Under the Hood: Rune Supply

Here are some explainers regarding the $RUNE token supply.

1. Maximum Total Supply (Hard Cap Limit)

This is the maximum supply that can ever be minted (e.g. during redemption of loans). If the total supply of RUNE ever breaches this, a circuit breaker will be triggered, and the whole THORChain blockchain will be suspended. This is unlikely to happen, but if it does, it will give time for Developers, Node Operators and Community to regroup on the next course of action.

Edit: The Maximum Total Supply was at 500m RUNE until 24-Sept-2024, when a burn of 0.01% of system income was enabled. The burn was increased to 5% on 18-Nov-2024. This burn reduces the Maximum Total Supply, which can be checked at https://rune.tools/supply.

2. Current Total Supply

This can be checked here: https://dashboards.ninerealms.com/#lending

The Current Total Supply is the Maximum Total Supply minus RUNE burnt from the three categories below.

- BEP2 and ERC20 RUNE Killswitch: 13.9m RUNE burnt after Jul-2023

- Standby Reserves Burnt, aka ADR12 Burnt: 60m RUNE burnt in Mar-2024

- RUNE Burnt via Lending: This is an ever-changing amount as RUNE is burnt and minted in the course of loans being opened and closed

Edit: On 24-Sept-2024, new loans can no longer be opened. Existing loans are fine and continue to be redeemable anytime.

3. Circulating Supply

There is a Reserve Module from which RUNE block rewards are emitted on a block-by-block basis, which can be checked here: https://runescan.io/address/thor1dheycdevq39qlkxs2a6wuuzyn4aqxhve4qxtxt

The RUNE in the Reserve Module is not considered as circulating. Thus, the Circulating Supply is the Current Total Supply minus the RUNE still in the Reserve Module.

The Circulating Supply includes all the RUNE which are:

- Bonded

- Pooled in THORChain Liquidity Pools

- Pooled in Maya Protocol Liquidity Pools (this is a friendly fork of THORChain)

- Operating Treasury

- Kept in Centralized Exchanges (e.g. Binance, Kraken and others)

- Held by users (Other circulating)

The below is a snapshot dated 9-Mar-2024 which shows an overall breakdown of the RUNE supply.

Feel free to hop into the TC University Discord to chat about this, or any other THORChain questions that you may have.

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