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  • Tokens
  • THORChain (RUNE)

    10/17/2025 04:00 UTC

    $0.867

    % Today
    1.21%

    Unlock Schedule

    THORChain (RUNE) Token Unlock & Vesting Schedule

    The unlock chart above provides a clear visual overview of the THORChain (RUNE) 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 RUNE 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

    The RUNE token is the settlement, security, incentives, and signal asset of the network:

    • Settlement: Every pool pairs an external asset with RUNE, enabling efficient routing across any two supported assets without wrapped tokens.
    • Security: Validator nodes must bond RUNE. The economic design targets roughly a 2:1 ratio of bonded RUNE to pooled RUNE to ensure that the total bonded value exceeds the assets in vaults.
    • Incentives: Swap fees and block rewards flow to liquidity providers and node operators, with live distribution adjusted by the “Incentive Pendulum.”
    • Signaling/Governance: Liquidity depth and node votes help prioritize assets and parameters. (docs.thorchain.org)

    RUNE’s supply is capped at 500 million, all minted at genesis. A large portion was placed in the protocol reserve to pay ongoing rewards. Emissions follow an adjustable curve and trend down over time, with fees intended to become the primary source of rewards as usage grows. The docs also explain a “deterministic value” intuition: because each $1 of external assets in pools requires $1 of pooled RUNE, and nodes collectively bond roughly $2 of RUNE for security, system equilibrium ties RUNE demand to network liquidity. This framing is often cited when discussing long-run RUNE price drivers without quoting live market data. (docs.thorchain.org)

    A newer component, RUNEPool, channels idle RUNE into protocol-owned liquidity (POL). By managing liquidity across multiple pools, it smooths price curves and supports overall swap efficiency while giving participants exposure to POL performance. (docs.thorchain.org)

    Assumptions

    • Percent allocations use the 500,000,000 RUNE hard cap from official docs.

      Official tokenomics describe a 500M max supply created at genesis; later governance added ongoing income burns that can lower the cap over time.

    • Bootstrapping distributions are modeled linearly from TGE to MCCN launch.

      Docs state 24% was given to users who participated in bootstrapping; specific month-by-month schedules are not published, but RUNEVault and early liquidity programs ran across this window.

    • Protocol Reserve Emissions total set to 160M (220M initial Reserve less 60M Standby burned) with a two-period schedule.

      ADR-012 burned the 60M Standby Reserve in Mar 2024. Early-2024 docs cite ~83M active Reserve remaining; we infer ~77M emitted by then and model the remainder as a slow long tail given the emission curve set via node-mimir.

    • IDO + Private Sales split assumes 20M IDO immediate, 60M private-vested to complete the 16% ‘IDO’ bucket.

      Public IDO amount and vesting terms are documented; exact private-vs-public split within the 16% category is not explicitly enumerated in current docs.

    • Lending net minting modeled as +2M RUNE during Q3 2023–Q1 2024.

      ADR-012 dev doc summarized totals to date (~2M minted, ~3.68M burned) before scaling changes; precise timestamps per mint are not published, so a linear approximation is used.

    • Genesis date set to the public TGE/IDO (2019-07-20) for supply release chronology.

      Tokens first entered circulation at IDO on Binance DEX; native chain MCCN launched later (2021-04-13).

    Allocations

    Seed Sale
    5.00%
    Percentage of total token supply
    80%
    How certain we are about this information
    25,000,000 tokens
    Linear vesting: Oct 20, 2019 - Dec 20, 2020 (monthly)
    Seed sale locked for 3 months after IDO, then vested linearly over 15 months per THORChain IDO terms.
    IDO + Private Sales
    16.00%
    Percentage of total token supply
    70%
    How certain we are about this information
    80,000,000 tokens
    Cliff: Jul 20, 2019 — NaN% of allocation
    Public IDO on Binance DEX; immediate distribution of 20M RUNE at TGE.
    Linear vesting: Oct 20, 2019 - Oct 20, 2020 (monthly)
    Private sales locked for 3 months after IDO, then vested linearly over 12 months per IDO terms. Allocation amount attributed to private rounds is inferred to complete the 16% IDO bucket.
    Early Developers (Team/Advisors)
    10.00%
    Percentage of total token supply
    80%
    How certain we are about this information
    50,000,000 tokens
    Linear vesting: Oct 20, 2019 - Dec 20, 2020 (monthly)
    Team and advisors locked for 3 months after IDO, then vested linearly over 15 months per IDO terms.
    Bootstrapping Programs (Community Incentives)
    24.00%
    Percentage of total token supply
    60%
    How certain we are about this information
    120,000,000 tokens
    Linear vesting: Jul 20, 2019 - Apr 13, 2021 (monthly)
    Distributed to users who participated in network bootstrapping (e.g., RUNEVault staking, early liquidity programs) before and up to the launch of Multichain ChaosNet.
    Protocol Reserve Emissions (Block Rewards to Nodes & LPs)
    32.00%
    Percentage of total token supply
    65%
    How certain we are about this information
    160,000,000 tokens
    Linear vesting: Apr 13, 2021 - Mar 7, 2024 (monthly)
    Emissions paid from the Reserve each block based on the emission curve and remaining Reserve balance. Period covers MCCN launch until ADR-012 Standby Reserve burn. Early-2024 docs indicate ~83M RUNE remained in the active Reserve with ~28.5k RUNE/day emission at emission curve ~8; we infer ~77M emitted by this date from the total 160M available (220M initial Reserve minus 60M Standby burned).
    Linear vesting: Mar 8, 2024 - Dec 31, 2100 (monthly)
    Post-ADR-012 (Mar 2024) and subsequent node-mimir changes. Docs note the emission curve is set to 10, making per-block rewards near zero; remainder modeled as very slow long-tail emissions into far future. Actual rate governed by node-mimir and Reserve balance.
    Lending Minting (Net RUNE minted via THORFi Lending)
    0.40%
    Percentage of total token supply
    55%
    How certain we are about this information
    2,000,000 tokens
    Linear vesting: Sep 1, 2023 - Feb 29, 2024 (monthly)
    Net RUNE minted as loans were repaid during the initial THORFi Lending period (Q3 2023–early 2024). Dev docs summarized ~2M RUNE minted vs ~3.68M RUNE burned from collateral by the time ADR-012 was proposed; modeled here as a linear approximation over the active launch window. Lending deprecated Jan 2025.
    Last Updated: 10/15/2025 12:52 UTC

    Description

    #250

    THORChain is a cross-chain exchange that enables swaps between 8 chains: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Chain, Avalanche, Cosmos Hub, Dogecoin, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. THORChain is secured by its native token, RUNE, which deterministically accrues value as more assets are deposited into the network.

    Sector: Bridges
    Blockchain: Cosmos
    2019