Router’s Response

Dear Router Community,

We understand there has been some confusion surrounding token supply numbers on the Router scan post the Nitro mainnet, and we appreciate your patience. Here’s a detailed summary:

1. Overall Route supply is 20m. It was a 20m supply deflationary token and it remains a deflationary 20m token.
2. For the purpose of launching the Cosmos chain, we utilised a placeholder number, among other things also reflecting a transition from a bridge token to a L1. We benchmarked against similar L1s/L2s which mostly have a 1B total supply, aligning with the L1 metachain narrative. This point has unfortunately created some confusion.
3. This 1B token number is only a placeholder, giving us multiple future options to change the tokenomics through a proper community engagement process. There are multiple options here involving a token split and inflation for various categories including primarily validator rewards, but the key thing is none of these options are immediately obvious or self-evident to the team and will go through multiple iterations of discussions and debate in the community forum.
4. Worth re emphasizing above point again — all and any token changes will still be subject to a thorough community review and vote process. Governance is key — nothing will be done without a governance vote. We emphasise community participation and transparency in this decision-making process.
5. Our team is currently focused on scaling Nitro performance, launching more ecosystem projects such as StakeEase (restaking aggregator), expanding exchange listings, and closing a strategic round with several tier-1 OGs.
6. We received a solid response to Nitro launch — especially the speed & savings as several community members reported. Having the placeholder number was important for the product launch to get RouterChain up and running to provide the PoS validation layer for Router Nitro. This is just a starting point and we are in discussions with a lot of aggregators for increasing scale and distribution.
7. We have been working extremely hard to enhance the token utility, the ROUTE token will serve as the native gas token on the Router chain. Stakers will enjoy additional benefits, including eligibility for ecosystem airdrops representing a percentage of the project supply.

To reiterate, no tokenomics changes are imminent. This is a process we wanted to embark on at the end of Q1/early Q2 as we approached the full fledged launch of the Router chain. However, it is clear that we need more clarity here now. We therefore expect to initiate a community discussion on the way forward for the PoS tokenomics in February, with the eventual view to commence and conclude a full fledged governance vote before the chain launch in the next few months.

Thank you for your understanding, and we look forward to collaboratively shaping the future of chain abstraction and interoperability with Router Chain.