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Supply & Demand Balance Calculator

Model the balance between token sources (emission) and token sinks (spending): participants, asset prices, daily rewards and expenses.

How to use

  • Users — total number of participants in the economy. More participants means greater potential token flow.
  • Asset price (tokens) and Buy probability (%) — define a sink: how many tokens buyers spend on digital assets.
  • Rewards/Emission per buyer (tokens/day) and Expense / day (tokens) — set the daily token inflow (source) and outflow (sink) per buyer. Rewards create a source of tokens (emission into wallets), expense creates a sink (spending inside the system).
  • Lifetime (days) — the calculation horizon in days. The longer a participant stays, the more tokens they generate or absorb.
  • Token sources and sinks are calculated across buyers (Sources = buyers × rewards × days; Sinks = buyers × expense × days + asset purchases). Asset purchases are weighted by probability: not all participants buy.
  • The result shows the sinks-to-sources ratio. If sinks ≥ sources — emission is absorbed by in-system activity. If sinks < sources — net surplus of tokens accumulates; whether that translates into exchange sell pressure depends on velocity and liquidity, which this model does not capture.
Scope of the model

This calculator measures emission-vs-absorption balance inside the system, not market price. It has no velocity or liquidity component — the equation of exchange (MV = PQ) is not modeled. The ratio is a signal of flow imbalance, not a direct price signal. For velocity-aware analysis see the Token Velocity Calculator, and for broader emission design see Token Supply Models.

Cohort assumption: rewards/emission in this model accrue only to the buyer cohort (Users × Buy probability). Real emission schemes often reward all active participants regardless of whether they also buy assets. Treat the “buyers-only emission” wiring as a simplification; if your design emits to all users, multiply Sources by Users / Buyers to approximate.

Calculator

Supply & Demand Balance Calculator
Edge case: small-user rounding
The number of buyers is computed as round(Users × Buy probability %). At the low corner (Users = 10, Buy probability = 5%) the expected value is 0.5 buyers — which JavaScript’s Math.round rounds up to 1, while some other environments (e.g. Python’s banker’s rounding) would return 0. If you reproduce this calculator elsewhere and see “No buyers” instead of 1 buyer for that input combination, that rounding convention is the reason.
Long-lifetime behaviour
As Lifetime grows, the one-off Buyers × Price term becomes small relative to the recurring Buyers × Expense × Lifetime term, and the ratio asymptotes to Expense / Rewards. For long horizons the Asset price and Users sliders become marginal — the shorter sliders (Expense, Rewards, Lifetime) dominate the outcome. Use short lifetimes if you want Asset price and Users to move the needle.

Formulas

Buyers = Users × Buy_probability_%
  • Buyers — number of buyers (computed)
  • Users — total number of participants in the economy
  • Buy_probability_% — probability of buying an asset (percentage, 0 to 100)
Sources = Buyers × Rewards × Lifetime
  • Sources — total token inflow into buyer wallets from emission (computed)
  • Buyers — number of buyers
  • Rewards — daily token rewards/emission per buyer
  • Lifetime — participant lifetime in days
  • Assumption: rewards accrue only to the buyer cohort. If all users receive emission, scale by Users / Buyers.
Sinks = Buyers × Price + Buyers × Expense × Lifetime
  • Sinks — total token outflow from buyer wallets back into the system (computed)
  • Price — asset price in tokens (one-time expense)
  • Expense — daily token expense per buyer
Ratio = Sinks / Sources
  • Ratio — sinks-to-sources ratio (computed, dimensionless)
  • If Ratio ≥ 1 — in-system sinks absorb emission; net token accumulation is non-positive.
  • If Ratio < 1 — net token surplus accumulates in wallets. Price impact on secondary markets is not determined by this ratio alone — it depends on velocity, sell-through rate, and liquidity depth (see the Token Velocity Calculator).
  • Token Velocity Calculator — adds a velocity/liquidity lens (MV = PQ) to complement the source/sink view used here.
  • Token Supply Models — how different emission schemes (fixed, inflationary, halving, dynamic) shape the source side of this equation.
Learn more about the model
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