Eye on the Supply: Aion’s Token Distribution Analyzed

(Read parts 2 and 3 of this series)

One of the main features of distributed ledger technology is that it creates an immutable, shared, public record of transactions. This record allows us to trace tokens all the way back to their origin — the smart contract that generated them. This article intends to do that with Aion: go back to contract creation and examine how the Aion ERC20 token supply was initially distributed, what has happened since, and what the future holds.

The initial creation and distribution of Aion ERC20 tokens was on October 11, 2017, when 465,934,586.66 tokens were distributed to 1,477 addresses.

• 239,956,299.06 (51.5%) of those tokens were set aside for the TRS Contracts (explained below).
• 186,413,834.66 (40%) of those tokens were sent to addresses controlled by the Aion Foundation, the Founding Organization (Nuco), and Partners (collectively “Aion” or “Aion Founders”).
• The remaining 39,564,452.94 (8.5%) tokens were sent to private addresses.

Original plan for token distribution. Public sale was eventually cancelled.

To raise startup funds, Aion originally planned to conduct a private pre-sale, a public pre-sale, and finally a public sale. Any remaining unsold tokens would be split 50/50 between Aion Founders and early purchasers through Aion’s Token Release Schedule (“TRS”) program.

• 30,000,000 tokens were sold in the private pre-sale for $0.50 per token ($15 million raised).
• 9,564,452.94 tokens were sold in the public pre-sale in tranches from $0.75–1.00 per token ($8,010,994 raised).

After raising $23,010,994 total during the pre-sales, Aion determined that it had raised sufficient capital and cancelled the public sale. The roughly 240 million tokens that had been set aside for potential public sale would be distributed through the TRS program, instead.

The TRS program was intended to incentivize long-term holding by early purchasers and to demonstrate Aion’s long-term commitment to the project.