CKB, an abbreviation of CKBytes, is the native token of Nervos Common Knowledge Base blockchain. One CKB entitles one byte of data storage on the blockchain, and is used to pay transaction and computation fees.

1. The Utility of CKB

All applications running on Nervos Common Knowledge Base blockchain need to pay the state storage rent to miners in terms of CKB, and the CKB being occupied forego the annual inflation rewards from the secondary issuance.

E.g. Mid-sized app,1000 lines of code,50 bytes/line,$0.01/CKByte

It would be $500 for upfront state storage cost if they were to purchase the CKB.

This is comparable to what Internet startups would pay for cloud computing services in the early stage.

Alternatively, they can rent CKB for months or a year to test the water and only invest to purchase permanent storage when there's traction. That would cost about $10 a month.

Beyond that - say the CKB price goes another 100x from there, it likely then be used more for global settlement and the bulk of application logic would then move to upper layers.

2. Token Economics

CKB issuance is made up of three parts:

  1. Genesis Block

A total of 33.6 billion CKB is created in the genesis block:

35.5% sold via token sales + 25% burned on mainnet launch + 17% reserved for a ecosystem fund + 15% owned by team (check token distribution for details)

  1. Base issuance (block/mining rewards) A total of 33.6 billion CKB will be issued, with the amount issued halving every four years until reaching 0 new issuance. It's the same as Bitcoin’s issuance model.

16.8 billion CKBytes— first four years

8.4 billion CKBytes— following four years...

  1. Secondary issuance 1.344 billion CKB is issued annually. Based on CKB usage, these rewards are distributed to miners, Nervos DAO depositors and a treasury fund (which is being burned until the ecosystem fund in the genesis block is depleted).

Learn more details→ Nervos’s token-economic paper: