Emission rate measures the speed at which new tokens enter circulation, typically expressed as annual inflation percentage or tokens per time period. Emissions serve critical functions: they fund network security by rewarding validators and miners, incentivize early adoption through liquidity mining, and bootstrap economic activity. Bitcoin's emission schedule is programmatic and predictable: block rewards halve every 210,000 blocks (roughly 4 years), starting at 50 BTC and decreasing asymptotically toward the 21 million cap. Ethereum's post-merge emissions depend on staking participation: more stakers mean more emissions, but EIP-1559 burns can offset or exceed emissions, making net issuance variable and sometimes negative. High emission rates create inflation that dilutes existing holders; low rates may not sufficiently incentivize security providers. The ideal emission schedule balances security requirements with holder dilution. Many DeFi protocols launch with high emissions to bootstrap liquidity and usage, then taper over time. Understanding emission schedules is necessary for projecting supply dynamics: a token with 100% annual emission will see its supply double in a year, requiring equivalent demand growth just to maintain price. Emission changes often require governance votes and can be contentious.
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