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6. Tokens Circulation

Emission and Internal Distribution

  • Non-inflationary model. STON has a fixed initial supply of 100M. Additional minting is prohibited by the smart contract. The protocol implements a buyback & burn mechanism: fees are converted into STON and part of them are burned, reducing total supply. Thus, the internal “inflow” is generated not by new issuance but by buying back fees from the market.

  • Fee Converter → Fee Distributor. Protocol fees are automatically converted into STON and then distributed by the Fee Distributor contract according to DAO parameters — for burning or other purposes (staking rewards, liquidity mining, grants). This ties product cash flows directly to the token.

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Vesting and Unlocks

Base distribution: DAO 50%, Team & Advisors 19%, Investors 31%.

Pool vesting:

  • DAO Treasury 20% — staked for 24 months,

  • Incentives 10% — linear vesting over 60 months,

  • Marketing 10% — 20% unlocked immediately, the rest over 36 months,

  • Operations 10% — 40% unlocked immediately, the rest over 60 months,

  • Pre-seed 21% — 12-month cliff, then linear over 24 months,

  • Private 10% — 12-month cliff, then linear over 24 months,

  • Team 14% — 24-month cliff, then linear,

  • Advisors 5% — 12-month cliff, then linear over 24 months.

These events form predictable “windows of supply inflows” into circulation.

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Product Usage

  • DEX fees. In constant-product pools, the base trading fee is 0.3%. The LP share remains in the pools (increasing their size), while the protocol share is converted into STON and then distributed/burned, creating sustained internal demand for the token.

  • Liquidity and farms. By adding STON to pools, users mint LP tokens (receive commission flows) and can stake LP tokens in farms with additional rewards, usually from the Incentives pool. This leads to cyclical movement of STON between pools, LPs, and reward addresses.

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Staking and Derivatives

  • Locking STON for 3–24 months temporarily removes part of the supply from circulation.

  • Upon staking, derivatives are minted:

    • ARKENSTON (soulbound NFT for voting, reflects voting power),

    • GEMSTON (liquid engagement token, issuance depends on lock-up duration, up to 1 GEMSTON per 1 STON at 24 months).

  • At the end of the lock-up, ARKENSTON is burned, and the original STON is returned to the staker.

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Market and External Flows

  • Referral payouts (DEX v2). The referral portion of each trade can be set between 0.01–1% and accumulates in a dedicated Vault contract to the referrer’s address until withdrawn. These are external recipients of fees, reducing “net” protocol margin but helping to increase turnover.

  • Campaigns/airdrops. DAO and partners may distribute STON/GEMSTON/ARKENSTON via campaigns, contests, and engagement programs — an additional channel for token movement to users.

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Overall Circulation Picture

Inflows into circulation are formed by scheduled unlocks (vesting windows), marketing/operations tranches, referral payouts, and liquidity mining/incentive programs. Outflows/retention are created by staking lock-ups, as well as conversion of fees into STON followed by burns under DAO rules.

Overall, this mechanism links DEX trading activity with circulating supply dynamics and demand for STON.

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