How the cost of entry grows: a curve, then a rate
The cost of entry is the one number the contract sets directly. It is worth knowing exactly how it is set, because everything else is a consequence.
Phase 1: a curve, not a decision
For the first hundred million coins the cost of entry is a function of how many coins exist. Deposit while eighty million are outstanding and the price is what the curve says at eighty million — not what anyone decided that morning.
The curve runs from a tenth of a cent to two hundred dollars, and it is published in full. There is no governance over it. No vote can raise it, lower it, pause it or bend it, which means Phase 1 has no parameter for anyone to argue about.
One detail matters for anyone doing the arithmetic: a purchase of many coins integrates along the curve rather than paying the entry price for all of them. Buying a large block costs more than the quoted price times the quantity, because the price rises underneath the purchase as it fills.
Phase 1 ends when the curve reaches two hundred dollars, or earlier if holders vote to end it. The early exit exists because a hundred million coins is a long road and a community may have reason not to walk all of it.
Phase 2: a rate, chosen from a ladder
After the curve there is no supply schedule left, so the cost of entry grows with time instead. The contract recomputes it continuously — per second, not in blocks or steps — because any step size large enough to notice is also large enough to trade against.
The rate is not a free number. It takes values from a fixed ladder: 5.6, 9, 14.5, 23.6, 38.2, 50, 61.8, 100 and 161.8 per cent a year. The spacing is 1.618 across most of the ladder, with the 50 per cent rung added for smoother movement in the middle, where the rate spends most of its life.
Phase 2 begins at the lowest rung. From there the rate is moved either by the regulator, which probes the ladder in response to inflow, or directly by holders when the community takes the rate into its own hands. The switch between the two is reversible and the rate in force survives it.
Why a ladder rather than a dial
A continuous rate would be a continuous argument. Every cycle would invite a vote on a hundredth of a per cent, and a weighted median over a continuum is fragile to fragmentation.
Nine rungs make the vote a choice between named things. It also makes the regulator’s search finite: a full pass through the ladder is eight probes, about eleven months, and if inflow has not resumed at any rung the protocol returns to the lowest and hands control to the holders. A failed pass is a conclusion, not a fault — it means inflow is falling for reasons the rate does not touch.
What these numbers are and are not
Two hundred dollars and 161.8 per cent a year are ceilings on the cost of entry. They describe how expensive entry may become, and they say nothing about what a holder receives.
The cost of entry forms the upper edge of the corridor: above it, minting new coins is cheaper than buying old ones, so there is little reason to pay more. The lower edge is backing per coin, held up by redemption being always open. The market price sits between them, moved by the market, and it can fall.
The two edges move for unrelated reasons. The upper one rises because the contract says so. The lower one rises when expensive positions close and when fees land in the pool. Neither one pushes the price; they bound it.