I was rereading Babylon's tokenomics page last night, and one detail made me realize I had been telling half a story.
The 8 percent inflation figure covers staking rewards only. Per the official docs, it mints continuously with no end date, which is also why total supply there is listed as infinite.
Sitting quietly beside that is something else entirely. Team tokens carry a 1 year cliff, then vest monthly for three more years. Investor tokens follow their own 4 year schedule.
Neither of those creates a single new token. They release allocations that already existed, just locked until their date arrives.
Both mechanisms raise circulating supply. Only one of them is actually new money entering the system.
This reminded me of something far from crypto. A family account balance can climb for two different reasons. One month it rises because a paycheck lands automatically, brand new money arriving. Another month it rises because someone finally cashes a savings bond bought years earlier, old money simply becoming accessible on schedule. The balance looks the same either way. What caused it does not.
I went looking for a public breakdown separating how much of Babylon's recent supply growth came from inflation minting versus vesting unlocks landing in the same window.
I could not find one anywhere.
Without that split, a rising supply number tells me supply went up. It does not tell me why, and those two reasons carry very different implications for anyone trying to judge this token's trajectory.
@BabylonLabs_io #baby $BABY
The 8 percent inflation figure covers staking rewards only. Per the official docs, it mints continuously with no end date, which is also why total supply there is listed as infinite.
Sitting quietly beside that is something else entirely. Team tokens carry a 1 year cliff, then vest monthly for three more years. Investor tokens follow their own 4 year schedule.
Neither of those creates a single new token. They release allocations that already existed, just locked until their date arrives.
Both mechanisms raise circulating supply. Only one of them is actually new money entering the system.
This reminded me of something far from crypto. A family account balance can climb for two different reasons. One month it rises because a paycheck lands automatically, brand new money arriving. Another month it rises because someone finally cashes a savings bond bought years earlier, old money simply becoming accessible on schedule. The balance looks the same either way. What caused it does not.
I went looking for a public breakdown separating how much of Babylon's recent supply growth came from inflation minting versus vesting unlocks landing in the same window.
I could not find one anywhere.
Without that split, a rising supply number tells me supply went up. It does not tell me why, and those two reasons carry very different implications for anyone trying to judge this token's trajectory.
@BabylonLabs_io #baby $BABY