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# Emission/Tokenomics

### Where does the emission come from?

Lethean has a hybrid PoW/PoS consensus algorithm to secure the network and therefore emission is generated from two distinct sources:

Proof of Work (PoW) mining, which creates new LTHN coins to reward miners for completing the calculations and therefore contributing to the network.

Proof of Stake (PoS) staking, which also creates new LTHN coins to reward users who stake their funds and therefore also contributing to the network's security.

100% of the block reward goes to the miner or staker who found the block.

| Emission specifications​ |                                               |
| ------------------------ | --------------------------------------------- |
| Block Time               | 2 minutes (120 seconds)                       |
| Block Reward             | 1 LTHN per block (fixed)                      |
| Maximum Supply           | Uncapped                                      |
| Yearly Inflation         | Ever-decreasing trend towards 0% (asymptotic) |
| Fee on TXs (flat fee)    | 0.01 LTHN                                     |
| Fee burn                 | 100% (all fees are burned)                    |

### Emission motivation

Lethean decided to set the block reward relatively low to avoid unnecessary selling price pressure while keeping the chain safe from flood attacks. We have an uncapped max supply because the assumption that only the TX fees would be enough to cover miners' appetite might not be accurate and Bitcoin might become a sad example of this. A fixed emission ensures that stakers and miners will always secure the network.

On Lethean, **all network fees are being burned**, meaning that with enough network usage, the daily fee burning could surpass the emission from block rewards, resulting in supply becoming deflationary over time.

![](/img/learn/emission/supply-inflation-with-burning.png)

![](/img/learn/emission/lethean-supply-progression2024.png)

> For practical purposes these charts assume a fixed fee, in reality, as Lethean's price goes up (and the dynamic fee mechanism is implemented) fees will likely go down in Lethean-denominated terms, slightly reducing the total burned over time, still, these graphs are useful to showcase the different trends the total supply can take based on network usage.

This combination of small, minimalistic daily emissions, together with daily burns, results in **little to no sell pressure on exchanges.**

### Is the block reward enough to secure the network?

Lethean has a unique consensus system in which in order to perform the classic 51% attack, you need to have at least 51% PoW hashrate AND 51% PoS power (there can also be other ratios like 20%/90% and so on (see the [whitepaper](/docs/learn/whitepaper)).

This way an attack becomes very expensive, in particular because the purchase of a significant portion of the coins on the market would dramatically increase the price. If you try to use a small percentage of PoS coins for the attack, then the PoW power necessary for the attack becomes 800% or more. This makes it possible to establish a relatively low block reward and at the same time provide a high security level for the transaction history.

### The SWAP and initial supply

Lethean is a community fork of Zano. The new chain launched with a 10,000,000 LTHN premine designated as a **SWAP pool** — allowing holders of old-chain LTHN tokens to convert at a 100:1 ratio (100 old tokens = 1 new LTHN).

| Supply detail              |                                              |
| -------------------------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| Premine (SWAP pool)        | 10,000,000 LTHN                              |
| SWAP ratio                 | 100:1 (old chain to new chain)               |
| Old chain total supply     | ~1,000,000,000 old LTHN                      |
| New chain emission target  | ~12,000,000 LTHN over first decade           |
| Daily PoW+PoS emission     | ~1,440 LTHN (720 PoW + 720 PoS)             |

The SWAP mechanism uses coinbase outputs from the fast pre-HF2 blocks (first 10,000 blocks) as individual spendable inputs, enabling thousands of parallel SWAP transactions.

#### Lethean CIC

Lethean is operated by **Lethean CIC**, a UK Community Interest Company. This means the project is legally structured for community benefit, not private profit. Infrastructure costs (~$350/month) are funded through commercial services operated under the Host UK brand.

#### Sustainability

With 1 LTHN per block and all fees burned, the supply grows slowly while network usage reduces it. No foundation tax, no dev cut from blocks — the community owns the chain.

