ADR-011 — Emission is locked: fixed-cap, Bitcoin-style
- Status: Accepted
- Date: 2026-09-04
- Related: ADR-002 / ADR-010 (the emission schedule), ADR-006 (fair-launch
and founder-mining disclosure), ADR-007 (no protocol revenue).
Context
MoonBite's emission was set in ADR-010: a 10 MBITE block subsidy, halving every 1,650,000 blocks (about 6.27 years at 2-minute spacing), summing to a hard cap just under 33,000,000 MBITE, with difficulty retargeting every 60 blocks and RandomX proof of work.
Alternatives were weighed for a coin that hopes to become valuable over time: a flatter/longer halving (spreads coins more evenly), and a tail emission (a small permanent block reward that keeps miners paid forever, at the cost of a fixed cap). The decision is to keep the Bitcoin-style fixed-cap model.
Decision
The emission schedule is fixed and will not be changed to chase a price. It stays exactly as ADR-010 defines it:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Block subsidy | 10 MBITE, halving every 1,650,000 blocks |
| Block time | 2 minutes |
| Supply cap | ~32,999,999.96 MBITE (hard) |
| Proof of work | RandomX (CPU-friendly, ASIC-resistant) |
Rationale: a credible, unchangeable, scarce schedule is what lets a market price the coin. Predictability is the asset. The network already adapts to value on its own — if MoonBite becomes valuable, more miners arrive, difficulty rises, and security scales up without any rule change; if it stays small, difficulty falls and blocks still come every 2 minutes.
This is honestly front-loaded: roughly half of all coins are mined in the first ~6.3 years, and early solo mining (disclosed in ADR-006) accrues a large share cheaply. That is inherent to the halving model and is accepted, not hidden.
Miners earn two ways (no third, ever)
1. Block subsidy — new coins, on the schedule above. 2. Transaction fees — the fees of the transactions in the block.
There is no premine, no dev tax, no protocol fee (ADR-007). "Network fee" and "miner fee" are the same thing, and it goes entirely to whoever mines the block.
The one long-term risk, and the contingency
As halvings shrink the subsidy toward zero, miners must be paid by transaction fees or network security weakens. The plan is to grow real usage so fee revenue replaces the subsidy over time (Bitcoin's bet).
Tail emission is a documented fallback, not a commitment. If, by the time the subsidy has become small, fee revenue has not grown enough to secure the chain, a small permanent tail emission may be adopted — but only through a new ADR, announced in advance, never silently. Until such an ADR exists, the cap is hard and final.
Consequences
- No code or genesis change: the chain already implements this schedule.
- The fixed-cap, hard-scarcity narrative is the official one.
- Any future change to emission requires a new ADR and public notice; there is
no discretionary path to alter it.