tokenomics are at the heart of every crypto project that has a token if you don't know what to look out for in tokenomics you could make some huge mistakes or miss out on even bigger wins understanding tokenomics is a great way to filter projects and with a huge amount of cryptos out there saving time and spotting the gems from the trash is what crypto investing comes down to so this video is my complete Master's guide to tokenomics for 2024 by the end of this video you will know what a good set of tokenomics looks like this will make the difference between you making it big in this last SP run so let's not waste any more time and dive straight in but before we get started let me remind you that this is not Financial advice and I'm not a financial adviser this video is purely for educational purposes only always do your own research and consult with a professional before making any investment decisions all right let's jump in if you don't understand tokenomics you're gambling you could be at serious risk of getting wrecked by the market and nobody wants that just as the Boron is kicking off right now if you do manage to get a firm understanding of tokenomics you'll very likely see it pay off in your Investments understanding tokenomics can be the quickest and most reliable way to filter through crypto projects and often enough the tokenomics can be a good indicator of how competent the project and team are so before we get into the specifics let's quickly go over some of the basics so we're working from the same page circulating Supply this is the amount of tokens that are currently in circulation total Supply this is the total amount of tokens that will exist market cap this is the total dollar amount of tokens currently circulating fully diluted value or fdv this is the total value in dollars of the total Supply the the circulating Supply and market cap are all about the tokens that are unlocked and available right now the total Supply and fully diluted value are all about the total amount of tokens so it includes the circulating Supply and the tokens that are locked up and not yet available these four bits of information are your starting points for tokenomics understanding these will help you spot both positive and negative aspects of a Project's tokenomics if you use coin market cap you can see these pieces of information on every coin's profile so long as their token is released all right now we have the basics down let's take a look at the supply side of tokenomics the relationship between the circulating Supply and the total Supply is very important it impacts the inflation of a token inflation in crypto happens when the supply of a token increases this increase in Supply can result in the token losing value so if there's a big difference between a project circulating ating Supply and its total Supply inflation could become a problem because more tokens will be supplied causing the token to lose value take a look at this example the token has only 133% of its Supply circulating as the other 87% of the tokens are released into circulation the value of the token might fall from its current price of $1 this might not happen if there are value acral mechanisms but don't worry about that for now I'll get into that later in this video so the rate that tokens are released into the circulating Supply is really important for controlling inflation the release of a token Supply over time has a name you'll probably be familiar with emissions if the rate of the emissions is really fast there will be problems if the token in our example releases the rest of its tokens into the circulating Supply over 3 months the demand from the market won't be able to match it the token will lose some serious value in other words there is way too much Supply and not enough demand however if the emissions are slow and the max Supply won't be hit for a number of years then the supply increase may not have a large impact on price so with how important emissions are where exactly can you find them usually find emissions info in the tokens white paper in a table like mantis's here you want to see a nice steady increase over a few years instead of huge spikes or steep increases like this one a pro tip for you guys is always check the time frames on these charts some projects will stretch the charts out to make them look smooth when they actually aren't now you may be asking what exactly is being emitted there are many different parts to a Project's tokenomics so this increase in Supply will be coming from a few different allocations of the tokenomics the most common as staking rewards air drops user rewards for using adap and of course token unlocks token unlocks can be made up of allocations from early investors public sale the team and the treasury this information should be in a project white paper I do recommend using the token unlocks website though it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you if you can't find what you're after check out crypto rank as well another Pro tip with these sites is that if you already hold a token you can time your buys and sells around big token unlocks they can have big impacts on price okay so we know that emissions are important to track but they consist of different allocations so let's take a closer look at these also if you finding this video useful guys please give it a thumbs up and comment below if you guys enjoy this type of content I'll do more of it so let's see if we can break 3K likes allocation distribution is very important the amount of allocation and the speed that it's released can have a big impact on a token's value if for example 40% of a token Supply is allocated to early investors and the unlocks happen over two months that's a problem ear investors are usually motivated Sellers and since they're often 5 to 10x up wouldn't you be but allocations for early investors isn't the only potential Pitfall every single allocation of a Project's tokenomics can and will impact the token's value let's run through each one and look at the ideal percentages for each first up we have Team the team allocation is tokens for you guessed it the Project's team they need to get rewarded for their work in a way where they're incentivized to work hard the size of this allocation is directly impacted by the Project's success I like to see them give themselves 15% or less any more than this and I start to question their motives next is the advisor allocation advisors provide expert advice and guidance to a project for this work they are rewarded with tokens so they're also directly tied to the success of the project I want to see 10% or less here here the early investor rounds have quite a few different names and will often take up multiple slices of the pie they usually referred to as seed VC private strategic kol or institutional rounds if you see these words they are early investor rounds I want to see less than 25% allocated to early investors unless they have long vesting or buying at a high fdv I'll come back to this a little bit later the public sale also refer to is an Ido or Ico is often sold through launchpads to retail investors I'm trying to get the loc Community better access to these rounds by the time this video comes out my Launchpad bot should be live so join my Discord from the link below and look into the Launchpad section to get registered for these public sales I like to see no more than 10% more than 10% isn't a deal breaker for me but it can cause significant selling pressure unless it has strict vesting but more on that later next up we have marketing which is simply the budget allocated for marketing purposes I like to see 10% or less for this whilst marketing is important dedicating too much of it may not leave enough for the project itself also marketing is in control of the team so if the marketing allocation is high it's just a little suspicious as the team could potentially dump it then we have the ecosystem allocation this is what the community gets through staking airdrops and rewards I like to see 10% or more here but many projects will have 20% or more which is great generally there's no top end here even 40% is fine if it's vested the treasury this is the Project's essential working capital it's for things like paying employees securing Partnerships and day-to-day expenses I like to see over 15% here because working capital is important and running out of funds means the project dies we then have liquidity these are tokens that are given to dexes or Sexes for liquidity some projects need more liquidity than others though A good rule of thumb here is looking for liquidity to be locked for two or more years if that's the case it doesn't matter if up to 20% goes here there is a Nuance here though because locking is not always needed but preferred up next we have airdrops which are picking up steam again across crypto many projects allocate tokens towards an air drop and there's no setting Stone rule for how much should be allocated here some projects do a few per others do 20% or even more air drops are for the community so I don't mind big ones and that covers the main allocation pots you guys will see there are some others like allocation towards a foundation if a project has gone with that kind of structure But ultimately the ones we've covered will be the ones that you see most of the time all these allocations have release schedules otherwise know known as vesting vesting controls the release of tokens into circulation to stop any of the parties we've just mentioned from getting access to all their tokens too quickly and dumping the increase in Supply can have big negative impacts on the token so let's look a little more closely at vesting before we jump in let's get some of the basic terms log down first up we have token generation event or tge it's basically the day the token is released on the open market next we have the tge alloc this is the percentage of tokens that each party will get at tge you'll see a lot of variety here from 0% all the way up to 100% typically you'll see it at around the 10 to 20% Mark the cliff period is the amount of time between the TG allocation and the next token unlock this is another one that varies a lot but it's usually defined in months we then have the emission schedule after the cliff period ends the emission schedule tells you how often token unlocks happen and what percentage for example it could be 10% of tokens released per month for a period of 12 months these four terms are the ones to remember when it comes to vesting you should be able to find all these bits of information in a Project's white paper so when it comes to vesting it's actually a bit tricky to Define what good vesting is there are different schools of thought on how best to approach it over the last few years most projects have started doing small TG unlocks of around 10% for early investors this is Then followed by Cliff periods of a few months and then investing the remaining tokens over 12 or more months this is seen as good for the community as early investors can't dump off tokens quickly however another school of thought has been to give early investors huge TGA unlocks of 40 to 100% if they want to get out then they can dump the thinking behind this is fairly simple it get dumpers out the way instead of having constant cell pressure at every every unlock for 12 months now some evidence suggests this is better but honestly guys I've stopped focusing too heavily on vesting as I've seen both methods work well let's look at an example in brc2 vesting requires smart contracts so brc2 tokens cannot be vested as there's no smart contracts on bitcoin so some brc2 tokens release 100% of the supply at tge but it's not just bc20 projects doing this some projects are doing this by choice to get dumpers out and let the open market find the correct price and value for the project so I'm not too concerned with vesting unless it's team vesting I still consider the team's vesting is incredibly important as a team with short vesting indicates a lack of conviction I want to see long-term commitment from the team as for the other parties with token allocation I prefer vesting but if I see a project with large TGA unlocks and short vesting I won't dis miss it off hand the evidence suggests that if there are strong demand mechanics unlocking large amounts of the supply early won't hurt all right guys that is the supply side of tokenomics covered if anything has been unclear so far go back and rewatch The relevant sections I'd also recommend liking this video so you can quickly refer back to this guide whenever you need to but we aren't done yet opposite to supply we have demand and you need to understand the demand side if you're truly going to master token e omics the idea between supply and demand is that the market will find a fair value for a token based on the quantity supplied versus the quantity that is demanded simply put this relationship between supply and demand impacts the token's price in crypto there are four common types of demand let's go through each of them the first one is incentives for holding or staking many tokens offer annual percentage yield or apy for staking their token basically you stake and you get paid in either the stake token or another token that reward is your incentive but recently projects have started giving airdrops to stakers instead this can either be airdrops of their own token or airdrops of tokens from partner projects a project doing this right now is Celestia the price of tier has seen a sharp increase because people want to stake it for airdrops from other projects building on the chain in other words demand is high mana and DM are doing some similar stuff but I'll go into detail on this a little bit later in the video the main point here is that to drive demand up you need to incentivize people to hold or stake tokens another driver for demand is that a token itself can act as a store of value it's hard to argue that many cryptos outside of Bitcoin are a store of value but it's a driver for demand so it's worth noting next we have Community a strong Community can be one of the best ways to drive up demand meme coins are proof of this most of them have no utility no staking and are certainly not a store of value but they hold value and can even do a thousand X based on the community's strength and belief most meme coins eventually go to zero but you only need to look as far as Doge to see the positive effects that a community can have on a crypto project and finally we have utility to drive up demand projects will often provide some sort of utility for holding their token if for example holding a blockchain's native token allows you to make transactions on that chain it creates demand the classic example here is ethereum you need eth to pay for gas you hold eth because of it which everyone is doing now resulting in demand for eth increasing that brings up an important question who's holding and what are their motives these are key to understanding the demand for a token it's a hard question to answer it requires researching wallets and getting involved in the community but it can give you some really valuable insights the best types of holders are a strong Community because they'll hold through anything the best way to get a read on this is to check the Project's Discord and telegram to assess the community's strength and this brings us back to vesting if a strong Community is vested great but if the community consists mostly of dumpers then they will dump at every vesting unlock this is an increase in Supply and a decrease in demand resulting in the price dropping so when or influencers control 20% or more of the supply I worry about long-term selling pressure and I want to see other forms of demand to counterbalance it value acral is all about how the token will gain value over time the main sources of value accural are deflation utility expansions locking mechanisms and apy and yield let's take a closer look deflation is decrease in the supply of a token it's commonly achieved by burning a percentage of transaction Fe or periodically buying back and burning large amounts of tokens you'll see projects post about this on their Twitter whenever they do it because it's decreasing Supply which will have a positive impact on price reducing Supply usually increases demand so deflation is very good utility expansion is when a token gains more utility over time you'll usually find this information by looking at a Project's road map if their road map shows that they will add utility over time it could correspond to an increase in its value this can come in many different forms depending on the project we then have lock staking loads of projects boost Staker apy or give airdrops if they lock their tokens in staking for a few months the longer you lock your tokens the bigger your rewards at the end locking is a powerful tool to ensure holders stay in and don't dump on every dip or if a project gets footed hard it can reward loyal long-term holders now an issue with ap Y is that it can often lead to high inflation something we don't want for example if I get 30% apy for staking exp token and the apy is paid in exp this would cause the supply of exp to inflate this is bad because we want deflation not inflation good value acral is built on Three core elements one low inflation or even deflation two encouraging users to hold and three locking tokens up if a token gets these three things right it's off to a great start the problem however is that these things often conflict with each other a high apy can lead to inflation causing selling pressure without control mechanism but encouraging holders is hard without apy and long lockup periods often discourage users from holding so it's a trilemma how exactly do you control inflation controlling inflation can be tough projects that find a balance where users are rewarded with enough apy to hold and accept locks while simultaneously not causing outof control inflation and sell pressure often do well but how can they do this well some do this by enforcing investing on the yield that's earned from staking so if you earn 20% apy from staking a token that apy is not paid out right away instead it's vested for months to reduce the pace of supply and therefore reduce inflation this also filters out people who stake just to dump remember we want a strong community that will hold not a community that is looking to dump now other projects pay yield in different tokens like Bitcoin or ethereum this can remove the inflation problem completely this idea took off last year and you'll have probably heard of it it's called real yield just be sure you read a Project's white paper to understand exactly where the Bitcoin or ethereum is coming from it's vital to know how that yield is generated for example if the team sells their tokens and buys Bitcoin or ethereum to pay staker's yield that's bad this will cause consistent cell pressure and put more tokens into circulation even though it doesn't like it on the surface so you need to know where that yield comes from real yield should come from sources like platform fees an example of this is a decentralized exchange charging fees on transactions those fees can be used to purchase eth and then pay part of it out to stakers yield that way the supply isn't being increased yield is tricky to get right though and not everyone can build a healthy economic system around it there is however an alternative air drops some projects offer low API and instead reward long-term holders or stakers with airdrops I mentioned this earlier with Celestia and Manta tier and Manta are recent examples of projects using this model and it's working out amazingly well for them this is partly due to the fact that the air drops don't cause inflation how because the air drops are coming from new projects building on the Chain let's say you're staking some tier and a new Dex decides to build on there when that Dex launches a token might give a percentage of its token Supply is an airdrop to tier stakers this encourages the holding of tier whilst not causing inflation which is huge it solves those conflicting issues I mentioned earlier on value acuro in the 2024 to 2025 Bull Run it seems like one of the strongest drivers of value crural will be incentivizing holders with these types of airdrops now that I've mentioned it I bet you'll start seeing it all over the place it's something that I'm looking out for and that's why I have big bags of Tia and Manta but as with anything guys it's important to recognize that there will always be an element of nuance in all of this if a token only has 10% of its Supply in circulation it's easy to dismiss it and say inflation will kill price but what if inflation is happening over 10 years what if it has strong value accural mechanisms or staking is heavily incentivized and if it has a really strong Community well maybe in that scenario you'd make an exception the point here is that tokenomics should be assessed on a case-by casee basis I can give you my rough numbers for what makes a good set of tokenomics but there's no golden standard rule to follow but new on aside when you're assessing tokenomics you should look for these things a finite supply of tokens that is preferably deflationary strong demand drivers from things like incentivized holding strong community and token utility and finally value accural mechanisms like deflation apy and air drops almost everything you need to research a tokens tokenomics will be in its white paper or website if you can't find the info join their telegram or Discord and ask on there although a project not being open with with a tokenomics info is a red flag but there you have it guys my complete guide to tokenomics for 2024 we've gone over everything to do with Supply including emissions allocations investing we've looked closely at the demand side including incentives for holding store of value community and utility we have even looked at Value acral and how projects look to control inflation this guide should hopefully set you up for Success this coming Bull Run understanding economics will get you far in crypto so it's worth spending time on mastering them drop me a like if you found this useful and please leave a comment of what you still have questions about and I'll see if I can make a video about those questions but that's everything for today guys if you want even more insight into How To Succeed this ball run check out the video below but until next time guys remember trade smart don't be a dumbass and I'll see you soon