RAIL Tokenomics
Maximum Supply
- 100,000,000 (RAIL on Ethereum)
- 44,546,789 (RAILBSC on BNB Smart Chain)
- 55,000,000 (RAILPOLY on Polygon)
Initial Ethereum Distribution
- 25% - Launch Airdrops
- 25% - Right to Privacy Foundation
- 50% - RAILGUN DAO
RAIL had a fair, stealth launch with initial circulating supply being airdropped to Ethereum addresses which had donated to privacy focused organizations such as the TOR Project, the Right to Privacy Foundation, or the Free Software Foundation.
The Right to Privacy Foundation funded the initial development of RAILGUN through a grant and was allocated 25% of RAIL to support the long-term benefit of the project. The Right to Privacy Foundation is a registered charity with no profit motivations. RAIL held by the Foundation is strictly for promotion and development incentives for the RAILGUN platform only. The Foundation will not sell tokens for at least the first year of the DAOs operations.
The remaining 50% is held by the RAILGUN DAO. This allocation is locked and unminted, and new RAIL can only come into existence by DAO vote. Thus, a significant portion of RAIL is governed by DAO members and current token holders.
For example, DAO members might vote to mint new RAIL to incentivize deposits into the RAILGUN system, leading to a larger anonymity set and benefitting all users. Or, the DAO may choose to mint new DAO to help market make a CEX listing; as RAILGUN's governance is completely decentralized, this allocation can feasibly be minted for any purpose the DAO sees fit.
As of September 2022, 7.5 million/50 million of this allocation has been minted.
RAILGUN on Polygon and BSC have their own separate governance DAOs and therefore have their own chain-specific tokens. RAIL(on Ethereum), RAILPOLY and RAILBSC are different to each other as they govern and receive rewards from the RAILGUN deployment on their respective chains.
This governance structure with a separate DAO on each chain maximizes security and decentralization as there is no reliance on cross-chain bridging and each DAO can vote on chain-specific issues.
RAILPOLY and RAILBSC were distributed via airdrops to RAIL stakers and RAIL liquidity providers.