Aligned $ALIGN Tokenomics and Roadmap

Nine months after proposing Aligned, the Proof Verification Layer has reached its mainnet beta, bringing projects and users affordable and fast verification of zk-proofs. This marks the beginning of another phase, to keep developing and building zk-powered technologies. The Aligned Foundation presents $ALIGN, which will be used to accelerate Aligned’s roadmap and support its vision.

Aligned builds products aimed at reducing costs and latency associated with verifiable computation and increasing the throughput of blockchain systems by leveraging zk technologies. Its first product, the Proof Verification Layer, is built as an Actively Validated Service (AVS) on top of EigenLayer, providing significant cost savings for proof verification while significantly increasing throughput. It will be followed by other products and applications, further reducing costs and lowering the barrier to entry for zk-proof usage, thus enabling a new generation of applications with a greater focus on verifiability and security.

The development of Aligned would have not been possible without the pioneering work of engineers and researchers working on zk and blockchain technologies, along with the support of their communities. As we approach the $ALIGN token generation event (TGE), the Foundation wants to share the $ALIGN utility and token economics, which we hope will recognize and encourage the development, research, and adoption of zk and blockchain technology.

Token distribution

$ALIGN will have a total supply of 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) tokens, with an initial circulating supply of 3,000,000,000. The majority will be awarded to the community, aimed at recognizing early work and contributions and fostering the development of applications and products on top of Aligned, as well as to help fulfill the roadmap and long-term vision of Aligned.

• Ecosystem and Community: 44 %
• Foundation: 10%
• Team: 23.5 %
• Investors: 22.5 %

Token utility

$ALIGN is a key part of Aligned’s Proof Verification Layer’s design.

The token will be used in two ways:

1. Payment for the verification of proofs using Aligned with two payment options:
   1. Pay on demand: applications use $ALIGN to pay for verification on a per-proof basis. Fees are distributed to the Operators of the network.
   2. Subscription model: applications must stake $ALIGN to access unlimited verification for one month. At the end of the month, the staked tokens are distributed to the network.
2. Dual staking to secure the Aligned network. Stakers receive fees from the network as compensation.

Token distribution according to category

Ecosystem & Community: 44%

The Aligned Foundation will assign resources for initiatives that will foster the ecosystem and recognize the value of contributors in the Aligned Community and the overall Ethereum, Blockchain and ZK ecosystem. The first initiative has been live for the last couple of days, allowing developers, engineers and researchers, that have contributed to selected Open Source projects, to check if they are eligibly Aligned.

Core team members of Aligned are not eligible for any of these rewards.

59,09 % will be unlocked at launch. The remaining 40,91 % will unlock linearly on a monthly basis during the next 30 months.

Foundation: 10%

This will be used by the Aligned foundation to support the operations of the foundation, managing growth and development of Aligned, as well as funding applications, products, and community grants.

40,00% will be unlocked at launch. The remaining 60% will unlock linearly on a monthly basis during the next 30 months.

Team: 23.5%

This is reserved for the core team responsible for the early development of Aligned and the incredible delivery speed of its first product, involving engineering, research, marketing, ecosystem, business, and strategy teams.

40% will be unlocked after one year after launch. The remaining 60% will unlock linearly on a monthly basis during the next 18 months.

Investors: 22.5%

This is allocated to those providing early financial, strategic, and advisory support.

40% will be unlocked after one year after launch. The remaining 60% will unlock linearly on a monthly basis during the next 18 months.

Aligned Roadmap

After 9 months of work, we were able to launch the mainnet beta of the Proof Verification Layer, our first product. To reach this point, we went from the conceptualization of Aligned through the following stages:

• Cosmos Testnet (proof of concept)
• Testnet 1
• Testnet 2
• Security Audits
• Improving telemetry

The second testnet processed millions of proofs, with several operators, allowing us to analyze several aspects of the Proof Verification Layer. The mainnet beta is currently working with 35 operators and total restaked security of over 650,000 ETH (over 2 billion dollars at current market valuation). As mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is just the first step towards building several key products which solve problems that web3 developers face and which allow for the creation of a new generation of zk-powered apps. Our roadmap consists of three different products, and we have partnered with over 30 different projects with whom we can create several synergies.

Products

• Proof Verification Layer (mainnet beta)
• Proof Aggregation Layer (in development)
• zk-powered bridge (in development)

Proof Verification Layer

• Launch mainnet
• Reduce latency and enhance performance
• Cost reduction by optimizing batching and verification steps
• Improve the explorer
• Improve the design of the batcher service
• Add new proof systems (see our docs for the currently-supported verifiers)

Proof Aggregation Layer

• zk virtual machine
• Develop specialized circuits for recursive proof aggregation
• Aggregation service
• Testnet
• Audits
• Mainnet

Bridge

• Development of the bridge
• Testnet
• Audits
• Mainnet