Avalanche Foundation outlines AVAX tokenomics framework at Summit 2026

The Avalanche Foundation used its Summit 2026 keynote to present a research agenda that could reshape how AVAX accrues value, with FrostLedger, the Foundation’s CIO, walking attendees through proposals aimed at tying on-chain economic activity directly back to the token that secures the network. The presentation, which closed out day one of the two-day event in New York City on September 16, centered on a framework the Foundation first published in July 2026. Its core logic follows three steps: measure ecosystem output, capture protocol-level value, and distribute it. The staking rewards cliff AVAX carries a hard-capped maximum supply of 720 million tokens. Every transaction fee paid on the network gets burned, creating persistent deflationary pressure on circulating supply. Staking rewards, meanwhile, are generated from a remaining genesis allocation rather than from newly minted tokens. That’s a design choice with a built-in expiration date. As the genesis pool depletes, validators will eventually need to be compensated through other means, or risk watching them leave for networks with better economics. The Foundation’s research agenda directly addresses this by exploring validat...