Your Token Sucks Because It Was Designed to Fail (Fix It, or Die Trying)

Welcome to the new cycle, where your favorite altcoin doesn’t 10x overnight and memecoins outperform your “groundbreaking” DeFi protocol. Tough luck.

If you're a builder, this sucks even more. You spend months crafting a killer product, get hyped-up feedback from testnet users, launch your TGE...and then? Nothing. Crickets. Nobody cares.

Why? Because your tokenomics is trash.

Sure, macro conditions, narratives, and marketing matter. But let’s be real—does your token even deserve to go up? Or is it just another exit liquidity event waiting to happen?

Let’s rip the Band-Aid off and dive into why most token designs are fundamentally broken—and what we, as builders, need to do to fix this mess.

The Tokenomics Playbook is Outdated

The fact that people would rather hold Shiba Inu over your carefully designed utility token should tell you something: your incentives are misaligned.

Here’s what’s wrong with most token models today:

1. Liquidity Mining = Exit Scam in Slow Motion
2. Airdrops Reward the Wrong People
3. High FDV + Low Circulating Supply = Guaranteed Pain
4. No Revenue Sharing = No Reason to Hold

Let’s break it down.

1. Liquidity Mining Is a Suicide Pact

No serious business gives away equity for free—so why do so many DeFi projects vomit tokens into the market like they’re worth nothing?

The logic behind liquidity mining was simple: reward users for providing liquidity. But what actually happened?

• Users farm tokens.
• They sell.
• Protocol gets drained.
• Price collapses.
• Repeat until death.

Liquidity mining is a race to the bottom unless you have mechanisms to retain value within the system. If the team treats the token like an endless supply of confetti, why would anyone else treat it differently?

Solution: Instead of endless handouts, sell tokens at a discount to actual users who care (more on this later).

2. Vanilla Airdrops Are Just Exit Liquidity for Mercenaries

Airdrops aren’t inherently bad. But most projects structure them horribly—they end up rewarding short-term speculators instead of actual users.

The cycle is painfully predictable:

1. People farm the airdrop by doing the bare minimum.
2. Tokens get distributed.
3. They dump instantly.
4. Project dies.

Real users get nothing. The protocol retains zero loyalty.

Compare that to Hyperliquid or Kaito, which rewarded actual users—traders and writers already engaged in the ecosystem. They redirected organic behavior instead of creating artificial hype.

Solution: If you must airdrop, reward actual usage, not engagement farming.

3. High FDV + Low Circulating Supply = Guaranteed Bloodbath

We’ve all seen it: A project raises $50M+, launches with a ridiculous FDV, and only a tiny fraction of the supply is in circulation.

What happens next?

• Retail FOMO pumps the price
• Early investors dump as unlocks hit
• Token bleeds for months

Meanwhile, the protocol team watches in horror as their “game-changing” project turns into exit liquidity for early whales.

If your fully diluted valuation (FDV) is out of sync with actual market demand, you’re just building a slow-motion rug pull.

Solution: Align unlocks with actual user demand (not a pre-set vesting schedule).

4. No Revenue Sharing = No Reason to Hold

The biggest problem with most tokens? They exist for no reason.

Governance? Nobody cares.
“Utility”? Weak.
Just vibes? Might as well hold a JPEG.

If your token doesn’t share revenue, doesn’t accrue value, and doesn’t provide actual financial incentives to hold—why would anyone hold it?

The best models reward stakers, validators, and real users with actual revenue.

Look at Aerodrome, Pharaoh, and Shadow Exchange—they reward stakers with real fees. People stake because they get paid to do so. This creates demand for the token and keeps it out of the hands of short-term flippers.

Solution: If your token doesn’t capture value, it doesn’t deserve to exist.

So, How Do We Fix This?

Simple: Demand-Based Unlocks + No Free Handouts.

Instead of dumping tokens into circulation on a time-based vesting schedule, only release them when there is actual demand.

This means:

• No free liquidity mining → Instead, allow users to purchase tokens at a discount, ensuring only committed participants buy.
• No blind airdrops → Reward users for real, sustained engagement.
• No pre-set unlock schedules → Release supply only when demand exists.

Who’s Already Doing This Right?

Some of the smartest minds in crypto have already spoken about this problem:

🔹 Luigi DeMeo has been vocal about how uncontrolled emissions ruin token models. His take? Stop dumping supply on people who don’t care.

🔹 Vitalik Buterin literally tweeted that protocols should sell tokens at a discount instead of handing them out.

🔹 Andre Cronje proposed “Options as Rewards” — giving liquidity providers the right to buy tokens at a discount instead of getting them for free. This way, rewards have value only if the project succeeds.

At Aconomy, we’re solving this with a demand-driven economy for real-world assets (RWAs).

Final Take: Fix It or Fade Into Obscurity

For years, altcoins have suffered from shitty token models.

• Liquidity mining killed incentives.
• Airdrops rewarded exit liquidity.
• High FDV crushed upside.
• No revenue-sharing made tokens pointless.

The solution isn’t “less incentives” but better incentives—ones that align long-term participation with actual value accrual.

This means:
✅ Shifting from time-based unlocks to demand-based unlocks.
✅ Selling tokens at a discount instead of handing them out.
✅ Incorporating real revenue-sharing to drive sustainable demand.

This isn’t rocket science. It’s common sense.

If you’re building, fix your tokenomics before it’s too late—because nobody cares about your protocol if your token goes to zero.

Thoughts?