TLDR: The Radix Foundation proposes a 1 billion XRD incentives campaign over 18–24 months, using part of the Stablecoin Reserve to grow real DeFi activity.
- Users earn rewards by engaging in on-chain actions like trading, lending, and liquidity provision—actions that strengthen the network.
- Holding XRD boosts rewards via a multiplier (up to 3x), but holding alone isn’t enough; active participation is required.
- The campaign is designed to be Sybil-resistant, anti-farming, and adaptive over time based on community feedback and network priorities.
The Radix Foundation is proposing a major on-chain incentives campaign, planned to start in 2025 and planned to run for 18–24 months. This post gives an overview of our current thinking and is intended to provide important context ahead of the Token Holder Consultation on repurposing the Stablecoin Reserve of 2.4Bn XRD originally reserved for a stable coin project.
The proposed incentives campaign would allocate 1 billion XRD across multiple seasons to reward genuine usage and significantly deepen liquidity in the Radix ecosystem. It’s designed to attract attention, sure, but the bigger goal is to drive long-term, meaningful growth through real economic activity.
This first draft has come directly from weeks of valuable discussion and ideas from the Radix community, especially dApp developers and third-party builders. Their feedback has shaped everything from reward structures to anti-abuse mechanisms. It’s important to emphasize this is an initial proposal; details will evolve through ongoing input, refinement, and product scoping.
The Goal: Real Usage, Not Just Metrics
Too many crypto incentive campaigns end up rewarding empty actions—bots, mercenaries, or repetitive ‘farming’ that doesn’t add meaningful value. Radix wants to avoid that.
Instead, this campaign rewards actions that genuinely strengthen the network. If you’re trading, lending, or providing liquidity, you’re adding real value, and we believe incentivizing more users to do this will help grow the network, as has been seen with other such campaigns.
There are two interconnected ways to earn your share of the 1 billion XRD reward pool:
Users earn weekly ‘Season Points’ (SP) by engaging in eligible on-chain activities, each with its own weekly reward pool. Multiple activities run at the same time, some spanning the entire campaign and others limited to specific periods. Examples of possible activities include lending wrapped USDC on a dApp, trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs), or utilizing perpetual platforms.
Your SP each week depends on how active you’ve been compared to other participants, likely calculated by percentile rankings (e.g. based on how your activity compares to others in the same activity). The more economic activity you contribute across the widest number of activities, the greater your share of the week’s rewards.
Secondly, holding XRD (or LSUs, LSULPs, etc.) boosts your rewards, but it doesn’t directly earn points. Instead, your total XRD holding multiplies the SP you’ve earned, up to a 3x cap (more on that later). This means just passively holding or staking won’t earn rewards; active usage is key.
To clarify, the intent is that users must consistently engage in meaningful activities week-to-week with real capital, and holding XRD significantly amplifies those earned rewards. We’re still finalizing exactly which activities and assets will qualify and expect to adjust and expand this list over time based on community feedback and network needs.
We anticipate the highest reward categories to focus heavily on core DeFi activities involving widely-used assets and dApps. However, we’re also exploring broader participation categories, like total network fees paid weekly, number of unique dApps interacted with, and occasional ‘one-time’ rewards for unique actions that don’t neatly fit elsewhere.
Now, some more details on that points multiplier that rewards holding XRD…
Points Multiplier for XRD: Rewards That Scale With Commitment
To participate, users need to hold a minimum amount of XRD, currently suggested at $50, to help prevent spam and make certain exploits economically impractical. Above this threshold, the multiplier follows an S-curve based on the supply percentile of your linked accounts:
- The strongest multiplier growth happens between 5,000 and 100,000 USD worth of XRD. This can be adjusted week on week based on any changes on XRD price to keep the USD value roughly the same.
- Above 100,000 USD of XRD, the multiplier’s growth slows significantly, preventing dominance by large wallets.
- The multiplier caps at 3x.
This approach rewards meaningful commitment to Radix without letting passive whales dominate. And again, remember: holding alone doesn’t earn you SP. It purely amplifies rewards earned from real usage.
Lastly, the math behind how this multiplier curve works, and the way SP are awarded based on the percentile ranking of a user per activity, make it economically very expensive to “attack” the incentives campaign if you’re not a legitimate user. Speaking of which:
Anti-Farming and Sybil-Resistant by Design
Every incentive campaign attracts abuse, such as airdrop farming and Sybil attacks, where users create multiple fake accounts to maximize rewards. While completely blocking these exploits is often impossible, our goal is to make them unprofitable without high-friction solutions like KYC. Instead, we’ve designed a system where genuine, economically meaningful participation naturally rises to the top.
Key anti-abuse measures include:
- Weekly SP calculations that allow dynamic adjustments based on observed behavior.
- Wallet linking to discourage splitting holdings across multiple accounts. This also has the benefit of not needing to worry if you have a hardware wallet with LSUs vs a “trading” hotwallet etc.
- Minimum holding and transaction thresholds to significantly reduce spam.
- Reward structures encourage diverse, sustained participation rather than repeated gaming.
Why This Campaign Matters
This isn’t about boosting vanity metrics. It’s about bootstrapping real, sustainable network growth:
- Increased liquidity and trading activity will strengthen DeFi on Radix.
- Higher active participation supports and attracts more dApp developers.
- Greater capital and real activity on-chain will build long-term value and resilience in the Radix ecosystem.
We believe this campaign offers Radix the best opportunity to meaningfully scale its user base and economic activity, and it will continually evolve alongside our ecosystem.
Because of this, the Radix Foundation hopes you’ll back this proposal in the upcoming Token Holder Consultation that will be live from 12:00 UTC, May 9th until 23:59 UTC, May 19th.
FAQ
Q: Where are the funds for this coming from?
The proposed 1 billion XRD comes from the existing Stablecoin Reserve (2.4B XRD), originally set aside for a now-paused stablecoin project.
Q: What is the goal of the campaign?
To stimulate sustainable, meaningful growth in the Radix ecosystem by rewarding real on-chain activity, especially around liquidity and DeFi usage.
Q: How are rewards earned?
By performing eligible on-chain activities like DEX trading, lending, and providing liquidity. Each week, participants earn Season Points (SP) based on how their activity compares to others.
Q: What’s the role of XRD holdings?
Holding XRD gives you a multiplier (up to 3x) on the SP you earn from activity. Just holding XRD won’t earn you anything, you have to use the network.
Q: Why is there a $50 minimum holding requirement?
To deter spam accounts and make exploitative behavior economically unattractive. The goal is to keep the barrier low while protecting the system’s integrity without requiring high-friction solutions like KYC.
Q: Can whales just dominate the rewards?
No. The multiplier curve flattens above $100K USD of XRD, and it caps at 3x, helping prevent disproportionate advantage from large holdings.
Q: What kind of activities will be rewarded?
Primarily high-value DeFi usage like trading, lending, and liquidity provision, There are potential expansions into broader categories like network fees and multi-dApp usage.
Q: How is abuse prevented?
The system includes dynamic weekly SP adjustments, wallet linking, minimum thresholds, and diversified reward categories to reduce Sybil and farming attacks.
Q: Is this final?
No! This is a first draft intended to invite discussion. The final structure will be refined based on community feedback and continued design work.
