$THOR Tokenomics Overview

3 min readSep 28, 2021

Introduction and Goals

A crucial step in THORSwap’s evolution is the protocol’s new native token $THOR, which will act as a governance token, utility token, and proof of membership token.

We’ve optimized the design of the $THOR token to:

Progressively decentralize towards majority ownership by the community
Govern the THORSwap protocol in a decentralized manner
Incentivize trading, aka the “Trading Black Hole”
Reward positive user actions and community contributions
Fund growth efforts and community projects
Complement and accrue value to the $RUNE token, THORSwap community, and other THORChain ecosystem assets

Let’s dive into the $THOR token.

Why does THORSwap need a token?

Any healthy, well-functioning market has two requirements: liquidity and trading activity.

Many of you are already familiar with $RUNE, the native token for THORChain, that is specifically designed to optimize and incentivize liquidity. Similarly, $THOR, the native token for THORSwap, is specifically designed to optimize and incentivize trading activity.

THORSwap’s trading black hole brings more trading activity to THORChain’s liquidity black hole, complementing THORChain’s goals and bringing more revenue opportunities to THORChain LPs.

This match made in Asgard creates well-balanced and healthy markets where market participants are properly incentivized.

Tokenomics First Principles

The following serve as core principles for THORSwap’s underlying tokenomics model:

Reward the Community: THORSwap started as a community effort and THOR will help to align a large group of engaged and proactive community members
Facilitate community-based decision making and coordination through decentralized governance
Build a sustainable revenue model which then accrues to the community
Increase user loyalty through various incentives like airdrops, members-only access, trade mining and trading fee discounts

How to Earn THOR?

THOR will be majority owned by the community, with almost two-thirds (65%) of the total supply distributed to the larger community.

50% of THOR’s total supply is allocated as “community incentives,” to be distributed across a wide variety of initiatives:

Airdrops
LP rewards
Trade mining rewards
Trading fee discounts
Staking
…and more to be announced

Community Governed Incentives

To ensure a balanced distribution of THOR that fulfills the above-mentioned first principles, the weighting of THOR’s community distribution will be adjusted seasonally.

These seasonal adjustments will be informed by closely tracked metrics, and will eventually be determined by community governance.

THOR Distribution

THOR will have a maximum supply of 500,000,000 tokens, emitted over four years. By then, 65% of the total supply will have been distributed to the larger community, or “outsiders” (Community Incentives, Airdrop, Fundraiser).

Additional details will be released over time, so please follow our socials to stay updated. Join our Discord to ask any questions.

About THORSwap

THORSwap is the leading multi-chain, decentralized exchange (DEX) platform powered by THORChain. Perform cross-chain swaps in a permissionless, trustless, and non-custodial manner.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/thorswap

Website: https://thorswap.finance

THORSwap App: https://app.thorswap.finance

FAQ: https://thorswap.finance/faq

Join the Community! Provide feedback and contribute!

Discord: https://discord.gg/thorswap

Telegram Announcement: https://t.me/thorswap_ann