidity (POL), or is permanently burned via programmatic buyback. AGON is used for on-chain governance (DAO voting via AgonToken ERC20Votes), staking and fee distribution (via ReputationStaking and VeAGON), and as collateral for validator participation.
Total Supply and Distribution
Total supply: 1,000,000,000 AGON (1 billion, fixed). There is zero inflation — the mint() function is renounced at TGE. Token standard: ERC-20 with ERC20Votes, ERC20Permit, and ERC20Burnable extensions. Deployed on Base.
The supply is split across eight buckets registered in TokenDistributor.sol:
| Allocation | % | Supply (AGON) | Vesting summary | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community & Airdrop | 25% | 250,000,000 | 40% at TGE + 60% linear over 24 months (§3.1 master table says 10%/90% — product to confirm) | Retroactive airdrop, points conversion (6-month drip), ongoing programs |
| POL Vault & Liquidity | 20% | 200,000,000 | 10% at TGE + 90% linear over 48 months | Aerodrome seed (20M AGON + $200k USDC at TGE); LP tokens held by protocol contract |
| Team & Founders | 15% | 150,000,000 | 18-month cliff + 36 months linear | Zero tokens circulate in Year 1 or Year 1.5; fully vested Month 54 |
| Ecosystem Treasury | 15% | 150,000,000 | 6-month cliff + 48 months linear | Grants, insurance backstop, audit budget, BD; governance-controlled from Month 6 |
| Seed + Series A Investors | 12% | 120,000,000 | 12-month cliff + 24 months linear | Zero investor tokens in Year 1; fully vested Month 36 |
| LP Mining Rewards | 8% | 80,000,000 | 48-month exponential decay (no cliff) | Year 1: 32M · Year 2: 24M · Year 3: 16M · Year 4: 8M — Aerodrome gauge |
| Advisors | 3% | 30,000,000 | 6-month cliff + 24 months linear | 6–10 advisors; fully vested Month 30 |
| Public Sale (LBP) | 2% | 20,000,000 | 100% at TGE (instant) | Fjord Foundry LBP; 72-hour price discovery; USA geofenced |
| Total | 100% | 1,000,000,000 | Community + POL = 45%. Team + investors combined = 27%. |
Initial circulating supply at TGE: 140M AGON (14%) — Community 40% unlock (100M) + POL 10% (20M) + Public Sale (20M). Full 100% circulating at Month 54 when the Ecosystem Treasury bucket completes.
Vesting Schedule
All vesting is computed on-chain by TokenDistributor.sol using a cliff + linear formula: tokens accrued = total × (t - cliff) / duration after the cliff, or zero before it. There are no discrete cliff-edge unlocks for team or investors — the only TGE-day unlocks are Community (40%), POL (10%), and Public Sale (100%).
Key milestones:
- Month 0 (TGE): 140M circulating. Community 40% + POL 10% + LBP 100% liquid.
- Months 1–6: Community + POL + LP mining drip continuously. No team, investor, ecosystem, or advisor tokens.
- Month 6: Ecosystem Treasury cliff ends (~3.125M/month begins). Advisor cliff ends (~1.25M/month begins).
- Month 12: Investor cliff ends (5M/month begins).
- Month 18: Team cliff ends (4.17M/month begins). (Note: §3.1 master table specifies 18-month team cliff; §5.4 references 12 months — product to confirm canonical value.)
- Month 24: Community bucket fully vested.
- Month 36: Investor bucket fully vested.
- Month 54: Ecosystem Treasury bucket fully vested — 100% of supply circulating.
Anti-dump design: zero team and investor tokens circulate in Year 1. The points-to-AGON conversion uses an explicit 6-month linear drip, not a cliff, to prevent farm-and-dump behavior.
Token Utility
Governance
On-chain governance uses AgonToken (ERC20Votes with delegation and checkpoints) as the voting token for both GovernanceDAO and OracleDAO. This is the canonical governance token per ADR-007. VeAGON (the vote-escrow wrapper) provides a decay-adjusted balance used for fee distribution weight — not for DAO voting at MVP. Users may delegate their AgonToken voting power without transferring tokens.
Governance scope includes: trading fee tiers, featured market curation, treasury grants, POL allocation, LP mining curve adjustments, BuybackBurn cadence. Proposal threshold: 1% of veAGON supply. Quorum: 4%. Voting window: 5 days. Timelock delay: 48 hours.
Staking
AGON holders can lock tokens into VeAGON.sol (Curve-style vote-escrow) for durations from 30 days to 4 years. Longer locks receive proportionally more veAGON:
| Lock duration | veAGON multiplier |
|---|---|
| 30 days | 1.0x |
| 90 days | 1.5x |
| 180 days | 2.2x |
| 365 days | 3.0x |
| 4 years | 4.0x |
Locks cannot be withdrawn early. At unlock, the original AGON returns to the holder. Stakers earn real USDC yield (not additional AGON) sourced from protocol trading fees and cosmetic revenue. Validators additionally use ReputationStaking as collateral; oracle failure or market manipulation can trigger slashing of up to 50% of opted-in insurance pool capital.
Fee Distribution
FeeDistributor.sol is the central hub that receives USDC trading fees from ConditionalTokens and TournamentEscrow, then routes them across four destinations: BuybackBurn, ReputationStaking (stakers), ProtocolLiquidityVault, and Treasury. Split percentages are governed by GovernanceDAO via TimelockController. veAGON balance determines each staker's share of the staking leg. See Fee Model for the full split and percentages.
Burn and Buyback
AGON has three independent deflationary paths that run in parallel:
AGON-fee burn. Traders who choose to pay the protocol fee in AGON receive a 20% discount (effective fee 0.8% vs 1% in USDC). The AGON received is split 50/50: half is permanently burned via ERC20Burnable.burn(), half is converted to USDC on Aerodrome and distributed to veAGON stakers. This creates structural organic demand — every fee-paying trader who wants the discount must hold AGON.
Cosmetic burn. The skin economy (Predictor Cards, tournament skins, trader cosmetics) accepts AGON at a 20% discount per ADR-004. AGON received is allocated: 40% burned, 40% to stakers (after USDC swap), 20% to POL Vault. This is a second independent burn loop layered on top of trading fees.
BuybackBurn module. BuybackBurn.sol receives 20% of USDC trading fees from FeeDistributor. On a weekly schedule it: (1) withdraws accumulated USDC, (2) swaps USDC to AGON on Aerodrome with TWAP slippage protection, (3) calls AgonToken.burn() on the received balance, (4) emits BuybackExecuted(usdcIn, agonOut, timestamp). Governance can adjust cadence and fee share (baseline 20%, capped at 30%) via Timelock proposal. All burns emit Transfer(from, 0x0, amount) events and are publicly verifiable on-chain.
At an illustrative 20k MAU mature state with $50M FDV, the combined monthly burn from all three paths is projected at approximately $52,780 (~$633k/year). These figures scale linearly with monthly active users.
Where to Learn More
Fee Model
Trading fees, creation fees, and how FeeDistributor routes value to the ecosystem.
Staking (Phase 2)
veAGON lock durations, yield sources, insurance pool, and slashing mechanics.
VeAGON (Phase 2)
Vote-escrow mechanics, decay formula, and fee boost calculation.
Buyback and Burn (Phase 2)
BuybackBurn module deep-dive: on-chain flow, TWAP parameters, governance controls.
Governance (Phase 2)
DAO proposal lifecycle, quorum rules, Timelock architecture, and attack mitigations.