yuji.masu

In my opinion, it's time to end ATOM inflation. ATOM's inflation was not a bad decision - it helped secure the network, bootstrap validators, and lock up the supply. At the time, it was necessary to start Cosmos. But many other chains get similar benefits for a much lower cost. The truth is, so much has been invented since ATOM was created - Proof of Authority, on-chain censorship resistance, and social governance. At 10% inflation, ATOM is printing around $200m in tokens a year. From our analysis, over 60% of staking rewards are sold. This results in a structural sell pressure of over $120m a year, likely much higher. Based off this logic, there is MASSIVE buy pressure on ATOM counteracting this and keeping it at a $4-5 range this year, and in my opinion Cosmos will be much more successful if it isn't bogged down by the inflationary pressure. I would suggest doing it slowly, and additionally capping the supply at something that gives inflation time to ease off - E.g. a cap at 750m tokens (or some number), where inflation stays at 10% this year, then trends to 0 similar to Bitcoin. This gives us ample time to figure out and test new incentive mechanisms and security mechanisms for validators. In our new suggested ATOM roadmap (soon), we are going to begin providing detail to our plan of using ICL revenue to purchase ATOM. That will be much more impactful if there is also a much lower issuance rate. All these factors, combined, I believe can massively change the outlook on ATOM for the next year.