# Token Allocations at Peer Projects - 2021 Q1

Please find the forum post linking to this document [here](https://gov.yearn.finance/t/token-allocations-at-peer-projects/9268/5).

Team token allocations

Projects such as Uniswap, Aave, Synthetix, Compound, 1inch, Curve, and Balancer hold anywhere from $300 million-$2.13 billion in tokens aside for team members, with the average being between $500-600 million. This is generally 20-30% of the total token allocation. Newer projects such as SushiSwap, Badger, CREAM, Harvest, and Cover vary more between teams, but allocate between 10-25% of token supply to their teams and early contributors.

It’s worth adding here that CREAM just rewarded 2 two Yearn strategists (@macarse and @SamPriestley) 700 CREAM each (~$133,000) for the significant work they’ve done on Iron Bank. This is very similar to the 10,000 BADGER (~$150,000) that was allocated for developer mining during the first month for Badger, most (or all?) of which is going to Yearn strategist @andy8052.

And just in case anyone is unclear about this—I’m not tagging them to say “they’ve already been paid”, I’m doing it to point out that other protocols are very happy to compensate them for their expertise, and as such may endanger our ability to retain such talent.
Treasury/operations token allocations

While the numbers vary here more widely, most of the major projects still have significant token amounts set aside for operations. Uniswap is on the high end with $4 billion, Aave, Synthetix, Balancer, and 1inch all have between $200-$570 million, and likely other projects without any tokens set aside for operations have ample funding from investors (Curve and Compound).

Newer projects set aside around 10% of token allocation to operations and protocol improvements (or more, in the case of Badger). Badger also has specific incentives targeting strategists, which may be problematic to Yearn since (at least to start) they have essentially forked our vaults with an emission token on top.

### Team token allocations

Projects such as Uniswap, Aave, Synthetix, Compound, 1inch, Curve, and Balancer hold anywhere from $300 million-$2.13 billion in tokens aside for contributors, with the average being between $500-600 million. This is generally 20-30% of the total token allocation. Newer projects such as SushiSwap, Badger, CREAM, Harvest, and Cover vary more between protocols, but allocate between 10-25% of token supply to their teams and early contributors.

It's worth adding here that CREAM just [rewarded](https://forum.cream.finance/t/add-cream-developer-grant-program-to-reward-key-contributors/584) two Yearn strategists (@macarse and @SamPriestley) 700 CREAM each (~$133,000) for the significant work they've done on Iron Bank. This is very similar to the 10,000 BADGER (~$150,000) that was allocated for developer mining during the first month for Badger, most (or all?) of which is going to Yearn strategist @andy8052.

And just in case anyone is unclear about this—I'm not tagging them to say "they've already been paid", I'm doing it to point out that other protocols are *very* happy to compensate them for their expertise, and as such may endanger our ability to retain such talent.

### Treasury/operations token allocations
While the numbers vary here more widely, most of the major projects still have significant token amounts set aside for operations. Uniswap is on the high end with $4 billion, Aave, Synthetix, Balancer, and 1inch all have between $200-$570 million, and likely other projects without any tokens set aside for operations have ample funding from investors (Curve and Compound).

Newer projects set aside around 10% of token allocation to operations and protocol improvements (or more, in the case of Badger). Badger also has specific incentives targeting strategists, which may be problematic to Yearn since (at least to start) they have essentially forked our vaults with an emission token on top.

## Team token allocations
### DeFi "blue chips" (Around a while or very major players)
**Uniswap** - $2.13 billion
**Aave** - $570 million
**Synthetix** - $300 million (with lots of inflation since original allocation)
**Compound** - $515 million

### DeFi "light blue chips" (Newer or smaller players)
**1inch** - $675 million
**Curve** - At least $136 million for "team", but $1.36 billion more for "team and investors"
**Balancer** - $515 million

### DeFi "new kids" (much newer, products of DeFi summer)
**SushiSwap** - SUSHI included in salary with USDC, 15% signing bonus in SUSHI. $300k total salary for Senior Ops/Devs, $200k for junior ops/devs, $250k for senior designer/comms, $150k for junior designer/comms, $120k for community manager
**Harvest** - $15 million to team (20%)
**Cover** - $1.1 million for core devs, $750k for tech advisor, $300k for community manager/ops, $150k for industry advisor. 12% of tokens reserved for team originally.
**CREAM** - $125 million to team (23%)
**BADGER** - $15 million BADGER (5%) and $14 million DIGG (10%) to early contributors, $32 million BADGER (10%) and $7 million DIGG (5%) to founding team
**YAM** - Like SushiSwap, salary based. Core team salaries vary from $6k to $11.6k per month, and include 1500-2500 YAM on top that is vested for 1 Year. YAM holds 1.7 million YAM (~$4.4m) in reserves for contributors.

**Summary:** Here, we can see that larger players have ~$500 million reserved for team growth and incentives, with Uniswap being the clear exception. It's tough to gauge exactly how much some newer protocols are granting to their contributors, but it seems to be between 10-25% of token supply. ~~0xMaki was proposed to receive a large amount of SUSHI initially as well (1 million SUSHI, not sure if this went through or was amended)~~ (Maki clarified on the forum post that this was 200k SUSHI at a time when it was $1.25). Although Badger's compensation is on the lower end, they also have significant reserves under operations to reward developers.

## Protocol/operations token allocations
While this is a bit tougher to nail down what exactly some of these funds may be used for, thought I'd add it as well.

### DeFi "blue chips" (Around a while or very major players)
**Uniswap** - $4 billion for "community governance treasury"
**Aave** - $570 million printed upon LEND -> AAVE migration for "ecosystem reserve"
**Synthetix** - $300 million to "Foundation, Partnership incentives, and bounties & marketing"
**Compound** - N/A, no token allocation (but likely funding from investors)

### DeFi "light blue chips" (Newer or smaller players)
**1inch** - $435 million, also 1inch is bringing in ~$30 million in gov fees each year after payouts to stakers
**Curve** - N/A, no token allocation (but likely funding from investors)
**Balancer** - $210 million total for "ecosystem fund" and "partner fund". Also $3.4m per week in BAL emissions

### DeFi "new kids" (much newer, products of DeFi summer)
**SushiSwap** - 10% to dev/operations fund, ~$175 million
**Harvest** - $7.5 million to operations (10%)
**Cover** - 950 COVER tokens + 0.1% of protocol fees for the [treasury](https://etherscan.io/address/0x859eefc267671595d987d0f6589d7771d4877113) & a separate team donation [fund](https://etherscan.io/address/0xc698645b5c5b662b52a5a5c092804f23e3f5b4c5) for future growth
**CREAM** - $335 million set aside for early liquidity mining but also "treasury" moving forward. CREAM also just [rewarded](https://forum.cream.finance/t/add-cream-developer-grant-program-to-reward-key-contributors/584) two Yearn strategists (@macarse and @SamPriestley) 700 CREAM each (~$133,000) for the significant work they've done on Iron Bank.
**BADGER** - $126 million in BADGER (35%) total, $56 million in DIGG (40%), with a special "developer mining" allocation that is $47 million in BADGER (15% of supply), currently paying this on top of normal 50% of fees to strategists (and Yearn strategist Andy is working with them). First month paid 10,000 BADGER ($150,000) to strategists as part of developer mining.
**YAM** - Treasury holds $2.4 million primarily in yUSD and DPI

**Summary:** While the numbers vary here much more widely, most of the major projects still have significant token amounts set aside for operations (several hundred million $, or for smaller projects at least 10% of token supply), and likely others without any have ample funding from investors (Curve and Compound). BADGER also has specific incentives targeting strategists, which may be problematic to Yearn since (at least to start) they have essentially forked vaults with an emission token on top.