#数字资产市场动态 That day we discussed the total supply design of ASTER, and a friend suddenly frowned: "80 billion tokens? How crazy must that issuance be?" He flipped through the data, with a puzzled tone, "Back then, ETH didn't have a cap, and BNB only issued 200 million. Why do all these new projects play with such massive issuance?"

Having been in the crypto space for years, I’ve both fallen into the trap of scarce tokens and benefited from tokens with high circulation. To be honest, high issuance now is definitely not random inflation—every decision is backed by market and technical logic.

**Token models have already iterated.** Seven years ago, when the crypto market was just starting, packaging tokens as "scarce" could attract investors—ETH controls supply through PoS mechanisms, BNB creates scarcity through burning and buybacks. But to support a truly ecological project? Relying solely on "low supply" isn’t enough. ASTER directly distributes over half of its tokens to the community, leaving 20% for developer incentives. This is about "co-creation" rather than "pump and dump."

In fact, market competition has also driven this change. I’ve seen many investors attracted by tokens with only a few million tokens issued, only to be wiped out by large holders dumping. Conversely, projects like ASTER with ample circulating supply allow both retail and institutional participation, making valuation harder to manipulate. In a red ocean market, they tend to be more stable.

**On the technical side, there are also hard requirements.** Next-generation public chains need to handle massive transactions in seconds and support micro-payment ecosystems. Tokens are not only the network’s fuel but also need to support staking and governance voting. Setting the total supply too small simply won’t work—look at XRP, which issued 100 billion tokens, to adapt to cross-border small-value transfers. Otherwise, each transfer would need to be precise to several decimal places, ruining user experience.

More importantly, risk management strategies have been upgraded. Early projects had 70-80% of tokens locked by ICO investors, and once the main holders cashed out, the project would crash. New projects have learned to be smarter—distributing major portions to the community and using airdrops to build users, naturally reducing the risk of whale control. Plus, they all have mechanisms for token burning—ASTER’s revenue after launch is used for buybacks and burns, and BNB has already burned nearly one-fifth of its total supply. In essence, it’s "initial expansion, later tightening."

Later, I did some calculations. The 80 billion total supply of ASTER, with its ecosystem incentives, can sustain until next year—this is a carefully planned schedule.

**Now, looking at projects, you can’t just focus on the issuance number.** The two key dimensions are: whether the community and ecosystem distribution are reasonable, and whether there are sustainable burning or destruction mechanisms. The designs that balance "everyone has a share" and "value is not artificially inflated" are the ones that can stand the test.