Deepdive in our Tokenomicspresented by our Head Tech Dev “Nodezy”

Please note that this post refers to our “old ETH” tokenomics, although the core essentials are the same functions and the tax and how it’s used and distribution differs slightly in the new BSC contract. Please check our dApp, the KOJI Dashboard for current and up-to-date token stats.

When we started forming the idea for koji.earth, one thing was very clear: We wanted a project that was majority distributed to the community. We did not want whale insiders buying up all the presale tokens, or do a stealth launch to friends only.

For our readers: KOJI = the token, koji.earth = the project, Koji = the character.

We thought that by doing a good deed with the Tosa airdrop after so many in that community lost their investment, it would help us get started on the path of being good stewards of other people’s money.

There are many scams in crypto, some of which are very obvious. However some are not so obvious. Take for example a ChainLink competitor that launched several months back on Polkastarter. They have a huge community, a slick logo and website where they boast about “Merkle-tree” this and “Decentralized Oracle” that… and the technology seems fairly impressive.

“So how could it be a scam?” you might ask. Well, looking at the github, website, developer portal, you would think this would be a well oiled machine, with community run decentralized oracles filling up-to-the second price requests for crypto developers everywhere.

Yet they are still in testnet. With 3 centralized validators, their main technology isn’t even really working. Instead they are opting for a “developer contest to create a dapp using their limited API”.

“Ok ok, that’s not evidence of a scam” you say. And you would be right, except for the part where they raised hundreds of millions of dollars a few months ago, and literally have almost nothing to show for it. It went something like this:

1. build a slick website with cool looking oracle tech;
2. write a contract on the ETH chain that saves block data to a log
3. launch on Polkastarter for 10 cents per token for insiders in presale;
4. launch on Uniswap for 20x — 30x in the first day;
5. market cap shoots up to 75 million based on 25 million coins in circulation
6. proceed to mint 250k tokens per day from then on, until 500 million token cap!

If most crypto projects did this, they would be labeled a scam, yet if you have big flashy fancy tech, you can get away with it.

The price has done nothing but dump since it listed, down 66% at the time of this writing. It will continue to dump so long as tokens are minted. Those minted tokens eventually make their way into a liquidity pool somewhere, to the sole benefit of the insider group that sold at listing, in the days after, and are still selling now. Five point two. That’s how many years it will take until all 475 million tokens are minted for this #community owned oracle# project.

This is just one (one) of the many ways in which investors are taken advantage of in the crypto sphere. Sure, if the “decentralized oracle# project ever produces something usable to the rest of the developing crypto world, then I will call it a “successful project with scammy tokenomics” because that’s what it will be.

It doesn’t cost 350 million dollars to do what they are doing. That’s nonsense. So someone somewhere made a lot of money, and holders are paying for it dearly.

Nodezy, sir, did you preface this article that is supposed to be about koji.earth just to bash another project? Are you blowing out their candle so yours may shine brighter?

Well… perhaps. I am merely pointing out that what makes a project worth investing in is maybe not so much the cutting edge “latest and greatest”, but perhaps it’s a genuine lack of greed from the beginning. New and exciting tech is great, but if that same tech is used to mainly bleed investors of their money while slowly building something that mostly already exists, what’s the point?

Lack of greed must be what drives a project, even if its initially lacking in technical areas. Because ultimately everyone in crypto wants to make money, but when your community and your investors see that what you are trying to do is good, and decent, and for the benefit of everyone, then you might be able to call yourself a success. Until then I’m skeptical.

Obviously we aren’t there yet, but that is the general direction we are aiming in before we pull back the string and release the arrow that is Koji. We will do everything we can to keep the token economy of KOJI healthy, for if we do not, we will not be able to donate to any charities or keep our community together. We do not guarantee any return on investment. But we can guarantee that greed is not at the heart of this project.

Total Supply

We are starting off with 1 Trillion KOJI tokens that have already been minted. No more will ever exist. What makes our project different from most other crypto projects is over 80% of KOJI tokens will be distributed via vested airdrop, presale, public sale, or added to liquidity on Uniswap.

KOJI token distribution

Less than 10% is going to our 7 developers + early investors (who had to buy in with their own money) and the other 9% is going into our treasury for future initiatives such as exchange listings, marketing, further contract developments, etc..

More will be explained in the following sections.

The Airdrop

Nothing has caused more heartburn inside our community and our developers chat than the community airdrop. It’s been a project in itself just getting the numbers to work and not have an internal (or external) mutiny.

But over the weeks we persevered, and the final airdrop numbers were calculated to be around 4.3% of the total supply. These tokens will be vested linearly for 3–6 months depending on the size of the airdropped wallet, and will available to withdraw on our website after our public listing on Uniswap.

The Presale

KOJI token distribution again but not so round

The presale accounts for 7.5% of the total supply, and is the seed money that we are using to pay for development costs. Right now we have many small costs for artwork, website development, contract audits/migrations, and other small expenses.

We will soon have much larger expenses as we are waiting to sign a fairly large contract for artwork. (*Update: our deal with AmCo to illustrate our first koji.earth NFT comic book has been signed). Our presale raised a total of 25 ETH and sold out in around 10 minutes.

The Public Sale

For our public sale, we are selling 400B KOJI, at a yet-to-be-determined price as Ethereum is currently going on a tear. The goal is to raise somewhere between 80–125 ETH and put 80% minimum of that into the liquidity pool.

Our public sale is scheduled for sometime after the release of Uniswap v3 around mid-late may. (Update: Public sale was held on June 1st and 133ETH was sold in less then 30 seconds!) This will allow us more time for artwork/NFT development and to build relationships with various charities, as well as vesting contract development and more. Whatever tokens go unsold in the public sale from this 400B amount will be sent to the burn address forever.

Uniswap Liquidity Pool

As previously stated, the Uniswap LP will get at least 80% of all ETH raised in public sale, paired with enough KOJI tokens so the listing price is slightly higher than public sale. Liquidity will be locked for 6 months to start with. Ultimately we would like to burn the LP tokens forever, and that is certainly our aim.

But we don’t want to lock up $300k forever and realize later that we have a problem with the token contract or something else…you can never get all the money out of an LP once you throw away the LP tokens. We will be prudent in this matter and make sure that everything is working before we lock forever.

These will be locked in our own vesting contract

Token Reserve

Approximately 9% of the total supply will go into what we are calling a token treasury. These tokens will be locked in a vesting contract for 3 months, with 33% unlocking every 30 days. While these tokens are locked, they will be exempt from the holder rewards pool.

The treasury tokens will be used to supply liquidity on other exchanges, for marketing, advertising, and in some instances burned. It all depends on our token economy at the time.

These tokens will never be dumped by the team or used for trivial expenses. While we are launching on Ethereum chain, the Binance Smart Chain is also a possibility for listing in the future with a potential token bridge to be used to transfer between the two chains. These reserve tokens would be used to fund the liquidity for such an event if it were to happen.

Admin Wallet

Team tokens will also be vested for a 6-month period

The admin wallet contains all the tokens designated to the team. The core developer team members will receive 14.6B KOJI, 13.6B of which will be vested linearly over a 6 month time period; while additional team members will receive 1B unvested like the rest of the team and 5B vested tokens, again linearly, over the same period.

Early investors will be rewarded for their help in staring up the project and developing the token, getting 6B and 7.5B respectively. We greatly appreciate the efforts they have put into the project which will help us succeed, both in the short and long term.

Expenses

Miscellaneous development costs are things we are not at liberty to discuss right now, and the actual number of ETH allocated to that expense may not be accurate and/or subject to change.

Our expenses breakdown is above

The second audit has already been paid for, we are just waiting until liquidity is locked to publish the results. This was paid out of our own money and we will not reimburse ourselves until after it’s been announced.

Our NFT budget may have to be increased if we bring on another developer to help in that area. There might also be a Koji merchandise line in the future, and those potential (and other potential) expenses are not listed here.

Net ETH remaining for Development

*Disclaimer: Due to the rising price of Ethereum, our softcap/hardcap numbers will change and most likely be lower by the time of public sale. More information will be posted in our communication channels as we get closer to that time. The numbers below were factored when ETH was $2300.

The net Ethereum leftover for development will depend on the amount of Ethereum raised in our public sale. We are targeting a minimum of 80% of ETH raised in public sale to be added to liquidity. Note the net ETH includes the ETH raised from presale (minus expenses).

We may decide to put more than 80% into liquidity, which would lower the amount of ETH to the team. We do not want to be greedy here, but exchange listing are expensive and we would rather not have to sell KOJI from the treasury in order to raise funds as we would still have to give the exchange KOJI tokens for trading as well. A decent ETH reserve would help with this.

KOJI Token Taxes & Ambitions after Launch

When the KOJI token starts trading on Uniswap v3 in late May, the current token tax model is 3% total: 1% going to holders, 1% going to charity, .5% goes to burn and .5% goes to the admin regen wallet. Again this .5% back to the team is to be used for the good of the token economy, not to line our pockets. The team amounts are set; the rest is business.

Initially our charity donations will be done manually. In the future, amounts sent to the charity wallet will be sold automatically once a threshold is hit and converted into ETH. Along with that change, we might also change the .5% admin / burn amounts and have 2% sent to the charity wallet, and when a threshold is met, 1% gets sold into ETH and the other 1% is burned simultaneously. This means that whatever amounts we donate to charity, that same value of KOJI is destroyed forever.

This will ensure that sell-side pressure might be mitigated by increased deflation. More information will be posted in the roadmap section on our website when the time comes.

So there is it folks. Our journey is set to begin. We hope you’ll join us!

This article is a re-post and was originally published on our medium