1
Calculate your k
Your pricing constant Use your current MRR, or your best honest estimate if you’re still early. If you haven’t charged a single customer yet, use the floor:
k anchors token price to your business scale using the formula:k = 0.005. The floor exists so that pre-revenue tokens aren’t priced at zero — they carry a small but real value from day one.For example, if your MRR is 3,000, the floor applies and k = 0.005.See Choosing k for a full breakdown of how different MRR levels map to k values.2
Set your revenue share (α)
Alpha (
α) is the fraction of every revenue event that flows to token holders as distributions. The typical range is 10–30%. You keep the remaining (1 - α) as retained revenue.Think carefully about what portion of long-term revenue you want flowing to contributors. A higher α signals stronger commitment to the people who help grow your business. A lower α keeps more revenue available for reinvestment.This number is immutable after launch — there is no mechanism to change it, ever. See Revenue Share for a full guide on picking the right value.3
Pre-mint your treasury
At launch, you receive a pool of pre-minted treasury tokens. These tokens exist on day one but are inert — they do not participate in distributions and carry no payout obligations until you grant them to contributors.The treasury is the cold-start solution to a fundamental problem: before revenue exists, you have no way to issue tokens through normal earning. The treasury gives you something to hand to the people who helped you before you had a single paying customer.The size of your treasury determines how many grants you can make before revenue-based earning takes over. Plan ahead — once the treasury is depleted, new tokens can only be earned through the contribution formula.
4
Launch
Your Vibe Token system initializes with:
- Circulating supply:
S = Smin = 1,000 - Token price:
P = k × √1,000
k = 0.01, your launch price is P = 0.01 × 31.62 ≈ $0.316 per token. At k = 0.005, it’s P = 0.005 × 31.62 ≈ $0.158 per token.From this point forward, price grows as supply grows along the bonding curve P = k × √S.5
Make your first grant
Don’t wait. Assign treasury tokens to your earliest contributors right away — the people who told others about your product before it was ready, tested it when it was rough, referred your first customers, or helped shape what it became.Early grants reward the contributions that are hardest to compensate any other way. Once granted, those tokens enter circulation and start earning distributions from every future revenue event.Your first grant is also a signal: it shows future contributors that you take the system seriously and that early effort is recognized.
Both
k and α are permanent and cannot be changed after launch. There is no admin override, no upgrade path, and no exception process. Set them based on your current business reality, not on optimistic projections.Choosing k
How to calculate the right pricing constant for your MRR tier, and what happens if you get it wrong.
Revenue Share
A deep dive on setting α — the permanent percentage of revenue that flows to your contributors.