How Limonata Works: The Mainnet Plan
This is the plan for mainnet - how the coin is split, how "free gas" is paid for, and how validators join. For what runs today, see the testnet page. This is intent, not a promise. Tags: BUILT = the code exists and is proven on staging; PLANNED = not built yet.
1. The coin
LIMO is a pure utility coin: it pays for gas and for staking, nothing else. No yield, dividend, profit-share, governance share, or equity.
Total supply at launch: 1,000,000,000 LIMO. (It is not strictly fixed - the gas pool tops itself up by minting to keep transactions free; see section 3.)
2. Where the 1 billion LIMO goes
Think of it in three groups:
① The team's share - 25%
| Bucket | LIMO | |
|---|---|---|
| Founder & core team | 100M | locked, vests over a 12-month cliff + 36 months |
| Foundation / treasury | 150M | same vesting; funds the project's operations |
② Protocol pools - 25% (owned by no one; they run features)
| Bucket | LIMO | |
|---|---|---|
| Gas pool | 200M | pays for free ("gasless") transactions |
| Validator bootstrap pool | 50M | funds the locked validator grants (section 5) |
③ Reserves & operations - 50%
| Bucket | LIMO | |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem & community reserve | 250M | for the ecosystem; allocation undecided, governed |
| Strategic reserve | 150M | long-term, governance-locked |
| Relayer / IBC float | 50M | pays cross-chain (IBC) relayers |
| Safety buffer | 50M | emergency fund (incidents, bugs) |
(A tiny "genesis validator" account - about 10,000 LIMO - runs the very first block. It's a technical bootstrap, not anyone's wealth.)
The team cannot dump. The founder and foundation coins are locked: nothing unlocks for 12 months, then it releases slowly over 36 months. On top of that, a rate-limit caps how much those wallets can ever send out per period. The premine is held, not sold.
3. "Free gas" - who pays, and inflation
Free gas isn't actually free - a pool pays for it. When the network covers your transaction, the cost comes out of the 200M Gas Pool, and the pool refills itself by minting a little new LIMO.
So two honest points:
- "Gasless" is a subsidy, and it adds mild inflation over time. The supply is not hard-capped.
- The thing that keeps inflation in check is a limit on how much free gas each account gets - lots for long-lived real accounts, ~0 for fresh throwaway accounts - so it can't be farmed by spinning up wallets. (BUILT.)
Staking inflation is off by default; the only minting is the gas-pool refill. The full math is in ECONOMICS.md.
4. Decentralization - measurable, on a schedule
The chain is honest that it is team-operated today. But the mechanisms that make decentralization real are now built (proven on staging, to ship in the mainnet binary):
- The validator set grows on a schedule: it starts at 16 curated operators and governance raises the cap over time → 16 → 30 → 50 → 100.
- No one can dominate: each validator's voting power is capped at 10% at the consensus layer (
x/vpcap) - even if their stake is bigger, their power isn't. - The team's control shrinks, and it's measured on-chain: the network's decentralization (Nakamoto coefficient, the foundation's voting-power share) is computed every block. The foundation's share falls on a published ladder: <15% → <10% → <5% → <3%.
- The admin key is handed to governance: sensitive roles can be rotated or revoked by on-chain vote, not by one key.
5. Becoming a validator (the heart of the model)
The model is apply, don't buy. There's no token sale - you don't purchase a validator stake, you apply for one.
- An approved operator gets a locked grant: stake you can use to secure the network, but can never sell, and that can be clawed back. You never buy or hold LIMO to take part.
- You earn a share of network fees + your commission - pay for operating a node, not a return on a purchase. (Honest caveat: today fees are ~0 and staking inflation is off, so rewards are effectively zero; they only become real with fee volume or a future schedule.)
- As new operators self-fund their own stake later, the leftover bootstrap pool is burned - never returned to the team.
How the ~16 genesis operators are chosen: by application and vetting - a proven track record, solid infrastructure (uptime, monitoring), and diversity (no single country or cloud dominates). Permissioned at genesis, opening up as the set grows. The foundation runs one or two; the rest are independent.
The steps:
- Apply with your operator and infrastructure details.
- Get selected - seats are allocated.
- Send a fresh address - you generate a new account.
- Receive your grant - a locked bonding stake + a small gas allowance (since there's no public faucet at mainnet, that allowance is what lets you pay the first transaction fee).
- Run
create-validatorfrom the granted account. - Validate and earn for operating the node.
The grant always comes first - it funds the account you validate from.
6. What's built vs. still planned
| Status | |
|---|---|
Per-validator 10% voting-power cap (x/vpcap) | BUILT |
On-chain decentralization KPIs (x/valgrant) | BUILT |
| Governance can rotate/revoke admin roles | BUILT |
Locked validator grants (x/valgrant, 0x900) | LIVE - a real external operator already validates on a grant |
Self-funded gas sponsorship (x/sponsorpool, 0x901) | LIVE |
| History-scaled (anti-sybil) gas allowance | LIVE |
| Mainnet genesis (real key custody, governed reserve, vesting) | PLANNED |
| Encrypted mempool / real anti-MEV | BUILT - threshold-encrypted mempool (2-of-3 keypers), proven end-to-end + full gov-upgrade dry-run; deploying to testnet at block 766558 (upgrade encmempool-threshold-vpcap-v1). Guide. |
7. The legal note
A few things are deliberately undecided and gated on counsel, because they're where a token could be mischaracterized:
- Any ecosystem or community distribution from the reserve, if and when made, would be a deliberate, counsel-reviewed decision. No method, amount, or eligibility is promised here.
- The ecosystem contest is being structured so recognition doesn't read as compensation or an investment offer.
- Acquisition surfaces are geo-fenced away from Canada, the US, and China, with the francophone-Europe market in mind.
Nothing on this page is an offer, solicitation, or promise of any asset or return.
This is the plan. What runs today is on the testnet page. The full inflation and sybil model is in ECONOMICS.md. Chain source (Apache-2.0): https://github.com/Limonata-Blockchain/limonata