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Supply and issuance
Circulating, total, maximum and fully diluted supply answer four different questions, which is why data sources rarely publish the same figure.
10lessons
64 minreading in all
Foundationwhere it starts
01
Lessons in this track
01
The four supply numbers, and why they disagreeCirculating, total, maximum and fully diluted supply answer four different questions, which is why data sources rarely publish the same figure.
6 min · Foundation
02
How new units are created, and who receives themEvery unit of a digital asset enters the world through a specific mechanism with a specific recipient, and the recipient matters as much as the amount.
6 min · Working knowledge
03
Token burns: what they do, and what they do not doBurning destroys units and reduces supply, but a burn is only economically meaningful when something real was given up to fund it.
6 min · Working knowledge
04
Halvings and other supply events fixed years in advanceSome supply changes are written into protocol rules and knowable years ahead, which changes how they can be studied and what conclusions survive.
6 min · Working knowledge
05
Vesting, cliffs and unlocks, and why the dates are hard to findLocked allocations become tradable on schedules that are often partly off-chain, unaudited and subject to change, which limits what unlock data can tell a reader.
7 min · Working knowledge
06
Float and FDV: the arithmetic trap in fully diluted valuationFully diluted valuation multiplies today's price by units that do not trade today, which embeds an assumption most readers never see stated.
7 min · Advanced
07
Staking is a supply question before it is an income oneStaking immobilizes units and pays rewards in the same asset, which makes it a change in supply distribution rather than income from an outside payer.
6 min · Working knowledge
08
Inflation versus dilution, and what real staking yield meansSupply inflation and holder dilution are different quantities, and the difference is exactly what separates a nominal staking rate from a real one.
7 min · Advanced
09
Fee switches, buybacks and burns are choices, not entitlementsMechanisms that route protocol income toward token holders are governance parameters that can be turned on, changed or turned off, and they create no legal claim.
7 min · Advanced
10
What sits in a protocol treasury, and who controls itTreasury figures headline in dollars but usually consist mostly of the project's own token, which is why the headline overstates what can be spent.
6 min · Working knowledge
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