Ever wonder how to source project token economics data and model it out? This is the article for you, and it comes with a detailed spreadsheet model. The goal of this case study is to reconstruct Solana’s token supply schedule, so you can do the same for any other project. We’ll walk through how to gather the data, and the spreadsheet is comprehensive to help you map it across the key pillars of token economics (as covered in the previous article). I won’t go deep into token design here, which is critical to incentivizing behavior and driving value accrual, but this article, and model, will help you understand a key component of your project’s balance sheet: the supply of your native token at any given point in time.

Disclaimer: At the time of writing, I don’t own a meaningful amount of SOL and have never worked for Solana. I do, however, have close friends in the ecosystem whom I respect deeply. I chose Solana because of its multi-year track record, adoption, and strong public documentation. This is not financial or legal advice and please do your own research. The numbers I include here, and in the model, may be incorrect.

How to Gather Token Supply Data

Despite Solana's maturity, I quickly realized that gathering accurate, complete token data was not straightforward. Even research providers such as Messari and Artemis make assumptions around token unlocks, allocations, and emissions, and document their assumptions that go into their numbers. Not only that, but there was a discrepancy in information provided by multiple platforms (e.g. Binance research differed from Messari). Thus best judgement toward the end played a critical role.

This challenge isn’t unique to Solana. In fact, most tokenomics research starts with incomplete data, and your job is often to piece together the puzzle from scattered public disclosures, onchain breadcrumbs, and third-party interpretations. The reality is that not everything needs to be disclosed by projects, and at times, it may even be illegal for them to disclose contract details based on their agreed terms with partners. However, as an operator you need to develop a clear picture and can start by gathering externally available information and then asking the team you support for further clarity.

Here are some of the most effective places to begin, beyond the obvious Google search:

Project sources:

• Project website. Look for whitepapers, tokenomics pages, or pitch decks.

• Notion/Gitbook. Many projects publish their documentation here, including ecosystem fund info, inflation plans, and vesting terms.

• Telegram/Discord. You can often find archived conversations or get direct clarifications from the team or community managers.

• Articles in places such as Medium, Paragraph or Substack.

Third party providers:

• Messari and Binance Research. Offers token profiles and unlock charts.

• DeFi Llama, TokenUnlocks, Artemis, CoinGecko, CryptoRank. Useful for cross-checking token release schedules and market data.

• Dune Analytics. If you're comfortable querying, you can build or fork dashboards that track token emissions, fee burns, or vesting contract flows.

Onchain and other tools:

• Solscan / SolanaFM. Use to trace foundation wallets, staking distributions, or fee burn addresses. Other projects will have their own scan tools, and most have “scan” in their naming conventions.

• Github repositories. For projects with open-source token contracts, you can trace vesting logic or staking contracts directly. Some projects may have private repositories though.

• AI tools like Chat GPT or Perplexity, but you’ll need to double check all sources. I’ve experienced an ~80% accuracy rate with these tools, so best to verify.

This is not an exhaustive list of sources, but you get the idea. It's a puzzle, and your job is to find and fit the pieces together.

The Solana Token Supply Model

After scouring the internet for Solana’s information from their online docs, Messari, Binance Research, and Artemis, I put it all together in this model. To get a full understanding, I recommend going through each tab, starting with the first.

The spreadsheet includes:

• The walkthrough tab. Explains how the pillars are shaped for Solana and highlights key takeaways from the model.

• The supply tab. Consolidates the timing of the unlock schedule, inflation and burn over a 10 year time period with key takeaways in the comments section.

• The unlock tab. Transforms Solana’s token economic line item vesting schedules by timeframe. It’s flexible and allows you to plug in your own numbers.

• Inflation tab. Maps emissions schedule from Solana’s network days to calendar days.

• Burn tab: calculates SOL burning, based on Artemis data for actuals (historical) and assumptions for the forecast until 2029.

I recommend jumping into the model now. Once you’ve explored it, come back here to wrap things up.

What We Learned

Welcome back. If there’s one key takeaway, it’s that piecing together token supply data is anything but simple. It takes real effort to collect the fragmented information and then use your best judgment to finalize a model that will be useful for your needs. The goal here was to model the supply side over a long enough time period to understand the effects of full token unlock and the impact of net inflation. Multiple iterations may be needed as you gather new points of information.

Evolving Token Economics

Solana has made meaningful adjustments to its token economics over time, even correcting earlier mistakes. A key lesson is that token economics should evolve with network usage, thus projects must be willing to adapt.

Solana changes to token economics:

• March 2020: Mainnet Beta launch. Genesis supply set at 500M SOL, but ~11.3M SOL was burned, so effective launch was ~488.7M.

• February 2021: Inflation turned on (epoch 182); staking rewards begin.

• August 2022: Fee burn (v1.10+) enabled. 50% of fees are permanently burned.

• 2023: Priority fees adopted; liquid staking (e.g., jitoSOL) gains momentum.

• 2024–2025: LSTs surpass 50% of staked SOL. Reflexivity risks emerge, staking yield becomes easier to access.

This is a non-exhaustive list of upgrades, but I think you get the point about adapting the network to evolving user needs.

Conclusion

Hope you found the walkthrough as useful as I did building it. If you're working on a token project and need help modeling emissions, mapping unlocks, or aligning supply with long-term value, I can help. I led finance at 0x, where we raised $85M during my time, and have supported multiple founders as an angel and advisor. I’m now looking to go hands-on again with a team that values thoughtful, detail-driven financial strategy. Feel free to reach out here, on Telegram, or by replying to this post.

• Token Supply

• Vesting & Unlocks

• Float Strategy

• Utility

• Allocations

Together, these pillars shape a project’s ability to plan, raise, and operate. They form a flywheel, where each component reinforces the others. When combined with token value accrual, they help ensure a sustainable network that can endure long-term.

Why Token Economics Matters

Understanding token economics is essential for strategic planning and execution. There’s a value loop that many sustainable token projects aim to complete. Matty Tokenomics lays out a framework in his Guide to Token Design and suggests the following three components are essential for project and network sustainability:

1. Users must find the product useful.

2. Users must be willing to pay.

3. That value must be captured by the token.

Let’s unpack that third point. “Value captured by the token” doesn’t just mean dividends or direct payouts, instead, it means the token should reflect the success of the network. Just as equity appreciates in value as a company grows, tokens can accrue value as the network expands and becomes more useful.

When the aforementioned loop is complete, network tokens become a growth engine: aligning contributors, sustaining the protocol, and enabling long-term existence. Taking a step back, the first two points are fundamental to any sustainable business, crypto or not. It’s essentially having a useful product that solves a real problem and users who need it enough to pay for it. The third point builds on that foundation: if token holders are economic participants in the network, then capturing upside through price, governance, and/or future utility is how their interests stay aligned. It’s similar to how corporations assign ownership and voting rights to shareholders, including founders, employees, and investors. What’s different about crypto networks is that tokens can also power the network, possibly granting access, enabling participation, and/or serving as an incentive layer.

The Regulatory Wall Between Tokens and Value Accrual

However, in reality, over the past few years working with token projects, I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it is to activate that third lever – value flowing back to the token, and holders – primarily due to regulatory constraints. In the US, from the SEC’s side, if a token is deemed a security, then routing value back to holders can trigger complex compliance obligations. Profit-sharing, staking rewards, or governance rights tied to financial outcomes can all raise red flags under U.S. securities law, making teams hesitant to implement mechanisms that resemble ownership or dividends. Under Chair Gary Gensler, the SEC took a notably aggressive stance toward the crypto industry, often choosing to regulate through enforcement actions rather than clear guidance. This created an environment of uncertainty, where many projects avoided even the appearance of value accrual to token holders. This was true at 0x, Uniswap, Compound Finance and many other projects during those years.

The CFTC, which governs commodities and derivatives, has played an increasing role in regulating crypto. Even when a token isn't classified as a security, its design or use in onchain yield products, structured staking, or synthetic assets can draw attention under commodity derivatives rules. Projects offering these features, especially to U.S. users, risk enforcement if they’re viewed as facilitating unregistered derivatives activity. That said, with new leadership at both agencies, and after the SEC withdrew several high-profile Wells notices, notably for Coinbase and Robinhood, I’m more optimistic that clearer rulemaking will be established over the next few years, enabling more U.S. based projects to activate the third lever.

Token Launches Lock You In, So Get It Right

Still, regulation isn’t the only reason projects struggle to deliver value. One of the most common pitfalls happens much earlier in the journey: launching a token before product–market fit. The result? Price action is driven by speculation rather than usage. The worst-case scenario is having no paying customers and, and worse, no real need for the product or network. Without clear utility or organic demand, token prices detach from fundamentals. Hype cycles in crypto often run their course in 6 to 18 months. Think of DeFi Summer (2020), NFT mania (2021), or the alt L1 rush (2021–2022) where each peaked within a year or so. Without sustained utility and revenue, many tokens see their market caps evaporate once the mania is over.

This matters for token issuers, since tokens, much like IPOs, often serve as a primary way to raise capital to fund the project’s runway. Unlike public or private equity markets, token offerings are typically a one-time event. There’s rarely an opportunity for a follow-on round through token issuance without undermining trust or the economics of the system.

Launching a token too early also locks in a project’s trajectory. Think of crypto networks as infinite machines, and once a token is live, it sets expectations for how the system should work, making it much harder to pivot the network and/or product(s) without undermining the token’s value proposition. Teams lose the flexibility to experiment, iterate, or explore new use cases without creating confusion or eroding trust with token holders. That’s why it’s often better to validate demand and experiment before launching a token. Funding is always top of mind, but there are other paths to explore before a token launch: friends and family, equity rounds, grants, and revenue, just to name a few.

The Key Pillars of Token Economics

Over the years, I’ve come to rely on a framework to break down token strategy. These are the five core pillars combined with the aforementioned token value accrual every founder or finance operator should model before a token ever goes live:

Token Supply

A token’s supply model, whether fixed or inflationary, lays the groundwork for how value is distributed and preserved over time. It’s helpful to think in terms of a classic supply and demand curve, the supply model effectively sets the shape and behavior of the supply side. Fixed supply models, like Bitcoin’s 21 million cap, signal scarcity and are often seen as store-of-value assets. Inflationary models, on the other hand, allow for ongoing token issuance to reward future contributors.

The choice between fixed and inflationary is dependent on network functionality. Projects like Solana implement hybrid models: long-term inflation (initially 8%, decaying by ~15% yearly) combined with burn mechanics, where a portion of transaction fees is permanently removed from circulation. This creates a more dynamic, responsive supply system for a network that relies on future network operators to scale up compute power and the ability to process more transactions.

When designing token supply, teams should model how emissions interact with market demand, contributor incentives, and treasury sustainability. Token issuance without utility or demand can lead to price collapse and consequent runway issues, but well aligned emissions can sustain a network over the long-term.

Your total token supply sets the upper bound for value distribution and your financial planning starts here.

Token Vesting

Once supply is defined, the next consideration is who gets tokens and when.

Unlock schedules define when stakeholders – founders, investors, advisors, team members – can move or sell tokens. Vesting builds trust by showing that insiders are committed long-term, not just there for a quick buck. It also mitigates sell pressure early on in a project.

Forecasting circulating supply depends on modeling these schedules accurately. Treasury planning, liquidity, market expectations, and even investor relations are all shaped by unlock timelines. There are also regulatory considerations. In the U.S., private token sales and employee token grants often fall under SEC Rule 144, which imposes a minimum one-year lock-up before tokens can be sold. This doesn’t just apply to investors, it also includes U.S. based projects distributing tokens to employees. As a result, many projects face lumpy unlock schedules that create large bursts of artificial sell pressure around the 12-month mark. This has serious implications for float and liquidity planning, especially if your team, contributors, or investor base includes U.S. participants. Global teams must also navigate cross-border rules like Regulation S and Europe’s MiCA, both of which may require public disclosures on vesting and lockups.

Well-structured vesting and transparent communication establish trust in the project, sustainable growth, align long-term incentives, and set the tone for how a network expects contributors to behave.

Token Float

Float is how much of your token supply is circulating at launch. It shapes everything from price discovery, market cap and perceived fully diluted valuation.

A high float, meaning most or all of the token supply is released on day one, can improve early price discovery and liquidity. It tends to work well for protocols with strong community engagement. High-float models, where 100% of the token supply is available from the start, have been adopted by meme projects such as $DOGE, $PEPE, and $BONK. Another notable example is Uniswap, which airdropped roughly 60% of its token supply to the community. This approach is often associated with a "fair launch" model, where no tokens are reserved for insiders and the supply is distributed openly to the public at or near launch, typically through airdrops, liquidity events, or trading access.

This kind of broad token distribution can also offer regulatory advantages. The more decentralized the initial ownership, the less likely a project is to trigger securities concerns under frameworks like the Howey Test. Ethereum is often cited as a precedent, where early decentralization helped it avoid classification as a security. However, this fair launch approach is more associated with meme coins in recent launches, where decentralization optics are strong but actual utility is questionable. Ironically, while these projects may avoid securities classification under the Howey Test, they often offer little beyond hype, a gap that future regulations may need to address more directly.

Be warned though, what may appear to be a high float can be an illusion. Some projects report inflated circulating supply to token aggregators like CoinGecko or CMC, while tightly controlling the actual liquid float behind the scenes. This “false float, high FDV” model, highlighted in an article by Mosi, is designed to game the system: signaling broad distribution and healthy price discovery, while retaining control to manipulate token price. Teams can slowly release tokens from their treasury to create artificial scarcity or apply sell pressure as needed, influencing price. In many cases, 90% or more of the supply remains withheld while inflated FDV figures are used to shape market narratives. The result is a misleading picture that captures the upside of both high and low float models without the tradeoffs, eroding trust and distorting token economics. Let's be real, this is scam behavior.

Alternatively, a low float minimizes early sell pressure and can stabilize token price in the short term. Projects like Filecoin ($FIL), Dfinity ($ICP), Worldcoin ($WLD), and many others have launched with a relatively low float, allowing the team to manage emissions and unlocks over time as adoption grew. As Haseeb pointed out in his x post, this structure often comes with the tradeoff of inflated fully diluted valuations and delayed price discovery, which can alienate users who perceive the token as overvalued or skewed toward insiders. It can also distort incentives by encouraging speculation over long-term participation and may undermine confidence if price discovery is artificially constrained. This approach requires careful planning, as large unlock cliffs can shock the market if not properly modeled and communicated.

In both cases, float decisions should be made with a clear understanding of your unlock schedule, investor expectations, regulations, and the maturity of your product. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, the right approach depends on your project’s goals, runway needs, and community dynamics.

Token Utility

Token utility is often the hardest to define. Many projects struggle here, and rightly so. Utility should emerge from real product usage, not wishful thinking. In practice, most teams don’t get it right on the first try. It’s something they figure out through experimentation and engagement.

Utility matters. The more a token is required to use the product or engage with the network, the more value is driven by real usage and paying users, and the more likely that value is to accrue to the token.

Some examples include:

• ETH is used to pay gas fees on Ethereum.

• CRV, from Curve Finance, lets token holders vote on gauge allocations that influence reward flows.

• LINK is used to pay for data services provided by Chainlink's oracle network.

These are use cases where tokens do something functional.

But utility isn’t static. It must evolve with the network. What works at launch may not hold as the network grows. Teams may need to reassess utility to better align with evolving product usage and network maturity: tuning emissions, adjusting or removing burn mechanics, modifying staking rewards, refining access privileges, or even rethinking governance participation. Utility should be measurable, not aspirational, and when it is, it helps teams forecast demand, manage treasury, and plan long-term capital needs with more confidence.

At the end of the day, teams should be able to answer: What role does the token play in the network and the user journey? If the answer isn’t clear, the market may treat it as a meme and price it accordingly. Clear utility, tied to product-market fit, gives the token a reason to exist.

Token Allocations

Too much insider ownership (team, investors, advisors) can raise red flags about decentralization and long-term alignment. On the other hand, overly diffuse allocations with unclear accountability can dilute responsibility and execution. The best-designed tokens strike a balance: they incentivize insiders to build, while meaningfully distributing ownership to the broader community and ecosystem contributors.

According to Liquifi's 2023 Token Report, average insider allocations (team, investors, company reserves) have increased from 34% in 2017 to 59% in 2023, while community allocations have dropped from 66% to 41%. This shift reflects a growing trend of projects allocating more supply to insiders (teams, investors, and company reserves) possibly to maintain operational control and runway, and perhaps in part due to regulations. However, it also raises concerns around decentralization and long-term alignment with community participants.

Before finalizing your allocation map, here are five questions I use to stress test allocation maps:

• Who needs ownership to drive long-term project success? Think network operators, users, developers both internal and external, projects building on your network, business development efforts, to name a few. Compare this to competitor projects in your vertical.

• Will insiders remain aligned with the protocol’s success? Consider your vesting schedules and whether you'll reserve tokens for future contributors, or have that funded with inflation.

• Is your community empowered or sidelined? Evaluate how community-led growth, reward mechanisms, and the journey from community member to user or network operator are supported.

• Can you justify your allocation breakdown to your stakeholders? Reflect on how you want to be perceived, as a centralized project with a path to decentralization, or as a community-driven network from day one, and the governance implications each path carries. Hint: launching fully decentralized without clear governance often sets projects up for failure.

• Are you setting yourself up to adapt over time? Ensure there’s flexibility to evolve your token model as the network matures.

While this isn’t an exhaustive list, remember that these five pillars form a flywheel, one that only works when value accrual ties them together. I highly recommend modeling out the token economics over time in a spreadsheet and revisiting it regularly as your project evolves.

Why Token Economics Matters for Financial Planning

Token economics isn't just about theory, it's the starting point for every major financial decision in a crypto project.

Financially speaking, token economics shapes:

• Runway modeling: Emissions and vesting schedules define how much capital you have and when it's available.

• Liquidity strategy: Float affects how easily you can convert assets or manage price volatility.

• Treasury sustainability: Supply and utility shape whether your token accrues value, or slowly bleeds it.

• Fundraising dynamics: Allocations and unlocks determine what you can offer to investors without compromising long-term alignment.

• Market credibility: Misaligned incentives and unclear design erode trust with token holders and users alike.

If you’re tasked with managing a treasury, setting budget assumptions, or supporting fundraising, understanding these token pillars isn’t optional. They define your constraints and your upside.

This is why finance operators in crypto need to be fluent in token economics. It’s not a side note, it’s the blueprint for the entire financial strategy.

Closing Thoughts

Token economics is more than a simple checklist. It is the financial foundation of your project and must be thoughtfully designed and periodically reassessed. Whether you're optimizing for growth, sustainability, or decentralization, every design decision shapes how value flows through your network.

This post explored five core pillars: supply, vesting, float, utility, and allocations, all tied together by token value accrual. Each pillar deserves its own deep dive. If you're navigating any of these areas or want something broken down further, I’d love to hear from you. Also, if you're interested in applying these concepts through a real use case, let me know, I’m happy to walk you through a spreadsheet example to make it more actionable.

It’s also worth noting that the importance of each pillar shifts depending on where you are in the lifecycle of your network. In the pre-token generation event (TGE) phase, supply, vesting, and allocations dominate, shaping scarcity, stakeholder alignment, and long-term incentives. At launch, float becomes key, impacting price discovery and market dynamics. Post-launch, utility takes the lead, delivering sustained value, and enabling value accrual to the token, as the network matures.

We’ll dive deeper into TGEs in a future post, or perhaps a series, covering how to approach pre-launch, launch, and post-launch planning. That includes legal structure, liquidity management, and financial strategy. If there’s something specific you’d like explored, just reach out.

A warm thanks to Adam from Backpack, Jed from Magic Labs, and the team at Summit Labs, for their 👀 and thoughtful feedback on this article.

And as always, this is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Just lessons learned from working alongside crypto founders and operators in the real world. Do your own research.

A Bit About Me

I was born and raised in Silicon Valley by immigrant parents. I grew up surrounded by tech in Menlo Park and spent most of my summers and winters in Mexico. Drawn to the intersection of logic, numbers, and culture, I studied finance, math, and Latin American studies in college.

After graduating, I spent nearly a decade doing FP&A for tech companies: forecasting, budgeting, accounting, and investor reporting. But eventually, I felt unfulfilled. I wanted to understand how my work and life could have more meaning.

In 2018, I left my job to travel the world. I ended up in Lebanon, where I saw a friend’s funds frozen by banks and watched inflation spiral out of control in real time. That experience pulled me toward crypto, a technology that could fundamentally change how the financial system works.

I got into crypto through Aleph Zero, then joined 0x Labs as the first finance hire, helping build out the finance function and raise $85M. Since then, I’ve advised and invested in early-stage teams, often supporting financial strategy, fundraising, go-to-market, and operational planning.

I bring an entrepreneurial mindset to everything I do. I strive to be a catalyst who uses finance to bring clarity, helping strong teams move faster and build with confidence.

Why My Two Tacos

Building a token project or managing crypto on the balance sheet takes the right mix of strategy and financial planning. Founders are often left guessing through raising funds, budgeting, or navigating crypto’s wild west.

My Two Tacos delivers practical frameworks and insights to help you operate with confidence.

What to Expect

Short, to-the-point essays on:

• Crypto use cases and analysis

• Token economics

• Financial planning

• Treasury operations

• And more

(P.S. Not legal, tax, or financial advice; just insights from the trenches. Always do your own research.)

If you’re launching a token or running a finance function for an organization with crypto, this is for you. Subscribe to build smarter, not harder. Got a crypto finance headache? Let’s taco ‘bout it, drop it in the comments or send me a DM – I might tackle it next.