Medium Pressure Capped & Stepped Supply Schedule

This Wish for Change commits to fiscal responsibility by proposing a new inflation schedule with a Capped & Stepped Supply. Alternative Hard & Soft schedules are also under consideration. Vote AYE on all schedules you approve.

Total Supply - - - - 2.1B DOT
Inflation Period - - 2 Years
Step - - - - - - - - - 19% of remaining supply (2.1B minus Total Issuance)
First Step - - - - - - Mar. 14, 2026
Cap Reached - - - - Year 2112
Extra Request - - - - Enshrine in JAM

Yellow line = Today's Issuance
Blue line = New Issuance
Grey line = Today's Supply Growth
Green line = New Supply Growth

The Medium Pressure inflation schedule offers an approachable 33% cut to emissions with a softening curve to cap. Compared with the Hard Pressure schedule, it offers a softer cut up front with a more extreme curve after 2032. Compared with the Soft Pressure schedule, it provides a more sever inflation cut up front but longer runway to cap.

Compare all 3 schedules here.

Before voting or commenting, please review the mission & justification of a Capped & Stepped Supply in the forum.

Committing to long-term fiscal responsibility with a Capped & Stepped Supply implies:

1. cutting unnecessary expenses
2. subsidizing inflation with new sources of revenue.

To demonstrate the urgency this model presses on these goals, let's project what the future would look like with this inflation schedule as the sole source of income - the "Pessimists View" of no progress:

Red line = Staking APR

Considering a staking rate of 50% and NO new contributing revenue, this schedule offers a staking rate:

• above AVAX in 2026
• above SOL in 2030
• above ADA in 2032.

Now lets look at what Market Cap we would need to sustain at each step for inflation to match the USD value of today's expenses ($450M) and aspirational reduced expenses ($90M).

Purple line = Market Cap required to meet $450M yearly expenses
Red line = Market Cap required to meet proposed $90M yearly expenses

Imagining NO new contributing revenue, we'd need to reach the Market Cap of:

• AVAX by 2026
• LINK by 2028
• ADA by 2030 to sustain $450M expenses.

Imagining the same but to sustain the proposed $90M expenses, we'd need to:

• maintain the Market Cap of DOT until 2030,
• reach LINK by 2034
• reach ADA by 2038

See the Complete sheet. Compare Hard, Medium & Soft schedules side by side.

Consider: cutting expenses & increasing revenue relieves the pressure of this model with the long-term commitment to become sustainable without inflation.

Now, here is the growth of DOT supply since Oct. 2020.

The Blue circle highlights the moment we switched to a fixed 120M DOT added to the supply every year.

And here is Security of the Polkadot network measured in USD over the same time period.

When DOT is "Worth Selling" it harms network security.

Take a moment to review the tricky path we have been on under past and current inflation schedules.

However, there are risks to adopting a Capped & Stepped Supply schedule.

So, should we commit to long-term fiscal responsibility or keep the status quo?

Vote AYE on this Ref and/or Ref. 1709 and/or Ref. 1710 to adopt a Capped & Stepped Supply Schedule.

Vote NAY on all to keep status quo.

Should two or more pass, adopt the one with greatest sum of AYE with conviction.

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What happens after Capped & Stepped Supply?

The immediate next step is to push for the so called "Revenue Pot" suggested by Gav last month at The Web3 Summit.

This sensible new pot for income (inflation or revenue) will allow us to decouple staking/validator rewards from block rewards and drive down expenses.

Increasing revenue from Hub, Coretime, Services, MEV and other ideas in discussion will become urgent under Capped & Stepped supply.

Other economic parameters that will remain under the purview of OpenGov?

• % of inflation (or Revenue Pot) to treasury
• treasury burn
• % of fees burned
• % of coretime burned
• floor price of coretime
• minimum validator commission
• future growth incentives such as some undergoing early discussion.

These parameters also provide meaningful leverage on economic policy beyond the scope of Capped & Stepped supply.

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Handy Links:

DOT RFP #1 - Crowdsourced Research: Capped Supply & Step Change Inflation
Capped & Stepped Supply Research Dashboard
Stepped & Capped Inflation Model-maker
Parity Inflation Selling Charts
Forum Capped & Stepped Overview
Test Hard Pressure Forum Post
Test Med Pressure Forum Post
Test Soft Pressure Forum Post
Off-chain 1.89M DOT Vote
Gavin Wood Suggests Capped & Stepped in April 2024
"Worth that risk" - Gavin Wood in July 2025