Unit 1 · Level 4 · Token design
Who gets paid
When a token launches, the supply gets sliced up before you ever see it: a chunk for the team, a chunk for early investors, a treasury for the project, and a slice for the community. Emissions are the drip-feed that pays those slices out over time. Reading this table tells you who earns from the token without ever buying it.
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What you get asked
Team and early investors are called 'insiders'. Why does their share of supply matter so much to you?
A VC who paid €0.02 is happily in profit selling at €0.20, even while you, who bought at €1, are down 80%. Cost basis is power.
Match each allocation bucket to what it really is
None of these slices is evil by itself. The questions are: how big, locked for how long, and sold to whom?
New tokens dripped out over time to stakers, teams, or liquidity providers are called ___.
Emissions are printed, not earned. Every token dripped out dilutes everyone already holding.
A DeFi farm pays 40% APY in its own token. Where does that yield actually come from?
When yield is paid in freshly minted tokens, the protocol is simply diluting everyone to pay you. Always ask where the yield comes from.
A project allocates 20% of its 1 billion token supply to the team. How many million tokens does the team get?
20% of 1 billion is 200 million tokens. At a €1 launch price, that's €200M of paper wealth waiting for its unlock date. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Supply schedules, emissions, and the fine print that decides who gets paid.