The staking information around Gods Unchained and Immutable can get pretty confusing really fast, both because people tend to mix up the two, but also because the staking percentage values repeat and come from several different sources. Starting from a Discord discussion, I collected information, references and wrote up one article for each token for my own use but hopefully also to help clarify things for you guys. I will be updating this article as new information comes out.
Initial distribution and circulating supply
If you owned any GU cards last year, you probably received an airdrop of IMX tokens, as part of the initial launch of the token. Some projects like VyWorls were also giving out IMX as rewards, and there have been other giveaways, too. There is of course the possibility to always buy more on crypto markets.
The first source of information on IMX staking is the IMX Tokenomics Portal. The portal is updated monthly. There you can check for example the Supply Schedule or the Staking Rewards. Another important source of information is the Immutable X Whitepaper.
The supply schedule is also detailed in the IMX Tokenomics Portal. This pertains to tokens that were attributed to early investors or game projects with a lock period. A significant amount of tokens will be unlocked between the end of this year and 2023.
As a major unlock date approached in October, Immutable clarified how these unlocks would work and what to expect going forward. Essentially, they secured a commitment from major holders to re-lock their tokens for some more time. But still ~382m tokens were unlocked as of 7 October 2022 for Ecosystem Development grants and to cover the costs of the Trading Rewards program, as well as ~80m from the Immutable Foundation. Any changes to this should be updated via Twitter, Discord and also in the supply schedule page. Relevant to this is a Twitter thread
https://twitter.com/0xferg/status/1575452432834105344
- 0xferg
and this Discord announcement:
Around the same time, Immutable also released a clarification on the definition of 'Circulating Supply' in this blog post. The major point is that all tokens becoming unlocked but still unspent (ie, not in circulation, be able to be freely sold) will contribute to the 'Circulating Supply'.
CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko have been updated to reflect this definition change.
IMX Staking
Through the Portal you can find a Reward Calculator based on assumptions you input. For volume estimates you can check the aggregate values from https://immutascan.io/ or the Daily Volume Dashboard.
In July "manual staking" was enabled, where holders would just need to keep IMX on L2 and perform at least 1 trade per cycle (1 month initially, then every 2 weeks) to be eligible.
https://twitter.com/Immutable/status/1542019559234109440?s=20&t=0YIYJ19C9a1boL6dkXTcug
- Immutable
In September Immutable kicked off the staking rewards dashboard, where holders now need to lock their tokens while they are being staked. The dashboard also introduced a delay in requests for token releases to the end of each cycle, when they become available for use again (spending, withdrawal to L1 and trading, etc.). This helps mitigate sudden price fluctuations due to token dumping.
https://twitter.com/Immutable/status/1565490127690170368?s=20&t=rtnvC4_AqRU2qGFZw1SAdg
- Immutable
This official blog post from the 1st of September pretty much covers all the essentials about staking IMX. And this Reddit post explains the staking strategy.
- Staking rewards are collected from part of the 2% 'Protocol fee' Immutable charges for every transaction on L2. There is no inflationary token minting, all the staking rewards come from re-circulating existing tokens.
- 20% of those 2% protocol fees are converted to IMX and added to the staking pool (Whitepaper topic 6.1, pages 8-9).
- The minimum staking amount is 10 IMX.
- The address holding IMX must trade at least once per cycle on assets listed on L2. The cheapest option is to buy a GU card - some sell for just 1-2 cents of a dollar.
- Rewards are sent automatically to the staking address, not extra action is necessary. At the same time, you could also be receiving Trading Rewards in your account. Apart from the timing, it may be difficult to tell which is which, if the values are similar. Currently there isn't any webpage or tool to track and label the rewards being dropped to your address.
- While trading volume is low and many games are still in the development phase, Immutable is supplementing the rewards as necessary, with a goal of 5% annualized yield for 30% of stakeable supply staked. See the graph in the Reddit post for a detailed curve.
Additional rewards to stakers
Immutable is looking for more ways to reward stakers, potentially with airdrops. No details have been announced, but the Staking Dashboard page mentions "Exclusive drops/rewards for stakers from IMX projects" and a team member has mentioned the same possibility in Discord.
Token swapping on L2
Anyone wishing to buy or sell IMX on L2 can use Immutaswap, paying 5% in fees.