Rocket Pool (RPL)
Unlock Schedule
Rocket Pool (RPL) Token Unlock & Vesting Schedule
The unlock chart above provides a clear visual overview of the Rocket Pool (RPL) token release schedule, showing when and how tokens enter circulation across investor, team, treasury, and community allocations. Understanding these tokenomics dynamics is critical for evaluating potential supply pressure, inflation impact, and market liquidity over time — key factors that can influence RPL price performance.
Each color segment in the chart corresponds to a specific allocation group described in the Allocations section below. Underlying assumptions and data models used to reconstruct this schedule are explained in detail under Assumptions, while broader utility insights and token use cases are covered in Tokenomics & Utility.
Tokenomics & Utility
RPL has three core roles:
Incentives: The protocol mints new RPL at an annual rate (initially 5%) and distributes it to node operators, the oDAO, and the pDAO treasury. Allocations can be adjusted by governance (for example, RPIP‑68 refined the oDAO/pDAO shares) while the 70% share to node operators has remained a central aim in recent proposals. (medium.com)
Collateral and insurance: Operators may stake RPL against their ETH bond as a good‑behavior pledge. Historically, an effective RPL stake between 10% and 150% of bonded ETH qualified for RPL issuance rewards. Under Saturn 0, operators can launch ETH‑only minipools, but adding RPL increases their effective commission and restores full eligibility for RPL issuance. (medium.com)
Governance: RPL underpins the pDAO’s signaling and on‑chain voting process (bolstered by Houston), including parameter changes, upgrade approvals, and inflation allocation adjustments via RPIPs. (medium.com)
Because RPL inflation funds the work that keeps the protocol decentralized—thousands of independent operators, oracle duties, and community development—its issuance is a core part of the project’s incentive structure rather than a simple rewards token. Several audits and community risk reviews discuss how these mechanics interact with rETH’s value accrual and network security. (diligence.consensys.io)
Assumptions
- RPL supply is uncapped and inflationary.
Official docs and on-chain contract show periodic inflation minting with no fixed max cap.
- Genesis sale split modeled as 85% sold and 15% retained.
2017 presale announcement specified 85% for sale and 15% retained; final total minted at ICO was 18,000,000 on old token. Exact per-sale mint amounts are not re-derived here; modeled as a single cliff on the Etherscan token distribution date.
- Inflation modeling uses linear monthly unlocks within each governance-defined period at the stated annual rate.
Rewards are minted every ~28 days; totals per period were approximated from annual rates and then allocated by the prevailing share splits (RPIP-25, RPIP-68).
- Start of the first inflation period set to 2021-11-25.
Community and ops communications place the first rewards checkpoint in late November 2021 following mainnet launch on 2021-11-09.
- Saturn 2 activation date modeled as 2026-02-18 and post-Saturn emissions projected for 5 years.
RPIP-46 specifies Saturn 2 tokenomics (1.5% inflation, 95% pDAO / 5% oDAO, 0% node). A community Saturn site lists 2026-02-18 as launch; a bounded 5-year horizon is used for charting while noting emissions continue beyond.
- 1. https://etherscan.io/token/0xb4efd85c19999d84251304bda99e90b92300bd93
- 2. https://etherscan.io/token/0xd33526068d116ce69f19a9ee46f0bd304f21a51f
- 3. https://medium.com/rocket-pool/rocket-pool-staking-protocol-part-3-3029afb57d4c
- 4. https://rpips.rocketpool.net/RPIPs/RPIP-25
- 5. https://rpips.rocketpool.net/RPIPs/RPIP-68
- 6. https://rpips.rocketpool.net/RPIPs/RPIP-46
- 7. https://medium.com/rocket-pool/rocket-pool-token-presale-9d0832477894
- 8. https://dao.rocketpool.net/t/pdao-2022-9-29-2022-12-22-treasury-report/1314
- 9. https://saturn.rocketpool.net/
Allocations
Description
#571
Rocket Pool is a protocol that allows anyone to stake ETH in Ethereum 2.0 with any amount of ETH and without running a validator node. It is community-owned, decentralized, trustless and compatible with ETH2 Proof of Stake.
| Sector: | Liquid Staking |
| Blockchain: | Ethereum |