The VEL coin

VEL is the network's coin. Nodes discover it by opening bridges; it also pays the few fees that exist and is the common side of every pair in the market. Its supply is capped: there will never be more than 1,000 million. And VEL is never destroyed.

Units

Every amount on the chain is an integer in µVEL. The state machine doesn't use decimals.

Supply

• Hard cap: 1,000,000,000 VEL mintable over all time (MAX_SUPPLY). The minted counter never exceeds it.
• Genesis: 100,000,000 VEL (10%) for the ecosystem, in a cold wallet; on the test network, to the faucet.
• The remaining 90% is discovered by nodes, epoch by epoch.

Discovered over time, like Bitcoin

R(e)  = floor( R0 / 2^floor(e / H) )            µVEL discovered in epoch e
H     = epochs in ~2 years                        testnet: 1 051 200 (1-min epochs) · mainnet: 17 520 (1-h epochs)
R0    = floor( 900 000 000 VEL / (2 × H) )
minted(e) = 100 000 000 VEL + Σ R(i), i < e         never above 1 000 000 000 VEL

What is discovered each epoch doesn't depend on how many nodes there are. Ten nodes or ten thousand compete to discover the same amount: more computers don't discover faster. A data centre that spins up a thousand nodes doesn't speed up issuance; it only raises the difficulty.

• An epoch lasts one hour on mainnetone minute on the test network (one hour on mainnet).
• What is discovered per epoch halves roughly every 2 years.
• 99% of the mineable supply will have been issued by around 13.4 years. Issuance reaches zero at around 58 years; from then on, nodes live on fees and the Reserve.
• There are blocks and discovery even when there are no messages: producing and validating blocks discovers its share (15%).

Difficulty

difficulty(e) = verified work credits in the epoch / VEL issued

It's how many bridge deliveries it takes to discover 1 VEL. It rises on its own as nodes and traffic grow, and jumps at every halving. It's published when each epoch closes, and the explorer shows its history.

Near-zero fees

Fees are calculated with the network's own price (see Price).

The proof of work for free payments is a SHA-512 computation that takes about 50 ms on a phone. If the payment queue fills up, it gets harder on its own.

Where fees go

• 80% to those who open bridges that epoch.
• 20% to the Network Reserve (vel_reserve).

No rule, fee or operation destroys VEL.

Network Reserve

The Reserve is an account with no private key and no administrator. Nobody can take funds out of it except through one fixed rule: every epoch it returns 0.1% of its balance to those who open bridges. That steadies node income as issuance falls with each halving.

Price in EUR, USD and USDT {#precio}

The network works out the VEL price from its own market:

• The VEL/vUSDT pair (1 vUSDT = 1 USDT held by the bridge, which will open later). Consensus doesn't use euros: the threshold is 1,100 vUSDT (≈ €1,000), and the euro conversion is only shown in the app and on the websiteVEL/tEUR, VEL/tUSD and VEL/tUSDT pairs on the test network.
• Price = time-weighted average (TWAP) over the last hour of trades.
• If a pair trades less than 1,000 VEL in the hour, the converted median of the other pairs is used. If there is none, there is no price (and no fee).
• The price is stored in the state every epoch (state.oracle). The app, the website and the €1,000 rule read it.

Moving the price for a moment doesn't change a one-hour average: manipulating it means holding a fake price for an hour and paying the difference to everyone else.

The app and the website always show the amount in VEL, its value in EUR, USD and USDT, the exact fee (usually 0) and what the recipient gets.

Special accounts