AtlasProtocol economics
Atlas/THORChain
Cross-chain DEX · RUNE / TCY

THORChain

One fee stream, six economically different destinations.

Fees paid by users · 30dObserved
$596.9K

Open adapter total: liquidity fees, net outbound network fees, and affiliate fees; RUNE block rewards excluded.

Gross protocol income · 30dObserved
$86.5K

Adapter classification includes the RUNE burn, net outbound income, developer fund, and marketing fund.

Token-holder value · 30dObserved
$28.5K

Value attributed to the 5% RUNE burn. TCY distributions are supplier payments in the adapter taxonomy and are not included here.

Incentives / emissions · 30dSource conflict
Not available

The adapter reports $0.42 for 30 days while official documentation describes an emission schedule from the Reserve. Treating $0.42 as complete would be misleading.

Money flow

Follow $100 of system income

The fixed outer allocation is known. The internal split of the 75% security-and-liquidity share changes with the incentive pendulum.

$100System income under the current documented fixed distribution
75% · Nodes + liquidity providers

Dynamic split set by the incentive pendulum

Curated rule
10% · TCY holders

Direct RUNE distribution to staked TCY

Curated rule
5% · RUNE holders

RUNE removed from supply

Curated rule
5% · Developer fund

Earmarked contributor funding

Curated rule
5% · Marketing

Earmarked ecosystem marketing

Curated rule

Read before comparing: This is a rule map, not the observed 30-day recipient statement. Affiliate fees and inbound base-chain gas use separate paths.

Normalized statement

The same questions,
even when answers differ.

“Not available” is a result, not a blank. Atlas refuses to convert missing costs or conflicting emissions into a zero.

Economic line30-day valueEvidenceInterpretation
Fees paid by users (30d)$596.9KObserved

Open adapter total: liquidity fees, net outbound network fees, and affiliate fees; RUNE block rewards excluded.

Gross protocol income (30d)$86.5KObserved

Adapter classification includes the RUNE burn, net outbound income, developer fund, and marketing fund.

Net protocol revenue (30d)Not availableNot available

The snapshot does not expose every direct gas and operating cost on a matching basis.

Token-holder value (30d)$28.5KObserved

Value attributed to the 5% RUNE burn. TCY distributions are supplier payments in the adapter taxonomy and are not included here.

Liquidity-provider income (30d)Not availableNot available

The published aggregate does not isolate the LP share after the incentive pendulum and other fee components.

Validator / node income (30d)Not availableNot available

Node income is dynamic and mixes fee-funded and reserve-funded rewards; a reconciled 30-day recipient amount was not retained in this snapshot.

Incentives and emissions (30d)Not availableSource conflict

The adapter reports $0.42 for 30 days while official documentation describes an emission schedule from the Reserve. Treating $0.42 as complete would be misleading.

Treasury income (30d)Not availableNot available

Development, marketing, Reserve, and other protocol-controlled flows are not presented as one reconciled treasury figure.

Accounting-style profit (30d)Not availableNot available

Off-chain contributor, infrastructure, and operating costs are not available on a matching 30-day basis.

DEX volume (30d)$431MObserved

Total USD value of swaps sourced by the adapter from Midgard.

Liquidity / TVL$54.5MObserved

Current multi-chain pool value reported by the open adapter.

Token value capture

Mixed: required settlement/security utility, burn, and a separate revenue-share token

RUNE is required inside pools and node bonds, and 5% of documented system income is burned. TCY, not RUNE, receives the explicit 10% direct revenue share.

Do not overstate it: A RUNE burn may benefit holders through reduced supply, but it is not cash distributed to an individual holder. TCY has no governance rights according to the protocol documentation.
SustainabilityMixed funding

What keeps it working?

Real swap activity funds a meaningful share of the system, but the exact balance between fees, Reserve emissions, participant costs, and the post-debt TCY claim is not fully visible in one statement.

Participants

Who provides what—and takes which risk?

Swappers

Receives
Native cross-chain execution
Provides
Liquidity, network, affiliate, and chain gas fees
Key risk
Price impact and routing fees rise with liquidity conditions.

Liquidity providers

Receives
Liquidity fees plus a dynamic system-income share
Provides
Native asset and RUNE liquidity
Key risk
Inventory rebalancing, asset volatility, and protocol/security risk.

Node operators

Receives
Dynamic rewards and fee share
Provides
Bonded RUNE, chain infrastructure, and threshold-signature security
Key risk
Slashing, hardware costs, and RUNE price exposure.

TCY holders

Receives
10% of documented system income in RUNE
Provides
A long-dated claim created during debt resolution
Key risk
Revenue variability, token liquidity, and protocol survival.
Governance surface

Which levers move the money?

Parameters matter because recipient outcomes can change while the headline fee or volume looks unchanged.

Model a change
01

Slip fee floors and outbound multiplier

Dynamic Mimir parameters by chain and asset

Changes user cost, protocol overhead, and LP income without changing every fixed distribution share.

Network governance through Mimir
02

Incentive pendulum

Targets a 2:1 bond-to-pool ratio

Moves the 75% participant allocation between security and liquidity as network conditions change.

Protocol algorithm and software parameters
Assessment

Strengths, dependencies, unknowns.

Strengths

  • Native cross-chain demand creates observable fees.
  • Outbound fee logic is designed to recover chain gas over time.
  • The incentive mechanism responds to the security/liquidity balance.

Dependencies

  • Sufficient RUNE bond value relative to pooled assets.
  • Continued native swap volume and competitive execution.
  • Liquidity-provider returns that remain attractive after inventory risk.

Still unknown

  • Reconciled current node-versus-LP recipient totals.
  • Complete 30-day Reserve emissions and operating costs.
  • How TCY obligations change capital allocation over a full market cycle.
Model history

The rules changed.
The chart should remember.

TCY revenue share added

TCY was introduced during the ThorFi debt resolution and given a 10% share of network revenue, materially changing who receives system income.

RUNE burn isolated as holder revenue

The open adapter classifies only the 5% RUNE burn as value accruing to every RUNE holder and treats TCY as a separate supplier claim.

Source ledger

Trace the claim.

Rules come from protocol documentation or governance. Amounts come from official APIs or inspectable open adapters. Each has a different job.

02
Economic model

THORChain · Official docs

incentive pendulum · emissions · security target
04
THORChain fees

THORChain · Official docs

fee types · fee purpose · Mimir parameters