Published by Radix Publishing Limited on behalf of Radix Tokens (Jersey) Limited
The primary objective of Radix Tokens (Jersey) Limited (“RTJL”), a subsidiary of the Radix Foundation, is to ensure the appropriate use of their Radix Tokens (XRD) treasury to achieve the further use, development, understanding, and adoption of the Radix Public Network.
Given the significant time and progress made since the release of the Radix Economics White Paper on the 30th of October 2020, the directors of RTJL believe it is now appropriate to provide an update on current activities, spends, and holdings of XRD
Looking ahead, fueled by the successful upgrade to Babylon, RTJL is excited about the emerging DeFi ecosystem on the Radix Network and they are focused on supporting the ecosystem and network growth.
To ensure sufficient resources to support the next phase of ecosystem growth, RTJL will continue to carefully sell its holdings, via regulated intermediaries and strategic OTC, with the aim to support the growth of both users and developers on the Radix Public Network, while continuing to allocate funding to ongoing development of the core Radix technologies.
2020 Holdings
The above pie chart shows the prospective distribution of Radix (XRD) tokens as of the Radix Economics White Paper, dated 30th of October 2020.
The Founder Reserve were the 2.4Bn XRD tokens retained by RDX Works Ltd (formally Radix DLT Ltd), a core developer of the Radix Network source code, which had funded and developed the RADIX technology prior to the completion of the E-RADIX Token Sale in November 2020, and continues to work on the development of the Radix ledger and other related services today.
The Stable Coin Reserve were the 2.4Bn XRD tokens retained as indefinitely locked tokens by RTJL.
RTJL was the recipient of circa 3.36 billion XRD. These tokens represent the put aside costs to cover development, security, network subsidies, developer incentives, awareness programs, liquidity programs, marketing expenditure, and other operational, legal, and advisory expenses.
In the Radix Economics White Paper, these were broken out into the following main three buckets1:
Lastly, the “Community” section of the pie chart represents all other balances of tokens not outlined above, including the “Token Sale” tokens, the “Community” tokens, and the “Liquidity Incentive” tokens, plus any other relevant emissions, incentives or balances not included in the other allocated buckets.
1 Note the “Marketing” bucket in the original White Paper has been grouped under “General” here as it was broken out in the Economics White Paper as it was subject to a different unlock schedule, which is now no longer relevant.
2024 Holdings
The above pie chart shows the distribution, based on the same allocation categories as prior, but updated to the best knowledge of the RTJL board, as of February 2024.
The Founder Reserve has been reduced to 2.25Bn XRD, as RDX Works Ltd completed two distributions of 75m XRD to its shareholders (as per this public statement) before pausing distributions until further notice.
The Stable Coin Reserve is untouched at 2.4Bn XRD.
As of February 2024, RTJL's holdings stand at approximately 2.21 billion XRD. This financial foundation, plus additional accrued cash and crypto reserves, empowers RTJL to co-ordinate and pursue ambitious ecosystem support plans for the coming year.
This balance can be further broken down into the following buckets:
These holdings are not just numbers; they represent RTJL’s capacity to support Radix's future by paying for further technology development, community initiatives, grants and marketing efforts aimed at supporting and helping the ecosystem and community thrive.
Expenditure
Over the last three years, RTJL has approved expenditure amounting to approximately £24 million to fuel the growth and development of the Radix Public Network. This funding has catalyzed significant advancements in the Radix Public Network, setting a solid foundation for future growth and innovation.
For the period of Apr-2023 to Jan-2024, this expenditure has been broadly allocated as follows:
Ultimately, RTJL funds are being used to help make Radix more successful. Given the collective desire for people to hear about Radix, use it, bring assets into the ecosystem and to deliver great tech, then it is necessary to spend money raised from the sale of tokens.
Reflecting on the project journey so far, each milestone to the Babylon Upgrade has included a phenomenal amount of technology delivery and work. These milestones include: the release of a brand new programming language, Scrypto; an innovative new high performance, asset oriented VM, the Radix Engine; multiple wallets including desktop and mobile versions, with the current version already in the hands of tens of thousands of people; plus a myriad of critical services such as the Radix explorer, the Radix dashboard, The Radix gateway, the wallet SDK and much more besides.
Not only that, these milestones included key moments and events for the Radix community, such as APE NYC where the Scrypto 0.1 was revealed to the world, Dev Swarm events which brought over 250 developers from across Europe together in a shared Scrypto learning experience; RadFi 2022; multiple physical conference attendances, huge growth in the Radix Twitter presence, and more besides.
These are the building blocks to a thriving digital economy on top of Radix, not just the technology.
Given the magnitude of the vision, RTJL believes that the resources allocated to get to this point represent exceptional ROI - especially when compared to the significantly larger amounts of capital deployed by other L1 networks during this period.
Treasury Management Strategy
To sustain the development, marketing, and growth initiatives for the Radix Public Network, RTJL maintains a robust reserve of assets including fiat, stablecoins, and other major crypto assets. In order to responsibly rebalance the treasury, RTJL both conducts strategic OTCs and works with regulated entities in reputable jurisdictions, who in turn work with exchange partners to manage tokens into market.
However, the RTJL board is careful to balance spending on growth and development activities with prudent financial stewardship, as well as to give consideration to the macro environment and liquidity of XRD. The regulated entities who buy XRD from RTJL are under a contractual arrangement that commits them to market impact minimisation strategies. This means they are prohibited from any trading activity that could cause significant price movements and are held accountable by both RTJL, and the regulator.
The TLDR of this is - if you see a large sell order, coming into market and selling down the book of an exchange (aka “large red candles”) this will not be any of the regulated entities with whom Radix Tokens (Jersey) works with to manage their treasury and treasury strategy.
In practice, this means that tokens sold by these professional intermediaries are generally put on the order book as an offer away from the current traded market price, rather than as a market order. As a result, for the intermediary to sell inventory, the market price must move up the order book to buy the liquidity on offer - this is functionally similar to how a market maker operates on an order book, and helps improve the market liquidity of the Radix token, allowing new buyers to enter the market with less slippage and better pricing.
As part of RTJL’s fiduciary responsibility around the appropriate use of funds, their professional intermediaries regularly analyze the impact these strategies have on the wider XRD market. From this analysis, RTJL believes that the funding requirements (including payments made to RDX Works for development work carried out under contract) amount to a range of between 0 and 3 percent of daily volume, depending on how much this is supplemented with strategic OTC deals.
Furthermore, RTJL pauses all treasury management activities (strategic OTC or intermediary sales) during major announcements and milestones, as well as periodically pausing during other times to check market neutrality of the strategies.
While the RTJL board is planning a strategic increase in support for the Radix Ecosystem in 2024, they do not anticipate any major changes to the treasury management strategies, and will continue to work with regulated professionals and counterparties to develop and maintain a responsible management of our Radix (XRD) token position.
Governance
All RTJL budgetary actions are subject to majority approval of the board of directors. At this time, these directors are: Andy Jarrett, Lindsay Bracegirdle, James Cunningham-Davis, Piers Ridyard, and Dan Hughes.
To enhance governance and oversight, the Radix Foundation - RTJL's parent body - has welcomed two new non-executive directors to its board. This move strengthens the commitment to accountability, and the strategic use of funds in pursuit of the shared objectives of the Radix network. More about this can be found here.
In addition to the obligations imposed on these third parties to minimize market price impact, RTJL also has strict internal governance processes to ensure no employees trade any XRD without documented permission from the board to ensure there is no possibility of insider trading. Similar processes are required for major recipients of RTJL funds such as RDX Works Ltd.
2024 & Beyond
The launch of Babylon marked a pivotal moment, bringing together the full stack of Radix technology needed to seamlessly onboard users and developers onto the Radix Public Network. The successful upgrade saw the culmination of years of development around Radix Engine, Scrypto, and the Radix Wallet come to fruition.
Within months, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of dApps on Radix exceeded $20m, and 20+ projects were live on the network. Since then, the Radix Public Network has shown steady growth across weekly on-chain activity, wallet downloads, and interest from key partners.
Looking forward to 2024, RTJL believes that for Radix to succeed, it is essential that additional funds are allocated to help substantially accelerate the growth of Radix users, developers, dApps, and ecosystem as a whole. As part of this, RTJL have already provided a grant of $10m of XRD towards the launch of a liquidity campaign, Project Ignition, that is scheduled to go live on March 14th 2024. RTJL have also provided an allocation of 25m XRD (worth over $1m at the time of announcement) to be made available for developers and entrepreneurs building on the Radix Public Network, with more planned for later this year.
This is just the start, along with the incredible support of the wider Radix community, RTJL are already working to allocate additional resources to help support and accelerate the growth of the Radix ecosystem in 2024.