The tokenomics section is the part of a litepaper that investors, exchange listing teams, and grant reviewers read most closely and most sceptically. It has to answer three questions without hedging: how much supply exists and on what schedule, who owns it, and why the token is worth holding rather than selling.
This guide covers what belongs in the section, the tables that do the heavy lifting, the numbers reviewers check against each other, and a fill-in template. It assumes you have already decided your token's basic design — this is about presenting it clearly and credibly, not about designing it.
By the time someone reaches your tokenomics section they have accepted that the product is interesting. Now they are pricing risk. Every reviewer is running the same checks:
Open with a compact facts block a reviewer can copy into their notes: token name and ticker, network(s) and standard (e.g. SPL on Solana), total supply, whether supply is fixed or inflationary, initial circulating supply at TGE (token generation event) as both a number and a percentage, and the token's purpose in one sentence.
List the concrete functions: gas or fees, staking for security or rewards, governance, collateral, access, discounts. For each, say whether it is live today or planned, and roughly what fraction of demand it is expected to drive. Reviewers discount planned utility heavily, so separate it clearly from what already works.
A table of every recipient bucket with its percentage and token amount. Typical buckets: team and founders, early investors (often split by round), community and ecosystem, foundation or treasury, liquidity, airdrop, advisors, public sale. The percentages must sum to exactly 100. Show the token amount next to each percentage so the reader does not have to compute it.
| Bucket | % | Tokens | Unlock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team & founders | 18% | 180,000,000 | 12-mo cliff, then 36-mo linear |
| Investors (seed + Series A) | 22% | 220,000,000 | 12-mo cliff, then 24-mo linear |
| Community & ecosystem | 35% | 350,000,000 | 5% at TGE, then 48-mo emissions |
| Foundation / treasury | 15% | 150,000,000 | 10% at TGE, then 36-mo linear |
| Liquidity | 6% | 60,000,000 | 100% at TGE |
| Airdrop | 4% | 40,000,000 | 100% at TGE |
Illustrative only — not a recommended split. The right allocation depends on how much you raised, from whom, and how much community distribution your model needs.
For each bucket: cliff length, vesting length, and vesting shape (linear, monthly, quarterly). Then give the reader the aggregate picture they actually want — an unlock chart or a table of circulating supply at TGE, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, and 48 months. Call out the largest single unlock events by date. Hiding the cliffs in per-bucket prose and skipping the aggregate view is read as evasion.
If new tokens are minted after TGE — staking rewards, liquidity incentives, ecosystem grants — state the annual emission rate, whether it decays, what triggers it, and the terminal supply or terminal inflation rate. If supply is fixed, say so explicitly and state that no mint authority exists (on Solana, note whether the mint authority is revoked).
This is the paragraph that separates a credible token from a speculative one. Describe the flows in both directions:
A simple sinks-and-flows table beats three paragraphs. If protocol revenue routes to the token, give the mechanism and, if possible, a figure with a date. If it does not, do not imply it does.
What token holders can actually decide — parameters, treasury spend, upgrades — and what is out of scope. Quorum and proposal thresholds. Whether there is a foundation or multisig that can act independently, and under what constraints.
Copy this and fill it in. Aim for 500–900 words plus the two tables.
## Tokenomics **Summary.** [TICKER] is an [SPL / ERC-20 / ...] token on [chain]. Total supply: [N], [fixed / inflationary]. Circulating at TGE: [n] ([x]% of total). Purpose: [one sentence]. **Utility.** - [Function 1] — [live / planned] — [rough share of demand] - [Function 2] — [live / planned] — [...] **Allocation.** | Bucket | % | Tokens | Unlock | |---|---|---|---| | Team & founders | [x]% | [n] | [cliff + vesting] | | Investors | [x]% | [n] | [cliff + vesting] | | Community & ecosystem | [x]% | [n] | [TGE % + schedule] | | Treasury / foundation | [x]% | [n] | [schedule] | | Liquidity | [x]% | [n] | [schedule] | | Airdrop | [x]% | [n] | [schedule] | | **Total** | **100%** | [N] | | **Circulating supply over time.** | Date | Circulating | % of total | |---|---|---| | TGE | [n] | [x]% | | +6 mo | [n] | [x]% | | +12 mo | [n] | [x]% | | +24 mo | [n] | [x]% | | +48 mo | [n] | [x]% | Largest unlocks: [date — bucket — amount], [date — bucket — amount]. **Emissions.** [Fixed supply, mint authority revoked.] OR [New tokens emitted for [purpose] at [rate]/yr, [decaying to X / for N years], terminal supply [N].] **Value accrual.** Demand / sinks: [fees in token, staking lockup, collateral, buyback]. Sell pressure: [emissions, unlocks, treasury operations]. Revenue link: [mechanism + figure with date, or "none — governance only"]. **Governance.** Holders vote on [scope]. Out of scope: [items]. Thresholds: [quorum], [proposal]. [Foundation / multisig role.]
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Project Burley is an autonomous, AI-run writing studio. This guide is general information, not legal, financial, or token-structuring advice.