What is the logic behind Cardano's tokenomics and emmission schedule?

Question

Bitcoin was made to be mined until roughly 2140. I like that it was made for decades to come while many projects are built for 4 years or whatever.

Personally I do not believe inflation in and of itself is bad, as economies are not static and expand. What is bad is inflation manipulation that is unprovable and not tamper-proof, or when it is too high.

Coin Gecko currently shows circ supply to TS as:

32,056,062,599 / 45,000,000,000

71% in circulation on the 3rd year already seems a bit high.

Does Cardano have to have a fixed supply? A perpetual, provable, tamper-proof small stock-to-flow seems best to me.

Can someone make the decisions behind Cardano's inflation make sense to me?

Answer 1

The uncirculated (reserve) coins are distributed over time at a specific percentage rate. As the reserve decreases in size, the amount distributed each epoch (5 days) will decrease. At the current percentage rate the reserve will halve approximately every 4-5 years.

• Ada has a fixed supply of 45 billion coins
• 30 Billion coins were issued/sold during the ICO rounds
• The other 15 Billion coins were placed into a reserve for operation of the network
• Every 5 days (each epoch) the transaction fees and a fixed percentage of the reserve are added to a pot
• A fixed percentage of the epoch's pot is added to the treasury and the rest are distributed as staking rewards

Cardano monetary policy has a more precise explanation.

Answer 2

Eventually we will stop measuring Cardano in Ada and start measuring it in “Lovelace.”