RUNE Distribution Update — July

2020-07-21 — 3 min read

There are 4849 Rune Holders, with 1919 engaged with RUNEVault. The top 100 own 119,514,638.48 (68%). There are 74 THORNode candidates, with a minimum cost of $500k to run a THORNode. The monthly network purchasing power is $1.5m USD.

Distribution

RUNE is the liquidity and security of the THORChain network. Prior to the launch of mainnet, the RUNE token must be distributed as widely as possible to as many aligned individuals as possible, in the fairest manner possible.

The following are the current/previous distribution mechanics:

The original Seed sale
The Binance DEX public IDO
RUNEVault Staking Program
Operational Expenses
Team allocation

Holders

There are now 4849 Rune Holders (+576), with 1919 (+298) engaged with RUNEVault, staking 155m RUNE. A further 500 stakers are staking at BitMax, staking 14m RUNE. The top 100 have reduced their ownership of the network from 114,759,008.60 RUNE (72%) to 119,514,638.48 (68%).

From Oct 2019, the long term trend is clear: Large holders are trimming holdings, whilst the medium holders are increasing their ownership in order to fatten the tail. This is a good trend.

The Bitmax Wallet of 14m RUNE is owned by over 500 users. Staking incentives have absorbed a lot of RUNE into the wallet, making the program very sucessful. THORChain will work with other partner-exchanges to introduce staking programs and diversify this basket of capital.

THORNodes

The total number of node operators has increased to 74:

The maximum nodes a single wallet can now run is 14 nodes, being the BitMax staking wallet — if they were to allocate all the RUNE capital to running nodes. This is 18.9% of the network, which is fine from a security point of view, but more than the team would like at this stage. The team will address this by activating staking incentives at other exchanges to diversify.

The total network value is now $84m, with a monthly purchasing power of $1.5m — these is the amount of incentives the networks pays out to participants for security and liquidity.

The minimum cost to acquire a THORNode is $500k USD.

Summary

RUNE is still in its distribution phase — the primary KPIs are discussed above. The long term trend from October 2019 is in the right direction.

Whilst the current metrics are sufficient, but the community should assist the project in increasing the distribution of the asset. There is still time prior to main-net to target the distribution goals of the project (99 holders with 67% of the supply). Rune distributed to Team and Seed investors at mainnet will improve metrics by increasing Node count and widening distribution.