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The Railgun Economy

Three ways to
participate.

Be early. Support the network. Use the network.

Railgun is exploring a three-class digital economy designed around participation rather than ownership of the company.

Proposed architecture · not implemented

No ICO. No investor allocation. No hidden founder treasury.

ZRM-AGenesis Class

You were there.

ZRM-A would be reserved for the first 1,000,000 verified unique Railgun humans, and for nobody after them. The allocation decreases by exactly one ZRM-A for each Genesis position, so the position itself is the allocation.

allocation(n) = 1,000,001 − n

For Genesis human n: one million and one, minus their position.

  1. Genesis #11,000,000ZRM-A
  2. Genesis #2999,999ZRM-A
  3. Genesis #10,000990,001ZRM-A
  4. Genesis #500,000500,001ZRM-A
  5. Genesis #999,9992ZRM-A
  6. Genesis #1,000,0001ZRM-A

Genesis counter

Not yet active

Genesis positions are assigned only after verification exists. Until then there is no count to show, and we would rather show nothing than invent scarcity.

Awaiting verification

After the millionth verified Genesis human

Genesis closes forever.

There is no second cohort, no reopening, and no mechanism by which a Genesis position could be created later. Everyone who arrives afterwards participates through the other two classes.

Class A

Referral matching, one level deep

If a Genesis human joins through a qualifying direct referral, the person who directly referred them receives an identical ZRM-A allocation. Not a percentage of it — the same number.

A refers B

  1. B becomes Genesis #10,001+990,000 A
  2. A, the direct referrer, is matched+990,000 A

Then B refers C

  1. C receives C’s own allocationC’s position
  2. B, the direct referrer, is matchedmatched in full
  3. A, one step further backnothing
  • Direct referrals only.
  • One level. There are no downlines.
  • No multi-level percentages.
  • Nothing is earned from the people your referrals refer.
  • Qualification requires a verified unique human, plus whatever activation and anti-abuse criteria Railgun adopts.
  • A raw email signup alone does not create transferable economic value.

Referral allocations would be modelled as claims that can be rejected before final issuance, so duplicate and fraudulent referrals never become issued value in the first place.

Class A

The math is strangely perfect.

Two triangular sums sit underneath ZRM-A. Neither was chosen for its size. Add them and the answer is not approximately anything.

Base Genesis allocation

1,000,000 + 999,999 + … + 2 + 1

500,000,500,000

ZRM-A

Maximum referral matching

999,999 + 999,998 + … + 2 + 1

499,999,500,000

ZRM-A — one term shorter, because Genesis #1 cannot have a Genesis referrer.

Base Genesis allocation plus maximum referral matching equals one trillion ZRM-A.
500,000,500,000
plus 499,999,500,000
equals 1,000,000,000,000

ZRM-A, maximum

Why it closes

N(N + 1) / 2 + N(N − 1) / 2 = N²

The base allocations form a staircase of N rows. The referral matches form the staircase left over. Laid against each other they tile an N × N square exactly — no gap, no overlap. For a Genesis population of one million:

1,000,000² = 1,000,000,000,000

If every Genesis human after the first arrives through a qualifying direct referral, the maximum possible ZRM-A supply is exactly one trillion.

And if fewer people arrive through referrals, the unminted referral allocation simply never exists. One trillion is not a cap anyone imposed and it is not a target. It is the square of the Genesis population, and it is only reached if the founding million was entirely social.

Class A

Supply as a historical record

Because matching is only minted when a referral qualifies, the eventual ZRM-A total is a measurement of one thing: how much of the founding million arrived because another human brought them.

No qualifying referrals

500,000,500,000

Every Genesis human found Railgun alone. The floor.

Perfect direct-referral propagation

1,000,000,000,000

Everyone after the first was introduced by someone. The ceiling.

Anywhere between those two numbers is a real answer to a real question, and it can only be known afterwards.

The final supply is not chosen in advance. It records how Railgun grew.

Class A

Your Genesis number is not your balance

Holding ZRM-A and being a Genesis human are two different things. The ordinal is a historical fact about when you arrived, and it stays true regardless of what happens to any token afterwards.

Illustrative profile

GENESIS #18,722

Original allocation
981,279 A
Referral-earned
4,812,742 A
Current balance
—

An example of the shape of a profile, not a real account. No balances exist.

The badge is

  • Permanent.
  • Non-transferable.
  • A historical identity, not an asset.
  • Not an NFT.
  • Not purchasable, at any price, ever.

If ZRM-A ever becomes transferable, the tokens could move and the ordinal would not. Someone who sells every ZRM-A they hold is still Genesis #18,722. Someone who buys them is not.

Genesis is a record of when you showed up. Records do not change hands.

ZRM-BCommerce Class

You supported the network.

ZRM-B would be created by genuine settled economic activity inside Railgun. A subscription, a paid service, a top-up — money that actually kept the lights on.

Illustrative starting concept

As a way of picturing it: a user spends $30 on a Railgun subscription, and that settled spend creates a corresponding ZRM-B allocation under whatever issuance schedule is current at the time.

Early era

$1 settled spend → 1 B

Later eras

$1 settled spend → less

One dollar to one B is a way of explaining the idea, not a permanent rate. No rate is fixed, and none is promised.

Settled transactions only

A payment creates a ZRM-B claim when it settles, not when it is authorised. Refunds and chargebacks reverse the claim, so a reversed transaction cannot permanently create B.

Commerce, not ownership

B records that you paid for Railgun services. It is not a share of the company and not a claim on its revenue.

Issuance eras

A fixed rate forever would make B cheaper to acquire the longer Railgun runs, or more expensive — either way an arbitrage. A schedule that steps down as the network grows keeps early commerce meaningfully distinct from late commerce.

ZRM-B is not a guaranteed claim on dollars, and Railgun does not promise a fixed redemption value for it.

ZRM-CUsage Class

You actually used the network.

ZRM-C is intended to recognise genuine participation — the people who open Railgun every day and do real things in it.

Usage → Usage Score → C distribution

Activity feeds a score. The score determines a share of a fixed distribution for the epoch. No individual message, minute or character mints a token on its own — that design pays for volume, and volume is the easiest thing in the world to fake.

Possible usage signals

  • Qualified messages
  • Human-to-human meeting participant-minutes
  • Voice-channel activity
  • Transcription
  • Translation
  • AI processing
  • Streaming
  • Legitimate audience participation

What the score must enforce

  • Diminishing returns, so the thousandth action of a day is not the first.
  • Fixed, predictable emission epochs — the pool per epoch does not expand because usage did.
  • Verified-human weighting.
  • Anti-Sybil logic across accounts and devices.
  • Meaningful-activity requirements, so noise scores as noise.

You do not mine ZRM-C with GPUs. You earn it by actually participating in the network.

Why C is not B

A wealthy customer can generate a great deal of commerce activity without ever really using Railgun.

And the reverse

A broke university student who genuinely uses Railgun every day could accumulate substantial usage. Money and usage are deliberately separate measures.

The system

Three questions, three answers

The classes are not tiers of the same thing. Each answers a question the other two cannot.

Genesis

Were you there?

Finite. Genesis-only, and closed after one million verified humans.

A = history

Commerce

Did you support the network economically?

Activity tied to settled commerce.

B = commerce

Use

Did you actually participate?

Activity tied to legitimate network use.

C = participation

Consumer surface

Railgun Credits

None of this requires ordinary pricing to become speculative. Railgun can keep plain service credits alongside any of it.

  • Dollar-denominated.
  • Service credits, not a traded asset.
  • Non-speculative by construction.
  • Spendable on translation, transcription, AI, storage and the rest.

The test

A normal person should be able to buy $10 of Railgun service with Apple Pay or a card, and never learn what a blockchain, a wallet, a liquidity pool or a token exchange is. If they have to, the product failed — not the user.

Blockchain underneath. Consumer product on top.

Privacy

One human, not one email address

A Genesis allocation has to correspond to a unique human. An email address is not a human — it is a string anyone can mint a thousand of in an afternoon.

Prove one thing: that you are one unique human who has not claimed Genesis before.

Not who you are. Not where you live. Not a document scan retained forever. The goal is to establish uniqueness and then keep as little as possible — ideally nothing that identifies you afterwards.

No verification system is implemented today
  • Multiple Railgun accounts must not mean multiple Genesis allocations.
  • Account recovery must recover an existing Genesis identity, never create a second one.
  • A Genesis position is assigned only after the verification threshold is met — not at signup.
  • Anti-bot and anti-Sybil systems are not optional: transferable value is exactly the thing that makes signup systems worth attacking.

Railgun has not selected an identity provider, and privacy-preserving proof-of-personhood is a research area, not a checkbox. Nothing here describes a system that exists in a Railgun product today.

Exploratory

If there is a chain at all

The current architectural preference is Solana, for reasons that are about consumer ergonomics rather than ideology.

  • High-throughput consumer transactions.
  • Very low transaction fees.
  • Room for Railgun to sponsor fees, so a normal user never has to understand gas.
  • A mature token and payment ecosystem to build against.

What is not true

  • ZRM is not deployed to Solana, or to any other chain.
  • There is no token contract, and therefore no address.
  • There is no wallet connection anywhere in a Railgun product.
  • The choice of network is a preference, not a commitment.

Scope

ZRM is not a governance token

Holding any ZRM class would not, on its own, represent:

Equity in Railgun

Voting rights over Railgun

Profit-sharing rights

Board control

Ownership of company assets

Railgun remains founder and company governed. The economy is a way of recording participation in the network — it is not a way of owning the company that builds it.

Questions

Answers, including the unwelcome ones

Is ZRM live today?
No. Everything on this page is a proposed product and economic design. No ZRM class has been issued, no token exists, and nothing described here runs in a Railgun product.
Can I buy ZRM?
No. There is nothing to buy. Railgun is not selling ZRM, and any page, message or account offering to sell you some is not us.
Can I sell or transfer it?
No. Transferability would require separate implementation and legal review, and neither has happened. Do not assume it will.
Why three classes?
Because being early, paying for the service and actually using it are fundamentally different contributions. Collapsing them into one number would misrepresent all three.
Why does the Class A allocation decrease with every Genesis user?
To make early participation historically scarce and completely deterministic. Nobody decides your allocation — your position does, by subtraction.
Why does referral matching exist?
Because bringing another genuine human into the founding network is itself a contribution to the founding network.
Why are there no multi-level referral rewards?
Because ZRM-A rewards only the human directly responsible for introducing a new verified Genesis participant. One level, no downlines, no percentages of percentages.
What happens after Genesis human one million?
New users cannot receive a Genesis allocation. Genesis status closes permanently. Later participants take part through Commerce and Use.
Can someone buy Genesis status later?
No. The Genesis ordinal is a historical record and is not transferable at any price.
Does ZRM represent Railgun stock?
No. It is not equity, and it carries no ownership, voting or profit-sharing rights.
Does Railgun promise ZRM will increase in value?
No. Railgun defines issuance and utility. It makes no promise about future monetary value, and no such promise should be read into anything on this page.

Disclosure

The ZRM architecture described here is a proposed product and economic design. Features including issuance, transferability, blockchain deployment, exchangeability and specific token mechanics may change before implementation, and may be subject to legal, regulatory, security and technical review. ZRM does not represent equity in Railgun, and Railgun makes no promise regarding future monetary value.