Governance
Telcoin Platform: Production and Consumption Activities
Telcoin Platform Production and Consumption: Introduction
The following section first describes the factors that encompass all aspects of the material, social, and institutional environment which set the context for the various actors and user groups that produce and consume Telcoin Platform goods and services. We then provide a Platform-wide overview of the productive and consumptive interactions across the various user groups and sub-systems of the Telcoin Platform, and propose evaluative criteria that could be used by to determine which outcomes the community would deem satisfactory.
Contextual Factors
- Telcoin Platform and TEL: Characteristics of the Telcoin Platform system and the TEL benefits it generates.
- Attributes of the Actors: The attributes of the community of Telcoin Platform TEL Miners.
- Governance System: The organizations and rules that structure and control TEL harvesting activities.
Telcoin Platform Production and Consumption: Interactions and Outcomes
- Table Overview: The involved actors, the benefits they enjoy, the activities they undertake, using what technologies, the basis formula determining how benefits are calculated, and the infrastructure involved in the situation.
- Evaluative Criteria: Criteria that may be used by miners or external observers to determine which aspects of the observed outcomes are deemed satisfactory and which aspects are in need of improvement.
Attributes of the System: Telcoin Platform and its Products
Resource System: The Telcoin Platform
The resource system or facility involved in the generation of goods and services. The Telcoin Platform is the combined structure of three blockchain infrastructure networks, including Telcoin Network, the blockchain layer, TELx, the decentralized marketplace layer, and Telcoin Application Network (TAN), the mobile application layer, that each produce distinct blockchain services, and the TEL Treasury, the primary storage and distribution facility and inventory from which the system generates flows throughout the Telcoin Platform for miners to harvest.
Telcoin Platform: Attributes
The characteristics of the resource system involved in generating benefits.
- Sector: Blockchain Platforms, Telecommunications
- Description: The Telcoin Platform, TEL and its governance system are designed to be the blockchain network infrastructure and token standard for mobile network operators and the broader telecommunications industry encompassed by the GSMA.
- InfrastructureTelcoin Network Infrastructure: Blockchain layer
- Summary: Telcoin Network is an EVM-compatible, public blockchain secured by MNOs globally using PoS consensus. Telcoin Network serves as the base layer execution, settlement, programmability and data availability layer that TAN, TELx and other applications built into the system depend on to operate. A portion of TEL gas fees paid for each block secured to Telcoin Network are destroyed and regenerated in equal quantity to the TEL Treasury.
- Infrastructure: The network consists of block production facilities and TEL storage and extraction infrastructure.
- Summary: TELx is a network of decentralized financial markets which enable actors to exchange their assets on the blockchain at any time, using automated, self-custodial liquidity pools that operate according to programmable, self-executing code, independent of a central operator.
- Infrastructure: Blockchain-based marketplace systems, including DeFi protocols and AMM liquidity pools used for exchange, and TEL storage, allocation, distribution, and extraction facilities.
- Summary: TAN is a network of Telcoin mobile applications that integrate with the Telcoin Platform and enable users to access the system and its products.
- Infrastructure: Application infrastructure, which are mobile systems that are produced and governed by developers and must meet certain standards, and network infrastructure, which consists of TEL storage, distribution, and extraction facilities.
- Summary: The primary, renewable source of TEL issuance and includes a set of systems that store and generate flows of TEL throughout the Telcoin Platform according to rules that are set by the Platform and Treasury Council.
- Size: The size of the Telcoin Platform is a measurement of all three layers combined including the number of miners and users who produce and consume services, the total value of assets secured, the total TEL staked and available for miners to harvest, and the aggregate supply of goods and services produced by the Platform.
Productivity of System (blockchain products): The total supply, demand, and fees paid to access the blockchain goods and services produced by all three sub-systems of the Telcoin Platform over time.
TAN: Application Layer Productivity
- Mobile Applications, Users, Products: The total number of users, mobile applications and the variety of services offered to users, including TELx exchange and Telcoin Network transfer availability over time.
- Volume: Total volume through mobile products, total exchange volume through TELx markets and transfer volume through Telcoin Network blockspace by mobile application users over time.
- Fees: The total transaction fees paid by users, earned by Developers, and the referral fees, in TEL, earned by Stakers over time.
TELx: DeFi Marketplace Productivity
- Exchange Liquidity: The total liquidity and assets available for exchange across TELx markets over time.
- Volume: The total exchange volume through TELx markets over time.
- Fees: The total exchange fees paid by traders to TELx liquidity pools over time.
Telcoin Network: Block Production
Validators produce blocks to the Telcoin Network blockchain, earning fees from consumers who pay to have their transactions included in a block and processed through the blockchain. A portion of TEL fees contained in each block are destroyed and regenerated to the TEL Treasury in equal quantity.
- Block Production: Total blocks(blockspace) produced and available for consumption over time.
- Block Time: 1 block/6 seconds
- Transaction Capacity: 5,000 per second; when the total number of transactions per block increases above the maximum threshold, the network congests
- TVL: Total value of assets secured by the network over time.
- Volume: Total transfer volume using Telcoin Network blockspace over time.
- Fees: The total TEL in gas fees paid by users to transfer using Telcoin Network blockspace, the total gas fees earned by Validators and the total TEL burned and regenerated to the Treasury over time.
Telcoin Network: Blockchain Goods and Services Production
Telcoin Network is composed of a built in Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which enables the development of on-chain programs called smart contracts. These self-executing programs are programmed to facilitate any number of digital goods and services, such as infrastructure called protocols (e.g. DeFi protocols) and applications (e.g. a Telcoin mobile application).
- Aggregate Supply: The total supply of smart contract-based, blockchain goods and services available on Telcoin Network to be consumed, enjoyed or harvested by actors over time.
- Volume: Total volume through smart contract-based different goods and services systems on Telcoin Network over time.
- Fees: Total fees paid to access smart contract based goods and services on Telcoin Network.
- Productivity of System (TEL): The Telcoin Platform generates 10% of the TEL contained in the TEL Treasury per year, or 2B TEL in year one, and Telcoin Network destroys a portion of all TEL gas fees paid to access blockspace and then regenerates TEL in equal quantity to the TEL Treasury.
- Interactions Between Sub-Systems: TAN applications route trades through TELx and transfers through Telcoin Network, paying fees. TELx markets facilitate decentralized exchange liquidity, increasing the supply of goods available on the Platform, driving demand for TAN and Telcoin Network services and miner fee revenue. Telcoin Network is the execution, settlement, programmability system which TAN and TELx depend on to create, operate their services, to secure their property rights, and to sustain TEL yield for future generations of Telcoin Platform miners.
- Learn more: Telcoin Platform
Resource Products
TEL
Telcoin Platform generates TEL, a scarce digital good with a maximum supply of 100B units, from the TEL Treasury at an annual rate of 10% of its inventory (2B TEL in year one), and the four types of miners harvest TEL from their area of the system, based on their production, according to rules that are set by Miner Councils.
Consumers use TEL to access Telcoin Platform services. Miners stake TEL, produce platform services, earn TEL fees from consumers, and harvest TEL from the Telcoin Platform. Miners use staked TEL as political power within their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance.
Telcoin Network destroys a portion of TEL gas fees paid each block and regenerates them in equal quantity to the TEL Treasury, ensuring sustained yield while maintaining a maximum supply of 100B units.
TEL Attributes: Number of Units, Issuance and Regeneration Rates, Sustainability Formula, Utility Value, Distribution Levels
The characteristics of the units extracted from the Telcoin Platform that can then be used to consume platform services, held for later use, or used as an input in production, harvesting, governance, or exchanged for other goods or services.
Number of Units: 100B TEL total supply which can ever be created, 90B TEL is circulating in the marketplace, 10B TEL is the inventory of extractable units in the TEL Treasury.
- TEL Total Supply: 100,000,000,000 TEL is the total and maximum supply of TEL which can ever be produced by the Telcoin Platform.
- Circulating Supply: 90,000,000,000 TEL is the supply of TEL in circulation which are held by as private property by TEL users.
- TEL Treasury Inventory: 10,000,000,000 TEL is the current supply of extractable TEL contained in the TEL Treasury, prior to TGIP1, from which the system generates flows that can be harvested by miners.
TEL Treasury Issuance Rate: The total number of TEL units generated by the Platform each year from the Treasury. 1B TEL flows from the TEL Treasury in year one throughout the Telcoin Platform at a TEL issuance rate of 10% of the inventory per year for miners to harvest.
- Formula: 10% of the TEL Treasury per year
- Y1: 1,000,000,000 TEL
- Y2: 900,000,000 TEL
- Y3: 810,000,000 TEL
- Description: TEL is allocated from the TEL Treasury and distributed throughout the system according to rules determined by the Platform and Treasury Council using the TELIP process.
- Physical Corollary: The total quantity of fish an angler club determines can be extracted from a lake by fishermen throughout a year.
TEL Treasury Regeneration Rate: The total number of TEL units destroyed and regenerated to the TEL Treasury each year. Telcoin Network destroys a portion of all TEL gas fees paid each block and regenerates them to the TEL Treasury in equal quantity.
- Formula: n TEL burned on Telcoin Network per year
- Rationale
- Blockspace Demand and Sustained TEL Yield: This process ties blockspace demand to a decreasing circulating supply of the token and an increased supply of future extractable units, enabling sustained yield for all miners when TEL units are allocated proportionate to the rate they are regenerated over time.
- Incentives Alignment: Anyone can send TEL units to the burn contract, enabling service providers to align with the broader Telcoin ecosystem and drive adoption of their application by platform users.
- Maintains Fixed Supply Cap and Sustains TEL Yield: BTC, ETH, TEL compared
- BTC Case Study: In ~2140, the Bitcoin network of miners, node operators, and developers will need to decide to raise the cap of BTC, a crypto asset with a fixed supply cap and no regeneration rate (ie an exhaustive resource) or the network will need to sustain entirely on BTC network fee revenue. That’s a tough burden to achieve when issuance halves every four years.
- Ethereum Case Study: Ethereum’s solution to the issuance yield sustainability problem while maintaining scarcity, was to have an uncapped supply of ETH while burning a portion of fees.
- TEL Case Study: The Telcoin Network TEL destruction and regeneration mechanism provides the solution to the fixed supply cap and yield sustainability dilemma. So long as users temper their use such that TEL issued is less than or equal to TEL regenerated, TEL yield will sustain while maintaining 100B total units.
- Physical Corollary: All renewable resources have a regeneration rate. The population of fish in a lake decreases as more fish are caught, but the population also replenishes over time, either through natural reproduction or artificially stocking the lake.
TEL Sustainability Formula: The rate at which TEL issuance is sustained for future generations over time. TEL yield may be sustained for future generations of miners when the number of TEL harvested from the Platform, or the TEL issuance rate, is less than or equal to the TEL regenerated to the TEL Treasury over time, or the TEL regeneration rate.
- Formula: TEL Issuance Rate ≤ TEL Regeneration Rate
- Description: When the TEL regeneration rate is greater than or equal to the TEL issuance rate, TEL is sustained over time for future generations of miners. In other words, it is a renewable resource rather than an exhaustive one above this threshold.
- Physical Corollary: If the angler club limits the number of extracted fish from a lake to match the rate that the fish naturally reproduce, the fish population sustains itself and there is no need to restock the lake.
TEL Utility Value: Consumers and miners use TEL as a medium of exchange to access the services produced by the Telcoin Platform, miners use TEL as an input for participation and earning power in platform production and harvesting processes, and use staked as political power in Telcoin Platform governance.
- Users: Pay TEL gas fees to transact using Telcoin Network blockspace, exchange TEL for other assets on TELx, and transfer TEL to settle payments on Telcoin mobile applications.
- Miners: Stake TEL as an input on the Telcoin Platform, earn TEL fees from consumers and harvest from flows of TEL issuance. The quantity of TEL a miner has staked on determines both their TEL earning power and their political power within their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance.
TEL Distribution Levels Across the Platform: The distribution of TEL across the Telcoin Platform over time.
- TEL Levels | Y1 | Y2 | Y3
- TEL Treasury | 10B | 9B + n | 8.1B + n
- TEL Issuance Rate | Initial: 245M
Stream: 755M | 900M | 810M - TEL Regeneration Rate | n TEL destroyed on Telcoin Network | n TEL | n TEL
- TAN TEL Levels | Initial: 125M
Stream: 375M | 459M | 392.85M - TELx TEL Levels | Initial: 50M
Stream: 150M | 184.5M | 166.05M - Telcoin Network TEL Levels | Initial: 50M
Stream: 150M | 184.5M | 166.05M - Council Members TEL Levels | Stream: 30M | 27M | 24.3M
- TAO TEL Levels | Initial: 20M
Stream: 50M | 45M | 40.5M
Learn more: Telcoin (TEL) Token
Telcoin Platform: Blockchain Goods and Services
The system consists of three blockchain networks that each serve a distinct production function and provide a complementary input to Telcoin Platform’s collective product: mobile access to decentralized financial products and other blockchain services.
Telcoin Network: Blocks, On-Chain Goods and Services
An EVM-compatible blockchain network which produces blocks that consumers pay to transact their assets between peers and validators secure to the blockchain to earn TEL fees and harvest TEL issuance from the network. The system enables individuals to secure their property independent of third parties, generates a continuously-updated, immutable ledger of all transactions, and the EVM facilitates the creation of on-chain programs (“smart contracts”) which can be coded to produce any unlimited number of digital goods and services that self-execute on the blockchain independent of third parties, such as DeFi and other web3 use cases.
Learn more:
TELx: Liquidity Pools
A decentralized financial marketplace which enables the production of liquidity pools, smart-contract based token reserves which are used for automated, decentralized, self-custodial exchange.
Liquidity pools are produced by liquidity miners, who provide TEL and other assets as liquidity, stake their liquidity provider tokens in TELx, earn fees from trades through their pool, and harvest TEL issuance from TELx.
TELx markets currently enable TEL digital asset exchange, on-chain forex, and any can incentivize the production of any other set of markets as determined by the TELx Council and produced by liquidity miners.
Learn more:
Telcoin Application Network: Mobile Services
A network of mobile apps that enables users to access the Telcoin Platform and its services, including secure self-custody, decentralized digital asset exchange and on-chain FX, peer-to-peer transfers, and other services provided by Application Developers through their applications.
Learn more:
Actors: Attributes
Miners
Miners, including Stakers, Developers, Liquidity Miners, and Validators, are the driving force behind the Telcoin Platform. Each Miner Group serves a distinct function in Telcoin Platform production and and harvests from separate flows of TEL fees from consumers and TEL issuance generated by the system. Miners propose and vote with others in their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform governance, over and within which they collectively share equal power and control.
Miner Attributes: Validators, Liquidity Miners, Developers, Stakers
Characteristics of the primary actors that consume and produce blockchain services, harvest TEL from the system, and who communally manage and govern in consuming, producing, harvesting TEL, managing and governing interactions with the Telcoin Platform and its governance system.
- Validators: GSMA Operator Member, mobile network operators (MNOs) who stake TEL for proof of stake consensus (PoS) and manage nodes on Telcoin Network, earn TEL gas fees and issuance based on their share of blocks secured to the blockchain each day, and participate with others in their Miner Group in governance based on their pro-rata share of TEL staked for PoS.
- Liquidity Miners: TEL users who provide liquidity to decentralized financial markets on TELx, earn fees from trades, harvest TEL issuance and participate within their Miner Group in governance based on their pro-rata share of liquidity staked on TELx.
- Application Developers (“Developers”): GSMA members who stake TEL on TAN and produce mobile applications that integrate with the Telcoin Platform and connect users to its services and each other through the system. They earn transaction fees from consumers, harvest TEL based on their mobile user base’s pro-rata share of adoption of the Telcoin Platform, and participate with others in their Miner Group in Telcoin Platform Governance based on their pro-rata share of staked TEL on TAN by Developers.
- Stakers: Stakers are Telcoin mobile application customers who stake TEL, market and connect with their networks to establish the Telcoin Platform as a shared infrastructure for settling payments. They earn a percentage of their referred users’ fees in TEL, harvest TEL from TAN based on their network’s adoption of the Platform, and participate with others in their Miner Group in governance based on their pro-rata share of TEL staked on TAN by Telcoin mobile app users.
Governance System: Attributes
Telcoin Platform governance is constituted legally as the Telcoin Association, a Swiss Verein domiciled in the Canton of Ticino in the City of Lugano. The regime is a polycentric, democratic system of self-governance in which the four constituent Miner Groups elect officials to a diverse set of global, local and cross-jurisdictional Miner Councils who each possess considerable autonomy to make and enforce rules within their own circumscribed domain of authority.
Miner Councils set, enforce, and refine the day to day operational rules for interacting with their jurisdictions of the Telcoin Platform, including setting TEL harvesting rules. The TAO, the Telcoin Association’s production and administration unit, services to produce and administer collective goods at the direction and financing of the Association.
Miner Councils, Authority, and Decision-making Rules
A diverse set of policy-making organizations, composed of elected officials from each Miner Group, who set and enforce the operational rules for interacting with the Telcoin Platform.
Miner Councils: Representation, Authority, and Decision-making Rules
- Councils | Representation | Process, Domain of Authority | Decision-making Rules
- Platform Council | Platform Council
· Members: 8
· Representation: Balanced across all four Miner Groups. | Telcoin Improvement Proposal (TIP)
Platform-wide rules
including communication and information, compliance, legal and organizational rules. | Proposal Authority: Platform, Treasury, Compliance Councils, TAO
Approval: 6 out of 8
Quorum: 100%
Duration: 120 hours
Channel: telcoinplatformcouncil.eth - Platform Council, Treasury Council | Platform Council
· Members: 8
· Representation: Balanced across all four Miner Groups.
Treasury Council
· Members: 4
· Representation: Balanced across all four Miner Groups. | TEL Improvement Proposal (TELIP)
Platform-wide rules
that involve the TEL Treasury, TEL token contract, Telcoin Network, the Telcoin Association Constitution, and governance infrastructure. | 1. Platform Council: Must approve before submitting to the Treasury Council
Approval: 6 out of 8
Quorum: 100%
Duration: 120 hours
Channel: telcoinplatformcouncil.eth
2. Treasury Council: Must vote after the Platform Council has affirmed.
Approval: 4 out of 4
Quorum: 100%
Duration: 72 hours
Channel: telcointreasurycouncil.eth - TAN Council | TAN Council
· Members: 6
· Representation:
Stakers: 2 reps
Developers: 2 reps
Liquidity Miners: 1 rep
Validators: 1 rep | Telcoin Application Network Improvement Proposal (TANIP)
TAN operational rules including allocation, harvesting, planning and financing, information, communication. | Proposal Authority: TAN Council, TAO
Approval: 5 out of 6
Quorum: 100%
Duration: 120 hours
Channel: telcointancouncil.eth - TELx Council | TELx Council
· Members: 6
· Representation:
Stakers: 1 rep
Developers: 1 reps
Liquidity Miners: 3 reps
Validators: 1 rep | TELx Improvement Proposal (TELxIP)
TELx operational rules including allocation, harvesting, planning and financing, information, communication. | Proposal Authority: TELx Council, TAO
Approval: 5 out of 6
Quorum: 100%
Duration: 120 hours
Channel: telxcouncil.eth - Compliance Council | Compliance Council
· Members: 4
· Representation: Balanced across all four Miner Groups. | Compliance Improvement Proposal (CCIP)
Authority
• Veto authority over all Miner Council proposals
• Compliance,
• Legal and Organizational,
• Conflict Resolution,
• Actor Authorizations | Proposal Authority: TAO, Compliance Council
Approval: 3 out of 4
Quorum: 75%
Duration: 72 hours
Channel: telcoincompliancecouncil.eth
- Operational-choice rulesHarvesting Rules
- Collective-choice rulesMiner Council Decision-making Rules
Telcoin Platform: Production and Consumption Interactions
Telcoin Network: Production and Fees
- Actors | Benefit | Activity | Flow of Benefits | Basis
- Validators | Income from blockchain transaction fees (“gas”) | Stake TEL to participate in proof of stake consensus (PoS), operate a validator node to create and verify new blocks to the Telcoin Network blockchain. | Earn gas fees, paid in TEL by users to transact using the network, from each block they secure to the Telcoin Network blockchain. | Base Fee: A portion of gas fees in each block are regenerated by Telcoin Network in equal quantity to the TEL Treasury.
Priority Fee: Users can choose to pay an extra “fee” that increases the likelihood that their transaction is included in the next block. - Users | The ability to self-custody and transact digital assets at any time without relying on intermediaries. | Transacting on the blockchain, paying gas fees in TEL. | Blocks per second: 1 block every six seconds
Transactions per second: 5,000 | Users pay gas fees based on the current gas price. valued by the market based on supply and demand.
TELx: Production and Fees
- Actors | Benefit | Activity | Flow of Benefits | Basis
- Liquidity Miners | Income from swap fees paid by traders. | Provisioning pool assets to TELx liquidity pools and accruing swap fees from trades. | Liquidity miners earn fees each time a swap is conducted through their liquidity pool. | .04%-0.30% fees as determined by TELx governance on a per market basis.
- Traders | The ability to exchange assets in a decentralized, self-custodial way at any time. | Swapping between assets in TELx liquidity pools, paying pool fees each time they transact. | Each swap users exchange one asset and receive another. | The value a user receives is dependent upon the price and liquidity for that asset across TELx.
TAN: Production and Fees
- Actors | Benefit | Activity | Flow of Benefits | Basis for Income
- Developers | Income from transaction fees | Developing a Telcoin application, and earning fees on each trade. | Developers earn fees on every transaction type they charge. | Transaction fees are determined by each Developer.
- Stakers | Income from TEL referral fees | Staking TEL, referring new users, and earning TEL fees each time referred users pay fees. | Earn TEL referral fees each time their referred users transact. | Based on their TEL staked and referral fee rate.
- Users | Mobile, self-custodial access to DeFi products at any time. | Transacting, storing, and sending digital assets. | Users settle payments or receive a new asset each time they make an exchange transaction. |
Evaluative Criteria
General Performance Indicators
- Staked TEL: Total TEL staked by miners for use in production, harvesting and governance processes
- Number of Actors: Number of users, Miners over time
- Fees: Fees earned by Miners over time
Sustainability
Can the quantity of TEL issuance units distributed from the TEL Treasury according to issuance distribution rules sustain at current levels over time?
- Definition and Importance
- Definition: Can the quantity of benefits produced by the system and extracted by appropriators sustain over time?
- Importance: If the stock of benefits available to be extracted from a system are exhausted, the incentives to participate are proportionally reduced for future generations.
- Indicators
- Renewability Formula
- (Total TEL burned on Platform - Total TEL issued from Platform)/time
- Note: The total TEL burned on Telcoin Network replenishes in proportionate quantity to the TEL Treasury to be harvested by future generations of miners.
- Renewability Formula
Participation
How many miners are participating in each position?
- Definition and Importance
- Definition: Measured by the number of actors and their level of involvement in associated processes.
- Importance: Participation tends to increase legitimacy; co-production can be especially effective form of participation.
Proportional Equivalence
Are TEL Treasury distribution levels suitable to Platform conditions? Are the benefits obtained by miners proportional to the amount of inputs required in the form of labor, material, or money?
- Definition and Importance
- Definition: The rules-in-use allocate benefits proportional to inputs required.(Understanding Institutional Diversity, 262-3, E. Ostrom).
- Importance: When the rules related to the distribution of benefits are made broadly consistent with the distribution of costs, participants are more willing to pitch in to keep a resource well-maintained and sustainable. Relating user inputs to the benefits they obtain is a crucial element of establishing a fair system. If some users get all the benefits and pay few of the costs, others are not willing to follow rules over time. Thus, fairness is a crucial attribute of the rules of robust systems. (Understanding Institutional Diversity, 263, E. Ostrom)
- Indicators: Harvesting rules restricting time, place, technology and/or quantity of TEL units are related to local conditions. The benefits obtained by miners from the Platform, as determined by harvesting rules, are proportional to the amount of inputs required in the form of labor, material, or money, as determined by provisioning rules.
- Issuance Harvesting: Total issuance harvested < total fees
- Fiscal Equivalence: Total costs to produce improvements < total fees