Tokenomics
The economic design of a token — supply schedule, distribution, utility, and incentive structure.
Tokenomics (token economics) describes the design of a token's economic system: total supply, how tokens are created and distributed, vesting schedules for team and investors, inflation/deflation mechanisms, and what demand drivers exist to give the token value.
Key questions when evaluating tokenomics: What percentage is held by the team and VCs, and when does their vesting unlock? Is there inflation from protocol emissions, and does it outpace demand? Does the token capture value from protocol usage (fee accrual, buybacks, burning)?
Poorly designed tokenomics — particularly heavy token unlocks hitting the market, or tokens with no value accrual mechanism — are a common reason for price underperformance relative to protocol fundamentals.