VRA Tokenomics Update

Verasity
Verasity
Published in
7 min readJun 13, 2022

--

We are pleased to bring you our updated $VRA tokenomics article. The expanded tokenomics will give us a fresh approach for Q2 as we work towards a clear path for enterprise adoption and renew our business focus on generating revenue alongside our B2B partners.

Please note: With this article, all past articles on our tokenomics are made obsolete. Please use this article as a single source of information for tokenomics in the future.

1) Tokenomic Information

Both $VRA and PoV marker tokens are on the same contract and are essentially the same. The intent is to use PoV marker tokens largely for providing data on the blockchain to support Proof of View within our ad stack. There can be no guarantee that PoV marker tokens do not enter other aspects of supply although that is not the current intention and is at Verasity’s entire discretion.

Total supply, which is reflected on third-party information sites, includes all $VRA issued minus tokens that have been burned, while the max supply refers to all coins that will ever come into existence. For simplicity, maximum supply and total supply have been made the same, and all $VRA tokens in existence, including marker tokens, are minted at the time of writing.

We elaborate on marker tokens, other activities, and our planned burn mechanism below. Firstly, we would like to address top $VRA wallet addresses and why they hold large amounts of VRA.

2) Tokens Held on Exchanges and Third Parties

At any given time, large $VRA wallets may be present on centralized exchanges. Tokens held on exchanges are not made available to trade on the open market at any one time. Instead, they are used by market makers to provide buy and sell-side liquidity. This is commonplace in crypto markets and exchanges require tokens in order to provide a listing for $VRA. Therefore, exchange wallets appearing in our top wallet holders by token amount is a normal part of providing liquidity to trading pairs.

Like the majority of projects in the crypto space, Verasity deploys market makers to encourage stable and predictable trading action in line with the wider market conditions. Market-making services, many of which are operated by the exchanges themselves, require tokens to be held in exchange accounts to facilitate trading. As our daily trading volume is now high, we are required to make an adequate proportion of our tokens available for liquidity, held in exchange wallets.

From time to time projects use secure, offline storage solutions for crypto assets. As third-party solutions are insured against loss, this is the lowest risk solution for the storage of team tokens and those used for delivering staking rewards. As we have seen with many other projects in the crypto space, losses arising from hacks and exploits cannot always be recovered.

Verasity at its discretion, from time to time, is freely able to utilise the $VRA held in cold storage as we require for our business purposes and objectives (e.g. paying out staking rewards as detailed below) and it remains in the Verasity organisation’s possession.

3) Team Tokens and Staking Rewards

Further to the tokens mentioned above, a portion of $VRA tokens, almost 2.2 billion in total, are reserved for operational and team requirements. Tokens reserved for operational and team requirements are held in storage. We use them primarily for marketing and operating expenses (e.g. embarking on co-marketing initiatives or trading competitions with exchanges) and for operational purposes (e.g. deal flow for Esports tournaments etc.) if and when required at Verasity’s discretion.

Our staking reward wallet was established with an initial $VRA pool. This number will reduce as we distribute staking rewards to our VeraWallet staking participants. Staking was extended from the 1st April 2022 at 15% until the 31st March 2023.

4) Proof of View Foundation Tokens and the Creation of a Corporate Acquisitions War Chest

In total, 100 billion Proof of View Foundation Tokens will be minted, as previously discussed on August 23, 2021, in this Medium article. Proof of View Foundation Tokens, as we have shared above, are essential to the functioning of our business goals and ad tech stack technology. For PoV we make 90bn marker tokens available and 10bn foundation tokens necessary for meeting our business requirements as we discuss in detail below. As we shared in our recently updated whitepaper, PoV marker tokens (90bn) are minted on the same contract as VRA and are essentially the same. Our exchange partners have been notified of our plan to mint new tokens.

Proof of View Foundation Tokens are minted largely to serve as marker tokens for data circulation within Verasity’s ad tech stack (VeraViews, powered by Proof of View) during ad campaigns; for NFTs within the VeraVerse ecosystem; for digital resource management, and for whatever activities deemed by Verasity for the benefit of achieving the business objectives of the company at Verasity’s entire discretion.

We have also recently decided to set aside 10 billion tokens, as discussed above, in a ‘war chest’ to fund potential corporate acquisitions to advance the adoption of Verasity’s technology. This could include for example a publisher or advertising technology business. That may also include incentivising new or existing management in connection with any such acquisition. We also intend to use some of these 10 billion tokens for any other use which in the judgement of senior management is useful for the furtherance of the business interests of Verasity. This may include incentivising senior talent for the company’s benefit (i.e. bringing senior talent to Verasity from a company we acquire) and operating expenses also at Verasity’s entire discretion.

We have identified potential acquisition targets which we believe will serve the company and community interests well, but which are commercially sensitive to name at this time. We wish to make one or two good strategic acquisitions this calendar year, but we will only proceed in doing so if we are confident that the purchase price will be in our interest. If and when Verasity makes acquisitions (there is no assurance Verasity will make an acquisiton), it is intended that the tokens used for purchasing the acquired companies (from our 10bn corporate acquisitions warchest) shall be locked and vested for a predetermined period of time by the target company and therefore not impact circulating supply for years.

Eventually, the 10 billion tokens we have allocated for acquisition purposes will make their way back into the circulating supply. This is a given but we would expect to add value to our own market cap, through the growth of Verasity as a whole. This would proceed in a similar fashion to the well-established mergers and acquisitions process in traditional publicly-listed companies, whereby an acquisition of a target company tends to exert a net positive on the acquiring company’s market position and market cap over the long term. We hope this gives our community some context into our strong growth strategy and pursuit of opportunities that will enable us to expand our enterprise offerings. For clarity, the expenditure or allocation of the 10B tokens in its entirety are entirely at the discretion of Verasity to use as it sees fit for an acquistion or otherwise.

We chose to use $VRA for use as Proof of View marker tokens because it will carry an intrinsic, market-defined value by which we can establish the portion of $VRA required for an advertising partner’s ad campaign. Outside of the use of the 10 billion tokens reserved for corporate acquisition purposes, these tokens are only used within the Proof of View system for the purposes of recording PoV data.

The rest of this article will now focus on how their use influences and powers our solution for enterprise partners.

5) Accommodating Enterprise Partner’s Needs

Our partnership with Brightcove has opened the door to a multitude of enterprise opportunities, making the VeraViews ad tech stack available to be deployed by leading publishers and advertisers worldwide.

While VeraViews now sits on the Brightcove Marketplace through VeraPlayer, and will soon be available natively through the widely adopted Brightcove Player, it’s important to remember that it is Brightcove’s ~5,000 clients — not simply Brightcove themselves — who will be hopefully adopting our solution and generating revenue for us.

However, each client that comes on board through 2022 and beyond, either through Brightcove or other avenues, will require a significant amount of $VRA tokens as marker tokens in order to properly utilise VeraView’s PoV technology. This has necessitated the need to issue 90 billion tokens to power our solution.

What is the role of the PoV marker token within VeraView’s ad tech stack?

As detailed in this article, when brands, agencies, or publishers use VeraViews or leverage the VeraViews ad tech stack through Brightcove, it is intended that they deposit VRA tokens to VeraWallet and create an escrow pool.

This VRA escrow pool is used to fund ad campaigns. Profits generated from this mechanism — for example, Verasity’s revenue share from ads earned — are used by Verasity for operational expenses. As a result, an ample supply of VRA is necessary to function the VeraViews ad tech stack and a sustainable revenue model for Verasity as a business even if this is considered inflationary in the medium term.

Token Buy Backs and Burn Mechanisms and Future Utility

We have also deployed a token burn mechanism, using a portion of our anticipated profits from VeraViews, as described above, to gradually burn parts of the $VRA supply at regular intervals.

Further use cases for $VRA in the near future will be rolled out, including but not limited to its use within the VeraVerse NFT marketplace. Here, we are planning to use $VRA for minting and issuing NFTs, for marketplace purchases, and for paying network fees.

Finally, we have plans during H2 2022 to explore the roll-out of a payments network for $VRA. Intrinsically linked to the VeraWallet and the upcoming VeraCard, this network would leverage our Watch & Earn functionality and our low-cost purpose-built side chain, VeraChain, to provide a platform for transfers of value and a whole host of payments options.

As you can see, we are constantly looking to bring utility and value to the $VRA token, not only through our focus on VeraViews adoption but also by building out an entire ecosystem of supporting infrastructure and other product verticals alongside it.

--

--

Verasity
Verasity

Advertising technology based on open-ledger principles. We have the first patented adtech protocol on the blockchain — VeraViews